December 2, 2021 • 32 mins
This week on 4 from the South, Steve interviews historian and foreign policy professor Daniel Bessner, host of American Prestige podcast, about the role of the United States in Latin America and the rest of the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hey, everybody, it's four from the South. I'm back here
with my co host Fabrizzio Capano. Fabry there, Fabrizio, Hello,
we're having some trouble with fab He's over there in
New York where the internet doesn't quite work. That's an
extension of Greater Latin America. The infrastructure sometimes breaks down
over there in Manhattan. Hopefully we'll hear from him later
(00:38):
on in the show. But we also, luckily for us,
have a guest, Daniel Besner. Hi, Daniel, how you doing
man Good? Good? Thanks so much for having me. Guys
really appreciate it. Now, you are a podcast host yourself,
I am you host a show called American Prestige. Is
that right? Yes, it's it's sort of a heterodox left
wing foreign policy podcast. That's the idea behind it. And
actually our friend Nando was the one who inspired Slash
(01:02):
encouraged me to do it so and it's been doing well.
So that's we thank Nando for sending you are away. Um,
so tell us a little bit about what you've been
talking about on American Prestigious. In a news podcast, do
you just follow the news of the week, do you
go deep dives on America's uh somewhat sort in history. Um,
it's it's a little bit of both. So we do
basically like a fifteen minute twenty minute news breakdown kind
(01:25):
of international affairs, the most important news of that week,
and from you know, again kind of from a left
wing perspective, assuming what if the United States didn't run
the world, how would one view this? Um? And then
we usually do an interview, a deep dive on a
on a particular subject related to US foreign policy or
international fair So in recent weeks we had an episode
(01:45):
on sort of the deep history of Cuba from the
fifteen fifteen hundreds to the War of eight in eight.
We did one with Patrick Wyman on the Reformation. Then
we also try to do more fun ones. So we've
got about this episode coming out this week on you
Don't Mess with the Zoha on uh and sort of
Adam Sandler's role as uh, you know, as as a
you know, paradigmatic Jewish comedic actor, probably the last you know,
(02:09):
really big actor. So yeah, we try to run the gamut,
but you know, while having fun, you know. Okay, So
tell me what road led you to hosting a left
skewing podcast. Where'd you come from how what what what?
What kind of politics were affecting you growing up? Absolutely? So.
I grew up in UM South Brooklyn and Rockaway, Queens
(02:31):
UH for most of my childhood Vincent Hurst and Rockaway. UH.
And my parents are sort of you know, middle class
um Jews who had the you know, particular politics of
of the baby boom generation. They're sort of mid baby
boomers um. You know. So was concerned with Israel in
the nineties and you know, voted for Bush in the
(02:52):
two thousand's, but are now like liberal Democrats. And I
grew up with them mostly being Liberal Democrats when I
was I went to college in Manhattan, and then my
senior year of college, I enterned at the Council on
Foreign Relations and that was two thousand and six, and
so I sort of started thinking, why is anyone Why
why are people listening to these these people? They don't
seem to really know what's going on. Um. And then
(03:14):
I worked a job after college for six months, and
I said, I don't want to do that again, and
so I went to graduate school in history. UH. And
then I went as a European historian, but I became
interested in US foreign policy, so I found a subject
um that really expressed that interest, and it was it
wound up being about the forming of the Rand Corporation
(03:34):
in Santa Monica, California, which was the first national security
think tank. Yeah. So I've been like deep in the
Rand archives, um, and I've got a couple of pieces
coming out about that. Uh. And so just you know, naturally,
I think, over the course of my graduate career, Um,
the guy that I focused my first book on was
actually a socialist who became a Cold War liberal, and
I wound up reading a lot of socialist theory and so. Um.
(03:56):
In around two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
when I was really deeply reading all these socialist debates,
I became, you know, a genuine left winger. Um. I
defined myself as sort of the left wing of the
Weimar Ever social Democratic Party. Uh. And you know, from
there you have the whole socialist revival in this home
media ecosystem. And so like a good capitalist and taking advantage. Okay,
so let's back up a little bit. Tell me about
(04:16):
the Council on Foreign Relations. My whole life, I've been
hearing about it. I don't really, as far as I
can tell, did they have a building. Is there a
structure too. It's a really nice club. Do you know Manhattan? Uh,
it's on sixth I think it's on sixth eighth in
Madison or just right off Park. Um. I haven't been
there a while, the plenty of money has. They were founded, um,
(04:37):
basically in advance of the Paris Peace Conference of nineteen
Woodrow Wilson put together a group called the Inquiry, which
was a group of academics that were to prepare him
for the peace conference. Um. After then they put wrote
a lot of reports. And so I believe it's in
one after the peace conference that a bunch of those
people come together. Um. You know. They're classic East Coast establishment,
(05:00):
what we would today called the Ascelic corridor, UM, but
kind of a little bit more centered in New York
because there's a lot of businessmen and and finance people.
And they created this group called called a Council on
Foreign Relations, which was part of this larger progressive our
project to bring expertise and social science to bear on
foreign policy making. So they create this group. Another one
who might have heard of is the Brookings Institution, which
(05:21):
was found that I believe in nineteen sixteen as something
else the Institute of Government Studies something I used to
know that, but something along those lines. And so there's
this like turn towards expertise in US foreign policy. But
it's really only after World War two, UM, that that
sort of thing takes off. With the founding of the
RAND Corporation, you get a network of think tanks that
Pepper Washington, d c UM and New York as well.
