WTW142: James Lindsay Unveils Woke 2.0

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.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That, over there, is the brains of the operation. Lydia, how you doing?

0:00:47 Lydia: I'm doing okay. I'm going to be bringing you a blast from the past a little bit. You remember a fellow named James Lindsay? Do you remember a fellow? Mr. Lindsay, maybe?

0:00:56 Thomas: Ah, my bestie. Yeah. God, what an asshole.

0:01:03 Lydia: So have you ever listened to any of his stuff? Okay. Well, you're going to today. So sorry.

0:01:07 Thomas: Now, ugh, oof. You're asking a lot out of me right now.

0:01:11 Lydia: I know. There's a show that he does called New Discourses. That's his substack.

0:01:18 Thomas: Nudist courses. I always loved, yeah.

0:01:18 Lydia: And then he also does like an and then he does like a podcast version of it, essentially.

0:01:23 Thomas: That probably has threes of listeners.

0:01:25 Lydia: I mean, the YouTube on the one that we're gonna be talking about has 12 ,000 views. So I don't know. Yeah.

0:01:30 Thomas: Wow, that's a real JV anti -wokest there. He got all the way to like Trump and he had that bit. Remember when he went on Dr. Phil? Do you remember that? Oh, God, he went on Dr. Phil and like his brain didn't quite work like he's so the dude has a weird brain. He has a brain that can do certain impressive tricks in that he can like say a lot of stuff and remember a lot of terminology. Yeah, like he he's I think he's a sharp guy in ways and probably has a skill set that would be good for something but he's so up his own ass with the

0:01:38 Lydia: Yeah, I think so. Oh, my God. Oh. You're all going to be exposed to it today. Yeah.

0:02:05 Thomas: Conspiracy theories about woke that he started trying to talk and it was just like a mangled nothing that didn't make any sense I wouldn't say it was like a downfall or anything but I do feel like he dropped off a little after that because it just like wasn't particularly impressive

0:02:20 Lydia: Well, he's coming out from the depths, I guess, because we lost the election. And so a a lot of people were like, oh, woke is dead, yada, yadda, yedda. But that would mean the end of the gravy train for a lot people.

0:02:28 Thomas: That would mean exactly that would mean the death of your business

0:02:32 Lydia: Right. So James Lindsay is here to tell us that woke isn't dead. And in fact, we're just getting ready for woke 2.0 because that's obviously what he has to call it. There's no other clever name he can come up with. So I think that also means we have to launch a new podcast where there's woke 2 also. Yes.

0:02:40 Thomas: Model yeah uh -huh oh where there's woke 2.0 I always love love how they have to do the points like there's like versioning like we had well okay it's 2 .1 we're beta testing it it's like it's just two but whatever 2 .0 sounds cool

0:03:00 Lydia: Yep. And so when he puts this together, other, I will say he develops what he calls are going to be the pillars of Woke 2.0. So we're going to go through this video together as a group and sort of listen to those various pillars and some of his comments there.

0:03:17 Thomas: Well he's painting a roadmap for us I guess

0:03:19 Lydia: Yes, exactly. What we should do. What we should do? Yep.

0:03:21 Thomas: What we should be doing yeah what did I just say he was a dr phil I get sorry I gotta find that clip we gotta play just to remember him by james lindsey demolish critical race theory on dr phill posted by america the great the youtube channel and then I just see it's kind of weird I just see third video down jordan peterson asks matt walsh about his beef with james lindsey do you know anything about that oh okay well let's hear this we all need to

0:03:42 Lydia: Interesting. No, I don't think I know anything about that.

0:03:49 Clip: If I could win the magic wand, critical race theory should be rendered a historical artifact. Please welcome co-author of the book, Cynical Theories, James Lindsay. James, thank you so much for being on. You say this should be an artifact.

0:04:02 Thomas: Remember thanks

0:04:10 Clip: We should just put this behind us. I do not believe the critical race theory tenet that says that racism is the ordinary state of affairs in our society and that if we don't dredge up our race consciousness, I think this is actually a lie. It's very annoying to me to listen to the back and forth here, in fact. I'm glad to be here to bring some knowledge. I take a lot of umbrage with the idea that we're going to talk about should we have critical race theory this or that because it's talking about racism or history when the fact of the matter is it's not are we it's how are we and I am shocked and appalled to hear the defensive side for critical race therapy misrepresented this way but they don't explain for example why the first paper called toward a critical race education by gloria labs and billings was published in 1995 they don'T explain

0:04:08 Lydia: What

0:04:09 Thomas: Dr phil I feel like this is edited actually what there's

0:04:56 Lydia: In the world?

0:04:57 Clip: Explain why Richard Delgado's 2001 book explains on page five, for example, that it rapidly spread from law to other disciplines, especially education. They don't explain also in the

0:05:02 Lydia: This is great TV.

0:05:05 Thomas: A panel of people looking at him okay explain he's like sitting closer to the audience and there's like six people sitting more on the stage looking I'm like who is this fucking crazy

0:05:17 Clip: Exact same situation, the Gloria Ladson Billings is one of the chief authors of an equity in Virginia that's bringing critical race theory into all of the state schools of Virginia of virginia right now you must breathe through your ears because you I have read the vast majority of the major works in critical race theory that are published

0:05:32 Thomas: Person sorry what

0:05:44 Lydia: Okay man

0:05:44 Thomas: Yeah, God, he's such an asshole I feel like that was edited to help him too I can't find the real version I swear I saw that at the time huh weird it's been scrubbed yeah so that's the guy and that was really funny it's funny how much these people are able to exist on the internet and tweet or whatever, like Twitter was like his main place, I think. And then you see them and you're like, oh, well, that person's insane. You know, like anyone who would sit and like, listen to this unhinged lunacy, everyone on the panel, probably people who are on his side were like, I don't know who this is. Like, what is this? He's giving us instructions, how we're going to relaunch. I'm still on woke 1.0. Like I'm, I'm one of those like purists, you know, I want to be used. I have my flip woke my flip phone woke that I'll be doing and you'll be on woke 2 .0 yeah exactly mine I drop it on the floor the floor breaks that's how good my woke is you and your woke 2.0 bullshit designed to break anyway patreon.com where there's okay get the bonus we talked about the

0:06:32 Lydia: Has snake on it yeah oh my

0:06:47 Thomas: Odyssey we did a full review it was fresh after seeing it we popped right from the from From one of the few, you know, 70 millimeter IMAXs happens to be in Sacramento. So that was fun. And we watched it and we loved it. Popped right on over and recorded our thoughts and talked about the anti -woke response to the Odyssey and how dumb it is. And it was a lot of fun. So if you want to hear that bonus, that's on the Patreon, patreon .com slash where there's woke. Support the show. Lose the ads. Get the bonus. And most of all, bring a smile to Lydia's face.

0:06:52 Lydia: Ran home yeah yeah

0:07:19 Thomas: We'll take a break and then we'll get to it.

0:07:18 Lydia: Yes please

0:07:24 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:24 Lydia: All right so this episode this is uh again called new discourses bullets I guess is technically the name of this it's a spin -off from his main podcast and it was just posted this month gosh just about like two weeks ago and it's titled the unwelcome arrival of woke 2 .0 but what I want to start with we're going to play a little bit of some of the stuff from early in the episode because he lays out the entire origin story apparently of woke 1

0:07:32 Thomas: What? Oh. Was it on page five of the thing?

0:07:53 Lydia: .0 kind of uh start at 20 seconds yeah

0:07:57 Thomas: Oh jeez just gets right into it I guess it is a bullet

0:07:59 Clip: To woke that we need to understand so we can stop it and it's time to talk about woke 2.0 more woke is coming different woke okay so we've all been through this kind of march

0:08:04 Thomas: I have to do this on one speed fuck yes fucking a sorry now I'm imagining him doing the the steve jobs like launch of the this woke is a personal computing device it's a it's the phone and it's

0:08:21 Lydia: I bet you in his head that's what's happening. Like, I bet you that's why he's kind of imagining.

0:08:24 Thomas: It's uh now I've just going I'm just going well along with my phone jokes so it's not yeah it's It's a personal computing device. It's the telephone. And what's the other thing? A map? No, it was three things. Gosh, it's been so long. 2007 or whatever. God, that was like the, that video, that Apple event where he launches the iPhone is like, it launched a thousand bullshit CEO ships.

