It Could Happen Here Weekly 92

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
can make your own decisions.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Chris crisodis ipsis christode is welcome to it could happen here,
a podcast where the only person who actually took Latin
in high school isn't here leading me to do this
Latin bit. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and with me
is Garrison. Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Hello, I'm not gonna try to speak Latin because if
I did, it'd be some like weird like esoteric incantation
and then it would open up a whole other canet worms.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
So you know, this is this is this is the
most the most well known Latin. That's probably not the
most well known Latin is probably some bullshit from like
Latin mass or something. But one of the more well
known Latins, which is who watches the Watchmen Roughly it's
not the test. The popular translation is who watches the watchmen?
And by that I mean we are asking the question

(01:11):
who ensures that the American Supreme Court does not just
sort of collapse into a ball of pure corruption.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
And the answer was nobody. So true, I always trust
in the Supreme Court.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
I learned.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I learned that we pay these people two hundred and
eighty five thousand dollars a year, Like we pay them
two hundred eighty five thousand dollars to like take our
rights away.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
This is just insane. Well, why why do we do this?
It's uh, well, I mean this is a very clear
reason why we do this. Actually that maintains the semblance
of order and civility. Yes, however, coma deeply fractured however, Comma, this.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Is coming apart because these stupid assholes can't even maintain
the veneer of not being like the most corrupt people
in the history of mankind. So we're coming off of
like two, I mean not it. There wasn't really a
potential for this, this this session of the Court to
be as bad as like last year's one where they

(02:17):
killed row, but they killed affirmative action and they also
did this really really.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Just sort of.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Really weird ruling on queer stuff and the business's right
to discriminate and choose the business's rights to choose how
to use their creative expression, which has resulted in a
bunch of really funny things. I saw this morning. Actually,
there was this hair salon who was refer to serve
LGBTQ clients, which now all of like all of like

(02:47):
the suppliers for the hair salon are no longer sending
orders to the hair saloon because they're also allowed to
discriminate from this hair salod because of the same ruleing.
So it's creating all these really complicated like supply chain
things with businesses choosing to be really homophobic and queerophobic
and then like type of like a supplier is just
not then just not giving these businesses the supplies they

(03:09):
need to operate their business, which is pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's really amazing too. So the other thing about this
is like this is the actual ruling where like any
pretense that this is like a functional court was just
sort of thrown out the window because Okay, so one
of the one of the like the fundamental principles of
and this is like one of the fundamental principles of
the common law legal system, right of the legal system

(03:35):
that not only the US is based off of, but
like you know, I mean, like like literally, we're talking
like like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
years of history that pre date the American system arguably
can trace us back to the Roman system. One of
the things that's fundamentally based on is that you cannot
try a case on a hypothetical. Something has to something
has to actually happen for you to have a case,

(03:57):
And this case has just thrown that shit out the window.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So what this case was is there's this.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Woman who supposedly is a wedding wedding website designer, and
we'll get back to that in a second, because oh boy,
uh just straight up lied to the court and claimed
that a guy had requested her make a wedding website
for a gay wedding. And this never happens, right, this
like did not happen. The journalist like tracked down the

(04:22):
guy who she said had like requested a website, and
that guy is a straight b had already been married,
and she is a web designer.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
The whole the whole story is was just a fake.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I think I think like that's that's that's the part
of the story that I think got the most pressed.
But the part of the story that thinks like funnier
is that she's not actually a wedding website designer. This
entire case, she set up this entire site. What appears
to have happened, She's not wedding website designer now, right.
What appears to have happened is that she and like

(04:58):
this sort of like one of the one of the
sort of right wing like legal networks got together and
cobbled together this business like specifically so they could get
this ruling.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
So which which which seems like that should be a
like illegal It's this sounds it sounds like legal Fraudust
should be on trial.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
For perjury right now. Her lawyers should also be like
her lawyers and her lied under oath multiple times to
multiple different courts. Like yes, what we're seeing here, right
is the sort of like thin legal veneer of it
has always been sort of over the Supreme Court that's
supposed to make it seem legitimate.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's just sort of like unraveling.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And at the same time, so if if you if
you if you think that makes the Supreme Court like
like look illegitimate.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Wait do we get to the corruption.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
This is the real reason we're doing this episode because
oh my God, Jesus Christ, this is I oh God.
Then you know the thing I really learned from this
is I didn't understand how rich Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Justices are, like Clarence Thomas.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
And in all of the pieces about Clarence Thomas, right,
it starts with like he is like the poorest of
Supreme Court justices and his family makes eight hundred thousand
dollars a year.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
It's like that seems like a lot of money. What
are you even talking about?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like, So, in terms of the sort of corruption stuff
that's been happening, there's been a bunch of uh, there's
a bunch of research down by Republica into a bunch
of just like incredibly shady and corrupt things that a
bunch of Supreme Court justices are doing. So we're gonna
start with bastard's podlum, Clarence Thomas. So one of Thomas's

(06:50):
close friends is this real estate mogul named Harlan Crowe,
and he Harlan Crowe sucks ass. He and Harlan Crowe sounds.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Like what you would name like some like weird, like
rich villain and like a pulpy seventies like mystery novel.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
I I don't did you see when what like when
people figured out who this guy was and it went
around on Twitter. No oh, I'm so excited for you. Okay,
this this is gonna be great. So okay, So, so
Harley Crowe is he's one of the country's largest landlords.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
He has like he's a.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Portfolio of twenty nine billion dollars of assets. He he
owns property used like all over the US. He also okay,
so he has a giant mansion, right, and in his
giant mansion is a bunch of Nazi memorabilia, including an
autographed copy of this this guy.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yes, okay, now that now that you mentioned the Nazi
now so, so he he has the.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Things that like stereotypically you would assume that like a
like a Nazi para familiar guy has, right, Like he
has like he has that sign, an autogap copy of
my com He has like a bunch of pictures that
were drawn by a bunch of like actual paintings that
were drawn by Hitler. But he also has weird ship
like something I've never seen before. Like he has like

(08:07):
this these sets of like napkins that just have swastikas
on them because they were like official Nazi napkins.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
I feel like we probably shouldn't, like we can even
keep one copy of these, and like the Holocaust Museum
and the rest of this stuff should be like burned, right,
like we shouldn't. Yeah, we shouldn't really have them to
this tough line around.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
You know, Like Okay, so I'm gonna circle back to
this because I think there's one there's another piece of
context that we need to get you. He also has
this thing called this he has he is this thing
he calls the Garden of Evil, which is this like
garden of statues of the garden he calls evil. Yes,
And it's a it's a statue guarded behind his house

(08:47):
that has like a bunch of like statues of dictators.
They're like almost all communists. He really hates Tito for
some reason.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Well, I mean, she's a billionaire, obviously, Like this is
why he hates Tito. But I funny thing is, it's
like almost all it's like almost entirely communist, Like there's
no like Mussolini or anything.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's like it's all communists.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
There's no Mussolini. What No, No, there's like there's there's
a host name Ubarick, and then there's one of what
what's the guy's name? I don't remember his name, princess
the guy who shot our Streek Ferdinand, which is weird
because that guy was not he wasn't he wasn't evil. No, well,
that's I will not. I refuse to take a position

(09:28):
on that. I'm like, that's not my position. My position,
like he's a dictator. Oh yeah, that's like on the
level of like evil on a dictator level, Like he's
not He's no mau he's no Hitler, Like come on,
like he also like again, he is not a dictator.
He was just some fucking random guy like the guy
you kill our streak furnite Like okay, baffling stuff, but

(09:51):
but okay, the important thing about this.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, okay, first of who would be your first five
statues in your own garden of evil garden?

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Oh okay, this is this is gonna be very biased
because I'm ranking this by people I have personal grudges against.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Okay, Well, so if you're doing personal grudges the entire
year air to one U C C. I, Uh, what
the fuck is his name?

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Paul Volker?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Who else do I have? Who else do I have
a personal grudge against? Who's a dictator? Mohammed ben somebon
because he bought my fucking StarCraft league?

Speaker 3 (10:34):
What the fuck are you talking about on that one day? Okay, well,
well we'll put what we'll put. We'll put MAUT number five. Fair, fair, Okay, now.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Okay, So the reason the reason I bring up the
the the the the Garden of Evil, right is that. Okay,
so he has like a thing where he puts all
the stuff from the evil dictators, but then all of
the notazi stuff is just like randomly strewed about his house.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Like his living quarters.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, like like they'll just don't be paintings by like
actually he has like bush painting seals hill paintings would
be like bush, they'll be like like a renoir and
then they'll just be a Hitler painting.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
It's like he's this guy.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
All of his friends would because this guy has like
a bunch of like right, because he's one of the
guys all would be like this man is not a Nazi,
and I'm like, I he hasn't he has. I don't know, man, Like,
there are not many non Nazi reasons why you would
have like multiple of Hitler's paintings hanging on your wall

(11:37):
and also the signed autograph copy of.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
I just want to remind myself that there's evil in
the world, you know. Okay, Okay, this gets me pissed off.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
So my my.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
One of my grandpa's I took took a took a
Nazi sword off a dead officer and like brought it
home from the war and it should be like and
we like still have Ituse what the fuck are you
supposed to do with that? Right? So like that that's
like we we have one of those, right, But like
we didn't take an autographed copy of my cough. We
fucking killed a Nazi officer and took it from him.

(12:11):
Like if we're gonna do this, you have to do
it correctly.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
But this guy, this guy, okay, oh, so she gets
really really he's like unfathomably mad that people wear shake
of our shirts.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Like she's mean, me too, mad me too of our shirt.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
I'm usually not most almost circling back around on it
just because it makes this guy so mad. Like this
guy in particular appears to be worse most of the
take of our shirts I've seen are sold by disgraced
white disgrace the right wing commentator Stephen Crowder. So, oh god,
what the na we we we we've we've truly entered

(12:52):
hell world now, Uh okay, So why why why am
I talking about Harlan Crow partially because he's really.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Funny, doesn't it doesn't he like give a lot of
money to like certain people.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
So okay, we're we're Yeah. So she he's one of
the people who runs a really really extensive network of
sort of like this like right wing like think tank
dark money network that you know, buys judges, like pays
for people's legal careers. And he's also very close friends

(13:25):
with Clarence Thomas. And so I'm gonna just run through
all of the ship that he's like all of these
just like incredible corruption that he's doing. So okay, so
I'm gonna start with like this is like this is
like like the level one corruption, which is so Crow
bought Clarence Thomas's mom's house and then did quote tens

(13:47):
of thousands of dollars of improvements to the home, and
he seems to have bought the house for like significantly
above market rate. And so this is this is a
this is I'm gonna, I'm gonna we're gonna do it.
We're gonna do a corruption anatomy here because this is
a classic Chicago, uh corruption scam. So there there's like

(14:10):
there's like six revenue streams in this. Right, you have
the money from the sale, which goes to like you
know that that that that's that's like that's your level
one bribe, right is you're selling, you're selling, you know,
you're you're selling your house to someone at above market value.
The level two bribe is, uh, you're not. You're now
throwing in the renovations because his mom is still living
in this house.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Right.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Oh so this is like it's like actual bribery.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Huh oh yeah, yeah, this is and again this is
like the mild stuff. So that that level level two
is you get that, you know, Okay, so now now
you have the contractors, and the contractors allow you to
throw in more money into the bribe because you're now
you're now doing all this renovation work like for free.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
The level three of the bribes is that.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Okay, so now now once you once you have a
renovation contract, you now have a contract that pays out
money and you can and use that to like reward
your political allies. And so this is this is this
is a classic like absolutely classic like Chicago like payoff scheme.
Now the other thing that's so so Harlan was contacted

(15:17):
about this and she claims that he's buying this house
because he wants to preserve it for posterity because Clarence
Thomas lived there, m sure, which, like she is very weird.
She did give one hundred thousand dollars to Harvard to
buy a portrait of like to get them to hang
up a portrait of Clarence Thomas, so you know he

(15:38):
is a deeply weird guy. But this, uh, this.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Reeks of.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Of oh boy, now yes, yes, WELLBLIC like ProPublica points
out also that they they bought two random vacant lots
in the area from Thomas for like unclear reasons. And
you now you can also you can also ask why
does Supreme Court Justice like own a bunch of random

(16:03):
vacant lots? And the answer to this question is that
these people are part of the real warsoisi they are
like they they they are like as alien to us
lstate scamming, right, this is like yeah, like basically yeah,
like they're they're they're they're they're doing stuff, like they
do stuff with their money that like makes them like

(16:25):
like they they are like as dissimilar to us as
like we are from like a fucking Neanderthal. Like these people,
like the way they think about money, the way they
like just like the way they act in the world,
the way they relate to other people, like the fact
that they're just buying random fucking lots like across the
street from their parents' house, like why who knows? And

(16:48):
and Okay, so the thing that's very important about this
right is if you you know, okay, everyone in the
government right from like starting from every core that is
below the Supreme Court down to like a fucking astronomer
who works for a national lab If you receive a
like a large gift over five hundred dollars, you have

(17:10):
to report it to the government, and there's like an
ethics process you have to go through.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
And this the standard.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
And again, this is the standard that holds from like
like the fucking President of the United States down to
again like a random astronomer. They are not allowed to
have to do anything that has quote even the appearance
of impropriety. Now do you want to do you want
to know who these standards don't apply to just the

(17:36):
Supreme Course, yep, does not apply to them. They had
There's only one thing they have to do, right and
aga again this amazing Like so again everyone else has
actual enforceable ethics standards the Supreme Court has. You have
to report it. It doesn't have to go through an
axcess commission. You just have to report it.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
And yeah, do you do you?

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'll give you three guesses as to how much of
any of the ship that I just talked about that
clear as Thomas reported.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
Probably none of a nope, absolutely not zero, zero of it,
like you over one hundred thousand, probably like one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars of bullshit, no reporting at all.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
I'm sure the cops are gonna go arrest him for all.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
These crimes, right, yeah, yeah, right at any day now.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Uh huh yeah, yeah, it's gonna be busting down his
door now that we've cracked this one wide open.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
A Okay, do you do you know who else is?
And I am not joking legitimately is bound by significantly
stricter i ethic ethics regulations than the Supreme Court. It's
the plugging these products and services. I SEC advertising guidelines
that we have to follow.

Speaker 5 (18:43):
I am a podcaster every few months and guidelines of
the Supreme every few months.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
We have to take like a like a ten minute
training that just basically just plugs into our brains and
uh it downloads all of these like terms and conditions
that we then just robotically need to enforce. So yeah,
do you know who else com it's fraud? Were legally
not let I say that these products and services Oo

(19:11):
it's okay, Well I'm gonna have to do another one
of those FCC trainings after this. Well, well.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Crime crime is just legal now like this this is
what I'm getting at on this free court stuff. So
all right, I started with this housing scam because A
It's like, okay, this is this is like this is
like a classic level scam. Bbe this is because this
is like absolute brush league shit compared to like everything
else that's about to happen.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Here are you telling me this is? This is this
is gonna get worse.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Oh okay, so all right, I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna start reading this from pro publica because I don't
I cannot think of a funnier way to just do this.
In late June twenty nineteen, right after the US Supreme
Court released its final opinion of the term, just as
Clarence Thomas bored in a lar private jet headed to Indonesia.

(20:04):
He and his wife were going on a vacation nine
days of island hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a
super yacht staff by a coterie of attendance and a
private chef. If Thomas had chartered the plane in the
one hundred and sixty two foot yachts himself, the total
cost of the trip could have exceeded five hundred thousand dollars.
Fortunately for him, that wasn't necessary. He was on vacation

(20:27):
with real estate mogul and Republican mega donor Harlan Klohe,
who owned the jet and the yacht too.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Ah, I see this just sounds like a friendly vacation, right.
I need to read.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Another another like really just genuinely from one of the
most brutal polls I've ever seen anyone do is later
on this Republic article quote. In Thomas's public appearances over
the years, he has presented himself as an everyman with
modest tastes. I don't have a problem with going to Europe,
but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing
the regular parts of the United States, Thomas said in

(21:06):
a recent interview for a documentary about his life, which
Crow helped finance. I prefer the RV parks. I prefer
the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that.
There's something normal about.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
It, doubt doubt.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
You know.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
I don't think he's gonna be getting a charteredy oats
all the Walmart parking lots. Honestly, I don't really see
that one happening five hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
And the thing about this, it seems like he does
something like this every fucking year, Like because I wish I.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Could take I wish I could take a Supreme Court
justice out to the open waters of the sea about
once a year. You know, wouldn't that be fun for
everybody involved?

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, I mean, here's the thing. We're gonna have to
pull our money into rent the submarine.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
But we look, we will persevere, we will achieve submarine.
There's no laws on the ocean International waters.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Baby is legal.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Ass As are regrettably off doing actual journalism. Colleague James
constantly reminds us it is legal for him to fight
the seal.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
International waters, just as legal as me disparaging all of
our advertisers.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So all right, you know, okay, So like obviously what
is happening, Like Harlan Crowe, like this is a level
of like bribery where it's like the wheels kind of
fall off of the word bribery because like, how do
you even I don't know, I don't even I don't

(22:54):
have a way to adequately.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Describe what this is.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
What I'm going to do instead is to remind everyone
that Thomas was one of the justices who decided Citizens
United in the twenty ten case that made it legal
to bribe politicians through campaign donations and allowed corporations to
directly involve themselves in legal campaigns, League leading like directly
to the hellhole we now I'll live in now once again,
Thomas was required to report this as a gift to

(23:19):
the government, and he simply did not. And you know,
this is one of those things where okay, so like
if a normal person does this right in the governments,
you would take them to court. But we've now returned
to our problem of who watches the watchers because it's
Supreme Court, right, they've established themselves as a dictatorial ruling

(23:42):
council based on a power grab. And you know, I'm
gonna do my the Supreme Court rant I do every time.
But the Supreme Court does not have the power of
judicial review. They do not have the power to strike
down laws. They don't have it. They fucking get vened
it out of whole cloth in eighteen o two. It
doesn't exist, it's not it's never been real. You can
just fucking ignore them. But in the meantime, while everyone

(24:04):
believes it it's real, they get to do this bullshit.
And you know, so, yeah, so that that Indonesia trip
is like the big one that we know of. He
took another one to like Moscow and another. But the
other thing that that see he seems to have been
doing a lot is basically like he like just uses

(24:25):
Harlan Crowe's private jet as like his own jet republica
calculated that like one just like one flight that he
took in twenty sixteen would have cost seventy thousand dollars,
which is more than I make in a fucking year.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, why why why did that cost so much?