(05:42):
And and you know RAND was in l A, in
Santa Monica and so elsewhere around the country. We were
really centered in Washington, d c UM and there's a
lot of money put into them, both by the American
government UM, which essentially outsourced its research function to think tanks,
right like UH and and and foreign government. And the
thing that I think if when people is interested in
(06:03):
this UM, I think that UM. What's important to note
is that the American state is very peculiar because it
incorporates a lot of private, you know, not really private,
but formally private institutions like think tanks. And so you
know what think tanks are are performing state functions like
doing research on foreign policy and providing you know, the
(06:25):
four structure ideas and things like that. So that's also
why it's very difficult to quote unquote take on the
American state because it's not just centered in the institutions
of official Washington, but it's centered in you know, like
I said, think tanks, but also academic research centers, private consultancies,
things along those lines. So the American state. Um, what
what the state builders did in the middle of the
(06:47):
twentieth century was is they tried to build build this state.
They they sort of incorporated American conservative ideas that were
skeptical of state power. What they did was they built
a state that is both public and private. And I
think this is what we a lot of people who
just follow American politics miss is that, you know, a
lot of reporting on what happens in the State Department
or Defense Department or White House misses a lot of
(07:08):
the story because so much of what is government function,
what is it properly a government function, takes place outside
of the formal structures of the state, and think tanks
like the CFR the Council on Form Relations are part
of that process, Okay, And what are sort of the
assumptions are the thinking of the Council on Foreign Relations,
(07:28):
Like I assume there's not a ton of left wingers
over there. Well, it's interesting, I would say across the spectrum,
the spectrum of left wing and right wing think tanks
is that everyone assumes that the United States should rule
the world. Um, what the form of that leadership takes
is different. So someone at the Council Form Relations and
more sort of liberal think tank would say that it
(07:50):
should be through multilateralism and international institutions, but really the
buck stops at the United States. Someone on the right
would be more in favor of unilateralism and probably military
force at least as an initial something to initially go to,
whereas the Council and Form Relations would be, you know,
more in favor of things like liberal economic interdependence and
(08:10):
things along those lines. But the foundational assumption, which is
really you know, the ontological position, is the U S
should dominate the world now and forever. And has there
been any kind of um reckoning with the last twenty
years or twenty years plus where that hasn't that plan
hasn't been working out as well as it might have
(08:31):
been plotted out at the end of World War Two. Yeah,
I would say, Um, I would say that what you're
seeing now in the Biden administration is the embrace of
a strategy of what I've been terming hegemonic stabilization. So
you're seeing the reduction of troops in places like Afghanistan,
UH and you'll you'll likely see it in elsewhere around
(08:52):
the world. UM. Removing troops from areas not deemed vital
to the u S interests, particularly as oil becomes less
important to the U S economy with a turn towards
domestic energy production and probably at some point getting off
fossil fuels in the next twenty thirty years UM, or
we'll just cooked the planet and then it doesn't really matter. UM.
I think you're seeing the reduction of troops from there,
but I think there's no change or transformation in what
(09:14):
I consider the structure of the empire, which is really
what the seven fifty bases overseas bases, you know, hundreds
orders of magnitude more than any other nation has, and
the enormous defense budget, which speaks to a lot of
domestic interests. So again, you're seeing some slight transformation in
light of the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen.
(09:37):
The list goes on and on, but the whole structures
remaining relatively in place, and as is the ideological UH
structure that supports this imperial project. A was shocked the
(10:00):
other day. I picked up the New York Times, which
I don't always do, and it was Sunday edition. This
is two weeks ago, and there was a huge, long
feature story in the I think ideas section or whatever,
and it was a criticism of Joe Biden's foreign policy
and the person writing it was Anne Marie Slaughter, who
had been Hillary Clinton's I think director of policy planning
at the State Department. I was like, what, what on
(10:21):
earth is that? Where the critic of Joe Biden is
like somebody who has a career of I think, we
could say, confidently pretty failed policies. Yeah, I mean, I think,
And she's much more of a weather vein than anything.
I think in the nineties she might have been proactive
and looking to make her you know, exert her will
(10:42):
in the world, as it were, But at this point
she's just a professional and a weather vein. So I
think you're going to be getting some You're going to
see some calls for restraint, But you know, this is
a pod about Latin America. The US is going to
continue to dominate Latin America to the best of its ability,
as it has for you know, well over a century. Um,
the U S is going to continue to maintain the basis,
(11:03):
It's going to continue to maintain the nuclear arsenal, the
defense budget, the full spectrum military. So where things really matter,
I don't think any much has changed. And I think, like,
just to put a fine point on it, I think
that's because Americans, since the advent of the all volunteer
force in the early nineteen seventies, most Americans, particularly the
bushwis that makes decisions, are just shielded from anything that
(11:23):
the military does, so it doesn't really matter to them. Uh.
And this has only been magnified by the increasing turn
to mercenaries. Um, so the American military winds up serving
as a training ground for the future mercenaries of the world. Uh.
And I think that's what we're seeing. But for for
the policymakers, all this does is shield um, ordinary Americans
from it, so they could the military could do whatever
(11:44):
the hell it wants. No one is really affected by
no one that quote unquote matters, is okay, So, as
you say, this is a podcast about Latin America, so
I do want to get your take on a couple
of things going on in Latin America. I've been hearing
a lot about Havana syndrome, and I haven't ug into
the science, but it seems a little sus I don't
know what's going on, but allegedly US diplomats and things
(12:06):
are getting sort of brain poisoned by some kind of
energy weapon, uh, coming from the Cuban of Intelligence or something.