0:08:39 Lydia: Couldn't tell you I'm not as old as you.

0:08:50 Thomas: You know, like every bullshit CEO after that was, like, oh, this is how you have to do it. Including Steve Jobs. Like, you did ones after that that didn't really hit the same way. But anyway, this woke is a personal competing device. It's a telephone and it's a, God, what was the other thing? It's an app or something. It's something weird. Anyway.

0:09:07 Clip: Arch of the identity politics woke. That's going to be what I'm going to refer to as woke 1.0. I don't know that this is the best nomenclature, but woke 2.0 kind of works. So we've got to go with it. So this was where, you know, in the middle 2010s, we started getting hit with so-called third wave radical feminism or third wave feminism or whatever. This is the young women who were basically blaming everything on men, saying everything was sexist, saying that there was rape culture everywhere. This goes somewhere as it evolves from 2015, but eventually taking off

0:09:34 Lydia: This goes somewhere.

0:09:44 Thomas: Oh, duh. I couldn't think of it because it is so old. iPod. Because there already was obviously the iPod and he's like, this is an iPod, a personal communication device and whatever. And everyone was like, oh my. And he says it like 40 times because he joked like they were launching three things. And then wouldn't you know it? It's the one thing. Anyway. Yeah.

0:09:49 Lydia: Oh my gosh. The iPod, yeah, Yeah.

0:09:58 Clip: Big time in 2020 into Black Lives Matter and the CRT era. Critical race theory. And so, you know,

0:10:00 Lydia: Mm hmm. And that reveals the single device. Yeah.

0:10:10 Clip: I started writing vigorously about critical race theory in 2019, knowing that this thing was was probably going to take off because this just was building up in the culture. I didn't have any

0:10:15 Lydia: Accurate.

0:10:14 Thomas: I'll give him that. Yeah.

0:10:18 Lydia: Him and Christopher Ruffo.

0:10:19 Thomas: Take off god

0:10:22 Clip: Like secret inside information. It's just obvious that it was pointing that direction. So I started in, I guess, October of 2019 writing a dictionary of social justice or an encyclopedia of social justice. And I focused overwhelmingly on critical race theory topics. I launched new discourses in early 2020 and focused overwhelmingly uncritical race theory. And then we go into this kind of trans drag queen, queer theory, sexuality studies, so on. Explosion in, you know, really taking off in kind of 22, going through 23. And what you can kind of see is that there's this kind of pattern. Not only are those identity politics programs going, but they go for, they kind of flare up for about two to three years and then they sort of die down. Now in the latter part of that woke

0:10:43 Thomas: This guy huh oh that is so funny god that is so funny because obviously what's happening is these things have existed it's funny him telling the story of things that have long predated this but he's only well I wouldn't say becoming aware maybe becoming aware but they're just fear -mongering on it obviously on his schedule yeah yeah and he's like it's weird because they last like two three years

0:11:32 Lydia: Yes. Their fear mongering lasts two to three years. No, the movement, each one of these is also distinct. They are all like distinct movements with, yeah, with histories. You know, they have their own infighting.

0:11:41 Thomas: Oh god yeah and they long predate this yeah that's for

0:11:48 Lydia: They have like their own like political ends that they're trying to go toward like they are so much more complicated than he is trying to make it he's trying to collapse it onto itself and say that we basically pick the next thing we want to talk about as we move through what is woke right silly yeah

0:12:01 Thomas: Sure yeah which is especially doesn't work because rufo is so honest about it like he's he's pretty honest he's like well we're doing this now we're like it's not like it is us doing a conspiracy theory it's just his stated method method so for james lindsey to talk about like this when not only is that us saying like oh he's actually wrong because of our little conspiracy no he's wrong even in rufo's admission like rufa admits that he does he does this he tries to stir up hate over certain terms and if it doesn't take he moves on if it does take they get a year or two out of it you know of fear -mongering and hatred and whatever and and kind of the benefit of it to them and then it gets a little stale and you gotta move on to another

0:12:14 Lydia: Give him that I guess yeah yeah when you can tell like what angle he's coming at this from when he says I didn't have any like secret inside information like it's all being planned from some, you know, secret organization at the center of all of this. Ridiculous.

0:12:55 Thomas: Thing yeah yeah I think that's him thinking like wow how you know people are wondering how did I even know this was coming it's like again you knew it was coming because rufo is doing it it's not you know it's that you're not look there's ah it's so

0:13:17 Clip: 1.0 that we were just talking about, they overlapped. CRT hadn't quite burned out and trans drag queen sexuality had taken off. But in the earlier part, the feminism had kind of gotten stale and then there was a break of kind of sanity still, like a little breather before the critical race theory thing took off. These things erupt like fads in the last two, two and and a half years. The most recent trend in woke, and a lot of you may or may not want to hear this,

0:13:18 Lydia: Yep. All right. Continue playing. Yep?

0:13:19 Thomas: Dumb do I have to oh our feminism got stale we gotta I'm telling you you have to put it back in the fridge yeah Yeah. Weird.

0:13:48 Lydia: Okay, pause. All Right. So yeah, this idea that these things are, you know, later, he explicitly even says it, it's all like a virus, that it's a wave pattern that we should be familiar with this, because we all experienced COVID, that these movements within woke, these focuses within woke are basically an outbreak with an immune response. It's very very bizarre the way that he tries to, I don't know, like reduce all of these things into one thing and then turn it into a disease. I mean, I guess it's up their alley, but it's just honestly ridiculous. And then the idea that it's all the same people from each of these movements, one to the other, it's not. And I think we've learned that very, very easily when we've experienced trans people being under attack and how quickly some people who were aligned in some of these these other issues are not aligned on this and how quickly they are willing to just jump ship because they buy into some of this fear mongering. It is not a, unfortunately, it is not a unified group. I wish it were.

0:14:54 Lydia: I which we were all aligned on all of these things, but we're not.

0:14:54 Thomas: And it's just, it's so stupid. Like I was going to say that too. Like if his theory were correct, what it is, is a traveling monorail salesman from the Simpsons. Who's like every two years, like, fuck, well, they, they caught on to the, to that one. So now it's critical race theory. And It would be like a guy selling critical race theory or something to the masses, But like, who's that? What is that? What is the equivalent of that? Because what is actually happening is you and Chris Ruffo, more specifically, stir up a hatred over a buzz term. And then CNN and all these other news outlets, you know, they call the people who did work on this thing that dates back forever. So it's explicitly not a fad. It's work from like a while ago.

0:15:42 Thomas: And they call them up to be like, defend this. And then I guess you can point to those people as like your purveyors of woke or whatever, but it's entirely responsive.

0:15:42 Lydia: Decades and decades. Yeah.

0:15:52 Thomas: There's no, there's nobody who's like the next, oh, I'm selling the next thing. Hey, watch out. It's a cell phone. It's an iPad. It's whatever. It's critical race theory. Nobody's doing that.

0:16:02 Lydia: And before he gets into woke 2 .0, though, he takes like a minute to recognize the woke right and what this might mean. So if you just continue, just play again.

0:16:16 Clip: I don't care, has been woke right. I'm going to argue yet again that woke right is not an organic

0:16:17 Thomas: I'm excited for the new trends.

0:16:24 Clip: Reaction to woke. It is not something that came up because people were really mad about woke. That's like the soil in which it grew. But the plants that were planted in that soil were put by, in many cases, many of the same kinds of actors, if not the exact same actors that planted the original woke identity politics in our society. If you want to call it the deep state,

0:16:44 Thomas: What?

0:16:45 Lydia: Yep.

0:16:45 Thomas: How? What? What the fuck are you talking about, dude?

0:16:48 Clip: I'm fine with that. But the whole point has always been to derail and prevent the resistance from being able to stop woke, because the goal has always Been to install woke, to transform our system to overcome the constitution woke right was the next step after woke and it came at the

0:17:01 Thomas: Install? What does that mean? You idiot. It overcome the constitution yeah perfect time what is it define it oh

0:17:10 Clip: Perfect time it started to flare up in 2022 its point was to derail a second trump presidency either by making it not happen which it wasn't able to do I don't think it intended to or by trying to co-opt it and driving it into the ground which it obviously is attempting to do now to to split and shatter the Republican Party as Trump goes into a lame-duck situation so that they can reorganize the conservative side party, the Republicans, in a more radical direction.