Speaker 2 (24:45):
It's really expensive to to to lease those kind of
like that specific kind of private jet.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Oh yeah, okay, if it's for a whole private jet,
that makes sense. Yeah, I say, likely wouldn't least a
whole private jet. But I'm just built different, well I did.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Clarence Thomas has built even more different because instead of
leasing it, he just has a friend who has the
jet who just lets him take this Like like one
of the Republicans doings, they were just tracking the jet
and they they they could match the jet showing up
to the airport where Clarence Thomas was gonna be, and
then and the jet would mysteriously then appear in a
location where Clarence Thomas appeared, and it was like hmm,

(25:25):
and and this whole thing we should specifically know. So okay,
the reason the Supreme Court has to do any of
this at all is that the stream is that like
someone finally had a good idea right after Watergate that
was like we should actually make everyone in the government
disclose their gifts and this and this law actually like
included the Streame Court, although I feel like it won't

(25:45):
in like two years when they strike that law down
or some shit. But you know, but again, like one
of the things that like specifically in this law is
if you take a private jet, you have to report it.
And Thomas has been just like jetting out in this
fucking jet for like a like many like at least

(26:06):
like at least seven years that we know of, and
has never reported it.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
So let's let's I'm sure the FBI is going to
be busting down his doors any day now.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Oh yeah, And again, like, let let less you unless
you think we've reached the end of the Clara's Thomas
corruption crow. Also like, okay, so you know how Claire's
Thomas's wife is like a qan On person and tried
to overstow the government. Yes, so she has like a
she has like a like a it's like a basically
bullshit like political lobbying group. But it's like so it's

(26:43):
a lobbying group, but like the actual thing that it
does is reverse lobbying, which is you can go to
the lobbying group and use it for like to get
access to Clarence Thomas, and that group funded. God, I
didn't write down the number of mount like that group
got like two hundred thousand dollars that again, his wife

(27:05):
works for got like two hundred thousand dollars from crow.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
There was another story that which which just now, I'm
no a lawyer. These are not actual. These these are
these claims have no basis. This is just an uneducated opinion.
But to me, if I saw this in a movie,
I would call this money laundering.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh yeah, well, like, oh god, okay, so what literally,
just let me just go to the next one, because
there's fucking more.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
There's more. There's like so.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
All right, Clarence Thomas has like a grandnephew that he
like adopted as his son. Basically like he like went
to the family of this kid. It was like, I
can give this kid everything in the world, so you
should like give him to me. I'm sure this is
all above board. I I don't know.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
This is uh what about this man has proved to
you that he's untrustworthy? What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay to me? Fair Claras Thomas makes the argument that
like He did this because, like he was abandoned by
his father as a kid and was raised by his grandfather.
So he was like, Okay, I'm gonna raise this kid
like I'm gonna steal his better life.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
His parents need to have a grid to. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
I you you you can you can read into that
the level of sketchiness that you want to. The part
that I'm gonna I want to talk about is that
this kid. Okay, so a thing, a thing that I
didn't understand until I got to like college, is that, like, Okay,
so like I knew intellectually that private schools existed, I

(28:38):
did not understand that private schools there are like like
there's like because I was used to like like Christian
private schools, right, yeah, yeah, I did not, Like I
didn't like get how rich people could be, and I
didn't understand that that they were. Like I I like,
walk in there and there's like nine kids who all

(28:59):
speak Latin and every single one of them went to
a private school that was like fifty at least fifty
like somewhere between fifteen and one hundred thousand dollars a quarter. Yeah,
is like what the fuck? What the shit so Clarace
Thomas isn't so his the schools he's going to aren't
quite that expensive, but the kid, the ones he sends this,

(29:25):
this kid to, So for two years, the estimate is
that it was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year.
That was for two years, so seventy five thousand dollars
a year, which again more than I make it a year.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
That's reasonable, that's fine, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
That is more. That is more than like that is
more expensive than my fucking college. That is more expensive.

Speaker 6 (29:49):
Like I like that.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
It is. It is a ludicrous amoss money. And guess
who paid that. I'm guessing Harlan Krumb. This is why
I don't. It's gonna just gonna pick it, just gonna pick,
like a random name off the top of my head.

(30:12):
This Hitler's number one fan, hard and crouded.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
It's so amazing because like again, all of these people
have this, Like every single like conservative, like every conservative journalist,
like every conservative judge and every conservative politician are.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
They all have one of these guys? Yeah, well it's
this guy. This is the guy and so and every
so like everything like the Koch Brothers fund a whole
bunch of like content creators. Like but yeah, every almost
every big like right wing dude has one of these guys,
which is totally unfair because the entire left has to

(30:49):
share one of these guys. We only get one, and
he has to fund everything on the left. Meanwhile, the
right has like has like a dime a dozen of these,
you know, like like well.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Legitimately, like like this was actually legitimately the thing that
caused Soros to get into politics. You looked at us
and he was like, what the fuck is going on?
Like this is insane?

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Like why what? What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Like the American Enterprise Institute just like creates Supreme Court justice.
It's like what and you know, but like so, but
the funniest part about this is again, whenever any of
these pieces come out, like every single conservative like pundits
like in Unison and like like all of their fucking newspapers,
all of their magazines, they're all funded by these people,
so they all like published like identical things going like

(31:33):
how dare you criticize like the noble friendship of hard
of this billionaire and the Supreme Court justice or just pals.
They're just extending hospitality like you would to any other
friend by taking them on a half a million dollar
cruise around on your yacht. It's it's it's it's like
incredible stuff. All right, we should do we should we

(32:00):
should do one more ads because you know who's These
are advertisements that we are being paid to promote.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
These are not our personal opinions, these are these are ads.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
There.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I followed the SEC guidelines. Here's the fucking ads, and
we're back, totally totally not gonna get in trouble for
that one.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Let let lest you think, and I kind of emphasize
this enough. This is something that was like when these
stories first started coming out, the way it was framed
was like like Clarence Thomas is like a uniquely corrupt
Supreme Court justice. And then people did literally any digging,
and it turns out that Clarence Thomas is not a
uniquely corrupt Supreme Court like all of the like Supreme

(32:44):
Court legal justice like experts were like, this is like
a unique situation the history of the court. And then
like like literally two months later, so Samuel Alito, who
is another Supreme Court justice, I in and this isn't.
This is in two thousand and seven, appears on a
a two hundred thousand dollars fishing trip in Alaska with

(33:05):
a billionaire hedge fund manager, Paul Singer, who is Singer
is like one of the most like Okay, as much
as I don't like Carlan Crowe, like, Singer is like
one of the most evil people who's ever lived.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Do you know who Singer is? No, but I'm sure
this opinion is is singers same opinion as all of
our advertisers.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Probably our advertisers probably don't like him. It would not
surprise me. So Singer is just like incredibly unbelievably relentlessly
aggressive like hedge fund guy, and his thing is he
like goes into companies and like like makes really embarrassing
like slideshows about their CEOs and then like deposes them
and then takes them over and the trip's then for

(33:46):
assets and sells them all. So that's like the one
that's like one thing that he does. The other thing
that he's cool, Well yeah, I mean it sucks because
like every single person who would work, they lose their drop.
But this that's the less bad thing that he does, right,
Like like this this is what I'm talking like, this
is like legitimate one of the worst people in the world,
like for like any norm like Mitt Romney, right, like
that was the worst shit that he ever did. Was

(34:09):
was like just destroying a bunch of people's lives by
like annihilating these companies. For Singer, that's like that's like
the fuck, that's the bullshit stuff like that. That's like
that's the fucking brush league shit. Singer's actual game is
so one of the things that happens over the course
of the seventies and eighties is you get a bunch
of uh I've talked about this at length of my

(34:31):
Neylberalist and episodes, But you get a bunch of these
economies that basically like across the global South that just implode.
And they implode because there's this combination of like commodity
prices drop and then they have all these adjustable rate
like loans that they're taken out and when Paul Volker
hot like hikes interest rates, all of these like loans
suddenly have like twenty percent interest, And so you have

(34:52):
all these economies all over the world that just fucking
are imploding because they suddenly have this like unbelievable that
they can't pay off, and so over the course of
the nineties, this kind of like anti IMF revolts starts
and I have the International Monetary Fund are the people
who you're borrowing money from who also destroy your economy
to like you know, like pay the IMF back the money.

(35:16):
By the time you get into like the two thousands,
it's gotten less bad. Well, I guess bad again, tails Nate.
But there had been this process of debt restructuring where
these countries were allowed to like only pay like a
small percentage of the debt because they just literally couldn't
pay it because their economies have been destroyed. Or and
this is another very common thing. You get a country
where like a bunch of loans were taken out by

(35:36):
like a dictator and he would just like buy planes
with them and then he get deposed. But you know,
the IMF and like the World Bank was still hold
them liable for the loans. And it's like, well, okay,
like that's like the money's gone right, Like it's in
like a bunch of gold bars. This guy like drove
across the border when he like fled.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Singer.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Singer is like the last guy who really goes in
for like to buy this debt and the result is this, So,
for example, like he buys a bunch of the debt
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the result
of this is that he turns like the entire Congoese
economy into this debt servicing machine. We're like just like
every like there's they're like they're they're there's they're stripping
the copper wires out of the buildings in order to

(36:22):
like fucking pay for oh metaphorically, so metaphorically they are
stripping the copper wires to pay this debt off. Uh,
not metaphorically, they are taking food from the mouths of babies,
because the way this stuff is paid for is they
cut a bunch of government assistance programs and they're like,
you know, they don't build fucking hospitals, they don't staff hospitals,
and so like a lot, Like he has killed a

(36:44):
lot of people, and his his most famous version of
this was this battle that he waged against Argentina. So
in in two thousand and one, there is this massive
like basically like the last twentieth century, like the last
twentieth century, communist revolution happens in Argentina in two thousand

(37:06):
and one, and they lose, but it's they they lose
like pretty it like only pretty narrowly doesn't work. Like
there is a there is a timeline that is not
that different from this one, where like like a bunch
of anarchists basically have taking control of Argentina, and the
result of this is that Argentina defaults on its debt,

(37:29):
and you know, they default in this debt, so they
enter this restructuring program, and all of the rest of
the like people who are like holding this debt are like, okay, well,
in order to let the Argentina economy recover and get
like some of this money back, we'll just like let
like okay, well, we'll like write off most of our debt.
But Singer like looks at this and is like, oh shit,
I'm just gonna buy all this debt that I know

(37:50):
is junk and can't be repaid, and then I'm gonna
go to the courts in the US and like just
force Argentina to repay it. Now he sees not how
debt is supposed to work.

Speaker 7 (38:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
The thing about debt, right, the thing about like lending
someone money or you know, this is what essentially what
buying someone's debt is right. The thing about that, right
is if the person can't pay you back you're supposed to,
you were out of the money, right like that. That's
that's that's you know, this is this is the theoretical
economic justification for why you can charge interest because there's risk.

(38:23):
But what Singer figured out is that you could just
use the US court system and you know, the threat
of the the the implicit and explicit threat of the
US military to just like force people to pay you
whether they have money or not.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
And so and this is what so, this is what
he does.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
He's he's like the one he's the one creditor because
he buys like an enormous amount of this debt, and
he's the one creditor who refuses to negotiate. And so
he like starts running around the US trying to like
steal Argentinian assets, like he tries to have like Argentina's
central bank reserves seized. There's other like it's the most

(38:59):
famous incidence, he tries to steal an Argentinian worship in
order to pay down the debt. There's another one where
like he tries to like he tries to steal Argentina's
entire pension fund. And this causes this like series of
like lawsuits that sort of like run their way through
the courts, and in twenty fourteen, one of these cases

(39:22):
finally makes it to this review court. And this is
where Singers two hundred thousand dollars Alaskan fishing trip pays
off because Samuel Alito rules that Argentina has to play
Singer two point four billion dollars and eventually they do so.
Alito like like he's also he also has another guy
who just like pays for his vacations. Who's the uh

(39:47):
I don't know if I want to say incredibly named
or disturbingly named, but this guy's name is Robin Arkley
the second wait, Robin Robin Arkley the second second God, Okay, yeah,
and he's a also like a genuinely terrible person, like
these are these are all like you read Hitchhickers. Have

(40:08):
you read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? No? Okay, So
my favorite bit from that is there's a bit where
like the encyclopedia from the Foundation series, like from the future,
like falls down and it falls open onto a page
and someone had just made a joke about how these
people are gonna be the first against the wall when
the revolution comes. And the Encyclopedia for the Future drops
down and they open it and it says that these

(40:29):
two people were first against the wall when the revolution came.
And that's like all of these people, these are like
the worst people in the fucking world or like in
the US.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
So this guy.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Arcley makes his fortune like buying distressed mortgages and then
for closing on people's houses and flipping them, so he
is seems like a valuable contributor to the ecail, like
I you know, I mean this is like this is
literally like literally one of the old like crime think
jokes was when the bank seizes your house, the GDP
GDP goes up. Like that's literally this guy, this, this

(41:05):
is the guy who makes the GDP go up by
seizing it by stealing your house. And so this guy
takes Alito on a bunch of trips. So when when
Republica like reaches out to Aledo about this, he gets
so mad that she the Wall Street Journal editorial board

(41:28):
allows him to publish a like an op ed that
is just him yelling about how this article that hasn't
come out yet is fake. And one of the specific
things that he's really mad about is part of this
article is talking about how the wine at this met
at this like lodge that he's staying at that's being
paid for by by the fucking mortgage slipper. Guy has

(41:49):
a thousand dollars a bottle wine and Claire's time was
just like, no, the wine is not was not a
thousand dollars a bottle. You can check the website. And
then Republica was like, well, yeah, but that's because the lodge,
like the quality of the lodge was downgraded after Alito
had like one of the like just just just a
truly incredible meltdown that he was just allowed to have

(42:11):
in the op ed section of the Wall Street Journal
in like in response, not even in response like before
this article came out. And the other thing that we
learned from this is that also apparently former Justice Antonin
Scalia also was taking trips from this guy. So this
is just like every conservative like justice in the last

(42:34):
like twenty years has just been doing this. They've just
been getting like flown around the world on fancy vacations
by their billionaire friends. Well, I don't actually know if
I actually might merely be a millionaire. I'm not tired sure,
but he may might be a billionaire.

Speaker 8 (42:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
The other two definitely are wait millionaire a billionaire because
those are two very difficult.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Okay, I I let me let me, let me let
me google. Is this is this guy a billionaire?

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Arkley doesn't seem to be a billionaire. He seems to
merely be Well, no, I've seen in other places that
he is a billionaire.

Speaker 8 (43:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
There's some dispute actually the guy there's like dispute over
what's his net worth? Oh, we don't know. It's unclear.
What does there's there's dispute over.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
It dispute disputed net worth?

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, unclear. The other two guys definitely billionaires. This guy
may be a billionaire unclear.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
But like literally like all of.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
These literally all these estices I have just been like
taking just like and again, any other thing I forgot
to mention that I should have mentioned. Is it like
all of these people have had cases appear before the
Streame court.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Hmm, curiously.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
And then this is another amazing thing. This is the
thing that came up like really prominently when there was
a case that you know, there was a case about
the attempt to like overthrow the government in twenty twenty
or in twenty one that like well in twenty twenty
and twenty twenty one that Thomas like objectively should have
re queued himself from because his wife tried to throw
the government and he just didn't. And this and this
is a this is a really important thing, which is

(44:06):
that Supreme Court justices it's like your fucking daughter like
could be one of the plaintiffs in a case and
you don't have to recuse yourself. Is recruising yourself is
completely voluntary, m which is not how this works for
fucking anything else. Right, But again, the Supreme Court is
not like it's not actually a court. It's just like

(44:26):
a fucking it's just this like weird dictatorial tribunal that
is subject to like absolutely no authority whatsoever. And Okay,
So it also turns out that there's like there's like
yet another layer of fuckery with this, which is that
universities u Supreme Court used Supreme Court justices to solicit
donations by like so so they'll they'll have like a

(44:48):
don invite a justice to like give a talk at
the university and they'll pay them a bunch of money
and then they'll they'll have them like go to a
dinner and then they'll advertise to all their donors like, hey,
if you give us a bunch of money, you can
go to this dinner with Supreme Court justice. And so
a bunch of like like a bunch of people who
have cases in front of the Supreme Court like use
this to go get access to a bunch of Spreme

(45:09):
Court justices. So it's great, this is this is really fun.
Oh did I did I do the Venmo thing? No,
I've got the Venmo thing. Okay, Okay, here's the Venmo thing.
So two days after I started, like like two days ago,
like from the time of writing this will be like
like this will actually be like almost exactly. Wow, It'll

(45:31):
be like almost a week from when when this comes out.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
There was another thing of this that came out, which
is that a bunch of lawyers had just been sending
money on Venmo to one of Claren's Thomas's aids. And
these okay, like the the these these are like these
are not just people who have like active cases. These
are like like one of the guys who venmoed Thomas's

(45:58):
aid is the guy who won the affirmative action case.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
And another one of the one.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Of the other lawyers you've met him is the guy
who I don't know if you remember this, like like
in like the last like term of the court, there
was a case where the Supreme Court like fucked the
EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
So that lawyer also paid.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
A bunch of money on Venmo Clarence Thomas's aid. So
this is this is the level though of corruption that
we're working at, right, which is like people sending public
Venmo transactions to the aids of Supreme Court justices who's
about who are about to hear their cases.