That's sort of the the log line of the story
that I hear. Like I said, I had, I had
a good idea. I think, well, maybe it's not a
good idea, A good idea for sort of like a
low budget horror movie where it's a deep state person
who thinks they have more jellings but they actually have
(12:28):
more jellings. Because I think all of these all of
these people are basically expressing their profound anxiety as being
members of of of a project that it's really hard
to morally defend in the year one. And so what
they're doing is is I think literally just having hysterical
in the sense of the nineteenth century, you know, undiagnosed
(12:49):
kind of mental anguish over it that's reflected in things
like Havana syndrome. Gotcha? Okay, Now, why what is Biden's
policy on Cuba? But because it seems like Obama Obama
went to Cuba and with opening up Cuba, took a
lot of criticism for it. Obviously, I know that UM,
in the swing state of Florida, Cuban politics is kind
(13:10):
of this hot potatoes, so nobody wants to mess with
it too much. But it seems like Fidel Castro is dead?
What is our? What is our? Where? Where is the
U s at with Cuba? Where are we going? What's
the story? Yeah? No, I mean it's a it's a
great question. Well, I think the Obama thing was really
um a function of Ben Rhodes, his deputy National Security advisor,
I believe he was, and also the guy who actually
(13:32):
coined the term the blob. He like really dedicated himself
to opening up the Cuba. UM. I don't think Obama
would have done it unless he had, like essentially a
right hand man, really dedicate himself to it. Um because
there's not much in it again, you know, for for
an American president, it is only kind of a risk.
Even though Florida is basically a red state at this point,
So like, really, what's the risk for a democrat um
(13:54):
to bad? Nando's not on here. He could probably speak
to that a bit more. But but yeah, I think
that you're unlikely to see any change. I think that
you'll just putter along indefinitely until someone else with the
political will really makes it an important issue. But until then,
I think status quo. Gotcha? Okay, so we're not doing
anything on Cuba. What else are you seeing going on
(14:16):
in the Biden administration's policy to Latin America? I mean,
where we've got it? Seems like in every election in
Latin America is a like far right kind of populist
against the leftists. They sort of go back and forth.
The US kind of halfheartedly uh, supporting the overthrow of
the regime in Venezuela, but losing the enthusiasm that may
(14:37):
have been there in the Trump administration. You don't see
half bake coup attempts the way we did uh in
the Trump years. What's up? Do we have a big
do we have any kind of big picture thinking about
Latin America? Who's in charge of this over in the
Biden administrations? So? What? From what I could tell that
there really isn't any big picture thinking in the Biden
administration outside of reducing troops in in the Middle East,
(14:58):
which for some reason includes of understand uh and and
making the so called pivotate Asia. I think Latin America,
as it has long been in the American imagination, is
just considered to be part of the US's remit um,
and so you'll see the US effectively do what it
wants um. And my guess is we won't know everything
that goes on there, but undermining local governments that threatened
(15:21):
perceived US interests related to the transfers of capital and
security and quote unquote terrorism which has been basically folded
into the issue of refugees UM. So that that's what
I think you're going to see. But really no no
big picture picture thinking, kind of status quo continuations of
what's been going on in Latin America for for the
(15:43):
past a few years. Okay, do you have any perspective,
Daniel on the so called border crisis migrants of the U. S. Border.
I saw that Biden had more or less just kept
up the Trump policy of trying to keep everybody in
Mexico as long as possible, and it does seem like
most of these migrants are coming from Haiti or Central
America rather than from Mexico. I mean, illegal Mexican immigration
(16:06):
doesn't even really seem like it's a significant issue at
the moment, although there is illegal immigration that is sort
of more or less stopped at or attempted to be
stopped at the US Mexico border, But it's not actually
Mexican people. What's going on there? What can we be
doing about this? Well, I think, well, I mean, I
think or is it just media hype and it's not.
It's the border has always been porous, and I mean
(16:28):
that's the border has always been porous. But I think
that the way that I view the issue of refugees
is that the United States is the prime cause for
a lot of their these population movements that you see,
you know, from around the world, and you actually it's
not just you know, people who are indigenous to Latin
America who use Latin America to come through the United States.
You're you're also seeing increasing numbers of people from Pakistan
(16:50):
or Afghanistan or elsewhere who aren't allowed into the United States.
So it's I think a moral imperative for the United
States is the cause of a lot of these relation
transfers to do something meaningful about refugees, to do something
meaningful about migrants. Um I, I do not think that
will happen. UM. I think you're going to see an
increase or could maybe not an increase, because I think
(17:12):
immigration levels, particularly from Mexico have declined. I think you're
going to see, um the continued use of things like
private prisons to house refugees, and it's really related to
the prison industrial complex in the United UM. In the
United States. I think in a just world, there would
be some sort of genuine money put towards a real
resettlement program. You know, this is a gigantic country. You
(17:36):
could even attach that to American jobs programs, which is
you know, like a lot of the areas that have
been racked by de industrialization could become resettlement areas and
you could actually pay local populations to help resettle people
and do all the services that that will require. But again,
because this doesn't seem to affect the people that matter,
quote unquote, um I, I don't think you're going to
(17:59):
see much movement on on anything. And I think one
of the genuine travesties of the Biden administration has been
the sort of mainstream status quo liberal on Twitter now
totally ignoring refugees, which was this big moral issue during
the Trump and um, even though not much has changed,
that's totally fallen off the news. Um. And I also
(18:22):
want to mention, like, it's not like immigration was so
great under Obama either, And so you you have these
sorts of partisan associations with these really important moral issues
that are then just totally ignored once the other parties
in power. It's just it's all it's kind of I mean,
I don't want to be black built, but it just
shows how it's kind of all bullshit that no one
really cares about anything and that politics is just a
(18:44):
spectator sport. And I have more to say about that
if you want to go into you know, what I
think is the fundamental political problem of our age? Um, absolutely,
what's the fundamental political problem of our age. I think
that's we have a structural issue, which is that we
have the organizations and institutions of mass democracy that we're
(19:06):
created in the first half of the twentieth century. You know,
mass political parties they go back to Andrew Jackson. But
let's just say their modern instantiation and the progressive era,
mass political parties, a mass media, you know, mass cultural forms. UM.