0:17:40 Lydia: Pause. How in the world is it potentially, as he says, might be the same group of people. How. In. The. World. The idea that you can't have political infighting without it being attributed to

0:17:45 Thomas: Yeah it's a bunch of trans people I guess

0:17:54 Lydia: The bad guys on both sides, it doesn't make any sense. And, you know, to be fair, like as we experience more coverage from for other things, astroturfing is real. Like you can't always trust what's happening on the Internet. Totally buy that. But this is honestly like bonkers to me. I don't know how in the world you could come up with this theory of the world and this theoryof politics. Politics has always always had infighting. And it's not the same group of people, you know, just putting on a different jersey and going over to the other side to stir up drama. That's not what's happening.

0:18:27 Thomas: I mean are they in the room with us right now james lindsey like it's the most basic conspiracy theory crap in the world everybody's out to get you you know it's like you see wokeness everywhere it's everywhere man it's every single thing it's every place every person but yeah it can't be the same people I mean there is such a thing I guess or at least like not a crazy suspicion to think I think kind of what you're saying here where it's like well this is a weird infighting is this to someone's benefit this infightning happening but you can't do that about like wokeness on the right that doesn't make any sense like how would that work how would the wokest be doing that but for the for mega it's that how

0:19:10 Lydia: And to your point, then define it or provide evidence. There's zero evidence that he cites for this. There are zero examples. What even is woke right? You're just saying words at this point. It's meaningless.

0:19:15 Thomas: Yeah I don't even know what he's talking about maybe he did somewhere else like I guess but I would need a definition of what you're talking about to have any idea if what you're saying is

0:19:24 Lydia: Yeah, maybe. I have not consumed his entire repertoire.

0:19:32 Lydia: I'll say throughout this, he says, like I said, or I'll say it again, things that he says within this thing. So if it was important, he would have just laid it out here in this piece too. And so I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he defines it elsewhere. I think he's just lazy.

0:19:45 Thomas: Yeah I mean he's probably said it somewhere but that's the other thing that it might be because this is his grift and he has to just keep saying the same bullshit over and over he probably is like oh man I've already said this a lot well you know like I've said before I thought I was gonna learn the new fad like that

0:20:04 Lydia: We're going to get there.

0:20:04 Thomas: I want to get ahead of the I want to be in style for woke 2 .0 I don't want to I'm not in luck then I don' want to press play

0:20:08 Lydia: Well, you're in luck. You're in, you know, like if you press play, we're going to step right into that right now.

0:20:12 Clip: Well, now we're starting to see on the left again a launch of a new woke, and it's not focused like Woke 1.0 on identity politics. The identity politics are still there, but look at Mayor Zoran Mandami in New York City.

0:20:20 Thomas: Yes dude

0:20:30 Lydia: Oh, got the name wrong. Nope. He doesn't get it right the entire Higher time.

0:20:30 Thomas: Talk about a mind virus they can't do it it is the weirdest thing it is the weirdest fucking thing. It's like, and I don't think it's intentional. That is the biggest tell. You know, when there's those movies where it's like how are you going to tell the fucking robots from the people or something? This is how you can tell the assholes from the not assholes because Bill Maher says Mondami every time. It is one thing if someone makes a mistake. If you say it every time wrong, I know you are secretly a fucking lizard person.

0:21:03 Thomas: You are secretly one of the fucking anti -woke assholes even if you pretend you are on the left. It's weird. There's something there. It's crazy to me.

0:21:11 Lydia: It's not like the Kamala Harris thing where like they purposefully were saying her name incorrectly to like make a point or to say that they don't care about getting it right. It's that they've absorbed just the incorrect name and can't break it. It''s very bizarre.

0:21:27 Clip: He's kind of one of the high priests of Woke 2.0. Look at Hasan Piker. He is one of The High Priests.

0:21:33 Thomas: Ugh, no. Fucking hate that guy.

0:21:35 Clip: He's like the Robin DiAngelo of Woken 2.2. It's very important to understand.

0:21:39 Thomas: Well, I guess that's why I'm sticking with Woke 1.0.

0:21:41 Clip: And these guys didn't throw away identity politics. They've just put it back. It's second or even third priority. They pander to it, they play in it, they take it as an idea that's taken for granted at this point. They just act as though, even though Woke 1.0 clearly lost the culture war, they act like it just won and just march forward as if it won. It won the debate, it's something we all take for granted, but they moved on to other issues in in other ways. This is very typical Marxism. I don't know how complicated I want to make this for you, but this is what it does. It's dialectical in its nature. That's the definition. It is dialectical materialism moving into dialectical structuralism. It has a dialectical philosophy,

0:21:47 Thomas: What? What? What does that mean?

0:22:05 Lydia: It ''s

0:22:13 Thomas: Yeah, okay.

0:22:15 Lydia: All over the place.

0:22:25 Thomas: What?

0:22:28 Clip: Which means what it Does is it think of it like a sticky ball rolling across the floor. It picks picks up parts of wherever it's been and carries them with it. So the identity politics went full on. There was a lot of stuff that kind of worked and a lot OF stuff that didn't work. And they're just going to move forward with the stuff that did work. This is why they. But I digress. Let's

0:22:49 Thomas: What are you talking... They... What? We just... There's people who have political beliefs and goals. And they're trying to do them sometimes what the fuck are you talking about like what what does it mean okay in his mind can you be someone on the left like is

0:22:56 Lydia: Yep. And focused on trying to make lives better for people people aligned with their values.

0:23:07 Lydia: Yeah, I know. I can't even like parse this.

0:23:17 Thomas: There such a thing as a politician who's and I'm not saying he has to agree with him like does it exist just a a politician on the left who believes other things than he does? Or is it only a dialectical like, what does that even mean, man?

0:23:17 Lydia: No, we all got picked up by the sticky ball. I know it's exhausting.

0:23:35 Thomas: I'll admit I'm not as good with the word learning or something. Dialectical. Is that what that means?

0:23:42 Lydia: A method of finding truth through reasoned argument. Two opposing things can both be true at the same time.

0:23:46 Thomas: That doesn't seem like what that means.

0:23:48 Lydia: I guess within materialism, I'm just looking this up really fast because this is not my wheelhouse either, you guys.

0:23:51 Thomas: Yeah. No. Does he mean it in the sense of like dialect?

0:23:55 Lydia: The logical discussion of opposites, I guess. That's like the ancient sort of thing. Yeah.

0:23:58 Thomas: Yeah, that's right. So that's That's what that's what I'm familiar with in terms of dialectical, like sort of like debate. It's sort of right. I mean, it's yeah.

0:24:08 Lydia: And And then it says, by Marx, it says materialism used by Marx to explain history and society through economic and social conflicts.

0:24:15 Thomas: But he is talking about it as though he's like, oh, it picks up stuff. I think he's I think she's talking about the word dialect. Like you have like a regional dialect would be like you're you're picking up, you know, pronunciations from people like that's kind of what it feels like he's saying, because I don't know a definition of dialectic all that means what he's saying it means but I'm also I mean I could be wrong I'm not like amazing at that kind of thing

0:24:42 Lydia: I've just like, I look at the 12 ,000 views on this, which, you know, it's not a lot, but I'm also like, are people actually listening to this and like understanding what he said? Like, I feel like James Lindsay is an audience of one.

0:24:51 Thomas: Well his his job is to appear smart yeah it's like if he can talk in a way that's confusing and that's why he did that on the stupid show well it's on page five it's not like that it's like this stupid person's idea of a smart person thing where it's, like, wow he knows so many many things yeah I must be right yeah that's his job but he's usually like I don't find him to be a liar I think he's insane and believes his own I think is a genuinely insane person like I think he believes his tinfoil hat

0:25:06 Lydia: If I can't exactly follow what he's saying, he must know more. Yeah.