Speaker 8 (46:41):
Uh, that's so good.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Now there isn't this is.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Happening that the right has built like just an extensive
and incredibly excessive network to seize control of the judiciary. Uh,
liberals have produced no such network because they're fucking hacks
and this and this is not It's not just the
sort of like there's only one like liberal billionaire, Like, no,
there are liberal billionaires. The actual real problem with a
liberal attempt to like take control of the judiciary is
that like liberal like liberal lawyers are hacks instead of

(47:10):
actually like trying to hold on to like judicial positions, right,
and you know, to have to like move their way
up through like circuit courts in order to like like
seize control of like large, like increasingly large portions of
of the court system, which is all the Republicans did. Uh.
The Democratic lawyers, they'll they'll get like like they they

(47:30):
do the even lazier corruption, which is like they'll just
they'll be a judge for like three years and then
they'll just leave the private practice because they're all just
fucking greedy shits. And you know the result of this
is that all these like fucking liberal lawyers, Uh, you know,
they go into private practice and make a quick buck
and they leave us to fucking burn to death in
this smolder and keep while they spend their vacations in Bali.
And you know, and and again, the only the only

(47:53):
thing that like could conceivably slow down the Supreme Court
is the fact that like technically speaking, so it's never
actually gone through, it is possible for like Congress to
impeach the Supreme Court justice. But the Democrats don't want
to do that because because then the right, we'll be
able to impeach all of the liberals justice.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
No, it's worse than that.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
There the actual Biden's actual state of reason for why
he didn't want to do it is because it would
undermine the legitimacy of the court. And you know, and
the result of this is that, like for all their
they're fucking screaming about lawlessness and rising crime rates, the
fucking biggest criminals in the entire goddamn country are just
literally sitting in their stupid ass robes taking the biggest

(48:38):
bribes in the history of the fucking republic. And the
Democrats are just like, wow, if we do anything, it'll
undermine the faith in our institutions. So I gad, fuck them.
But also like, we don't fucking need these people like
you could, Like you could, you can fit all of
these people in one submarine and we could just be
fucking dumb with it.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
And then if we get a whole bunch of news
supreper court this is picked by Joe Biden, and they
would save America. So that's why we need to vote
for Joe Biden twenty twenty four. Save America.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, yeah, this is than submarine. This is the submarine plot.
It'll go great.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
We have to mandated submarine vacations for all Supreme courteous
The submarine.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Is now the only vehicle you're allowed to travel on.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Justice taxpayer funded titanic explorations for all Supreme Court justices.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
We're already giving them two hundred and eighty five thousand
dollars a year. It's not actually that it wouldn't We
would save money if we just both salary. My position
on this is clear. This is this is a this
is a fiscally conservative position.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Mostudget can be interpreted as fiscally conservative. It's cheaper to
put all the people in houses than do what we're
doing now. Anyway, Well, I'm glad we could learn about
how the Supreme Court is good and.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Just well, you know, the second thing you can learn
is if if you some if you one day somehow
are like a semi minor Chicago politician, you now know how.
You now know how to launder money.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Which which does sound exciting.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Yeah, you never know, you never know.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Well, thank you for this insightful look at at at
at at nineteen seventies mystery villain Harlan Crowe, who has
a mansion full of Hitler paintings. This feels like it's
like the it's it's like the location of like a
like of like of like an Agatha Christie like book

(50:39):
or something. Let's all investigate the murder of Harlan Crowe. Spoilers.
It was Supreme Court. It was a Supreme Court justice.

Speaker 7 (51:03):
Hello, and welcome to It could happened here. I'm Andrew
of Diiti Channel andrewism.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
And Hi, this is this is Garrison. I've not been
on an Andrew episode in a while.

Speaker 7 (51:16):
Yeah, spin a minute, Spin a minute, and it's been
a meme at this point that Atra or New Zealand
is forgotten, you know, from maps, both physical and mental.
But those islands contain a rich history of activism that
deserves this spotlight.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
You know.

Speaker 7 (51:39):
Much of what I've discovered has been sounds the academic
efforts of Tayahu and I hope saying the name correctly,
but their research found formed the foundation of my exploration
of just some of the twentieth century history behind contemporary
Maori struggles for auto and me on the islands. The

(52:04):
story of Mari oppression begins not long after the arrival
of European settlers in the late eighteenth century. The Treaty
of Waitangi, signed in eighteen forty between the British Crown
and Mari chiefs, was meant to protect Maori rights and
ensure a peaceful co existence. However, as a bilingual text,
it kind of sucked at being bilingual because some of

(52:26):
the words in the English treaty did not translate directly
into the written Maori language of the time, and to
the Mari text is not an exact translation of the
English text, particuarly in relation to the meaning of having
and seden sovereignty. In other words, the full implications of
what they were signing was not fully understood. The concept

(52:47):
of private land ownership as the British understood it clashed
with Maori communal land practices, which led to a significant
land loss for Maria communities. The New Zealand government implemented
policies and laws that systematically favored European settlers, and throughout
the latter half of the nineteenth century, Mari lost control
of much of the land they had owned, sometimes through

(53:09):
legitimate sale, but often by way of unfaired land deals,
settlers occupying land that had not been sold, or through
outright confiscation in the aftermath of the New Zealand Wars
and New Zealand Wars, where they also as the Land
Wars or Mari Wars, were a series of conflicts that
took place in Auti Aura between the indigenous married people
and the British government and its colonial forces. These wars

(53:31):
banned from the early eighteen forties to the late eighteen seventies,
and the underlying cause was that very stroubled for land
and resources as European settlers were arriving in increasing numbers
and more and more dispute ceteris and over land ownership
and the interpretation of the Treaty of Watangi. The wars
were fought on multiple fronts involving different married tribes and regions.

(53:55):
Conflicts included the Northern War, the Tehrank, the Taranaki Wars,
the Wakaito War, and the Tauranga Campaign, and these were
also characterized by a combination of gorilla warfare, fortifications, and
conventional military tactics.

Speaker 8 (54:08):
The results, as with pretty much.

Speaker 7 (54:11):
All wars, was the disruption of well in this case
specifically traditional Mari social structures and economic systems, and the
results and hardship for those Mari communities and so as
the nineteen and twentieth century progressed, Mari oppression also manifest
in the suppression of cultural practices and languages by the government.

(54:33):
As a government aimed to assimilate Mari into European culture,
because of course, to them, European culture is considered superior.
Married children were often forced into English speaking schools where
their own language and customs were discouraged, and that also
led to decline the use in transmission of the Mari
language and the loss of cultural identity for many Maria individuals.

(54:54):
This I think can be characterized as a cultural genocide. Moreover,
discriminatory pract justices were prevalent in various areas and putting
an employment, in housing, and in political representation, married people
faced significant barriers and discrimination when seeking employment or housing opportunities.
They were also underrepresented in political institutions, which limits to

(55:17):
their ability to advocate for the rights and influence decision
making processes. Now, the seeds of contemporary married activism were
sowing in the sixties and seventies. Struggles were taking place
basically from the point of first contact, but Mari activism
as we understand it.

Speaker 8 (55:34):
Today really launched with a new fervor.

Speaker 7 (55:39):
In the sixties and seventies. The late sixties and early
seventies really marked a turbulent period globally because there was
an upsurgent class conflicts and social activism. You know, they
are the independence movements and decolonization movements happening all over
the world. It's a time when people all over were
taking a stand against injustice and fighting for their rights.

Speaker 8 (56:00):
And this wave of political and social movements.

Speaker 7 (56:03):
As soon as the New Left had a profound impact
on the Islands as well in New Zealand as in elsewhere,
student activism was really taken shape across the world. Students
who were protesting against the Vietnam War in the US,
they were advocating for black liberation, and then they were
all social movements gave momentum, like the women's liberation movement,

(56:24):
the anti racism movement, the environmentalism movements, and the game
that's been rights movements. They were all sparking around the
same time. So the New Left and autai rower was
shaped by these international developments. The late nineteen sixties when
it's a surge in student activism and the emergencyverior social
movements again environmentalism, women's liberation, anti racism, et cetera. And

(56:45):
so Mari protest groups were really picking up on those movements,
and those movements would shape the mindsets and the actions
of Mari protest groups during that period. They were taking
the analysis and the understanding of racism and inequalities faced
by MARI in a broader context, and so they will
aligning themselves with class struggle as well and were to

(57:08):
progressify due to the left at large. So this point
in time, the Maori struggle, it was characterized as largely leftist.
That is something that will change later on as the
movements become more heterogeneous, but for now it's been mostly leftist.
Even though there were some part protest groups that were

(57:29):
less left oriented and more just you know, national liberation
and focused, they still saw themselves as part of.

Speaker 8 (57:37):
This broader left movement.

Speaker 7 (57:38):
Okay, they were still actively working to incorporate these radical
intellectual traditions, particularly Marxism and feminism, into the Maori struggle.
In the late nineteen sixties, there was this very strong
collaboration taking place between Pakeha or European New Zealanders and
Pakeha antiraist groups and the emergent Maori protest movements. One

(58:03):
significant event that really brought them together was the exclusion
of Mari rugby players from the nineteen sixty All Black
Tour of South Africa by the New Zealand Rugby Football Association,
and that decision, of course sparked widespread opposition because at
the time South Africa was very much involved in the
part TI and this decision to exclude Mari rugby players

(58:25):
from the team and from that particular tour led to
many protests under this banner of no Maori, No Tour,
which focused on only in the exclusion of the Maori,
but also on the morality of engagion with the country
practicing apartheid. More collaboration would take place in the form
of the formation of the Halt All Racist Tours Group

(58:47):
also its Heart in nineteen sixty nine, which is an
umbrella organization that united a couple different voices and groups,
both Maori and Pakeha in the opposition to reduce their
discriminatory sports tours and they ARESO involved organizations like ker
which included young Mari political.

Speaker 8 (59:04):
Activists among its members, alongside.

Speaker 7 (59:06):
Pakeha political activists in organizing these panel discussions to address
the position of Mari in New Zealand society.

Speaker 8 (59:14):
And then this is going on. This also the growth
in the influence of individuals like.

Speaker 7 (59:19):
Gahria te Awaikotuku and John Abatiri began shedding more and
more light and the barriers that prevented married women specifically
from fully participated and contributed to Maori society. They were
out here criticizing the patriarchal nature to show Mari leadership,
an adivacation for the speaking rights of Mari women tran

(59:40):
inspiration from the broader, non Mari specific women's liberation movement
as well.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
So these were like other with these other movements that
were happening in New Zealand that were kind of working
together or this just like part of like a broader
trend of these movements in the sixties.

Speaker 7 (59:58):
Yes, so they were starting to collaborate. At this point
in time, both Pakeha and Mari poltical organizations were being
to form connections and spark discussions other Pakia organizations obviously
being of the leftist variety, and the Maori organizations being
primarily leftist, apparently aligned themselves with the leftists causes and

(01:00:22):
poisical ideologies.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
But from like a more like indigenous perspective and standpoint
and like goals, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
Definactly all right, got it.

Speaker 7 (01:00:33):
One particular organization, which was forming in the mid nineteen
seventies was created by Maori women within the Mario activist
organization Tamatoa, who had embraced a feminist perspective to analyze
the oppression faced by Mario and particularly and this awareness
was fueled by their experiences of frustration and anger with

(01:00:54):
the Mari land rights movement, because these women are here
and they're struggling or Mari rights as a whole, but
then also they're facing issues as women, both in the
organization and in broader society. So they're fighting to presume
the politics and culture and language of Mari society while

(01:01:15):
also seeking liberation from the oppression that they would face
in that Maria society. So it's a struggle for both
preservation and also reformation of Maori society, or rather liberation,
preservation and reformation. There was also an increase in strike
activity and general class struggle happening during the late nineteen sixties,

(01:01:36):
which had a significant impact in the political education of
many Mari workers who were fighting for better wages and
improved working conditions. Trade unions were playing a crucial role
in providing organizational base for MARI protest groups, as demonstrated
by the emergence of groups like Tehokioi and the Mari
Organization on Human Rights or MWHR, both located in Wellington

(01:01:59):
and both strongly connected to trade unions. The secretary in
fact of the MWHR, Tamapuata, was actively involved in the
Wellington Drivers Union and the New Zealand Communist Party. These
organizations were advocating for an alliance between MARI and progressive elopments.
In the working class I view, the fundamental contradiction society

(01:02:21):
is being between labor and capital, between workers and bosses
or landowners, and racism was seen as a consequence of
class inequality, and the majority of Maori being working class
were considered an impressed segment.

Speaker 8 (01:02:34):
Of the working class.

Speaker 7 (01:02:36):
Both te Pokeioi and m WHR promoted the idea of
a unified struggle across racial lines, focusing one class B
strategies as the most effective means of addressing racism and
reducing MARI inequality. If you pick an up hints of
class reductionism.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
YEP I was I was actually gonna mention that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:02:56):
Yeah, there are some hints of that in this particular approach,
and you'll see the consequences of that as we progress
a bit further through the history.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Like, could you, I mean, could you briefly explain class
reductionism in case someone is like listening and is unaware
of that concept.

Speaker 8 (01:03:14):
Sure. So, class reductionism is basically the.

Speaker 7 (01:03:17):
Idea that the exportation of label and the exportation of
the working class by the capitalist class is the fundamental,
you know, form of oppression within society, and it trumps
all other social divisions, all of the phones of oppressions
such as racism or sexism.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Yeah. Like when you mentioned like they're viewing like racism
as like a consequence of capitalism, right, That puts racism
like after capitalism. But racism has existed way before capitalism
and is manyway one of is it is one of
the main drivers of capitalism. It's not merely a consequence.
It's actually like a motivating factor.

Speaker 7 (01:03:56):
Yeah, and particularly their position that focusing on class based
strategies will be the most effective means of addressing racism. Yeah,
what I can see from a particular angle considering that
the majority of Mari will work in class at the time,
saying that the best way to alleviate their condition were
to focus on things we do to impact their class position.

(01:04:17):
That may be true, but then at the same time
you also to consider that the racism embedded within you see,
the society, you're not going to go away just as
a result of the end to that class based depression.
To be fair to the MWHR, they will also playing
an active role in reaison awareness about racism specifically you know,
in housing, in sports and employment, and in violation generally

(01:04:41):
of marrit political rights. They also had a very strong
stance on issues related to the Treaty of Waitangi, you know,
the alienation of Mari from the land and the depletion
of resources and the inability of Maori to access those resources.
Their stance, interestingly enough, was really on sort of reclaiming

(01:05:05):
the Treaty of Waitangi as a potential foundation for harmonious
and bicultural country with the conditions that past injustices were
addressed and rectified. However, like I alluded to earlier, there
would be a shift as the movements would progress. The

(01:05:26):
inspirational monum behind the te ho Kioi and MHR had
begun to weigne, particularly during the lea to mid nineteen seventies,
and eventually in nineteen seventy five, the m WHR would
merge with Matekite as part of the Land Rights movement,
which marked the end of their separate existence and also

(01:05:46):
led to the rise of Brown Power. So if brown
power sounds like black power, that's because it's copy and
black power. Similar to the ideologies of black power advocated
by folks like Kwamiture and Charles B. Hammat, Brown power
centered on the complete rejection of the racist institutions and
values of New Zealand society, and the belief that the

(01:06:07):
group solidarity was essential effective collective action and negotiation. The
proponents of brown power urged Maori people to unite to
recognize their shared history and the faster sent of.

Speaker 8 (01:06:19):
Solidarity and community.

Speaker 7 (01:06:21):
Significant emphasis was placed on the goal of Marie's self determination,
which of all, the ability for Maria to define their
own objectives and to establish their own distinct organizations and institutions.
So this is like at this point, brown power, much
like black power, is the opposite of just assimilation or

(01:06:42):
adjustment or cohabitation with existing structures. It is a movement
that desired complete autonomy from those systems, from those structures,
an assertion of the freedom of married people to exist
and not have their existence in pots to port. The
organization Tamatoa initially drew inspiration from the revolutionary faction of

(01:07:06):
the Black pap movement in the US. However, as the
group evolved, different interests and objectives had emerged, which led
to a division within the movement. On the one side,
they were the conservative, university educated members such as Sid
and Hannah Jackson, Peter Reikis, and Donabtiri. And on the
other side they were the more militant proponents of black

(01:07:28):
or brown power like John Ohio, Paul Kottara and Tednia. Eventually, unfortunately,
the more conservative members of Tamatoa really took center stage
in the movement. Their strategies diverged from the militants in
that they sort changed through alliance with more liberal elements

(01:07:50):
within the Ruins. They believed that by implementing appropriate legal measures,
MARI could achieve prosperity. They were really advocating for like
wealtha and self help programs for our development, and in fact,
there was even some belief among them that New Zealand
capitalism coupled with the parliamentary political system could be rid

(01:08:15):
of racism, that you could extract racism from capitalism and
then everything would be hunky doory.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Interesting. Yeah, which is like this perspective, which is like
the opposite of like the class productionism that we mentioned previously.

Speaker 7 (01:08:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean this perspective is exactly
the kind of thing that you see manifest again and
again within political movements so across the world. Really the
interests of middle class, university educated individuals who are more

(01:08:50):
focused on their own individual advancement within the existing system
than an actual thorough critique of the structure and history
of that system.

Speaker 8 (01:09:00):
And so when you have when you're fueled by those.

Speaker 7 (01:09:04):
Individual interests and you're focused on how you can advance
through that system in business or in politics, whatever the
case may be, it's very easy to just you know,
be like, oh, well, how not you guys are talking
about And I'm sure, but once we get the racism
out of the way, you know, we can all succeed,
wink wink.