But as you have the rise of these sorts of
mass institutions broadly defined UM, the way that power is
(19:28):
actually exercised has become increasingly narrow. What do I mean
by that one, It's become increasingly centered in the literal
white house, UM. Congress is less important than it's ever
been UM. But even more than that, it's been increasingly
UM settled in the administrative state, you know, through norms
and rules and bureaucracy, where a lot of power is
(19:50):
actually UM enacted. So on one hand you have the
appearance of mass democracy and on the other hand you
have the reality of how power rates. And so I
think a good thing that really highlighted this to me
was the effect of the anti George Floyd protests, anti
murder of George Floyd protests pro you know, justice for
(20:12):
George Floyd, which I think it's fair to say in
retrospect we're also in some regard anti lockdown protests. They
kind of converge at the same time. And but I
do think that the valance of that was, you know,
reform of police to fund police abolished police wherever you
fall in that spectrum. But I think that what's happened
is that often literally nothing or police funding has increased.
(20:35):
And I think that just pure fact of like this,
this instantiation of mass democracy and like gigantic protests and
the reality of what happened afterward, just highlights the disconnect
between what Americans think they're quote unquote democracy is and
what it actually is. And I think that's a lot
of reason why everyone is going insane because all we
(20:57):
talk about is politics. You know, this is the major
disc for educated elites who are on Twitter, i e.
The people who want to make culture and the people
who determine what political parties do. All we do is
talk about politics and and see we seem to have
almost no effect on it. And another I think instantiation
of that is Biden's refusal to cancel student debt, which
(21:18):
is basically just spitting in the face of a natural constituency,
which is college educated people. And it's just because they
don't matter. Where are they going to go and how
are they going to actually affect power? So we're in
a moment where we talk about nothing but politics but
have no way to actually affect power. So we're all
losing our minds. And where does that go? Not to
(21:40):
force you to make a prediction, but where will that take?
Where does that go? I mean, I mean, frankly, barring
a massive shift, I think we're just going to continue
to cook the planet. Um. I think people are going
to go increasingly nuts. I think that there's no real
way to challenge the American state. Um. You know, it's
not like eight. If you face the American military, you're
(22:01):
gonna lose. Uh. And So I think nothing good. I mean,
I think we're in a really dark period in human history. Now.
There could be some sort of exogenous shock. I can't
predict that. Um, but given where the parties are now,
I don't see much changing. Yeah. I wanted to ask
(22:28):
you something. You're sort of like what we would call
like a young intellectual. Uh and and uh, you know,
people of our generation formative first adult or young adult
event we probably experienced nine eleven followed by a series
of catastrophes in US foreign policy. Um, there was a
brief sort of I'm giving my own interpretation, which you
(22:48):
can feel free to correct, brief sort of sense that
there might be some hope and change in the Obama election,
which I think has been followed by a sort of
sugar hangover that nothing really improved or changed the Trump
election follow that is sufficiently depressing. It seems hard for
me to imagine somebody in their thirties or forties who
(23:09):
would just become a Washington functionary or a young Council
of Foreign Relations person unless they were uh, cynical. So,
who will be running this administrative state in the future.
Is there not like hollowing out of the generation of
people that would just buy into the American imperialist project,
(23:32):
Like have we not just sort of broken that? It
would be very difficult for me to imagine a forty
year old young person who is like, yeah, rules based
American order still works, let's stay the course. Or am
I missing something? There's a whole world of those people
eager to take those jobs in Washington or New York
or wherever the state is forming itself. Well, I think
there are a lot of people, But I think also,
(23:52):
you don't need that many people to run this thing
at this point. You don't even need that many people
to run the military. You know, this could be several
thousand people. Um, you don't need um, massive numbers. So
and there's certainly several thousand people and many more who
who would like to sort of run this administrative state
and run this bureaucracy. UM. And I think that a
lot of people, you know, are just freaked out and precarious,
(24:15):
and you know, all the Ivy League graduates, uh need
somewhere to go. Um, So most go into finance, some
go into law, and the rest go into running the
administrative state of the status quo. I mean, I do
think that you see, like I could just tell even
amongst like my social circle from college was was you
you do see sort of a recognition that this kind
(24:37):
of thing is illegitimate, like the whole project doesn't work
and it's cooking the planet and if people have kids,
they're worried about their kids, but also a sort of
recognition about what are they gonna do about it? Um?
And so again like I think Bernie Sanders was was
a UM, Bernie Sanders was kind of like Hail Mary
(25:00):
pass Or trying to get an end run around that
whole um problem. And you know, I don't know, um
what Bernie would have been able to accomplish and what
he wouldn't have been able to accomplish um and just
full disclosure, I was a foreign policy advisor to his campaign.
But I think that um things are grim. There are
(25:23):
people to staff the state and nothing is really gonna changed.