0:25:24 Thomas: Stuff that's been my opinion I'm not saying I'm for sure right but my my opinion of him has been that just cuz like I dealt with him personally and like he he's just just one of those guys who you can't convince of anything like he's just he's just right about everything and with zero room to move and there's no he's also extremely autistic so it's like I think he believes what he's saying I think his brain is devoted to these ideas in a way that's not he's not acting you know like that's why he's all I've always found him so I don't even know how to describe it it's just weird like the way that he could be so into to these bizarre theories like what goes into that how does he even come up with it

0:26:09 Lydia: Yeah. Well, and he goes on in this clip. We won't play it because we'll skip ahead to something else. But just so the audience is aware, he goes into this clip to say that woke kind of moves through phases, idealist, materialist, culturalist. And woke 1.0 was the idealist version. Woke 2 .0 is coming back to materialist. And the reason he's saying that is because Mamdani didn't win because of playing identity politics. He won because of leaning on affordability, a much more materialist sort of messaging.

0:26:23 Thomas: Please tell me give me a thing give me an example give me fucking example god yeah and the only explanation for that could be a weird manchurian candidate of wokeness who's trying or or yeah or capitalists ruin the fucking country and people are like hey let's fix it in this way

0:26:47 Lydia: Right. And it's like, or people are campaigning on things that matter to people.

0:26:57 Lydia: Yeah, it's not this like weird thing like that that you're coming up with in your brain related to ideology or something like that. It's just literally people can't afford to live in your city and you're going to want to run on something that says I can help us get to a place where you can afford to living in your own city.

0:27:01 Thomas: Yeah what is that yeah but that's why I think it's so conspiratorial I think its tinfoil hat because it's like in his mind there is apparently no such thing as someone with a genuine belief about that like it can only be like well this is how the devil essentially is trying what's so funny is this This guy, ironically enough, was in the atheists a little bit like he wasn't big or anything, but he was trying to kind of capitalize or write a book that sold based on the atheist movement a little bit. And now he's like, it's so quasi religious all the time. I don't think he's, like, explicitly come out as a Christian or anything. But obviously his entire alliance is that, like it's all Christians that he works with now.

0:27:54 Thomas: But it might as well be like, well, that's how the devil gets you. Now the devil, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, pretending he was into affordable housing. I was like, that's kind of what he's doing. He's doing like it might as well be demons that he's seeing.

0:28:09 Lydia: And he also does this on the other side too a couple different points in this video where he just outright says that he and some of his colleagues have predicting this materialist turn since 2022, 2023. He's like basically saying like I get to claim that I knew exactly where this was going and it's because you're creating this framework that doesn't make any sense right now and then getting to attribute yourself as like a seer throughout all of it. It's just the most mind -boggling thing, honestly, was like watching this video and trying to piece apart everything that he's talking about.

0:28:41 Thomas: It's not worth it. I don't know why he did it.

0:28:49 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:28:49 Lydia: All right. So let's go into Woke 2.0. We have a few pillars that Woke 2.0 – yeah, you

0:28:53 Thomas: Yes, let me log in. Do my dial up. Sign into Woke 2 .0. You've got wokeness. You've Got Identity Politics.

0:29:01 Lydia: Don't have identity politics.

0:29:02 Thomas: Oh, That's right. You've got Communism.

0:29:07 Clip: Go back to the three points very briefly. So affordability is not affordability, is a real issue. And I'll just point out the Biden administration made everything really expensive. The inflation was primarily under their watch and it was out of control.

0:29:07 Thomas: Oh, he digressed.

0:29:16 Lydia: Made everything made.

0:29:22 Clip: A lot of things like housing are really expensive, at least in and around cities, not because of weird quirks in the market, not because of even inflation, but because of bad policies enacted by Democrats to make it virtually impossible to get housing.

0:29:20 Thomas: Yeah man what uh

0:29:36 Lydia: Okay, pause.

0:29:37 Clip: And then you compound the expensiveness by some of these other things.

0:29:39 Lydia: No, that's not accurate at all. Like we're coming out of a pandemic. The supply chain's been completely ruined for the previous year and a half. We're talking about the cost of materials being incredibly high. There's a number of different things that are completely unrelated to Democrat policies. And this was something that the Biden administration made everything less affordable for people is ridiculous. It's just absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous.

0:29:40 Thomas: Yeah obviously yeah yeah you can there's some amount of inflation that's attributable to like the covid money or whatever like mathematically but it's also like

0:30:15 Lydia: But that's also tied to Trump, isn't it?

0:30:17 Thomas: Well the true a little bit but the one bill that biden passed I now I can't remember what it was called I was I keep thinking one big beautiful bill but that's obviously fucking yeah one big biden bill was the green green new deal or something was it did they name it that new deal well that's what no that's where like aoc and stuff they were trying to get a green new deal I don't know if they just like branded it that what was his signature legislation god we're so so far in hell I don'T even remember anymore but anyway there is some amount that's attributable to government spending in that but also that was to save people's lives essentially that was to

0:30:22 Lydia: One big Biden bill. Oh, the Green New Deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds right.

0:30:36 Lydia: That's what the right called it. I don't know if they. And the economy. Yeah.

0:30:57 Thomas: Save people. Yeah, it helped people. And so that had a bit of an inflationary effect, but it's also like he made the policy decisions that people who actually were trying to do good thought was right. And I don't know how much of that turned out. I don'T know how much of THAT could have been done differently. I think it's really easy to Monday morning quarterback on that whole thing.

0:31:19 Thomas: Yeah. Obviously it's not by design. Obviously obviously it's not anything like he'd gotten a pretty good handle on it by the time his administration was ending. And it just doesn't matter because people are stupid and there's too much propaganda. Yeah.

0:31:32 Lydia: Right. And the idea, too, that like housing being expensive is a Biden problem when housing prices are largely driven by policies at the state level and local level. But, like, you're going to have very, very different prices for housing and impacts of housing depending on what state you're looking at, depending on what kind of regulations you're working at, at the state that you live in, for that to be attributed solely to the federal government because you can easily attach a Democrat name to it where it's a person that people don't like.

0:32:05 Thomas: Was housing getting way better when Trump won? I would also say I kind of maybe disagree a little bit because one of the major reasons housing is so expensive is the crackdown on immigrants. There's nobody to build houses. That's a huge reason. And that's because of Trump. And that's a huge factor in why there's just, there's not enough housing. There's not a people, even the fucking daily is talking about that. Like there's not enough people to build houses. There just isn't. So was that Biden? Did he do that?

0:32:35 Lydia: James Lindsay has a different opinion on that. If you play through, we'll get his next sentence.

0:32:39 Thomas: Great. Yeah.

0:32:42 Clip: For example, all the migrants that have been in hotels and so on. And you have a major affordability crisis.

0:32:46 Thomas: All the migrants.

0:32:48 Lydia: Yeah. OK, pause. So that's why housing is so expensive is because migrants are in hotels. What?

0:32:52 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're using up all the hotels. Normally families live in hotels. Just, yeah there's already, yeah Yeah.

0:32:58 Lydia: Yeah, that's the housing. No, if that's what we're relying on for housing for anyone in this country, there's already a huge problem.

0:33:07 Thomas: Oh, God. So fucking stupid.

0:33:07 Clip: This is what Zoran Mandami basically ran on in New York City, and he won. But the solution, affordability is not a woke topic. Affordability touches everybody's life. It is, however, a radicalizing topic. If we were using Freire's language, Paulo Freire, we would say it is a generative theme.

0:33:26 Thomas: What?

0:33:28 Clip: Especially young people are stressed about not being able to build a future and build a life. They don't believe in the promise of their society because they can't afford anything especially the big things so they're radicalizable and then what the way that that works is that the radicalizing ideology and this could be woke left as we're talking about now for woke 2.0 but woke right is doing it the same way with its clutch of angry disaffected scared young people and you feed them an interpretation of why they can t afford things so affordability is a real issue. It's not woke. And a woke interpretation for that comes in. So in the woke 2.0 model, what that's going to be is a Marxist interpretation of how everything got so unaffordable that

0:33:34 Thomas: Yeah. I wonder why that happened. Yeah. Well, I agree with all this. Yeah. Uh -huh. Sure.