Speaker 8 (01:09:23):
But of course that is a rather my opic approach.

Speaker 7 (01:09:29):
And so as a result of the centrality of those individuals,
and that particular perspective in the movement, the meaning of
Brown power as a slogan kind of got watered down.
It became more ambiguous and potentially associated with either mari
capitalism or evolutionary activity. Arguably, the same thing could be
said for Black power. A lot of people, a lot

(01:09:52):
of advocates of black power ended up going in the
direction of black capitalism, talented tenth black business, black wealth,
that kind of thing. And well, we've seen consequences to that.
I mean, they are more black billionaires and millionaires than
they ever have been in human history. But that doesn't
mean racism has been dealt with. Putting aside the capitalist

(01:10:19):
oriented advocates of Brown Powell on the revolutionary side, a
new group would emerged to challenge the system. And this
group and you're going to you know, going to pick
up on a little bit of a theme here in
terms of inspiration. This group was called the Polynesian Panthers.
Interesting establishing. Yeah, they were established in June of nineteen

(01:10:42):
seventy one, and they had a membership primarily composed of
Pacific Islanders such as simmer Ones, Tongueuns, and New Ones,
and they drew obviously explicitly inspiration from the Black Panther
Party in the United States.

Speaker 8 (01:10:56):
Just a heads up in Maori, well in New Zealand,
the Mari.

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
And the Paqua, the Pakea. The Europeans are the two
primary groups right, but in New Zealand they are also
minorities of other Pacific islanders Samoans and Tonguuns and New
Ones and people from the other smaller islands within Polynesia,

(01:11:22):
within the you know area, from those various islands in
Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and.

Speaker 8 (01:11:30):
A lot of them.

Speaker 7 (01:11:33):
Had arrived as immigrants during the nineteen sixties economic boom
that had taken place in New Zealand. The founders of
the Polynesian Panther Party were actually high school students.

Speaker 8 (01:11:46):
They weren't universittudents, they weren't adults.

Speaker 7 (01:11:48):
They were mostly from working class first generation families's and
their parents were actually encouraged by the New Zealand government
to migrate as cheap labor during that economic boom. But
of course, as these things go again once even like
looking at this history and for any significant length of time,

(01:12:10):
you see certain patterns emerge. So governments are going to
invite you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, migrants come, We'll take
advantage of your label. And then the second last of
down to migrants are to blame for everything. So as
the production boom was subsiding in the mid nineteen seventies
and living conditions were deteriorating, racism and police harassment against

(01:12:30):
Pacific Islanders became even more prevalent. And by the Pacific
Islanders does technically refer to Mari as well, and the
Polynesian Panther party position is that Mari our Pacific Islanders
are into the part of the Polynesian Panthers, but speaking
specifically about the migrant Pacific Islanders and they experiencing they're

(01:12:50):
doing three, you know, just like the Maori. They're dealing
with low wages and poor living conditions and the government,
you know, being migrants, they're an even more precurious position
because government had taken a more aggressive stance towards over stayers,
people who overstayed on their work visas, which put these
first generation New Zealanders at risk of deportation to countries
that they had never visited, had never known, you know,

(01:13:14):
being forced into these precarious circumstances. A lot of young
Pacific Islanders were living in unsafe neighborhoods and a lot
of them felt compelled to join gangs or to stay
hidden at home for survival, and so the Polynation Panthers
really emerged as an alternative option, seeking to provide a
more positive path for young people in Pacific Islander communities.

(01:13:35):
The Polynesian Panthers were particularly influenced by huy Newton's policy
of Black Unity, and also echoed his distinction between revolutionary
and cultural nationalism when debating the conservative members of Nagatamatoo.
The Panthers identified their root cause of Pacific calendar oppression
within the exploitative social relations of the capitalist system, and

(01:13:57):
so they advocated for a liberation strategy that involved completely
overthrowing the capitalist system and the social relations and enabled
its existence. And so in practice this meant that the
Panthers expressed solidarity with other liberation struggles, oppressed groups and activists,
and ultimately aimed for a global revolution.

Speaker 8 (01:14:16):
They worked to.

Speaker 7 (01:14:17):
Empower the Pomation community and improve their quality of life.
They organized strikes and factories with the poor working conditions.
They protested outside substandard housing through the Tenant's Aid Brigade,
They established homework centers to help address educational struggles, and
they focused on the reason awareness of right and entitlements
among Pacific Island of families who were often unaware of.

Speaker 8 (01:14:38):
Their legal protections.

Speaker 7 (01:14:41):
The fact a lot of the Panthers focus was on
assistant individuals who were caught up in legal issues. They
distributed pamphlets that informed people of their rights, they provided
legal aid for court representation, and they organized buses for
families to visit their loved ones in prison. Fund the
Panthers support and advocacy in them the gratitude of prisoners,

(01:15:02):
who often contributed a portion of their mega earnings to
the movement. As they shed light on the daily struggles
faced by Maori and also other Pacific Islanders, ranging from
land claims, discrimination, police violence. The Panthers actively worked to
unite Maori and Pacific Islanders in a pan ethnic coalition,
which contrasted with the viewpoint in Nigard Tamato because they

(01:15:25):
were prioritizing Mari unity above everything else. It almost reminds
me of the the way that sometimes in the US
context there were some organizations, or rather there are some
to me SI of organizations that are attempting now in

(01:15:45):
the present day, to emphasize African American unity above and
before any other form of Pan Afghanism, more Black unity,
so an insiduous seeds, to attempt to distance African Americans
from the rest of the BLASBA and to ferment divisions
between African Americans and African immigrants or Caribbean immigrants. So

(01:16:10):
again the tactics the strategy is the it feels like
a canon event at this point that there will always
be These individuals or groups were trying to find ways
to chop up and to divide troops that should be
united and have a lot to gain from being united

(01:16:32):
in a common struggle. The Panthers, along with any other
Pacific Island youth, were actively working to support MARI causes,
including the nineteen seventy five Landmarch and the Bastion Point occupation.
They became one more depth at political lobbying, which became
apparent during the Dawn Rates in nineteen seventies and the

(01:16:54):
Spring Bok Tour of nineteen eighty one. T Ness was
jailed for his actions during the tour but essentially released
out charge and will Lahya, along with jne Harawira and others.
One trial for two years, only getting off the charge
after and you know they'll come your parents here. Bishop
Desmond tou Tou, well known South African activist, flew in

(01:17:18):
to be a character witness for their trial, and I
think I'm going to put a pin on it. There
covered the seeds of contemporary Maria activism, the trade union movement,
Brown Power, and the Polynesian Panthers. And in the next
episode we'll talk more about the development of the land

(01:17:38):
rights movement and the weaknesses of the Mari struggle in
the post nineteen eighties context. That's the penal for me.
I'm Andrew could follow me a youtubet at andrew'sm and
supporting patron of commns slash Saint Drew. This has been it,

(01:18:16):
hey everyone, and welcome back to it could happen here.
In my last part, I spoke a bit about the
historical context of.

Speaker 8 (01:18:23):
The Mari struggle New Zealand or aut AA.

Speaker 7 (01:18:28):
Spoke about these seeds of contemporary Mari activism, the involvement
of Mari in the trade union movements and the development
of Mari women's movements, as well as the development of
the Brown Power slogan and the split between the movements
more radical and more conservative coalitions, with the former eventually

(01:18:51):
going on to as inspired by the Black Panther parts
in the US, formed the Polynesian Panthers. For those on
where this as it could happen here, I am Andrew
of the channel Andrism, and I'm joined.

Speaker 3 (01:19:06):
By Garrison is also on this zoom call as we discuss.

Speaker 8 (01:19:12):
The Maori land rights movement now.

Speaker 7 (01:19:16):
The struggle against Mario oppression racism led to a division
within the movement regarding whether the existing political structures could
bring about a real change or for complete overthrow of
the system was necessary. The failure to address land alienation
through official channels created a sense of pessimism about the
government's commitments to Mari rights. The Mari land rights movement

(01:19:39):
emerged from nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy eight, bringing
together diverse range of activists the sort of alliances with
workers both Mari and Paquale, viewing them as natural allies
in the fight against oppression. The common enemy was seen
as the racist and capitalist state. The occupation of Bastion
Point and subsequent viction from Bastian Point intensified the direct

(01:20:03):
conflict that the movements were happened with the state. It
garnered their public support and also the involvement from the
Paquea left. The Auckland Trades Council placed a quote unquote
green band on the area which went refusing to allow
work to commence on the planned subdivision, and a north
shore contractor even donated six trucks, including two Bitjumin tankers

(01:20:29):
to help with a planned blockade. The occupation at Bassian
Point was followed by arrests at the Ragland golf Course,
and many of those arrested were representatives of various activist groups.
The land rights movement and the struggle against Racism radicalized
a group of Mari women who were already part of

(01:20:51):
Nagatamatoa to go on to form the Capital B Capital
W Capital Black Women's Movement. In the early nineteen eighties,
the Waitangi Action Committee married People's Liberation Movement to our
Ta and the Black Women's Movement emerged as prominent Mari
political activist groups, primarily based in Auckland, New Zealand. They

(01:21:14):
continued the protest tradition of Nagata Matoa with annual protests
to the Watangi Day celebrations, and they even came up
with the idea to call it the Cheaty of White
Tangi instead of the Treaty of White Tanki very clearfl
and they also called for a boycott of the celebrations.
Not initially, Marie activists had collaborated with certain Pakeha anti

(01:21:37):
racist groups, but that association was weakened after divisions emerged
during the anti Springbok tour protests in nineteen eighty one, which,
as you may remember from the previous episode, was a
protest against the national rugby team's participation in a tour
that included apartheid South Africa. The perception was that Alisa

(01:21:57):
mang Luri that many Pakeha had failed to recognize the
connection between aparthide in South Africa and colonialism and racism
in New Zealand, and so the bonds between those two
movements would beginning to weaken. Add On top of that
a prolonged economic crisis that was taking place in New
Zealand during the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties as a result
of course of the inherent tendencies of capitalism. The government

(01:22:21):
had to grapple with the crisis of political legitimacy and
of economic management, and that of course fueled further.

Speaker 8 (01:22:30):
Ethnic and gender equalities, further social unrest.

Speaker 7 (01:22:32):
And worstening economic conditions and increases in unemployment.

Speaker 8 (01:22:37):
The upsoar should take place.

Speaker 7 (01:22:39):
During our time in Mari protest really highlighted the marginalized
position that Mario were dealing with. In New Zealand, society
and studies ended up confirming their disproportionately poor educational outcomes,
high unemployment rates, low incomes health issues, high imprisonment rates,
low rates of home ownership, and dependence on the state.

(01:22:59):
While some ARIA activists that sought strategies to challenge the
system and addressees inequalities, others ended up pursuing struggles that
posed little threat to the state and fail to address
the courses of economic and social crisis inherent to capitalism
and the initial focus of Marie culture nationalism was on
secure and Marie studies and language programs in the educational system. However,

(01:23:23):
the move on eventually shifted its emphasis towards this rediscovering
Maori history and culture more broadly, and along the way,
there was less emphasis on putting together a robust political
movement and robust strategies for broader social change, and while
Failiar movements had a very clear focus on left wing politics.

(01:23:45):
It's also around this time that we see a shift
towards a broader range of politics, including right wing. One
of the most important books in the Maria Actress movement
at the time was Donna our Seria's Maori Sovereignty, published
in nineteen eighty four, and that book was really less
of a critique of right wing racist politics and more
of a critique of left social movements, which, according to Auritiri,

(01:24:06):
was committed to a status coo characterized by white supremacy
and Marie subordination. And she was calling everybody else she
was called Pakeha activists, whether they be feminist, trade unionists,
socialists or otherwise. She called them all out as ben
committed to the status quo of white supremacy and Marie'sbbord nation.
Around this time there was also a growing sense that

(01:24:29):
pake has society was intrinsically based in competition, exploitation and
material success, as opposed to Maori society and Maori values,
which culturally was more communal, more collaborative, and more focused
on the wellness of the whole. And so the solution

(01:24:52):
was seen as really emphasizing cultural consciousness, but the emphasis
and cultural consciousness Aluin often led Mary away from political
activism and towards purely cultural writer list pursuits. In nineteen
eighty four, the Fourth Labor Government was elected and it

(01:25:13):
sort of addressed the rise in Mari protests by enhancing
the status of Mari culture specifically and incorporating Mari representation
and practices within state institution shots. This approach is known
as by culturalism, and it extended the jurisdiction of the
White Tanki Tribunal and incorporated Maori personnel and cultural symbolism

(01:25:33):
into government institutions.

Speaker 8 (01:25:36):
For those who made a missed up.

Speaker 7 (01:25:37):
The White Tanky Tribunal was basically institutions set up to
deal with specific cases of violations of the White Tangi Treaty,
and so by extending jurisdiction with White Tanki Tribunal by
incorporating more Maori into positions of government and of power,
this gave this illusion of a partnership and ended up

(01:25:58):
satisfying some of the mariad for self determination. But at
the same time and again echoes to other movements around
the world. You see that the government seeds a certain
ground but it does so so it doesn't lose other fights.
It pretends to lose certain battles so that it can

(01:26:18):
win the war right because in conceding to more reformist
demands of the movement, it allowed them to marginalize and
to disempower the movements more radical demands, and it allowed
them to put forward this pr face of doing a
good thing for the Maria community while not actually challenging

(01:26:42):
the underlying social relations of racist and capitalist society. Basically,
the state's adoption of ethnic rhetoric and corporation of Mari
elites into state institutions save to appease a decent portion
of Mari protests while maintaining the status scope. Now, after
the Labor government had introduced the Treaty of waitang Gi

(01:27:03):
Amendment Act, which expanded the powers of the White Tangi
Tribunal in nineteen eighty five, the White Tangi Tribunal actually
had very little power when it came to enforcing its recommendations.
So it would hear out these cases of land theft,
It would hear out, you know, these Maori individuals or
groups would invested a lot of time and energy and

(01:27:26):
resources into their land claim cases. The tribunal would find
them correct. It's like, oh, yeah, they did steal from you.
You probably should get that land back. But the only
thing is we can really help you. The tribunal, which
was set up to help with these cases, didn't actually
have the power to enforce its recommendations, to actually enforce
the settlements. It came to it was toothless to really

(01:27:47):
end up being a waste of energy. And at the
same time, the Labor government was doing some economic restructuring
and to reduce government expenditure and implement an economic plan
to restore profitability, which included like deregulation, privatization, dismountling with
the welfare state. Again echoes this is newliberalism one o

(01:28:08):
one Thatcher regan all of u because the claims that
were made to the wait Tangia Tribunal and the recommendations
made by the tribunal posed obstacles to that sale of
state owned enterprises and that further restruction the economy towards
more new liberal ends. There was a growing scent within
the government that this was quote unquote special treatment for

(01:28:32):
Mari and the political costs associated with the tribunal was
just causing too much headache for the government. And so
by nineteen eighty nine, just four years after they introduced
that act, under the immense pressure of you know, these
smart people getting in the way of their ability to

(01:28:54):
new liberalize, the Labor government ended up downplaying the significance
of a treaty policy. And while that's going on, the
government has co opting key individuals in the Mari protest
movement through various negotiations and consultations. More and more of
this quote unquote Mari elite was being brought into the
fold of the state. Came in privileged positions and wealth,

(01:29:17):
and so they became insulated from the grassroots Marie struggle.
The following government, not the Labor government, but the national
government also sort to restore profitable investment in the New
Zealand economy and to address some of the uncertainty created
by the treaty claims, and so they went to the

(01:29:39):
Mari elite, did their little negotiations and they decided to
settle certain claims to the fisheries around New Zealand. That
became known as the Sea Lord's Deal, which caused a
lot of headache and anger and divisions in the Mari
community because of the lack of transparency and democracy in
these negotiations. The it was made between the New Zealand

(01:30:01):
government and a group of Mari corporate entities known as
the Sea Loord Group in nineteen ninety two, and under
this agreement, the Sea Lord Group, which was said to
represent Mari interests, acquired a fifty percent steak in Sea Loord,
which is a major seafood company New Zealand. The other
fifty percent remained with the Japanese fishing company Nisui, And

(01:30:24):
so the deal was seeing as a resolution like, yeah,
we put ourselves in the back. The Maori were making
these claims over fishery resources. So we met up with
to Marie businessmen and gave them a fifty percent steak
in Sea Lord.

Speaker 8 (01:30:38):
Problem is solved right now.

Speaker 7 (01:30:40):
You know they will get some commercial benefits from the
fishing industry, but no more than fifty percent.

Speaker 8 (01:30:45):
Though, of course, as a result, a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:30:48):
Of Maori were arguing that no, this is not adeically
address ur crevances. The settlement is not sufficient. And on
top of that, why are you're going to make an
these backrooms deals and not consult in the community as
a whole. The positions or the opinions of one does
that represent all of us? And it's actually kind of

(01:31:09):
similar to what was happening during the initial stages of
the land theft that was taking place during New Zealand's colonization,
because when I mentioned in the first part that some
of the land were so legitimately, what I mean by
that is certain Mari individuals saw an opportunity to profit

(01:31:31):
by screwing over everybody else in their community. So they
would claim, oh, yeah, this is my land, completely disregarding
the fact that this is coming on land that it
has been for generations. This is my land, So I
will sell it to you. You give me the money,
and so I, you know, profit and a real sort
of suck. So as kind of seeing that mirrored in

(01:31:55):
this nineties context, and then at this time with the
divisions in the community over the decisions made by these
Mari elites, they were even further divisions trained by some
negotiations that were all taking place for the government's one
billion dollar fiscal Envelope, which is an attempt to evoke
a full and final settlement of all remaining treaty of

(01:32:17):
Oitangi claims. Basically the government was saying here here have
some money, get out of the way, shut up bas
it so called reparations right, and so there was another
upsurge of Mari protests and you know, more of people
were frustrated and there was traited desperation because there was

(01:32:39):
really a lack of options for resolve and the crievances
that they were dealing with. Some of the protests were
continuing the struggle with the land right to move onto
the nineteen seventies, but others were challenging the decision making power.