It seems to me like there's a space there for
like a sort of celebrity that's like half right wing,
half left wing, mix and match them, but like a McConaughey,
like yeah, like sort of Bernie saying, a guy who
Tulsi Gabbard was almost getting there, like just kind of
(25:44):
a weird analgam of politics that's neither Democrat nor Republican,
because I mean, I think when we when we talk
about the average voter, even a sort of Republican voter,
is often kind of far left on topics like taxing
the rich and stuff. It just doesn't get materialized into
any kind of politics political program. And even you know,
you're Joe Rogan's or something that there's a mixed the
(26:05):
match of leftists and libertarian ideas all cooked together. Do
you not think that somebody could emerge to you know,
you know, I think Bernie Sanders was on the Joe
Rogan Show, Like is there not a way to connect
those two audiences? And have a candidate for that or
is that just never gonna happen. I could, I it
could happen. I'm not sure how much it would matter
or where that person would naturally fit. I guess maybe
(26:28):
the Republican Party kind of. UM, I mean, I think
the Democratic It would be very difficult for a figure
like that to win a Democratic primary. UM. But again,
like I think Truck sort of had some hope that
McConaughey might pick up this mantle and about out UM.
I mean, I think Trump showed and we'll learn more
as more documents become available. But Trump showed, I mean
(26:51):
he also had no political will, Like what does a
Trump with political will look like? Um? And concentration. Maybe
he has actually got things done, but but it did
show that kind of having a less state, the state
just putters along and does what it wants. UM. So
I think there's there's a lot of that. But no,
I don't I don't really see how a figure like
that could could emerge, let alone win a primary. Gotcha.
(27:14):
I don't know if you've been following Dominant coming the
guy who is sort of an advisor to Brexit and
then to Boris Johnson, he had a break with Boris Johnson,
but one of his uh in his sub stock and
podcast interviews and things, he just goes off on how
if you want to get anything done, you need to
just shatter the bureaucracy in the first hundred days. After
that it's over this, the sort of h organ of
the state will just continue to take over and you
(27:36):
can have no no possibility of change. Slightly depressing but
also slightly radical thinking. Yeah, yeah, I mean the question
is is that even possible? How would one do it?
You'd have to really be the master of bureaucracy, and
that's not exactly who's winning elections these days. Um. Yeah,
I I am very hopeless, um about anything. I joke
(27:57):
with nandom like that's why I'm all about hashtag tent
because I think we're just going into the brick wall
of climate change. I'm really I I see, um, no
obvious way forward now. Again, there could be some sort
of exogenous thing that I'm unaware of, always very possible, um,
but nothing that I could see right now. So walk
(28:18):
me through how you see that playing out? Like we'll
just slowly gradually there'll be more floods, there'll be more migration,
there will be more. Basically, crops will fail. That's okay,
creeping thing, not a sudden apocalyptic crisis. No, I don't
think there'll be a sudden apocalyptic crisis unless there's some
sort of event that causes a food shortage or something
along those lines. But I think in the United States, UM,
(28:40):
in elite spaces, we're not going to really experience much.
I think you'll see the Uh, you might see real
city death in a place like Miami or areas of
Louisiana and Florida. Um, you might see city death in
coastal cities, in some coastal cities. But overall, I think
the structure is going to be able to go on
pretty much uninterrupted for a pretty long time. Um. I
(29:03):
think it's going to be worse years. It's hard to know.
I would say fifty you know, at least fifty. Um, yeah, no,
I think it's. Yeah, there's really very little hope right now.
You have to go look at like that, just one
final look at the COP twenty six climate thing, you know,
like they're doing nothing, they're throwing a penny in the fountain. Yeah,
(29:27):
I mean truly, just we're hopeless, man, Why not invite
a lepricaunt of the conference. Okay, Daniel, thank you very much.
It's actually been I find it kind of inspiring to
talk to anyone who's who's you know, even if the
predictions are dire, to have an independent, interesting mind who's
working on them is always uh makes me feel kind
of get I want before you go. I know you
(29:48):
have too many important meetings today, but before you go,
I want you to give us something that's hopeful, or
someplace where you see inspiration, or something that helps you
get out of bed in the morning. Even though you
think that we're cooking ourselves than when our political systems toast. Um,
there's a lot of content to consume, you know, so
I think content. I think I think you're going to
(30:08):
see what I think is interesting. I'm not sure this
is I'm not sure if this is positive or not.
But I do think you'll start seeing legalization of sort
of like, um, more drugs. I think you'll start see
I think you'll see legalization of things like sex work. Um,
I think you'll see legalization of vices generally quote unquote vices,
you know, just using that as a term, not making
any moral judgment, because I think as we you know,
(30:30):
slip into the abyss. Um. The government is going to
have to keep people occupied. So I think you know
you're going to see liberalization of laws, um in ways
that could be positive for people lived experience in actual life. Um.
But yeah, and there's ship ton of fucking content coming
out all the time. You know, I watched the Beatles documentary.
(30:51):
Is more things to distract myself. I've been shocked as
I pay attention in a minor way to sports that
basically the acceptance of sports gambling is close to I
mean it's not here in California. We're gonna have a
measure on the ballot in uh I think two that's
called something like Californian Solutions for Schools and Homelessness that's
(31:11):
actually funded by DraftKings. It's basically gonna legaliss sports gambling
here in California, and it's coming in almost every state.