0:34:12 Clip: Lays a lot of blame on President Trump and Republicans and the blocking of all of these socialist programs that the left wanted to enact, couldn't enact because Republicans got in the way, Therefore, everything's expensive. So you always create the problem. Marxism 101, you create the problem and you blame your political rival for its existence by saying it would have worked other than our political opponents getting in the way. They are the enemy and it can work when we get them out of the way, so help us get them Out of the Way. They Are Going to Rock and Roll with

0:34:25 Thomas: Yeah, okay. You got it, dude. Yeah, does that, does the right do that at all, or?

0:34:45 Lydia: There's already

0:34:48 Clip: This issue because a lot of young people are very sympathetic to socialism as a solution to

0:34:51 Thomas: Timely. We're gonna rock the vote.

0:34:54 Clip: Affordability crises the silver lining is that zoron mandami seems to already be running into some major problems of city finance and we need to be able to exploit that to make sure that people understand that socialist solutions to affordability problems make the problem worse the trouble is they do tend to work in the very short term in the very short-term lots of things get free rent gets controlled whatever everything feels more affordable until the check comes due at which point everything either all right not to digress

0:34:58 Lydia: Yeah. Got it wrong again.

0:35:11 Thomas: That's weird. Oh, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Until Republicans ruin it. No.

0:35:26 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. And that's so interesting to me. I don't think I had heard anything about Mamdani running into problems with financing for the city.

0:35:35 Thomas: Well, they have a whole parallel world of Mamdani.

0:35:37 Lydia: Yeah. I was like, all I'm seeing is win, win, win, savvy social media, you know?

0:35:42 Thomas: And I was very worried about this with Mondami, not because of anything involved. Like I have every confidence in Mamdani. I think I'm more confident in him than any politician I've ever seen in my life. But that still doesn't mean that he's perfect or he wouldn't like mess something up because things are hard. It's just like it's really hard to govern. But I was mainly worried because I just didn't know what things he'd be able to do on his own. And if, you know, some asshole centrists or Republicans try to stop him, it might be pretty easy to not let him do things he wants to do and then blame him. But like essentially exactly what James Lindsay is saying, but the other way, because he's full of shit. I don't know what he's talking about.

0:35:55 Lydia: Yeah. Agreed. Yeah.

0:36:25 Thomas: This is only goes the otherway. The right does this all the time. Like it's exactly what they do. They break the government and then they blame the government for the government not working.

0:36:37 Lydia: Yeah, while enriching all of their rich friends. That to me is like the crux of the the matter. It doesn't even matter who's in politics at that point. Like what we're talking about is this class difference that we're seeing. And like and the reason that there's an affordability crisis among the vast majority of people in the United States is because, yeah, I mean, things are expensive, but then you look at the people who are completely unaffected by it, who don't have to look at grocery bills, who do not have to decide whether or not they can actually fill up their car with gas right now. Like there are people that nothing touches them or if it does, it's pennies. Elon Musk is not going to notice when grocery prices go up. Why are we not aligning together against that? Because it's Marxist, I guess? I don't know. All right, on to pillar two, affordability.

0:37:22 Thomas: Oh, what was the pillar was just affordability. Was that the. OK, yeah. Well, good. I'm in style then because I'm all about affordability and why I'm not wearing last season's woke.

0:37:32 Lydia: I think you'll be into pillar two also.

0:37:35 Thomas: Oh, nice. Here we go. Anti-war stuff. Oh, no. OK.

0:37:38 Clip: On that secondly again anti-corruption very simple I already said it this is an excuse for them to consolidate power against their rivals by exposing democratic corruption we're gonna laugh and celebrate at that but they're actually consolidating hard marxist power in the democratic party through it so it's really not that funny like we're going to laugh because we want to see a lot of these people get their comeuppance and they're going gonna get it and oh they're eating their own you don't understand eating their own means power consolidation for a more radical wing this is actually really scary they're also going this is just a signal that they're

0:38:08 Thomas: Boy, he's also like, you know, his framework is not entirely crazy. It's just pointed at exactly the opposite of reality. But like that is kind of true with respect to Trump. Like and I think we kind of said it at the time, like all through 2016 through 2020, where it's like, boy, people would laugh at like, oh, this Republican Mitt Romney, look at how bad he looks in that photo. And like, boy, James Lindsay is right about that dynamic where it's like, yeah, but, you know, it's I'm not trying to shame. I'm not trying to kink shame people who are enjoying seeing Mitt Romney be on a leash or whatever. But like that did signal exactly what he said.

0:38:45 Thomas: Power consolidation to the most radical fucking insane people. It's kind of amazing, actually. This is why I do find him bizarrely interesting. Like he's doing something like he's his brain's doing some. I just don't know what.

0:38:59 Lydia: Just tunnel vision in the wrong place. Yeah.

0:38:59 Thomas: But, and it's not, it's not lying. I'm telling you, it's not lying I think he does conveniently not check his facts in places that are pretty obvious Yeah, yeah But like, there's something going on and it's funny how perfectly his whole thing fits, but for the other side.

0:39:05 Lydia: Yeah. Or give examples for something to actually like back up his claim.

0:39:15 Clip: Also going to to go after trump and his family and many of the people in the administration for any deals that they've made anything that they'd done I see news articles all the time president

0:39:21 Thomas: It'S weird Yeah, just any, just any, ah, just

0:39:22 Lydia: Yeah, because it's corrupt.

0:39:24 Clip: Trump made a billion dollars with crypto his sons are having all these organ all these deals

0:39:26 Lydia: Yeah, it's corrupted. It's corrupt!

0:39:27 Thomas: I just see news, oh, he made a billion dollars here. Can you listen to yourself? Can you think of any other president ever Never where you saw articles that like, oh, you know, Gerald Ford made another billion.

0:39:31 Lydia: Because they're using the government to make themselves rich yeah

0:39:42 Thomas: You fucking idiot, dude. Like, what are you talking about? How does it get? I don't. It's weird. Where in his brain does he lose sight of it? Because it happens pretty abruptly. Like he has kind of a reality of sorts or a framework that's real. And then I guess he's Fox News brained into just opposite land or something. I don't. It's weird. God what a funny thing oh another billion dollars yeah all these deals I'm gonna try to use this

0:40:03 Lydia: Yeah it's very

0:40:10 Clip: They're going to try to use this this is them setting the table to go after trump and try to impeach him and also like I said to take their democratic rivals out of the game and replace

0:40:16 Lydia: Bizarre because we expect something better

0:40:20 Thomas: Oh so good

0:40:21 Clip: Them this is serious business we all know they're going to be just as corrupt or more corrupt because they're communists and the iron law of woke corruption is real but that's what they're going to do but they're running on it so you're going to have to find ways to deal with this you're You're going to have to argue about how they are actually Corruption Incorporated and, in fact, that Trump is cleaning up corruption and we need more cleaning up

0:40:41 Thomas: Yeah good luck how is he how's he doing that give me an

0:40:47 Clip: There will be stories coming out probably that make that very hard to do without looking like a lunatic or a hypocrite because they're going to find anything they can and they're

0:40:52 Thomas: Example yeah dude any oh just fucking anything

0:40:55 Clip: Going to get you excited by burying their Democratic rivals.

0:40:58 Thomas: Ah they're just any another billion dollars, anything they can find. You're going to, you're going to look really stupid arguing about this.

0:41:06 Lydia: This is so it is so ridiculous this idea like they're gonna find ways to go after trump they're going to call this corruption well because it it is corrupt and it's at least warrants investigation it at least wants questions It at least warrants serious conversation.

0:41:07 Thomas: So funny. Yeah. Yeah in what way could the people on the other side of the aisle respond to this blatant corruption that wouldn't be a conspiracy theory for you? You fucking idiot. Wow. God.

0:41:29 Lydia: Exactly. Exactly. No, he has to set it up in this way because then like anything that comes out, he can point to it and say, told you, told you that they were going to find ways to go after Trump.

0:41:38 Thomas: Yeah God. Maybe this is lying. I don't know. It's hard to say it's just because I've witnessed him. You know, I talked talk to him like off record. He's just this insane. That's what I mean. I'm not trying to defend him. I don't know where the line is of people can, maybe he's convinced himself of falsehoods, but this does sound like just plain lying. I know that's hard. Oh, they're going to try to say, you know, a billion dollars here. That strikes me as like a fucking, you know, like a prosperity gospel preacher or something, you know, that my private jet is too excessive, but you you can't, it's the devil. That's the devil at work. Can't listen to him. Yeah.