Speaker 8 (01:32:50):
Of the EV bodies.

Speaker 7 (01:32:52):
EV bodies, by the way, are the largest representative bodies
of Mari in Altai Aura. They're like mega tribes, and
so there was an increasing frustration among Samrii of you know,
these representative bodies inability to accurately represent them. And another
key component of this division was the fact that the

(01:33:14):
more middle class elements or middle class professional elements of
the Maori population were enjoying an expansion opportunities and were
growing in wealth and prestige, but they were leaving behind
the working class Maori population, which was still struggling in
the same way they had been for decades. The policies

(01:33:35):
of both the Labor government and the national government disproportionately
impacted working class Mari communities, and the movement there was
supposed to represent them had lost sight of them and
their interests. There was a lack of intermovement solidarity, of
pushing for fundamental social change instead of these individual changes,

(01:33:58):
and there was a sense of crumblence internal cohesion. Some
marioctivists such as te Ahu who, like I said in
My Free Spot, I drew primarily from their work when
researching this particular history, and they were very critical of

(01:34:19):
that historical period and particularly of the personalization of the
conflict for liberation. And so their position was that by
focusing on individual relationships and prejudices, rather than challenging the
systemic structures perpetuating opression, it left the struggle to be
fought on this individual level, while the larger system was
left unaddressed. And particularly because you know, in the eighties

(01:34:41):
there was a shift away from class struggle as a
central component of the Maori struggle. Middle class and wealthy
Mari interests were dominating the conversation and their interests were
exclusively in cultural nationalism, with no real room for working
class struggle. For class struggle in any form and then

(01:35:04):
part of that whole strategy and that will focus on
exclusively cultural nationalism would attempt to throw everybody under this one.
Under this broad brush, right, the wealthy new liberal Mari
politicians would be in the same vein as the impoverished
and unemployed working class Mari despite their clear differences and

(01:35:26):
access to economic and political power. And so this notion
of Maria as a homogeneous group with identical experiences and
political aspirations, disregarding the diversity within Marie society and the
conflicting political strategies within Marie communities, would really weaken the

(01:35:47):
cohesion of the struggle as a whole. And I don't
know how else to say this except there needs to
be a recognition of racial struggle, gender struggle with class struggle,
of struggles for ability and disability justice, like inter sexuality, intersectionality.

(01:36:16):
It's really so simple. Cultural nationalism has its place, but
it's very insufficient and very easily cooptible. That's why the
New African anarchist Ashanti Austan says that we must go
beyond nationalism, even.

Speaker 8 (01:36:34):
If we don't go without it.

Speaker 7 (01:36:36):
That's why I've made a whole video on the subject
of nationalism or more specifically national liberation for oppressed groups.
You see, it's a tool that oppressed people can use
in their struggle, but it's not enough, and focusing too
much on it leaves a lot of exploitable gaps in

(01:36:56):
one's analysis. It's again, it's a tool, not an end
in itself. It does little to change material realities. Tea
who in their piece had said that while and I'm
quoting here, while culture and identity remain absolutely essential to
Mari social wellbion, it does not automatically follow that cultural

(01:37:16):
identity alone should provide the organizational basis for the fight
against racism and Marie disadvantage. Because identities are blurred and multiple,
any fight against Mario oppression must be based upon building
the strongest possible liberation movement by uniting different oppressed groups
into a common struggle. This is essential because true liberation
for Mari will not occur without a fundamental transformation of

(01:37:39):
capitless society and the creation of a classless society in
which there is real women's liberation, gay and lesbian liberation,
and freedom from racism endquote. Historical evidence has shown that
the political movements based solely on the identity of the
participants could be very diverse. Let's just say on the

(01:38:00):
spectrum there are reactionary and their revolutionary segments of pretty
much every national liberation movement, from Black Power to Free Palestine.
Because when the focus is on cultural or national liberation,

(01:38:22):
there is a lot of room to adopt a variety
of approaches and a variety of political aims. I so
it's a lot of room for middle class interests to
dominate as they have a lot more time and resources
to contribute and take over the rhetoric and the messaging
of the causes. Another example that we see in the
feminist movement, which in a lot of ways diverge from

(01:38:46):
the struggle of working class women towards the more niche
interests of you know, the girl bosses who we're facing
genuine hills in their climate, the corporate ladder.

Speaker 8 (01:39:02):
But in focusing on those instances.

Speaker 7 (01:39:05):
There was a loss of the needs of working class
women and the precurious position that when as a whole
are still in mari. Political activism has always been diverse.
You know, there's a wide range of strategies, campaigns and participants.
There's not a unified movement, but there's a heterogenous force,

(01:39:26):
with both radical and conservative elements, each pursuing different methods
to achieve the objectives. There's no unanimous agreement on the
vision of Tino Rangatira tanga, which is the Marii term
for Mari self determination. Tino Rangatira tangle can be associated
with Mari capitalism, electoral power, cultural nationalism, or revolutionary activity.

(01:39:54):
In the past, some artists had believe that fundamental transformation
the system was necessary for liberation, and so they rejective reformism.
But the landscape has changed.

Speaker 9 (01:40:04):
Well.

Speaker 7 (01:40:05):
Some still advocate for constitutional changes, elector apolitics to address
systemic issues. Some influential travel executives and corporate warriors are
even going as fast to argue that Mari can only
achieve true self determination and liberation through unrestricted free market capitalism.
The objectives that Tino Rangatira tangle promoted by different groups

(01:40:27):
are contradictory because there is no homogeneity in the Mari struggle.
But I hope that the takeaway here has been clear,
and that is the need for a clear intersectional approach
to revolution in our struggle against racist, sexist, capitalist, et

(01:40:50):
cetera society. The Mari movement is still ongoing. And though
the focus of these two parts has been pmarily on
the current rather has been primarily on the struggle of
the sixties, seventies, eighties, and early nineties.

Speaker 8 (01:41:10):
Mari liberation has not been found.

Speaker 7 (01:41:13):
Tino Ranga, t your tanga has not been achieved and
there's still a long way to go.

Speaker 8 (01:41:19):
That's it for me again.

Speaker 7 (01:41:21):
I'm Andrew from the TUE channel Anturism. You can find
me there and you could support on patre dot com
slash saying true this has been it could happen here?

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
Welcome back to It could Happen Here? A podcast about
things falling apart and about what we like to call
the crumbleson here. And the key aspect of the crumbles
is the ongoing resurgence of fascist political parties and politicians
in the United States and elsewhere. And today we're going

(01:42:11):
to be talking about about one of said fascists, a
fella you might have heard of named Ron DeSantis. I'm
putting Ron, Yeah, Pudding Ron old dasanct demonious. Now, Garrison,
you've got a banger of an episode written out here.
I'm looking at your script right now. It's beautiful. Right
before we get into it, I do want to give
an update on a past subject if it could happen

(01:42:33):
here Lord Miles Rutledge for those of you who may
not have caught that episode. Lord Miles is a British
Man who went to Afghanistan to hang out and got
caught up in the Taliban's you know, victory in that war,
and then turned himself into a danger travel influencer, visiting

(01:42:53):
in dangerous place, going to war zones, going to Ukraine
and like making it about him. He went back to
Afghanistan because it really was better for his social media
following than any of the other places he went, bragged
about breaking laws, including faking his visa, and then got
arrested and has been radio silent for about the last
five months now. A lot of people have wondered is

(01:43:16):
Lord Miles dead that he liked die in custody in
the Taliban are trying to keep it a secret, but
worry no longer. Friends today his account posted this is
a friend of Lord Miles to give an update. Four
months in Taliban custody. He's treated very well, has several servants,
loads of movies on his laptop, goes on picnics and
has tea with the Taliban cabinet government. He still loves Afghanistan.

(01:43:40):
And then there's a photo of him giving the thumbs up.
Dou't so he's not dead, guys. He's in a nice
Taliban farm upstate. Gets he gets to run all he wants,
you know, wide open fields. He's super happy. It's really funny.

(01:44:01):
One of his All of these people are so fucking brained, poised,
brain poisoned, but like a big part of Miles, he
was like trying to also be kind of a right
wing influencer. He was doing this like anti woke. The
Taliban is awesome and like actually kind of good guys
because they they don't like believe in the woke agenda.
And one of his friends, after this message got posted,
like messaged his account be like, hey, Taliban, if you're

(01:44:24):
the guys that have like captured him, we really want
him back. I'll pay a ransom. I'm like, I know
this is probably just a misunderstanding because you guys are
on our side on the anti woke war.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
Sure, yeah, I'm sure Taliban cares about the woke culture
war facing America.

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
That's what they're that's what's they're all about. That shit.
Good work guys.

Speaker 3 (01:44:43):
I'm sure they tuned in to shot out of the
every night Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:44:47):
So funny, so funny. Anyway, that dude Debt is dead
as hell. Look, I'm not saying that to gloat. I'm
just saying that that motherfucker is dead as hell. I
don't care what a prick he's dead.

Speaker 6 (01:45:00):
Many, many people have died in Afghanistan and it's been
a tragedy, this one less.

Speaker 1 (01:45:04):
So anyway, Garrison, please continue.

Speaker 3 (01:45:07):
All right, So we're gonna return to this podcast being
your number one source for slightly homo erotic fascist memes
once again.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
That was how we pitched it to iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (01:45:22):
Explaining the erotic fascist themes.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
A lot of people talking about fascists these days, but
none of them are homo erotic.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
So on the on the last day of Pride Month,
Desantas's campaign shared a ad that's been described as bizarre
and mystifying, where he pedals a whole bunch of pretty
pretty extreme like homophobia. He attacks Trump for for for
previous statements that Trump has made regarding LGBTQ rights, and

(01:45:56):
then the video kind of transitions and we see basically
a version of what we're gonna call fash wave, and
I'm gonna explain all of these terms here in this episode,
but we're seeing kind of a resurgence of a political
meme style that was popular years ago. It's kind of
laid dormant the past year or so for reasons that

(01:46:17):
we will very soon discuss. But a whole bunch of
both conservatives and liberals are kind of not really sure
how to take this ad shared by the Desanta's campaign
and are ill equipped to understand what the fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):
Is going on.

Speaker 3 (01:46:34):
But luckily I am equipped because I spent my teen
years in telegram chats watching this meme style develop.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
So proud of you, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:45):
Yeah, thanks in the telegram trenches once again.

Speaker 1 (01:46:52):
All right, So.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):
The first image of Dysantis, when it flashes to this
other kind of weird more like oar editing style, has
him with like these uh these blue or red like
glowing eyes. And this is gonna be something that is
going to be a recurring trend that we're gonna be
talking about in this episode, these like these like glowing
laser eye type things. So we're gonna start with this

(01:47:15):
because this is actually one of the one of the
most common traits of fash wave, and we've seen this
be adopted by multiple politicians in the past, and most
people probably like don't know what the fuck this is,
like is this like a Superman thing? Like what what
the fuck is this? So laser eye memes started in
the early twenty tens, originally referencing video games like Mass
Effect two and other like sci fi and superhero media

(01:47:38):
people like Superman or anyone with like laser eyes. Is
also like a a like a cultural touchstone for this
sort of thing. The laser eyes usually represent like a
figure growing in power, So when when someone has laser
eyes and a meme, it's like they are they are
They're gaining power, the gaining security. The The original caption
for the early laser eye memes was assuming direct Control,

(01:48:02):
which was also just a video game reference. So again
I would have someone with like glowing glowing laser eyes
and text that says like assuming control or assuming direct control.
So this was this was popping off in like the
early twenty tens, Around the same time, synth wave and
vapor wave were gaining traction as both like nostalgic musical

(01:48:23):
microgenres and a mimetic visual style featuring neon glitchy kind
of eighties retrocomputer aesthetics mixed with traditional Greco Roman sculpture
for a variety of reasons which we'll touch on, but
vapor wave had influences from video games, cyberpunk anime, and
it was it was relatively popular as a microgenre in

(01:48:45):
like the twenty teens, and throughout the twenty teens, both
the laser eye memes were steadily growing in popularity on
places like Reddit and four chun alongside the rise of
a vapor wave and its kind of surrealist, nostalgia laden
aesthetics focused on highlighting the comfort and unfulfilled promises of
the Internet of yester year, and this like nostalgic surrealist

(01:49:10):
aesthetic was prime bait for easy co option into the
reactionary meme variant dubbed fash wave, which soon became kind
of the de facto esthetic of the then burgeoning alt right.
Glowing laser eyes on various fascistic political figures became a
staple of fash wave during the rise of the alt
right around twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. I actually kind

(01:49:33):
of like vapor wave. I think it's maybe a bit
overplayed now and It certainly is frustrating how much it
was kind of taken over by reactionaries, because actual vapor
wave is almost actually like anti capitalistic in a few ways.
It's kind of it's kind of criticizing the disposableness of

(01:49:54):
like modern consumerist culture using like forgotten eighties technology and
like software that kind of stuff. So I'm looking at
two of my little vapor wave images here in the script,
and it does some of some of the little like
ways that the images are broken up makes it look
kind of like like old Internet pop up ads back

(01:50:15):
when they had like clearly defined borders and x'es and
weren't just like overtaking your entire screen and you had
no way to close them. But you know what does
kind of overtake your entire viewing experience via an ad.
It's it's podcast advertising because it's going to go straight
into your ears, and there's no way to x out.
You have to you have to suffer through the ad

(01:50:35):
unless you unless you figured out that you can press
a button that makes you go forward thirty seconds. Anyway, anyway,
here is here is our beloved, our beloved sponsors who
fund such vital research that I that I'm doing for
this episode anyway, the rise of the alt right to
this is kind of where where fash wave is both
like getting the name fash wave and also you know,

(01:50:57):
it's becoming a larger problem because there's more Nazis wing around.
So after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
the Altright went through a sort of split between the
more Trumpian adherents, who made up large parts of the
then dubbed all to Light, a term we don't really
use it very much anymore, and then this kind of
other section which had more of the accelerationist neo Nazis

(01:51:22):
who were starting to congregate on the messaging app Telegram.
And then we have groups kind of like the Proud
Boys that are like in between. They're kind of Trumpian,
they're also also like more fascy, but they're not like
really full skull mask. Usually some would adopt that esthetic
later on, but that's kind of due to this cultic
milieu that's starting to develop on Telegram. So a fash

(01:51:42):
wave largely followed the self proclaimed fascists, so it too
became the central visual style of the of the burgeoning
network of militant accelerationist telegram channels, which would eventually be
dubbed terror Gram Terror as in terrorist. And this was
combining with a whole bunch of weird factors around twenty
eighteen twenty nineteen, including the Boogloo Boys, which Robert has

(01:52:04):
written about at length before It's and it was also
influenced by the Iron March forums and like the skull
Mask network with groups like Adam Waffen and the Bass,
they were all the.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
Iron March forms are like the Boomers of Nazi Internet people,
not quite the Boomers, maybe the gen X.

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
The jed X, Yeah, very very much, the X.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
Yeah, the forum generation. There's a generation of people. Yeah,
before social media is it's Nazi something awful, right, It's
We're not quite into the chans yet.

Speaker 3 (01:52:36):
Yeah. And after Iron March kind of collapsed, a whole
bunch of these weird accelerationists, we're starting to all congregate
on telegram. And this is where we see kind of
fash wave develop into a much more overt apocalyptic and
a dooomer focus. The the hontology inspired and nostalgic reflections
on the false promises of techno capitalism that were already

(01:52:58):
present in vaporwave were ripe ground for the addition of
like return to tradition style reactionary fascism.

Speaker 1 (01:53:05):
Do you explain porntology if people are familiar.

Speaker 3 (01:53:08):
Yeah, Uh, Hontology is a I mean it started as
a term which then developed into a musical genre. But
it's it's similar to vapor wave. It's about kind of
looking back on the unfulfilled promises of the past that
we were like promised as a culture that then never
came to place. But these promises still kind of follow us.
They kind of like haunt us. If hontology is a

(01:53:29):
big reason why liminal spaces got popular because of early
nineties and uh and two thousands, like aesthetics of like
big office buildings that are now left empty.

Speaker 1 (01:53:39):
Office buildings, like schools, like particularly like the you know,
like the doors to a school or whatever. You get
a lot of like photos of that. Yeah, so stuff
that makes people feel a longing for a past that
was never really real.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
Yeah, and like like a longing for like this sense
of home and the sense of like a safe home
which you maybe that you never actually really had.

Speaker 8 (01:54:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:54:02):
Yeah, because she hated being in school, you just have forgot. Yeah,
you've kind of athologized it.

Speaker 6 (01:54:07):
Like per she calls it post memory, when you re
remember things based on you know, your sort of coat standpoint.