And when you watch a sports podcast, they're pretty open
about talking about the spread now, of course in a
way that it used to be kind of like you
didn't do that. Yeah, bookies are now legal. I mean
like the bookies are effectively legal now. And I think
you're going to see more of that. Um, big Time
(31:33):
so um, stuff like that and more content that keeps
me going. Daniel Besner, where can people find you for
more of your insights on American Prestige podcast Yeah yeah,
check out the American Proceged Podcasts. Subscribe to it. Uh
and I'm at Twitter on Twitter at d Bestner. I'm
gonna follow you immediately. Thanks so much, guys, thanks for
(31:54):
listening for a Fourth from the South. We'll get Fab
back once we get the infrastructure repaired, although if Daniels
predictions are maybe this is a permanent outage, we'll never
hear from Fab again. But hopefully we'll have them on
soon because there's a lot going on in Chile and
on doors and everywhere in Latin America, and we'll bring
you somewhere that on the next episode of Four from
the South. Thanks very much, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Four from the South is hosted by Me, Steve Healey,
(32:15):
and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is our producer. Original theme
song by Amy Stolsenbach. Four from the South is a
production of Exile Content Studio in partnership with I Heart
Radio's Michael Tour podcast Network. For more podcasts from my heart,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's four from the South. I'm back here
with my co host Fabrizzio Capano. Fabry there, Fabrizio, Hello,
we're having some trouble with fab He's over there in
New York where the internet doesn't quite work. That's an
extension of Greater Latin America. The infrastructure sometimes breaks down
over there in Manhattan. Hopefully we'll hear from him later
(00:38):
on in the show. But we also, luckily for us,
have a guest, Daniel Besner. Hi, Daniel, how you doing
man Good? Good? Thanks so much for having me. Guys
really appreciate it. Now, you are a podcast host yourself,
I am you host a show called American Prestige. Is
that right? Yes, it's it's sort of a heterodox left
wing foreign policy podcast. That's the idea behind it. And
actually our friend Nando was the one who inspired Slash
(01:02):
encouraged me to do it so and it's been doing well.
So that's we thank Nando for sending you are away. Um,
so tell us a little bit about what you've been
talking about on American Prestigious. In a news podcast, do
you just follow the news of the week, do you
go deep dives on America's uh somewhat sort in history. Um,
it's it's a little bit of both. So we do
basically like a fifteen minute twenty minute news breakdown kind
(01:25):
of international affairs, the most important news of that week,
and from you know, again kind of from a left
wing perspective, assuming what if the United States didn't run
the world, how would one view this? Um? And then
we usually do an interview, a deep dive on a
on a particular subject related to US foreign policy or
international fair So in recent weeks we had an episode
(01:45):
on sort of the deep history of Cuba from the
fifteen fifteen hundreds to the War of eight in eight.
We did one with Patrick Wyman on the Reformation. Then
we also try to do more fun ones. So we've
got about this episode coming out this week on you
Don't Mess with the Zoha on uh and sort of
Adam Sandler's role as uh, you know, as as a
you know, paradigmatic Jewish comedic actor, probably the last you know,
(02:09):
really big actor. So yeah, we try to run the gamut,
but you know, while having fun, you know. Okay, So
tell me what road led you to hosting a left
skewing podcast. Where'd you come from how what what what?
What kind of politics were affecting you growing up? Absolutely? So.
I grew up in UM South Brooklyn and Rockaway, Queens
(02:31):
UH for most of my childhood Vincent Hurst and Rockaway. UH.
And my parents are sort of you know, middle class
um Jews who had the you know, particular politics of
of the baby boom generation. They're sort of mid baby
boomers um. You know. So was concerned with Israel in
the nineties and you know, voted for Bush in the
(02:52):
two thousand's, but are now like liberal Democrats. And I
grew up with them mostly being Liberal Democrats when I
was I went to college in Manhattan, and then my
senior year of college, I enterned at the Council on
Foreign Relations and that was two thousand and six, and
so I sort of started thinking, why is anyone Why
why are people listening to these these people? They don't
seem to really know what's going on. Um. And then
(03:14):
I worked a job after college for six months, and
I said, I don't want to do that again, and
so I went to graduate school in history. UH. And
then I went as a European historian, but I became
interested in US foreign policy, so I found a subject
um that really expressed that interest, and it was it
wound up being about the forming of the Rand Corporation
(03:34):
in Santa Monica, California, which was the first national security
think tank. Yeah. So I've been like deep in the
Rand archives, um, and I've got a couple of pieces
coming out about that. Uh. And so just you know, naturally,
I think, over the course of my graduate career, Um,
the guy that I focused my first book on was
actually a socialist who became a Cold War liberal, and
I wound up reading a lot of socialist theory and so. Um.
(03:56):
In around two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
when I was really deeply reading all these socialist debates,
I became, you know, a genuine left winger. Um. I
defined myself as sort of the left wing of the
Weimar Ever social Democratic Party. Uh. And you know, from
there you have the whole socialist revival in this home
media ecosystem. And so like a good capitalist and taking advantage. Okay,
so let's back up a little bit. Tell me about
(04:16):
the Council on Foreign Relations. My whole life, I've been
hearing about it. I don't really, as far as I
can tell, did they have a building. Is there a
structure too. It's a really nice club. Do you know Manhattan? Uh,
it's on sixth I think it's on sixth eighth in
Madison or just right off Park. Um. I haven't been
there a while, the plenty of money has. They were founded, um,
(04:37):
basically in advance of the Paris Peace Conference of nineteen
Woodrow Wilson put together a group called the Inquiry, which
was a group of academics that were to prepare him
for the peace conference. Um. After then they put wrote
a lot of reports. And so I believe it's in
one after the peace conference that a bunch of those
people come together. Um. You know. They're classic East Coast establishment,
(05:00):
what we would today called the Ascelic corridor, UM, but
kind of a little bit more centered in New York
because there's a lot of businessmen and and finance people.
And they created this group called called a Council on
Foreign Relations, which was part of this larger progressive our
project to bring expertise and social science to bear on
foreign policy making. So they create this group. Another one
who might have heard of is the Brookings Institution, which
(05:21):
was found that I believe in nineteen sixteen as something
else the Institute of Government Studies something I used to
know that, but something along those lines. And so there's
this like turn towards expertise in US foreign policy. But
it's really only after World War two, UM, that that
sort of thing takes off. With the founding of the
RAND Corporation, you get a network of think tanks that
Pepper Washington, d c UM and New York as well.