0:42:16 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Who has something to gain from that? Ask yourself, who has something again from that and like we should not trust their motives regardless if what they're saying is absolutely accurate. And I am corrupt and I am stealing all your money. But who are they? Who are they? I mean, that's identity politics.

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah, God. So weird. It's just fucking, it is. It is. It's Christianity, man. It's like the devil. I'm telling you.

0:42:38 Lydia: So now to set up pillar three, we're actually going to go back a little bit. I want to give folks a content warning. He does use the Arsler in this clip.

0:42:45 Thomas: Oh, joy.

0:42:47 Clip: By the way, this group is different from their predecessors in that they are also explicitly militant. They are in favor of, they are not shy about political violence and terrorism to achieve their goals. So we should expect to see a rise in those things, not from the high priests.

0:43:02 Thomas: Hmm. Expect a January 6th type of event.

0:43:07 Clip: You're not going to see Hasan Piker pick up a gun, except maybe on a video where he looks like a retard with it. You're going to see Hasan Piker say things that encourage his listeners to pick up guns and do something stupid. This is already well documented in the assassination culture. Culture it also resonates and reflects back off of the radicalizing young right wing which has told me directly to my face that after Charlie Kirk was assassinated they no longer see political violence as off the table so you see a left that's going to exploit that by engaging in political violence to radicalize a right that will does it feel like it needs to engage in political violence in return and you can see how that accelerationism goes to a very dangerous place and I don't know what to do about it because I don' t know how to stop mass movements

0:43:56 Lydia: Yeah, so again, you know, any person on the right who, again, is probably a member of the woke right, which is the same people as the woke left, but also not, They only engage in any political violence because the left starts everything, that the left picks up guns. What? Sorry, what?

0:43:57 Thomas: How? Yeah. Yeah Yeah. They're going to exploit that to, what?

0:44:18 Lydia: And then radicalize the right further to then engage in political violence back. And then now we have assassination culture, which is started by the left. I don't know how he has developed this exact series of events in his mind. I feel like I keep saying this. It's so bizarre. It's just so bizarre, okay? So just wanted to set that up a little bit. We're going to skip ahead to get a little more specific about what this pillar is.

0:44:44 Thomas: And can I just say, nobody should be using the arsler yeah it's it's awful

0:44:46 Lydia: Yeah, it's so bad now. Everybody's using it. It sucks.

0:44:50 Thomas: Especially with someone like him who I can imagine is maybe closer to those issues than other people maybe like maybe you don't want to welcome back that kind of bigotry when clearly you're a part of a community or a part of a group of people that is exactly would be the victims of the kind of people who love using the r slur just

0:45:11 Clip: Burying their democratic rivals. And then thirdly, anti-Israel or pro-Palestine if you want. And this is where they have the highest amount of crossover with the woke right, which under Tucker Carlson right now is apparently trying to make a new party. I guess we're going to just assume it' s the anti- Israel pro-socialist party. And they can fight about whether it' m going to be socially conservative conservative or socially, uh, liberal is not even the right word, like libertine or whatever these leftists are doing. But the point is, this is, as Hassan Piker is putting it, this is their make and break issue. This is the whole thing. And this is where the post-colonial theory is going to come in. So Hassan Pike is very, very clearly saying again and again and again and every time one of these lunatic democratic socialists wins, in fact, he's saying, if you support Israel, you're going to lose. Now the woke right saying the same same thing. So you should really stop and think about that for a second. If the woke right and

0:45:23 Thomas: FYI, yeah yeah

0:46:06 Clip: The democratic socialists of America are saying the same exact thing, something's weird, right?

0:46:09 Thomas: Go on go on could it be that maybe that is an issue that's obviously fucking correct

0:46:12 Clip: Okay. So they're saying though, that anybody who supports Israel supports a genocide and all of

0:46:17 Thomas: Give tucker carlson a modicum of credit for actually being like hey doesn't seem right that we're spending more money on helping another country genocide of people than we do on our own fucking

0:46:18 Lydia: Yeah, actually unites people and no one can afford anything here, yeah.

0:46:32 Thomas: Health care that's not literally true but yeah it's like Like, we shouldn't be doing that. Maybe, maybe, James Lindsay, what's happening is that's an obviously true issue. And so two incredibly different and opposing groups of people are arriving at that conclusion. Could that be it?

0:46:49 Lydia: And often with a corruption underlayer that's happening for part of that, too. Right. Like all of these things kind of come together pretty nicely, honestly. Well, like the same groups that are that are leaning into like funding Israel through all of this and stuff have things to benefit from that as well. So I don't know. I think there's something interesting there.

0:46:56 Thomas: What do you mean? Right, right, right. Yeah, if you're doing the if you're doing the qui bono bullshit. Shit. One thing that really seems clear is that for James Lindsay, the like capitalist imperialist American status quo is so burned into his psyche as the obviously correct thing that any departure from it, he doesn't stop and ask like, well, does anyone have a point here? Or that, you know, it's like, is it? Yeah. But, but then he recognizes the issues, but the minute he starts talking It's like, well, okay, so why are these people insane? You know, it's like there's nothing that is less a priori

0:47:33 Lydia: He can recognize the issues, but he can't let go of the framework. Yeah.

0:47:46 Thomas: Than should we be funding the shit out of another military, another country's military to kill children? Like there's no reason any American should answer yes to that. So, in terms of needing an explanation, you should need an explanation for why anyone would ever have been doing that. That's what demands the explanation. You should be, if you want to point your little conspiracy to your point, like, you want us to use benefiting, you wanna point your conspiracy fucking tinfoil hat towards something, like Tucker Carlson does, by the way, maybe toward that. Why is that happening?

0:48:19 Lydia: Yeah.

0:48:22 Thomas: That's at least a better use of your fucking weirdness. Why? Why? Think about it for two seconds. Seconds, what is the good reason? I know the reasons, don't get me wrong. People sometimes, I think, take me too literally and think I'm actually asking. I know The Reasons. What are the reasons that are like the ostensible good reasons why we would be doing this? They don't exist. It's amazing how much Israel brainwashed our entire country somehow, or somebody did. I don't know who, but somehow they were brainwashed. I think a lot of anti -Muslim bigotry after 9-11 was to blame for that. Actually, I don't want to just say it's all some outside thing. It isn't. It's the bigotry of our country, too. Like, it's the very much the anti-Muslim bigotRY, homegrown. You know, I'm not just blaming Israel. But if you want to look at who within our country is doing that and why, that's maybe, maybe look at that. Like, because I don' t fucking get it.

0:49:14 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. All right. Keep playing.

0:49:18 Thomas: I'm trying to filibuster. Ah, it saw all this nonsense. Yeah, no.

0:49:20 Clip: This nonsense is not true, but we all know that we're not ever going to be able to reach almost any reasonable Democrat. But what this is, is their excuse to bring in post-colonial theory, which is the piece of the woke pantheon. Go back and read cynical theories. You can see all the different, six different out of the nine schools of thought that we covered there. We had identified nine. There's actually probably more like 12 or 15, but we've thought of nine. We wrote about six. And post-colonial theory is actually the one we tackle first. And this is scary because it's also the most violent, but this is where all your liberationist stuff comes from. So Herbert Marcuse is going to become very relevant to their approach. You got to remember that Mao Zedong called his military, the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO has the L word.

0:50:05 Thomas: Okay, that was sure. Oh oh

0:50:06 Lydia: Liberation. Yeah? Oh. Has the

0:50:09 Clip: This is all rooted in post-colonial theory

0:50:09 Lydia: L word. Has an L word?

0:50:10 Clip: And the idea that anything that America does abroad is somehow white oppression and imperialism. These are stock lines that come straight from Soviet propaganda from all the way back to the 1920s, but certainly from the 1960s forward.

0:50:17 Thomas: Yeah I wonder

0:50:19 Lydia: Oh, because maybe.

0:50:27 Thomas: Well yeah I mean sometimes the best propaganda takes a thing that's true and tries to use it against us yeah yeah

0:50:33 Lydia: That's actually accurate. Exactly, exactly. I think that was my point on this, too. It's like, so what if it was Soviet propaganda? It doesn't mean it's inaccurate.