Speaker 1 (01:54:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:54:15):
So the the sort of doom er acelerationism of this
of this kind of variant of fashwave or this like
evolution of fash wave was was also accompanied by by
groups like the Bogle of Boys who are starting to
make their memes in this in this style as well.
I have I have a few examples of fashwave here
showing to to Robert and James Sun and rads were
pretty were pretty popular. It's like the the sun wheel

(01:54:36):
version of the swastika essentially, but a lot of these
are like remember tradition embrace your race with like Nazi
figures in like this monochrome style over over like scan
lines like you would see on like a like an
old like arcade video game that has like that has
like a horizon, but you know, all like neon colors
kind of kind of like glitchy type stuff. There's there's

(01:54:59):
one Trump one here from like twenty eighteen where he
has glowing yellow eyes, also in the fashwave style. So
this was kind of the aesthetic around around twenty nineteen
here and like fashwave was definitely still common on imageboards
like four chan, eight chan, and eight kun, but the

(01:55:20):
ever pressened kind of hitler particles and poor web design
on those sites drove away most of the mega conservatives
who might try to stumble on to four chan or
to eight chan to like watch q and on stuff.
It was just it was just the site was too
hostile to them and then circled Like twenty twenty, among
waves of Twitter and Facebook suspensions, Trump supporters and high

(01:55:44):
profile far right figures started congregating on other platforms. A
few Twitter clones popped off, like Parlor and eventually Trump's
Own Truth Social but a number of mega conservatives also
ended up on Telegram, in part due to telegrams largely
off approach to moderation. So around this twenty twenty and

(01:56:04):
like just post twenty twenty time period is when Telegram
began functioning as the far right's very own cultic milieu,
a sort of like shared online space where various memes, ideologies,
conspiracy theories, and propaganda could all intermingle with each other
and spread. Now, part of this is how Telegram operates
as a platform. I'm going to quote from an article

(01:56:26):
about Telegram and the cultic milieu from logically quote. Telegram
offers features that straddle the line in between social media
and messaging app. Users can create channels which function as
one way message channels that allow someone to send a
feed of messages available to all of their subscribers. Public
channels and group chats are searchable by name, allowing anyone

(01:56:47):
to subscribe to a public channel or join a public group.
Channels and groups are uniquely connected on Telegram. When a
message is forwarded from a public channel into another channel
or group, it links back to the origin group, creating
a chain in between different channels and groups. Another common
feature is for users to advertise for channels and groups

(01:57:08):
in other channels and groups, with some users creating directories
of these channels and these big group chats that have
extremist content unquote. So this kind of interconnected nature that
allows this chain link of being able to award a message,
Like you have a Telegram channel with like three thousand
people in it and you post fash raight memes. You
can make some fash rave memes in the style of

(01:57:29):
like Trump, and then you can forward this message to
a Trump channel that has forty five thousand members in it.
They see this meme, they might like it, they click
the meme, it sends them back into your three thousand
person channel. So now they're going to getting exposed to
all of the other weird shit you have going on.
So it became a really easy way to kind of
make a rabbit hole and like a pipeline for people

(01:57:50):
to get exposed to new aesthetics, new ideologies, and especially
conspiracy theories. I think we should have an ad break
now and we will return to talk about the the
increased Trumpian focus on fash wave that happened as a
result of this kind of telegram cross proliferation.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
That's right, everybody, We're going to break for ads from
our sponsors, who also sponsor Lord Myles Rutledge. So you know,
let's hear it up for these ads from the Taliban. Ah,
we're back. And I don't know about you guys, but
Taliban's making a lot of sense these days to me.

Speaker 2 (01:58:26):
Good.

Speaker 1 (01:58:28):
Yeah, I like their war on wokeness.

Speaker 3 (01:58:32):
Yeah, speaking speaking speaking of a war on wokeness.

Speaker 1 (01:58:39):
Leads us right back to oleron well, meatball ron.

Speaker 3 (01:58:45):
So to understand what the fuck is going on in
that Rhonda Santis video. This is probably one of the
most important, important little tidbits of knowledge that some people
may be overlooking. Is this brief fever dream known as
Dark Mega. Oh god, yeah, good to us.

Speaker 1 (01:59:02):
No, I know, I'm just glad. Yeah, I'm glad. This
one didn't work out the way they'd hope.

Speaker 3 (01:59:05):
No, it did not work out, so the opposite of
the way they hoped. Yeah. So, because of this kind
of Telegram cross proliferation, the far rights memetic aesthetic went
through a sort of coagulation after twenty twenty, which eventually
resulted in the upsetting, albeit short lived Dark Mega, also
known as Ultra Mega, both of which are horrible names.

Speaker 6 (01:59:29):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I remember Ultra Mega being big and
like people putting their Twitter handles along with like the eagle.

Speaker 8 (01:59:36):
And a flag.

Speaker 1 (01:59:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:59:38):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:59:39):
The Dark Mega trend started around a year after the
January sixth capital attack and steadily grew in popularity for
the next few months during the lead up to the
twenty twenty two midterm elections. After two years of right
wing influencers and politicians operating in Telegram's cultic milieu, the
influence of militant acceleration is propaganda is immediately apparent in

(02:00:01):
this new stylistic iteration, which is basically downstream from fash wave.
Dark Mega promoted a form of dystopian inspired overt authoritarianism
with the assumed direct control laser eyes front and center,
and for emphasizing militaristic domestic connotations. Dimlylit images were usually

(02:00:22):
edited in red or blue monochrome. Dramatic images of Trump
are fairly prominent, as is the presence of weapons and
the occasional Nazi symbol. I have two examples of fashwave
here for for for the UH for the gallery. James,
what do you what do you.

Speaker 2 (02:00:38):
Think of this.

Speaker 1 (02:00:40):
Of these?

Speaker 3 (02:00:41):
Of these two pictures.

Speaker 6 (02:00:43):
First of all, they look like somebody used like a
MS paint, Like it's kind of that. That's the tear
of work when none of these are well edited. No,
they're not horror, Yeah it is.

Speaker 1 (02:00:57):
It is one of them, the one on the left.
He looks like it's like like the eighth movie in
like a Jason or Freddy type series right where it's
like straight to DVD, Like they're moving that shit right
into the red box. And they just paid a guy
forty five dollars to mock up a cover.

Speaker 3 (02:01:15):
Like he is it is it is it is. It
is a to B and direct to digital make I do.

Speaker 6 (02:01:23):
He's like it looks like it's like like being developed
in a dock room. It's like red and black.

Speaker 1 (02:01:27):
It's like all red and black. His eyes are glowing blue.

Speaker 3 (02:01:30):
He's a skit.

Speaker 1 (02:01:31):
It appears to be like a long a springfield long
rifle or something like that. I couldn't tell you the
exact type, but that does I am now thinking about, Like, so,
if you've ever loaded black powder, you tend to like
have you know, like a wrapped you know, cartridge that's
got the ball and the powder and you rip it
in half in your mouth and you pour the powder
and then you like expect the anyway, Trump is such

(02:01:52):
a germophobe. I just desperately want to see him try
to like manage a black powder rifle. I would, I
would really deeply enjoy that. It's as good as a
Tucker Carlson shooting. They like the sec fire rifle was
a very funny moment. Yeah, the guys who pretend to
light guns so.

Speaker 3 (02:02:09):
And then the the other more horror inspired one has
has texted the bottom that says it's time to just
kill them with again with triumph and red lacer eyes.

Speaker 7 (02:02:21):
I was.

Speaker 3 (02:02:22):
I was upset to find out that the original person,
like the original like Nazi who coined the term dark Mega,
which which which kind of started this trend. Uh followed
me on Twitter, which wasn't wasn't great? Oh no, oh no,
yeah yeah, so that was that was a fun thing
I discovered over the course of researching this episode. So

(02:02:45):
one pro Trump and neo Nazi described dark Mega as such,
quote dark Mega is the aesthetic demand that Trump embrace
a harder and more focused approach in the role only
he can fill. He was too kind hearted, too forgiving
Dark Mega demands he learned from his mistakes. Another dark
Mega propelled it just described uh described the intentionality behind

(02:03:08):
the movement of being quote if you want to win,
if you don't want to repeat the past, you have
to get mean. You have to almost embrace the villain
role that they're bringing you with. So that's fun. But uh,
but like dark Mega's ambitions were to be more than
just a meme, but instead kind of be the first

(02:03:29):
real attempt at a coherent post at right aesthetic that
was being pushed by mainstream political actors Uh. And included
in this push was kind of a pressuring back toward
militant posturing after the failed pseudo coup on January sixth,
because in those first few months after JA six, everyone
was like, oh, you know, we probably shouldn't be doing

(02:03:51):
super overt like violent propaganda if we're if we're like
on the right. And then over over time, and I
think Dark Mega was part of this, was the right
realizing that maybe they should just keep going and like
go back to that much more kind of like Milton
posturing that they were doing beforehand. I have, I've I
have a few other a few other dark Dark Mega

(02:04:14):
images here one with Trump and a skull mask and
UH and pit vipers holding a Bible in front of
a pit vipers.

Speaker 1 (02:04:23):
Pit Vipers are a type of like ski sunglasses that
have a very distinctive look. There's nothing wrong with them.
The company is actually anti Nazi.

Speaker 8 (02:04:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:04:32):
Never people post their pit vipers pictures. They will like
donate the price of that pair of pit vipers to
you know, the ad L or something. But they've become
a signifier for Nazis for reasons that we probably don't
need to explain it.

Speaker 3 (02:04:46):
No, but you can read an article by me and
Robert and Bellingcatter about white boys.

Speaker 2 (02:04:50):
Want you really need that right now if you really
want to hear more about pit vipers.

Speaker 1 (02:04:58):
Yeah, we can explain this ship at length.

Speaker 3 (02:05:00):
Row and then and then I have these two other
images of Trump in front of these American flags, and
one of them's edited in a glitchy style with him
holding a It looks like some type like machine gun
or something. Tommy, Yeah, it might be.

Speaker 1 (02:05:14):
It can't really tast too small to see. No, No,
that's got to be some sort of like either ar
nine millimeter carbine with a suppressor on. It is what
it looks like to me.

Speaker 6 (02:05:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's generic. He's
gonna yeah, it's kind of Wolfenstein style almost that one.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):
Yeah, all of these guys are obsessed with Wolfenstein. Yes,
oh yeah, very good, James, you figured it out.

Speaker 1 (02:05:38):
There's a longer conversation to be had because Wolfenstein the
most recent game, not a pro Nazi game, anti Nazi,
but because you know, it's it's a game where like
the Nazis won the war and you're like fighting the YadA, YadA, YadA,
because they're trying to do like future Nazi troopers, and
it's like a video game where you want to make
the bad guys look cool, same thing as like making
the demons look cool and doom and.

Speaker 3 (02:05:58):
That you know, very very selectively edited clips of Wolfenstein
cut scenes and music appears in fashwave propaganda fairly often.
The Pierce in schizowave propaganda, which is kind of another
downstream iteration of vash wave, which I am not going
to cover on this episode. And I guess the one

(02:06:19):
other meme style we have here is red and dark
blue monochrome with Trump with these blue laser eyes. And
this is kind of the this is like the main
dark mega aesthetic here is this one that's just like
red with with with with like a dark dark blue
as like the accent and then these little laser eye things.

(02:06:41):
So dark megas had the goal of serving as both
a rebrand and an attempt to reunify the various disparate
factions of the online right into using attention grabbing authoritarian
propaganda to push Trump and his supporters even further into
the extreme while holding on the legitimacy that is lacking

(02:07:02):
in the contemporary sketchiness of like the Proud Boy groups
or like Patriot Front, which especially after J six, the
Proud Boys legitimacy took a big hit, and all of
these fucking Dark Mega guys think that Patriot Front's like
a fed op. So it's it's it's it's it's a
it's a way to kind of like push a new
version of the alt right that still relies on the

(02:07:23):
legitimacy of Trump. To quote the Institute for Strategic Dialogue quote,
the secondary aim of Dark Mega is to launder more
extreme narratives and aesthetics into the mainstream Trumpist movement, an
attempt to introduce mainstream conservatives to more extreme parts of
the right through melding Trump memes with these different aesthetics. So,

(02:07:44):
like we kind of mentioned before, the previous attempt at
this was the White Boy Summer trend from twenty twenty one,
which I and Robert have already wrote about before. And
White Boy Summer was influenced by very similar kind of
fash wave telegram asthetics, but it was really successful in
leaking through to one or two Republican politicians, namely Paul Gosar.

Speaker 1 (02:08:06):
Paul Gosar, you can look him up if you want
He's one of the Republicans who had a degree of
mainstream legitimacy and was also super tight with like just
straight up we want to set off Bomb's place as Nazis. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:08:20):
But Dark Mega, on the other hand, was picked up
by a large handful of conservative politicians as well as
like the usual suspects made up of right wing influencers
and content creators. Among the Dark Mega proponents were Republican
candidates like Tim Swain, a former strategist now Blazed TV
employee Logan Hall, Andrew McCarthy, far right propagandist Jack Sobiek

(02:08:44):
now former Congressman Madison Cawthorne, and former White House lawyer
Andrew Closter, and was even boosted by the father of accelerationism,
Nick Land, was a brief Dark Mega proponent himself. Famously,
Marjorie Taylor Green joined in on the action in May

(02:09:06):
of twenty twenty two under the hashtag ultra Mega, but
with the same like red monochrome images with the big
glowing eyes. Probably the most upsetting bit of Dark Mega
lore was a post that Madison Cawthorne wrote on Instagram.
He had this post full of like here's the list

(02:09:31):
of America First Conservatives. Look how small the list actually
is the people who are truly America First. And attached
to this little image of this list, he wrote an
extremely unhinged Dark Mega post. This was also in May
of twenty twenty two. Quote the time for genteel politics
as usual has come to an end. It's time for

(02:09:51):
the rise of the new Right. It's time for Dark
Mega to truly take command. We have an enemy to defeat,
but we will will never be able to defeat them
until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our
own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming unquote.
So this rhetoric did not secure Vess and cawthorne continued

(02:10:16):
employment in the House of Representatives.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
Yeah, it turns out most people in national politics are
not entirely telegram brained. They cannot just had their skulls
melted by that shit.

Speaker 3 (02:10:33):
So yeah to quote, so yeah to quote. An analysis
from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology quote, Dark
Mega is an embodiment of the revenge president burst from
the far rights urge to reclaim what they crave and
have lost power. Proponents seek to punish their political enemies

(02:10:55):
without attending to political correctness. Dark Mega is an appeal
to accept the tr true desires of the most dissident
Trump supporters and mainstream their feelings through the medium of memes,
which played a crucial role in twenty sixteen election. So
dark Mega peaked as an online search topic back in
May of twenty twenty two, and it may have reached

(02:11:17):
like peak popularity in actual like spread of memes as
early as March of twenty twenty two. I think I
think it peaked in May because there was a few
news articles about it, so more kind of normies were
like googling what it was. But it act the actual
peak was only in March of twenty twenty two. It
only lasted like three months. You can you can still

(02:11:37):
find some dark Mega bubbling under the surface, but only
by like random Nazis and like that doesn't that doesn't
that that's not signifying any kind of like political movement.
And the reason why dark Mega kind of stopped being
effective in between between March and May of twenty twenty
two is that there was there was there was something

(02:12:00):
that happened that summer uh and and that spring that
effectively killed dark Mega while also dealing a pretty big
body blow to fast Wave in general, and we will
learn more about about Brandon's special secret operation in part two.
That's right, this is going to be a surprise two
parter because because I wrote get too many words.

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
Yeah, yeah, because this took an hour and a half
to record of dense, dense information. So now now it's
two days. You guys get to enjoy this for two days.

Speaker 3 (02:12:48):
Yeah. I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well.
Let's go Brandon.

Speaker 8 (02:12:54):
Let's go Brandon.

Speaker 3 (02:12:55):
I agree, let's uh, let's talk about let's go Brandon.
The iintained the only good thing Biden has done so far.

Speaker 1 (02:13:05):
It's pretty funny. It's very funny. So this is like
also the sort of attitude that is actually necessary to
like win the culture war side of these things. It's
not like defending yourself. And it's not when they do
something like put out this meme, like being like, oh
my god, this is so dangerous and like semi responsible,

(02:13:27):
no funk with him right back, you know, like boh,
put some glowing eyes on Joe Biden and make it
looks like he plans to shoot somebody. You know, it's funny.

Speaker 3 (02:13:38):
So let's talk about the rise of Dark Brandon.

Speaker 1 (02:13:42):
And also the other thing that they're kind of deterning
and reposting with here is like taking the uh what
is it, taking the fucking Brandon memes and let's go
Brandon and going uh being like all right, yeah, fuck it,
call him Brandon. Doesn't hurt us, like, yeah, we'll be branded.

Speaker 6 (02:14:02):
But Biden did that himself when someone asked him about it,
he didn't know what it meant, and he was like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:14:07):
Let's go Brandon.

Speaker 3 (02:14:08):
I actually I actually already had that clip inserted of
above this conversation James, good job, good job, We're on
the same page.

Speaker 1 (02:14:15):
Yeah, which is disturbing given the content.

Speaker 3 (02:14:18):
So Dark Brandon combines two different pro Trump memes while
trying to subvert them both pretty successfully. I would say,
I'm assuming everyone listening to this is familiar with the
fuck Joe Biden, let's go Brandon kind of evolution, So
I'm just gonna skip right past that because the other
half of Dark Brandon, I think is a little bit

(02:14:38):
more interesting. So Dark Brandon began with chronically online leftists
doing a satirical riff on Dark Mega, replacing the figure
of Trump with an alter ego of Biden and having
this like mirror universe president appear as some kind of
like neoliberal socialist demagogue, because when you replace the fascist

(02:15:00):
figure with some largely ineffectual liberal given like militaristic and
socialist or anti fascist catchphrases, but like otherwise leave the
rest of the authoritarian, ascetic stylings of fascism, the result
is pretty funny because it's Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 (02:15:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:15:20):
So again, I think I've read a lot of stuff
on this, and there's like a two two to like
academic reports on on Dark Brandon.

Speaker 10 (02:15:29):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:15:30):
Some people believe that Dark Brandon started as like a
right wing meme. They are they are mistaken. They are
misreading irony poisoned leftists as being like like alt right memesters.
Common common mistake, but also yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:15:46):
You would because she you wouldn't want to be stuck
in a car with any of them right now.