(05:42):
And and you know RAND was in l A, in
Santa Monica and so elsewhere around the country. We were
really centered in Washington, d c UM and there's a
lot of money put into them, both by the American
government UM, which essentially outsourced its research function to think tanks,
right like UH and and and foreign government. And the
thing that I think if when people is interested in
(06:03):
this UM, I think that UM. What's important to note
is that the American state is very peculiar because it
incorporates a lot of private, you know, not really private,
but formally private institutions like think tanks. And so you
know what think tanks are are performing state functions like
doing research on foreign policy and providing you know, the
(06:25):
four structure ideas and things like that. So that's also
why it's very difficult to quote unquote take on the
American state because it's not just centered in the institutions
of official Washington, but it's centered in you know, like
I said, think tanks, but also academic research centers, private consultancies,
things along those lines. So the American state. Um, what
what the state builders did in the middle of the
(06:47):
twentieth century was is they tried to build build this state.
They they sort of incorporated American conservative ideas that were
skeptical of state power. What they did was they built
a state that is both public and private. And I
think this is what we a lot of people who
just follow American politics miss is that, you know, a
lot of reporting on what happens in the State Department
or Defense Department or White House misses a lot of
(07:08):
the story because so much of what is government function,
what is it properly a government function, takes place outside
of the formal structures of the state, and think tanks
like the CFR the Council on Form Relations are part
of that process, Okay, And what are sort of the
assumptions are the thinking of the Council on Foreign Relations,
(07:28):
Like I assume there's not a ton of left wingers
over there. Well, it's interesting, I would say across the spectrum,
the spectrum of left wing and right wing think tanks
is that everyone assumes that the United States should rule
the world. Um, what the form of that leadership takes
is different. So someone at the Council Form Relations and
more sort of liberal think tank would say that it
(07:50):
should be through multilateralism and international institutions, but really the
buck stops at the United States. Someone on the right
would be more in favor of unilateralism and probably military
force at least as an initial something to initially go to,
whereas the Council and Form Relations would be, you know,
more in favor of things like liberal economic interdependence and
(08:10):
things along those lines. But the foundational assumption, which is
really you know, the ontological position, is the U S
should dominate the world now and forever. And has there
been any kind of um reckoning with the last twenty
years or twenty years plus where that hasn't that plan
hasn't been working out as well as it might have
(08:31):
been plotted out at the end of World War Two. Yeah,
I would say, Um, I would say that what you're
seeing now in the Biden administration is the embrace of
a strategy of what I've been terming hegemonic stabilization. So
you're seeing the reduction of troops in places like Afghanistan,
UH and you'll you'll likely see it in elsewhere around
(08:52):
the world. UM. Removing troops from areas not deemed vital
to the u S interests, particularly as oil becomes less
important to the U S economy with a turn towards
domestic energy production and probably at some point getting off
fossil fuels in the next twenty thirty years UM, or
we'll just cooked the planet and then it doesn't really matter. UM.
I think you're seeing the reduction of troops from there,
but I think there's no change or transformation in what
(09:14):
I consider the structure of the empire, which is really
what the seven fifty bases overseas bases, you know, hundreds
orders of magnitude more than any other nation has, and
the enormous defense budget, which speaks to a lot of
domestic interests. So again, you're seeing some slight transformation in
light of the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen.
(09:37):
The list goes on and on, but the whole structures
remaining relatively in place, and as is the ideological UH
structure that supports this imperial project. A was shocked the
(10:00):
other day. I picked up the New York Times, which
I don't always do, and it was Sunday edition. This
is two weeks ago, and there was a huge, long
feature story in the I think ideas section or whatever,
and it was a criticism of Joe Biden's foreign policy
and the person writing it was Anne Marie Slaughter, who
had been Hillary Clinton's I think director of policy planning
at the State Department. I was like, what, what on
(10:21):
earth is that? Where the critic of Joe Biden is
like somebody who has a career of I think, we
could say, confidently pretty failed policies. Yeah, I mean, I think,
And she's much more of a weather vein than anything.
I think in the nineties she might have been proactive
and looking to make her you know, exert her will
(10:42):
in the world, as it were, But at this point
she's just a professional and a weather vein. So I
think you're going to be getting some You're going to
see some calls for restraint, But you know, this is
a pod about Latin America. The US is going to
continue to dominate Latin America to the best of its ability,
as it has for you know, well over a century. Um,
the U S is going to continue to maintain the basis,
(11:03):
It's going to continue to maintain the nuclear arsenal, the
defense budget, the full spectrum military. So where things really matter,
I don't think any much has changed. And I think, like,
just to put a fine point on it, I think
that's because Americans, since the advent of the all volunteer
force in the early nineteen seventies, most Americans, particularly the
bushwis that makes decisions, are just shielded from anything that
(11:23):
the military does, so it doesn't really matter to them. Uh.
And this has only been magnified by the increasing turn
to mercenaries. Um, so the American military winds up serving
as a training ground for the future mercenaries of the world. Uh.
And I think that's what we're seeing. But for for
the policymakers, all this does is shield um, ordinary Americans
from it, so they could the military could do whatever
(11:44):
the hell it wants. No one is really affected by
no one that quote unquote matters, is okay, So, as
you say, this is a podcast about Latin America, so
I do want to get your take on a couple
of things going on in Latin America. I've been hearing
a lot about Havana syndrome, and I haven't ug into
the science, but it seems a little sus I don't
know what's going on, but allegedly US diplomats and things
(12:06):
are getting sort of brain poisoned by some kind of
energy weapon, uh, coming from the Cuban of Intelligence or something.