0:50:40 Thomas: They probably did a lot they did a lot of propaganda about our treatment of black people oh so I guess that means we were actually great the whole time it was just those soviets who were trying yeah man

0:50:49 Lydia: Yeah it doesn't make them the good guys in it, but it doesn't mean that we're good guys either.

0:50:53 Thomas: Yeah there's also So they've been far worse. You know, they fought war in Afghanistan for no reason back when we liked Afghanistan, you know, in the in the whatever 80s, 70s. And when was that? The 70s, 80s. People don't even know about that. Like we didn't because the Americans are so ignorant. We don't really think about that anymore. But like it's not like Russia is better. Nobody's nobody. I don't think. I mean, it's one reason I don't like Hassan Piker. I do think he gets a little too close to like being so anti-America that he does embrace some of these horrible things that are also bad. At like Russia and other people and ideas that are also bad.

0:51:25 Thomas: And I just don't like the guy. I just fucking hate that guy for even if I agree with him on a lot of stuff, I just do not like him. So I'll just wear that on my shoulder. I'm not trying to hide it. But yeah, propaganda is sometimes going to be based on real stuff. That's more convincing. Doesn't mean that everything Russia's I'm sure we can find plenty of examples of Russian propaganda that was totally fake and shitty. But like, yeah, this doesn't. Yeah, sure.

0:51:45 Lydia: Or perhaps it exaggerated some of these things or, you know, but keep playing because he's very clear about what the purpose is.

0:51:51 Clip: Soviet things, or even, yeah, Soviet things about Palestine from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. It sounds exactly like what these guys are saying. It is stock Soviet propaganda about American foreign policy, and the point is to weaken America, weaken its presence abroad, which hampers the ambitions of other countries, weaken Its military, weaken It's ambition, and weaken its will and weaken its people's belief in itself. So this is the

0:52:20 Lydia: All right. I just wanted to get that in there. It's like, obviously, if a country doesn't like us, that's going to be their goal regardless. And how sad is it that like Soviet Russia, they didn't have to create anything inaccurate. Right. They just found things that are not good that people probably should be aware of and demonstrate hypocrisy from America, like demonstrate these things that we have a real problem with. And unless we're going to be honest and actually grapple with the way that America acts like on an international stage or even domestically, unless we can be honest about that and confront those things and try and fix them, then I don't know what else we're doing here. I want other countries to keep calling us out, whether enemies or allies. I don'T care. Keep calling it out. And if it's because of their their own purpose, their own means to try and like weaken how other countries feel about us, that's separate. That's a whole separate thing. But I don't think it necessarily means that this is something that is insane or ridiculous or a

0:52:31 Thomas: Yeah I didn't have to try that hard there. There. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Totally agree. I mean, I would love to live in a country where we were so open and had a healthy criticism of ourselves that we didn't really have to listen to people outside of us as much. You know, it'd be nice. It'd be Nice if we had like a thriving ideas environment in which people are like, hey, this sucks. What we're doing is bad.

0:53:18 Lydia: Pillar on which we should denigrate woke 2 .0 if there even is such a thing. Yeah. Yep.

0:53:45 Thomas: And then it wouldn't we wouldn't be having to rely on Soviet propaganda. You can't. That'd be nice. Yeah.

0:53:49 Lydia: Exactly. If we could actually be honest about our policies home and abroad and engage in that discussion with good faith from all sides, like that would would be a better world ultimately right right

0:53:59 Thomas: I don't think like Belgium has to listen to like us about what Belgium's doing. You know, like they're not. I mean, every country has its sins, of course, but like a lot less so than us.

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0:54:14 Lydia: All right. I want to skip ahead a little bit. Those are the three.

0:54:16 Thomas: All right. I'm into these pillars. What?

0:54:19 Clip: Doorway through which a lot of the radical Islam will enter. A lot of the radical Islam is allied in the anti-Israel cause. That's actually the primary thing they care about and the goal is still to undermine America. So this is going to be a major infusion of that mess into the American body politic and because we don't have really a colonial past or an imperial

0:54:24 Thomas: Oh, yeah, Yeah. Sweet. Yes. Here we go.

0:54:41 Thomas: What? Huh? I'm sorry. What if we don't? Who does? I mean, besides the British Empire,

0:54:41 Lydia: Pillars yeah yeah

0:54:41 Clip: Past in the United States, we don't understand this argument the way that other countries are

0:54:50 Thomas: We're like second place, man. Man. Like what, how, what I'm trying to think what, what's well,

0:54:55 Lydia: Yeah I know I think like you're just you're being blind at that point I guess if you're america first anything that america has done is not imperialism or colonialism it's manifest destiny right like and that's a good that's that's a good thing for them.

0:55:09 Thomas: Is the, I'm trying to make why he's making this. Cause again, he, he does have access to a lot of data in his brain. Is this based on like most of the colonial? Oh wait, I feel like this. Oh, I I'm remembering something. I'm remember remembering a dumb argument. Do they make this argument because most of like colonialism kind of predated America and And like, indeed, America was a colony, you know, like, is that why? Yeah, like but man, we still also got pretty good at that. Like we still we caught up. You know, we've got what's Puerto Rico, man? What's fucking a bunch of places?

0:55:31 Lydia: It could be just like in years. Yeah.

0:55:41 Lydia: We engage in a lot of very questionable stuff. Yeah yeah. Guam.

0:55:47 Thomas: Yeah. What are those islands that I don't barely even remember because I'm fucking imperialist American who doesn't have to keep track of all our of all her empire? Yeah, I like fucking a like that should definitely have more rights than they do.

0:55:52 Lydia: Yeah and we still deny them voices in our government. Yeah

0:55:58 Thomas: But yeah, like that's just silly. I think I've heard that now that I say that I think that's the insane stupid thing they say like woof that era of history was already you know largely on the way out by the time America even started existing so we don't have a colonialist past I guess but like we're also the people doing you know I mean like America was a colony like we like we were the colonists or whatever you know that was like white America I mean obviously I mean in that sense like it's It's hard to you can't have a bunch of colonizers from Europe come start a colony, take a bunch of land and then be like, we're now a new country and that new entity totally free from the sin of colonialism.

0:56:44 Thomas: It's like we kind of are that really like that is us. Yeah.

0:56:48 Lydia: Like we didn't actually learn and we carried on the sins of the past.

0:56:51 Thomas: Like maybe if you're an indigenous American or something like, sure, man, you'd be like yeah, I have no, I mean, you know, you go back far enough, by the way, it's It's like, there's all kinds of examples of plenty of indigenous peoples mistreating other indigenous peoples and plenty of, you know, people of color colonizing different parts of South America. Like there's plenty of stuff, but like for the most part, we can't just declare us a new country and we're a fresh start and we have no colonialist history. That's really funny.

0:57:17 Clip: Dealing with it. But if you look at what they've done with the indigenous issue in Australia and Canada and New Zealand, you get some sense of how powerful it is. They've basically rolled those countries under using post-colonial means. So now we're entering the post-kolonial phase, and anytime it hits a roadblock, they're going to switch to Marxist materialism. And anytime that hits a roadblock we're back to post-colonial theory so we're going to enter a new phase of woke it's woke 2.0 it's going to be bad we can predict that it will ride as it rises a fad for at least two to three years two and a half years of this it's already in motion you can't stop it we just have to respond to it it's like a virus when a virus comes everybody gets sick it follows

0:57:22 Thomas: What have they done with it? What? What? Who's they, man?

0:57:41 Lydia: There it

0:58:00 Clip: A wave pattern we all just went through covid we know what that looks like everybody gets sick, then everybody starts to kind of get it and they get immune system. This takes about two and a half years in a mind virus outbreak. And we are into woke 2.0 now. These are the issues. So you're going to have to bone up on your regular old school materialist Marxism. You're going to have to listen to what Mondami is saying. You have to Listen to what Piker is saying, they are pointing the direction to their followers, which means they're pointing the Direction to what

0:58:10 Thomas: What? Oh my God. Oh God, dude. Could you listen to his name, you fucking idiot?

0:58:23 Lydia: Got it wrong again.

0:58:30 Thomas: Look, not for nothing, Hassan Piker's been around for quite a while. It's like more than two and a half years, bud. Like, what are you talking about?