Speaker 3 (02:15:54):
But Dark Brandon evolved into satirically imagining what if Joe
Biden aiden was actually the militant communist dictator many on
the right made him out to be, with all of
the authoritarian impulses of Dark Mega turned on its head
and ironically targeted against Trumpian conservatives, Dark Brandon can be
seen hunting down a Trump voters for execution, or sitting

(02:16:17):
on a throne of air fifteen's with yellow laser eyes,
gonna I'm gonna play. I'm gonna play one video for
us to watch here.

Speaker 1 (02:16:30):
Voted for president.

Speaker 3 (02:16:31):
There's no way out you Joe Biden's America.

Speaker 1 (02:16:38):
He's putting on a skullman.

Speaker 3 (02:16:44):
Tie me to a missile and fire me into the suburbs.

Speaker 1 (02:16:47):
I'm ready, genuinely quite amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:16:54):
It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny stuff. I do like
the way that like Dark Brandon ed its work is
there's there's there's this one smile that Biden does that
looks very like evil and mischievous that if you edit it,
if you like edit in after you says something ridiculous,
it's pretty funny. So here we have a meme about

(02:17:16):
Joe Biden publicly executing Patriot Front members after they got
arrested in Idaho. And probably my favorite Dark branded meme
is a picture of Biden with sunglasses and a list
of names. Has shinzo albe neutralized, gas prices neutralized, COVID

(02:17:36):
nineteen neutralized, Antifa fully armed? Roe v Wade too coming soon,
Global Homo coming soon, Communism coming soon, which is pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (02:17:52):
It's good.

Speaker 3 (02:17:53):
So one of the reasons that Dark Brandon was able
to flourish where Dark Mega stagnated is that the Biden
verse is both based on and never lost its sense
of irony, imagining the feeble, bumbling Biden as some like
hard lined, ruthlessly effective tyrant is in it is like
in innately humorous premise from like from the very beginning.

(02:18:15):
The ironic nature also made a Dark Brandon all but
impervious from attack by conservative commentators on the right, because like,
how can you attack this vibe like it's it's so
ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like,
look how dangerous the dark brighton memes, eyes glo, what
like come.

Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
On, come on?

Speaker 3 (02:18:34):
Guess. So Dark Brandon grew in popularity as Biden's Inflation
Reduction Act also known as the IRA Past Last Summer
and memes out of that too, and it also it
also kind of spread Afternows broke that an American drone
strike killed the then leader of al Qaeda on July

(02:18:57):
thirty first, twenty twenty two. Sound this time period is
when Dark Brandon broke containment. So Dark Brandon kind of
started in March of twenty twenty two, and by early
August it has now left the irony poisoned leftist like
Twitter sphere and has now broken out and is freely

(02:19:17):
swimming around the liberal populace. So come August, Dark Brandon
no longer belonged to leftist ship posters. Liberals started to
catch on and make Dark Brandon memes of their own,
albeit much more cringey boomer versions, And although most of
these liberals probably didn't really know what was quite being satirized,

(02:19:40):
that didn't stop them from trying to emulate this cooler,
more edgy version of Biden with glowing eyes. So here
I have two liberal memes here, with someone reacting to
the news that there was no civilian casualties in the
drone strike at Kilty al Kainda leader having Biden shooting

(02:20:01):
laser eyes down from orbit, and then also him eating
ice cream in front of an explosion, which is horrible,
like a not very good meme, but the fact that
there was bad, like very very bad, low quality dark
branded memes is actually very important for later.

Speaker 1 (02:20:16):
Yes, yeah, yes, no, it's good that this happened.

Speaker 11 (02:20:19):
Yes, the Internet has taken notice, and now there's a
new meme out there known as dark Brandon, which shows
a badass Biden with super villain laser beam eye malls.

Speaker 3 (02:20:34):
The liberalization of dark Brandon was met with sadness from
the original memesters that pioneered the overtly ironic dictatorial Brandon
who commanded battalions of Antifa. The ongoing liberal co option
of dark Brandon was thought to signal the death of
the meme, although a completely unintended positive side effect of

(02:20:55):
this recuperation seems to be taking hold. We'll have more
that later. I have I have a four other pretty
bad dark Brandon memes.

Speaker 1 (02:21:04):
Here go on with corn ROAs is fully fully sent me.

Speaker 3 (02:21:10):
It's not good. There's there's two of these are like
photoshop movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopps on Tomeo's.

Speaker 1 (02:21:19):
Ship photoshops again this is MS paint.

Speaker 3 (02:21:26):
Yeah, and then a poster for the Dark Brandon rises
with the tagline that the malarchy will end. Not not
very good memes. So it wasn't just overly online democrats
on social media who were spreading these dark branded memes.
Soon enough, White House staff joined in to celebrate the

(02:21:49):
passing of the kind of Neutered Inflation Reduction Act. On
August seventh, the White House Digital Director shared a high
contrast photo of Biden grinning with red laser eyes pointed
towards the camera that quickly went viral. Senator Chris Murphy
of Connecticut posted a dark branded meme which was a
drawing with yellow glowing eyes later that same day, and

(02:22:12):
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee posted the same
picture as well, and the Deputy White House Press Secretary
Andrew Bates posted a whole ass dark branded meme, writing
dark Brandon is crushing it with a horribly cringing photo
abided with red laser eyes and a white text that reads,

(02:22:32):
your malarkey has been going on for long enough.

Speaker 1 (02:22:35):
Kiddo, Like, oh my god, oh my god. Now you
know what, Garrison, we were just celebrating this, but I
think I am now a fascist.

Speaker 3 (02:22:44):
It's done it. The White House Staff Secretary joined in
by responding to a tweet saying laser's shooting out of
Joe Biden's eyes is an official statement of administration policy
by saying that is indeed an official physician what anyway?

Speaker 1 (02:23:02):
So God damn it.

Speaker 3 (02:23:04):
Many people, myself included, suspected that Dark Branded would suffer
through kind of a regular meme cycle and die off
pretty soon once it hit this like peak popularity, But
somehow Brandon showed a surprising amount of resiliency, partially due
to liberals being a few months behind and they're being
really nothing else for liberals to meme about, because this

(02:23:27):
was like one of the this time in Biden's presidency
was the first time the Democrats actually felt like they
had something to celebrate, and having this kind of overly
outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit
of like agit prop that liberals have like done since
Trump went out of office, and it's also like the
first effective edgeprop they've ever done period.

Speaker 2 (02:23:48):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:23:49):
Dark Brandon showed one other surprising trait very soon, the
ability to influence actual Joe Biden. On September first, Biden
gave a prime time bombastic speech addressed to the nation
and spoke about the threats to American democracy from extremist
mega forces. Joe Biden stood outside of Independence Haul in Philadelphia,

(02:24:11):
lit with high contrast red lights and uniformed marines on
either side. Far right politicians and influencers reacted with shakunhorror,
calling the speech demagogic, outrageous, and divisive, while liberals and
even some leftists praised the speech for accurately addressing the
threat posed by far right actors in this country. But

(02:24:31):
both of those on the right end left definitely noticed
the frank brandonness of the entire thing, especially with this
being less than a month after the White House's own
Brandon posting. The red lights, the background marines, and the
impassioned and oddly well delivered appeal to fight for the
soul of the country from the Trumpian mega extremist political

(02:24:52):
faction set on dismantling democracy played very well. The whole
thing felt very Dark brandon Esque, and the takeaway many
people had is that they had somehow memed Dark Brandon
into existence. Do you know who else you don't want
to fuck with? It's the products and services that support

(02:25:17):
this vital, academic level research into Dark Brandon. Truly truly
unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome, here's
fucking ads. All right, we are back. Let's talk even
more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I wrote three
thousand over three thousand words on this all right, So,

(02:25:39):
like many natural predators, Dark Brandon went through a period
of hibernation, laying dormant through most of the winter, that is,
until a huge resurgence in April of this year. This
past April, Biden launched his new twenty twenty four re
election campaign website, which not only featured a Dark Brandon

(02:26:00):
error four oh four page reading your Lost Jack, Let's
get you back on the rails, which is kind of
funny but not really funny because it's doing the whole
like Biden and track reference And it's kind of funny
because it's like a four oh four page, So it's
like it's Dark Brandon telling you to get back to
the regular website because you're now on like the the

(02:26:22):
part of the website that doesn't exist, because like Dark
Brandon doesn't exist. It's not I'm overthinking this. I'm doing
way too high concept. It's like Beaudry art analysis of this.
This joke is not that good. But beyond the Dark
Brandon error four oh four page, there is also official
Dark Brandon merchandise. Biden's Dark Line features dark blue monochrome

(02:26:47):
images of Biden or Brandon staring forward with red laser
eyes and a mischievous grin. The design comes on baseball hats,
t shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags. Product descriptions are
as follows. Best worn while vanquishing malarkey. Protect yourself from
malarkey and the sun with this dark cap, dark Brandon,

(02:27:09):
dark Rose, dark dark Brandon, dark roast tea drinkers, Welcome,
and and finally, the worst one malarkey is tot's over
after we re elect President Biden.

Speaker 1 (02:27:24):
This is the This is like the Internet equivalent or
the me I don't know what the I feel the
same way I feel in like old Yeller when you're like,
well the dog's got rabies, you got to shoot it,
Like there's no other ethical way.

Speaker 6 (02:27:36):
To deal with This is like, but it's it hurts.
It's like when someone's dad turns up to the skate park.
This is what's happening here.

Speaker 1 (02:27:46):
Yeah, you've got to shoot them otherwise they'll give everyone rabies. Right,
that's what you meant, James, Yeah, Yeah, it's time for
their life to end.

Speaker 6 (02:27:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:27:52):
This is also likely fascinating because like the fact that
that Biden Joe Biden made assume direct control role, laser
eye Dark merch before Trump did is wild and now
Trump won't really ever be able to like capitalize on
this sort of thing because Biden just beat him to
the punch on this and and like in a way

(02:28:13):
that's like not actually promoting fascism, which effectively, this, this
whole thing effectively neutralized Trump's ability to cash in on
Dark Mega and the fashwave aesthetic, which is just a
pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for fash wave.

Speaker 1 (02:28:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:28:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28:31):
The latest appearance of Dark The latest appearance of Dark
Brandon was during the White House Correspondence dinner this past April,
when Biden handed off the podium to comedian Roy Wood Junior.

Speaker 1 (02:28:44):
Roy the partum is yours.

Speaker 6 (02:28:48):
I'm gonna be fine with your jokes, but I'm not
sure about Dark Brandon.

Speaker 1 (02:28:57):
The limbs were so happy to have a meme, a meme.
They got one, they got one, and they were just
it's one of those things again, like like a little
kid having to shoot his dog. I just I couldn't.
You can't take it away from them. They were just
so happy.

Speaker 3 (02:29:16):
I have I do have three. I selected the only
three Dark branded memes I like. Here for the very end,
one is just Biden in a beard and an eye patch.
It says it's over. Jack one has Biden with a
like a very like horrifyingly edited smile with laser eyes
malarkey detected and it looks.

Speaker 1 (02:29:36):
Like the monster in a fucking like I don't I
don't know exactly what from, but like demon teeth, like
nightmare teeth.

Speaker 3 (02:29:44):
The leftists are so much better at making these memes
than anyone else. And my favorite is this is a
satirical rift on the this post has been fact checked
by real American patriots. Trump Beam instead having an image
of Dark Branded with laser eyes and saying this post
was fact checked by real Dark branded acolytes. So this

(02:30:06):
is like fun and good, right like this, this is fine,
But there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this
whole Dark branden sega, because even as far back as
August of twenty twenty two, myself, some research colleagues, and
other journalists that I have like no connection to all
started to kind of observe the same thing. The liberal

(02:30:26):
recuperation of the fashwave style via Dark Brandon seemed to
seriously damage fash Wave's legibility in right wing circles. The
normy use of dark Brandon had already appeared to have
ceased all of the dark megaposting because there was this
influx of like Minion's Facebook Tier Brandon memes, which offered

(02:30:49):
very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social
disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser eye dark Mega
memes due to their fear of being associated, even just
aethically associated with the liberal boomer Biden memes, which which
now like represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread
nature of Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen

(02:31:13):
the Patrick batemanification of characters like Homelander from The Boys,
who was at the time becoming one of the far
right's favorite memeable characters. Yeah, there are few things that
these online nazi weirdos fear more than their special toys
being played with by normies, because almost immediately they're like
esoteric plaything loses all appeal once the normies like start

(02:31:36):
using it.

Speaker 1 (02:31:37):
Like it's a signifier that you're part of the club,
and if yeah, fucking the DNC is posting these memes,
you're not part of the club anymore. Nope, Like, there's
no it's not a club you want to be in.
I guess yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31:48):
So I still maintain that one of the best things
Biden has done since taking office is utterly destroying fashwave
by complete accident. I postulated this back in twenty twenty two,
and it still pretty much holds true now. And it's
not just my opinion either. Others have noticed that Brandon's
disturbance in the far right to meme ecosystem has really

(02:32:11):
taken effect. I'm going to quote Ali brielind in Mother
Jones quote. The fashwave athetic has already seen its best
days and wasn't as pervasive on the far right Internet
as it used to be. But by associating himself with
a meme style that had partially descended from it, Biden
and his earnest staff and followers have probably made it
impossible for neo nazi edge lords to make fashwave posts

(02:32:34):
for at least a bit. By enlisting fascist meme offshoots,
the administration unlocked a code. Earnest Democrats like Biden may
have a hard time being cool on the Internet, but
they can kill hip stuff that bad people like that
is extremely powerful. They made fashwave a bit cringe. Do

(02:32:55):
you know what else is a bit Crene Robert that
breaks Garrison, the fact that we have to have advertising
on my on my fash wave Biden Dark Dark Gear
Brandon episode.

Speaker 1 (02:33:08):
Garrison, the only, the only purpose of studying or learning
anything is to provide space for advertisements. That's not why
we do at all.

Speaker 9 (02:33:16):
No more.

Speaker 3 (02:33:19):
Actually, do you know if you subscribe to the new
Apple Premium, you can have no more molarki because there
won't be any ads. So there you go. All right,
we are back and we are finally finally going to
talk about ron Ron DeSantis and and his his kind
of fash wave misfire. So this happened about a year

(02:33:42):
after Dark Brandon had taken control, so there was at
least a like a good a good year's worth of
buffer where fash wave was unacceptable and just not really
even attempted because of how cringe it is at this point.
But that did not stop the Dysantis war Room Twitter
account from trying to do it. And then we will

(02:34:04):
see what the right's reaction to this was. So, like
I said at the beginning of the beginning of this episode,
on the last day of Pride Month, DeSantis's campaign shared
a video on their Dasanta's war Room account attacking Trump
for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people
and statements that he said about like allowing transgender women

(02:34:26):
to compete in his Miss Universe pageants and allowing Caitlin
Jenner to use the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower.
This video opens with footage of Trump at the twenty
sixteen RNC saying that he would quote do everything in
my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens unquote. Now, this
is pretty gross that the video opens this way because

(02:34:47):
very importantly, this was just a month after the Pulse
nightclub attack in DeSantis's home state of Florida, which killed
forty nine people. That's why Trump was saying this is
because there was just a massive massacre in the state
of Florida. And the fact that Dysantis is opening up
this Trump like homophobic attack ad by including this little

(02:35:10):
bit is pretty is pretty gross. So this video then
kind of transitions fifteen seconds in, accompanied by a dark
synthetic beat, to a black and white image of Dysantis
standing in front of an American flag with red glowing
eyes shooting out little laser lightning things before a wave

(02:35:31):
of pulsating images of Spartans and the Muscular Chad and
clips of American Psycho, the Wolf of Wall Street and
Peaky Blinders. Overlaid on top of these flashing images are
headlines and short clips about Dysantis's extreme anti LGBTQ policies
that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of anything

(02:35:51):
more plurifying.

Speaker 8 (02:35:52):
It really has shut down the track, just.

Speaker 6 (02:35:56):
Produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally
threatened trans existence.

Speaker 3 (02:36:02):
Congratulations, Vision accomplished, you win, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:36:08):
So first off, Garrison, it had been so long since
I looked at a bit shoot video so weeks. So
first off, fuck you for that.

Speaker 3 (02:36:18):
I had to watch a lot of bit chute videos
for this episode.

Speaker 1 (02:36:21):
I yeah, I know. Yeah. So that's I mean, absolutely
impenetrable for like anyone who is not out of their mind, right, Yeah,
like it is it's this Yeah, sorry, James.

Speaker 6 (02:36:34):
It feels like his fourteen year old nephew who goes
by like Groyperchad fourteen eighty eight unfortune.

Speaker 1 (02:36:39):
I'll describe what's happening as like, you know, first you
get obviously the beginning, which I think is clear just
from the audio, these clips of like Trump saying stuff
that's not it's pro gay, you know, from back in
twenty sixteen. And then it switches to like footage of
like news articles about DeSantis, you know, doing horrible things
to queer people in Florida, and like clips of pete

(02:37:02):
leftists reacting to how bad it is, and like clips
of Ron de Santis like walking around or you know,
art of him photoshopped with like sunglasses.

Speaker 3 (02:37:11):
Or sunglasses super muscular American Psycho stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:37:15):
Yeah, clips of American Psycho clips from like like I
think it was actually from the movie Troy, Yes it is, yeah,
just to like make him look yeah, it's yes, it's
just sad. It's just sad.

Speaker 3 (02:37:29):
For example, So what one little snippet of is is
uh one of these little one of these little like
headlines is intercut between a chat meme and a clip
from American Psycho, and it shows dysantas in wearing sunglasses
walking around with the headline Dysantas signs the most extreme

(02:37:50):
slate of anti trans laws and modern history with this
like pulsating music. So yeah, the whole, the whole second
half of the video is just like that. The video
seems to receive an almost universally negative reaction.

Speaker 1 (02:38:03):
Yeah, it's so bad. It's famously dog shit like, just
instant failure, upsetting both Trump supporters and gay Republicans and
confusing those who are actually sympathetic to dissantish because due to.

Speaker 3 (02:38:23):
The bizarre imagery in the video, I'm going to read
some of the comments under the DISSANTUS war Room post.
Nick Adams Alpha male replied, why is the campaign sharing
a video comparing him to Patrick Bateman? Isn't Bateman a
serial killer?

Speaker 6 (02:38:45):
I think I'm sure that the whole Nick Adams thing
is an extended bit, like it.

Speaker 1 (02:38:51):
Is literally impossible to tell.

Speaker 6 (02:38:53):
Jesse Well, yeah, masculinity is an extended Matthew Weaver says
it is disgusting that this ad is linked, apparently to
the Dasanta's campaign.

Speaker 3 (02:39:01):
It makes me question my support for Dysantis.

Speaker 1 (02:39:08):
You love to see it.

Speaker 3 (02:39:10):
A George Santosa staffer said, quote, this ad makes the
meatball look a gay.

Speaker 5 (02:39:17):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (02:39:18):
Now I don't wanna sorry. I think it's I think
it's here.

Speaker 3 (02:39:22):
I think that's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (02:39:24):
But if you if you ever type out the sentence
this ad makes the meatball look gay. You can't, you
can't be in America anymore. You have to go somewhere else.
Like that's banishment, right, like they used to do in
the old times, Like here's a backpack, off, you go off,
you go can't, You're not allowed here anymore.

Speaker 3 (02:39:46):
Lisa Loves Liberty replied what An American First commentator with
over one hundred and fifty thousand followers, asked, what's the
message that the Dysantis team wants people to take away
from this ad that associates Ron with flawed criminal individuals?
Is it that Rad is a bootlegging, psycho killer who

(02:40:07):
commits financial crimes and has an achilles heel? Because that's
what it's saying.

Speaker 1 (02:40:14):
God, that's so funny.

Speaker 3 (02:40:16):
And finally, far right activist, former congressional staffer and aspiring
conspiracy theory documentary film producer Daniel Bostik said, quote, this
is the gayest ad in the history of political advertising.

Speaker 6 (02:40:28):
So that was that was.

Speaker 3 (02:40:32):
Roughly the response is to to to Dessentdi's posting this ad.

Speaker 1 (02:40:40):
All of this is extremely fun. I'm having a good time.

Speaker 2 (02:40:47):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:40:47):
The the the only the only figure that I that
I found who was in support of this like ad,
like like the like. The only like slightly even slightly
noble person who seems to enjoy this ad thought it
was a good choice was Ian Miles Chong. Everyone else
on the right this was a horrible decision.

Speaker 1 (02:41:07):
Again, if you're not as if you're not a terminally
online leftist like us, if you're one of like the
nice sweet liberals who who liked the Joe Brandon memes
the dark branded memes. Ian Miles Chong is a Malaysian
senior citizen who has become a far right youth influencer
through a series of decisions that like you don't you

(02:41:30):
don't need this to be explained, but he's one of
the people that Elon Musk cares about the most in
this world.

Speaker 6 (02:41:36):
You could google a picture of Ian Mileschung and understand
everything you need to from that picture.

Speaker 2 (02:41:41):
I think.

Speaker 3 (02:41:43):
Uh So, Fox News called the Dissentist Campaign's use of
the ad mystifying and an unforced error. Now I've also
gonna do that's so good. I'm also I also gonna
play a short clip from Miami, a Florida's local CBS affiliate.

Speaker 9 (02:42:03):
By the way, the video that you're just about to
see has over twenty four million views.

Speaker 12 (02:42:09):
I will do everything in my house to protect our
lg TGQ citizens.

Speaker 9 (02:42:18):
The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied
by dark images, loud music, mixed images of Governor with shirtless,
muscular men, including actor Brad Pitt, A prominent group that
represents LGBTQ conservatives also when on Twitter criticizing the video,
saying Florida Governor can't tell the difference between common sense

(02:42:40):
gaze and the radical left. Gaze labeled the scentist positions
as dangerous and politically stupid.

Speaker 3 (02:42:48):
So I think that clip's also just a good reminder
of the level of specialized political analysis that you're getting
by listening to this show versus what you get on
local news. This local news could never explain this, this campaign.

Speaker 1 (02:43:04):
At no if you if you were to hand this
over to a team at MSNBC, they would die, they
would be.

Speaker 3 (02:43:12):
That's the next cliff I have. The next cliff I
have is them handing this over to MSNBC.

Speaker 1 (02:43:26):
This is one of my favorite days at work we've had.

Speaker 3 (02:43:31):
First of all, the DeSantis campaign sent out a tweet
later that night saying, quote opposing the federal recognition of
Pride Month isn't homophobic. We wouldn't support a month to
celebrate straight people for sexual orientation. It's unnecessary, divisive and pandering.
It's very very cool. So here is here is here's

(02:43:53):
the cliff of of MSNBC reacting to this ad. It's it's, it's,
it's gonna be. It's gonna be, It's gonna be. It's
gonna be pretty good.

Speaker 13 (02:44:03):
Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is defending a controversial and frankly bizarre
campaign video that attacks for President Donald Trump's views on
l g b t Q rights. Donnie Deutsch a man, extraordinary?

Speaker 3 (02:44:17):
What am I?

Speaker 1 (02:44:17):
What am I looking at?

Speaker 3 (02:44:18):
The extraordinaire is is stuffed? Okay, I be doing this
for a long while.

Speaker 1 (02:44:22):
What what am I doing here?

Speaker 12 (02:44:24):
And the answer is, well, first of all, he's DeSantis
is flailing and he's trying to continually move to the
right of Trump.

Speaker 8 (02:44:30):
But this lgbt Q thing is just do you think
this is moving voters?

Speaker 1 (02:44:36):
Are you?

Speaker 3 (02:44:36):
And to pay Trump as a patron of this group?

Speaker 11 (02:44:40):
Is you know?

Speaker 12 (02:44:41):
As an ad guy, There's one thing I learned over
yours is people aren't stupid. Okay, you just and I
don't know the voter that's going to see that and go,
you know what, Trump, I'm going you're my guy.

Speaker 2 (02:44:52):
And it's just DeSantis is such a dark, dark, dark character.

Speaker 12 (02:44:57):
I've talked a lot about on the show, how at
the end of the day a candidate Trump, even though
you know, we eviscerate him, and there is a likability
if you're a Trump.

Speaker 8 (02:45:06):
Guy about him.

Speaker 12 (02:45:06):
He's entertaining, He's a loungeacked.

Speaker 8 (02:45:08):
This guy is just the dark, the prince darkness.

Speaker 12 (02:45:12):
And that is one of the darkest, most bizarre, twisted,
deviant ads I've ever seen.

Speaker 13 (02:45:18):
Well, he was defending it yesterday. Bipartisan backlash to the video,
by the way, many people calling it homophobic, Governor DeSantis
standing by the ad, calling it fair game.

Speaker 10 (02:45:31):
I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump as really being
a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where
he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants,
I think that's totally fair game because he's now campaigning
saying the opposite that he doesn't think that you should
have men competing in women's things like athletics. And so

(02:45:52):
we've been very clear on it that we believe in
protecting the rights of our girls and the rights of
women athletes to be able to participate paid with fairness
and with integrity.

Speaker 13 (02:46:03):
In response to those remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson said, quote,
a desperate dysanctus campaign with a flailing candidate is in
its last throes of Relevancy's first off.

Speaker 1 (02:46:16):
Such bad analysis of that video, Yeah, I mean, if
they're completely out of the death yeah. No, No, The
point is not that he is so dark and evil.
The point is that this is incompetent and impenetrable. You
could just say that it's okay, Yeah, it's my job
to understand this ship and I don't. Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (02:46:36):
The beyond beyond, beyond descendis being the prince of darkness,
as we've only established.

Speaker 1 (02:46:42):
Yeah, why try to make him sound cool. I know
this is what he's doing.

Speaker 3 (02:46:46):
This is the thing, this is the thing they don't understand, right.
This is why this is why Dark braindon happened by
complete accident like it was. It was so effective because
there was no way for liberals to concoct us themselves.
They were there. They were only copying the stylings of
of of like ironic leftists so yeah, everyone is just
baffled by this sad saying like there's absolutely no way

(02:47:07):
of understanding what's going on here. There's there's absolutely no
like larger trends that that like maybe at play, but
obviously we we've kind of offered some insight into what's
been going on here. And in the end, DeSantis's attempt
at fash wave has been rejected by conservative America either
through it's just sheer like esoteric strangeness and also the

(02:47:30):
kind of the the whittling away at at at Fashwave's
power that the dark branded meme has been doing for
so long. There's just nothing first of all appealing about this,
which makes all that remains just incredibly just like just
like off putting.

Speaker 6 (02:47:45):
So like.

Speaker 3 (02:47:47):
What we have here from DeSantis, like in the actual video,
but besides the obvious like homophobia is a sort of
like meme soup, combining some elements of like fash wave
and some like dark Mega imagery with other imagery from
from right wing meme tropes that have also gotten popular
the past few years, like Patrick Bateman, who's who's kind

(02:48:10):
of more popular in like the Schizzo wave subgenre just
still heavily tied to fash wave. It kind of like
it glorifies the setics of mental illness to push you
towards doing like extremist violence.

Speaker 1 (02:48:22):
Yeah, and then they should say the the aesthetics of
like how a specific subculture depicts mental illness?

Speaker 3 (02:48:29):
Yes, yes, yeah, And there's there's a bunch of other
like pop culture sigma figures in this video. There's images
of the real life Chad mistaken in news coverage as
a generic body builder, but this is actually like a
very specific online meme that's like not like it's not
a niche. And there's there's also like a very specific

(02:48:52):
uh dysantist Chad Wojack in this video. So and in
the end, like this had temp kind of reviving a
soft fash wave style or you know, kind of dark
mega style for an attack ad by the Dissanda's campaign
was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans and with with

(02:49:13):
no with no other politicians co signing this. The only
other mean notable figure who applauded this was Ian Miles Chung.
No no, no one else of note thought this was
a good idea. Most dissenttas of supporters were off putted.
The only people who really like liked this were like
chronically online fascist zoomers who are either not old enough

(02:49:35):
to vote or just barely old enough to vote.

Speaker 1 (02:49:38):
Yeah they are teenage Nick Flintz fans.

Speaker 3 (02:49:43):
Yeah, like because like they're the only ones who are
like well understand what's going on. So it like becomes
a cohesive message because if the average viewer isn't turned
off by like the intense homophobia or the anti Trump angle,
the alienating editing style and online references and other and
other kind of of bizarre attributes like the the the music,

(02:50:03):
the flashing images, it either left most ordinary viewers confused
or just like turned off. And so in the end,
like I think there is there is a recurring trend here,
and that like dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win
the mid terms. Like that that was that was a

(02:50:23):
pretty pretty big defeat for them. All of all of
the work they were doing beforehand to like to like
start getting people like wiled up, get making making like
attention grabbing authoritarian memes, all of like the critical rice
theory stuff. None of that panned out in the actual elections,
and whatever DeSantis is doing sure doesn't seem to be
helping him beat Trump. The only person who who is

(02:50:47):
who is winning right at this is Dark Brandon. Dark
Brandon strikes again. He is the one that it actually
has made, has made sure that DeSantis cannot use this playbook.
Dark Brandon is is sitting on a gargoyle over top
of whatever city in Florida de Santis lives. Dark Brandon

(02:51:07):
is our watchful protector. He is he is, he is
our silent guardian.

Speaker 1 (02:51:14):
Garrison was just talking about this image of Dark Brandon
sitting on a throne above. I'm gonna say, Miami, they
lifted up their shirt to show their new Dark Brandon
chest tattoo, and wow, that must have been what was that?
Twelve hours in the chair? Gear big? What big?

Speaker 2 (02:51:30):
It was?

Speaker 3 (02:51:31):
Well, the first day was thirteen hours, the second he
was twelve hours. So good, thirteen twelve at the end.

Speaker 1 (02:51:37):
Yeah, that's good. That's good, very big. Well, you run
out of batteryo or the eyes are always going to glow?

Speaker 3 (02:51:42):
No, Actually, those are fluorescents, So I have to stand
in the sun for for like ten minutes to charge
them up and it lasts about.

Speaker 1 (02:51:49):
Like five hours.

Speaker 6 (02:51:50):
Magic Haijake love that. Yeah, I have a conspiracy theory here.
I believe that Ronda Santi's fourteen year old nephew, Groy
Bitchad fourteen eighty eight, was extreme me online so online
that his parents took away his phone and he just
lost all contact with the internet circa like early twenty
twenty two, and then run to Santa's asked him to

(02:52:11):
make an advert, and this is what happened.

Speaker 1 (02:52:13):
So the advert.

Speaker 3 (02:52:14):
So I tried tracking down who made this advert. I
messaged someone who I suspect of making it, who ignored
my message. To be fair, I messaged them on my
Julius Vola sock puppet on Telegram, and they still ignored
my message. So I I there. The video was not

(02:52:37):
created by the DeSantis team himself. It was it was
it was. It was embedded in their war room Twitter feed.
It was tracked back to this at a one time
pro Trump account called Proud Elephant, who has a corresponding
Telegram channel. So this guy Proud Elephant is, from what

(02:52:58):
I can tell, the origin point of this video. I
can't seem to find it in any earlier places. I've
tried to getting into contact with him to figure out
what his intentions were for, like if he made the
video or if he found it from somewhere. But this
is why I said, I clarified that the DeSantis team
shared this video on their official campaign account. They did

(02:53:19):
not make it themselves, which is also pretty funny because
they didn't spend any money on this thing, and it
still like was a massive shot in the face. Like
it's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need to
like embed this video made by like whatever weirdo loner
who has like final cut pro on his computer, Like
there's there's really there's really no reason, like they have

(02:53:41):
an actual ad team and for some reason they did
this instead.

Speaker 13 (02:53:45):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:53:45):
Also as a part of this research, I joined as
many Dysantis Telegram channels as I could. I scrolled through
months of posting. I scrolled through all like all three
of the official Dysantis campaign Twitter accounts. Nothing else in
their propaganda quite compares to this video. It is such
a weird outlier that makes me really wonder, like who

(02:54:09):
who both who who was operating the the DeSantis war
room to Twitter account that like hit publish on this
tweet with this with this video embedded, and like what
their relation is to the rest of like the Dysantis
like media strategy because it's just it's just it is.
It is utterly, utterly baffling.

Speaker 1 (02:54:28):
I mean, I think some of it can come back
to In twenty sixteen, kind of about a month so,
I think before the election, the Trump campaign came out
with this really weird, very four Chan inspired, sort of
like ad video for the campaign that like a lot
of Democrats, you know, made fun of, but it was

(02:54:49):
a pretty effective ad. And I you know, I wrote
about this some at the time, and I talked with
the guy who'd been doing attack ats and stuff and
was like, I don't know, I think this is a
pretty successful ad because it it feels authentic in a
way that pull up ads don't. And my guess is
that when this got presented to them, people at the
DeSantis campaign were like, well, this could be that for us, right,

(02:55:10):
this could be us leaning into something that's it's new,
but it's like real and it's representative of how kids,
young people are talking these days, and that will build
the kind of excitement and the kind of like conversation
around our campaign that can help take us to the
next level. And I think the thing that they missed
there was that Trump in sort of, you know, signposting

(02:55:32):
to that online alt right was adopting and kind of
making his own a real movement that was representative of
some things that were appealing to a lot of people.
And this is not right, Like there's been no ground
swell of people who are into this like these weird

(02:55:52):
Like the only ground swell of a lot of normies
getting into fash wave has been dark branded, Like normy
Republicans did not adopt like this kind of shit in
en Mass And I think it was a mistake, Like
it was a it was a it was a mistake
to think that like I don't know, like random like

(02:56:15):
goop heads were going to see their candidate compared to
a serial killer from a famously off putting movie and
be like this.

Speaker 3 (02:56:24):
Is a good call for us. This this is my guy. Yeah,
Like no, like not not everyone is like a seventeen
year old suicidal alt right teenager, Like that's actually not
their prime base if you want to win an election.

Speaker 1 (02:56:40):
There aren't many of you kids, Like they don't want
teenagers voting at all.

Speaker 3 (02:56:45):
Which is it's also really weird that DeSantis has been
given multiple opportunities to to pull back the ad saying
it was it was a mistake.

Speaker 2 (02:56:53):
It was not.

Speaker 3 (02:56:53):
It was not officially made by our campaign. It shouldn't
have been shared. But every time they've been given this opportunity,
they doubled down on the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:57:00):
That's his whole thing though, like never admit fault, always
pushing forward.

Speaker 3 (02:57:04):
Yeah, yes that is. That is like a staple of fascism.
But like yeah, yeah, man, well.

Speaker 1 (02:57:11):
Anyway, that's good stabbing stuff. I'm well, Garrison, this has
made my week.

Speaker 3 (02:57:16):
This has been a time to be alive. This has
been far too much of my week has been putting
together these like three thousand, four thousand words.

Speaker 1 (02:57:27):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:57:28):
Well, I'm glad. I'm glad everyone was able to come
away from this as as enlightened as as God.

Speaker 8 (02:57:36):
Yeah, I have.

Speaker 1 (02:57:38):
I have entered a state of nosis. Thank you, thank
you for.

Speaker 3 (02:57:43):
This.

Speaker 1 (02:57:43):
I've achieved enlightenment.

Speaker 13 (02:57:48):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:57:48):
Well, long lived dark Brandom.

Speaker 1 (02:57:53):
Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
from now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 3 (02:57:59):
It could happen here the production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 5 (02:58:01):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com, slash sources.

Speaker 3 (02:58:15):
Thanks for listening.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Behind the Bastards News

Follow Us On

Host

Robert Evans

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}It Could Happen Here Weekly 92