0:58:33 Lydia: Yeah and I'm pretty sure you can't say that anyone who has committed gun violence in this country was pushed to do so by Hassan Piker so like that claim from earlier is honestly ridiculous like and almost defamatory like it's don't like that. Right.

0:58:51 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, and are we able to point to any examples of political violence on the right? You know, it's just so hard to even think of any there could be. But again, for this idiot, like that's the main thing is the status quo is so baked in as correct for him like that. That's the part I just I think it took me a while to understand about this weirdo because it doesn't make sense. Like the way I met him was as an atheist, you

0:58:58 Lydia: Oh I'm coming up with nothing yeah. Yeah

0:59:16 Thomas: Know, like most atheists. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all atheists had like good politics, but like it's just weird to me that he would come from such a position of the status quo is so fucking correct that even the right wing political violence, what he does is he says, well, Well, that's bad because it's going to promote left -wing political violence.

0:59:35 Thomas: It's not ever bad because It's bad. It's Bad because now those woke leftists get to do violence because of it. It's like, okay, what? So nothing's anyone's fault who's part of the status quo. They get to be the status quo. They get To do whatever they want. Everything else is in response to that, and it's bad,

0:59:52 Lydia: I think the other interesting piece there, too, is like this idea, anything that the left is going to do in America about the economy is materialist Marxism. And then anything that we do about foreign policy is post -colonial theory and just kind of like flip -flopping between the two and having it in all these different ways that, again, what does that actually mean, James Lindsay? Like, what are the impacts? What are the consequences?

1:00:12 Thomas: Yeah, what does it mean? What policies are okay, man? What policies Are we allowed to do that's not part of The fucking Marxist woke 2 .0 agenda? What am I allowed to want? Tell me.

1:00:22 Lydia: All right. And let's close it out.

1:00:24 Thomas: No, I thought we were done.

1:00:25 Lydia: Now, this is the last

1:00:26 Clip: But they're going to resist it more effectively than we did, say, critical race theory or third wave feminism 10 years ago and five years ago, anti-respectively. All right, so WOKE 2.0, like I said, it's going to do a Marxist interpretation of affordability. It's going to do post-colonial interpretation of being pro-Palestine, anti Israel, straight out of the Soviet playbook, by the way, and it's gonna use anti-corruption to consolidate its power and to to attack its enemies, and to try to completely undermine the Republican Party and President Trump. So that's what's coming. And like I said, they are warm to, I won't say that they are pro, they probably are pro. But they are certainly warm to assassination culture and political violence. And they are doing so in the knowledge that it will radicalize the youth on the right

1:00:37 Thomas: What? Anti -respective.

1:00:38 Lydia: Clip all right

1:00:51 Thomas: What? Oh, wow. We're getting some music.

1:01:18 Clip: To an increasingly violent situation in America. This is extremely serious. Woke 2.0 is here, and we have to start responding to it. It will be the shape of this midterm election and all of the primary elections in 2028.

1:01:37 Thomas: I don't know. Sorry. I have to hear this shitty music. Jesus, dude. Oh, my God. That's horrible. That's so bad. Ugh. You got DI acoustic guitar, like, out of time, a little bit out of tune. What are you doing? Who did that music? Sorry. That's all I care about now. I don' t care about anything else. Who did this music? Here we go. That doesn't say they're not willing to say god no that's not ai absolutely no way ai would not be able to be that bad yeah that's like a very specifically amateur guitar player sound that would be hard to do anyway what did he say I only heard the music I know

1:02:00 Lydia: So yeah no ai okay have gotten it that bad honestly like he reiterated his points right he he basically said

1:02:22 Thomas: I'm kidding okay is it possible james I just want to ask him I I wish I maybe I'll email I want to hey what if just go go with me here. What if there was a group of people who was not happy about the corruption of the left and right, but mainly the right, we'll say the left end, right? Because his theory is that that's how they're going to consolidate power is they're gonna point out the corruption on the left or whatever.

1:02:46 Thomas: What If there's a group people is not happy about the corrupt on the Left is not Happy about the support of Israel, because of nothing to do with I don't know what the fuck you're like, yeah, I'm probably anti colonial, whatever you're you're talking about, but that's, I haven't read whatever books you're, I don't read. So, so I'm the great counterexample to you. I'm the great counter example to you, James Lizzie. I don'T read. I have no idea. I kid. I've read a lot of books in audible form, but I haven'T read any of what he ever talks about. Like with the exception of when they did the critical race theory, I've read a and not so good, you know, books on racism and blackness and whiteness and all that.

1:03:23 Thomas: Like I I read a lot of those, but I've never read virtually all of what he talks about. And yet I exactly want the stuff he's talking about. Maybe there's another reason for that. Maybe there's, maybe there's just good reasons why people don't like corruption. They don't like bullshit. They Don't like Israel and our policy toward Israel, you know, and they don't Like that. Nothing is affordable and they don't like that. The rich keep getting richer and they Is it possible, James Lindsay? What is someone like that to do? What are my options? I'm just, here's the thing. I'm going to come to, hey, James Lindsey, I saw your thing. I'm so scared of woke 2 .02. I'm really scared. I don't want to be a part of that. So here's, here're the things I believe. It's everything I just said. What do I do? Like, how do I. Do those things, but not be. A part of the woke 2 .0 mind virus. What's going to be his answer? Oh, well, you guys support Trump. What I, you know, that doesn't make sense. You know, like it might be there's just another side of the political aisle, James Lindsay, and maybe they have different beliefs than you. And maybe some of them are just earnestly trying to accomplish their political ends. Could that be it?

1:03:59 Lydia: You should. You should. Mm -hmm. I'm really glad, though, that you brought up the Dr. Phil thing from the beginning, too, because I think this is another demonstration of what his approach seems to be. Sound smart, say a bunch of things, provide no documented evidence, provide No examples really at all to explain it and then just move along you know kind of like lay the seeds of this thing with buzzwords and then you get to claim you know years down the line that you saw all of this coming from a mile away

1:05:01 Thomas: It's entirely conceptual. It's all conceptual. He has a mind for being able to remember and turn a phrase about some of these isms and some of these theories and political theories. But it's like he can only see through that. He can't just look at like events of the world and be like, hey, what went into this particular event of the world, of the U .S. politics? Like what went in to this primary victory or loss? What went in into that he can only frame it through like this weird it's like the people who can't see the forest for the trees he can't See the trees for the forest like he can only be like there's look at this forest and this forest you're like I'm there's this tree right here man I'm trying to what's this one you're like well it goes back to hold on there's these this whole forest over here they can see you're Like dude Jesus Christ can you just like look at this one tree for one second it's weird yeah

1:05:57 Lydia: Can we actually engage on this particular thing yeah no he can't do it so that's James Lindsay folks and I don't know that we've talked about him on the show before so certainly

1:06:06 Thomas: It's barely worth it but it's it was fun he's he's a character oh boy anyway he was on my show several times uh and then when I when I shared uh god when I share something he said I I tried to get him to provide some links from some proof for his stupid shit

1:06:23 Lydia: And he like yeah and he he didn't even say like I don't have them didn't he say like I'll get them back to you or

1:06:28 Thomas: Oh no he sent in a million examples of the twitter account that was real peer review real peer view or maybe real peer preview too because the first one got a fucking band or something. And I checked all of them and they were all stupid. They're all like, oh, okay. Someone wrote a paper on something that you don't like.

1:06:35 Lydia: Whatever yes yeah I remember

1:06:46 Thomas: That's your evidence of this. And I sent him the email and I asked for more stuff and he didn't get it to me. And then I, then I did my episode and talked about that. And he was like, you may have violated my copyright by sharing my email. I was like. No, I asked Andrew at the time. He was like no. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. He's an idiot.

1:06:58 Lydia: That yeah oh my god ridiculous no yeah that's

1:07:08 Thomas: What a weird person. The weirdest fucking guy ever.

1:07:08 Lydia: Not real yeah yeah yeah and with

1:07:13 Thomas: And not in a good way. Not like us. All right. Thanks so much, Wokies. Thanks, Lydia, for the breakdown.

1:07:39 Lydia: Yeah couldn't tell you I'm not as old as you

1:07:41 Thomas: As always, you've got Wokeness. I don't read.