That's sort of the the log line of the story
that I hear. Like I said, I had, I had
a good idea. I think, well, maybe it's not a
good idea, A good idea for sort of like a
low budget horror movie where it's a deep state person
who thinks they have more jellings but they actually have
(12:28):
more jellings. Because I think all of these all of
these people are basically expressing their profound anxiety as being
members of of of a project that it's really hard
to morally defend in the year one. And so what
they're doing is is I think literally just having hysterical
in the sense of the nineteenth century, you know, undiagnosed
(12:49):
kind of mental anguish over it that's reflected in things
like Havana syndrome. Gotcha? Okay, Now, why what is Biden's
policy on Cuba? But because it seems like Obama Obama
went to Cuba and with opening up Cuba, took a
lot of criticism for it. Obviously, I know that UM,
in the swing state of Florida, Cuban politics is kind
(13:10):
of this hot potatoes, so nobody wants to mess with
it too much. But it seems like Fidel Castro is dead?
What is our? What is our? Where? Where is the
U s at with Cuba? Where are we going? What's
the story? Yeah? No, I mean it's a it's a
great question. Well, I think the Obama thing was really
um a function of Ben Rhodes, his deputy National Security advisor,
I believe he was, and also the guy who actually
(13:32):
coined the term the blob. He like really dedicated himself
to opening up the Cuba. UM. I don't think Obama
would have done it unless he had, like essentially a
right hand man, really dedicate himself to it. Um because
there's not much in it again, you know, for for
an American president, it is only kind of a risk.
Even though Florida is basically a red state at this point,
So like, really, what's the risk for a democrat um
(13:54):
to bad? Nando's not on here. He could probably speak
to that a bit more. But but yeah, I think
that you're unlikely to see any change. I think that
you'll just putter along indefinitely until someone else with the
political will really makes it an important issue. But until then,
I think status quo. Gotcha? Okay, so we're not doing
anything on Cuba. What else are you seeing going on
(14:16):
in the Biden administration's policy to Latin America? I mean,
where we've got it? Seems like in every election in
Latin America is a like far right kind of populist
against the leftists. They sort of go back and forth.
The US kind of halfheartedly uh, supporting the overthrow of
the regime in Venezuela, but losing the enthusiasm that may
(14:37):
have been there in the Trump administration. You don't see
half bake coup attempts the way we did uh in
the Trump years. What's up? Do we have a big
do we have any kind of big picture thinking about
Latin America? Who's in charge of this over in the
Biden administrations? So? What? From what I could tell that
there really isn't any big picture thinking in the Biden
administration outside of reducing troops in in the Middle East,
(14:58):
which for some reason includes of understand uh and and
making the so called pivotate Asia. I think Latin America,
as it has long been in the American imagination, is
just considered to be part of the US's remit um,
and so you'll see the US effectively do what it
wants um. And my guess is we won't know everything
that goes on there, but undermining local governments that threatened
(15:21):
perceived US interests related to the transfers of capital and
security and quote unquote terrorism which has been basically folded
into the issue of refugees UM. So that that's what
I think you're going to see. But really no no
big picture picture thinking, kind of status quo continuations of
what's been going on in Latin America for for the
(15:43):
past a few years. Okay, do you have any perspective,
Daniel on the so called border crisis migrants of the U. S. Border.
I saw that Biden had more or less just kept
up the Trump policy of trying to keep everybody in
Mexico as long as possible, and it does seem like
most of these migrants are coming from Haiti or Central
America rather than from Mexico. I mean, illegal Mexican immigration
(16:06):
doesn't even really seem like it's a significant issue at
the moment, although there is illegal immigration that is sort
of more or less stopped at or attempted to be
stopped at the US Mexico border, But it's not actually
Mexican people. What's going on there? What can we be
doing about this? Well, I think, well, I mean, I
think or is it just media hype and it's not.
It's the border has always been porous, and I mean
(16:28):
that's the border has always been porous. But I think
that the way that I view the issue of refugees
is that the United States is the prime cause for
a lot of their these population movements that you see,
you know, from around the world, and you actually it's
not just you know, people who are indigenous to Latin
America who use Latin America to come through the United States.
You're you're also seeing increasing numbers of people from Pakistan
(16:50):
or Afghanistan or elsewhere who aren't allowed into the United States.
So it's I think a moral imperative for the United
States is the cause of a lot of these relation
transfers to do something meaningful about refugees, to do something
meaningful about migrants. Um I, I do not think that
will happen. UM. I think you're going to see an
increase or could maybe not an increase, because I think
(17:12):
immigration levels, particularly from Mexico have declined. I think you're
going to see, um the continued use of things like
private prisons to house refugees, and it's really related to
the prison industrial complex in the United UM. In the
United States. I think in a just world, there would
be some sort of genuine money put towards a real
resettlement program. You know, this is a gigantic country. You
(17:36):
could even attach that to American jobs programs, which is
you know, like a lot of the areas that have
been racked by de industrialization could become resettlement areas and
you could actually pay local populations to help resettle people
and do all the services that that will require. But again,
because this doesn't seem to affect the people that matter,
quote unquote, um I, I don't think you're going to
(17:59):
see much movement on on anything. And I think one
of the genuine travesties of the Biden administration has been
the sort of mainstream status quo liberal on Twitter now
totally ignoring refugees, which was this big moral issue during
the Trump and um, even though not much has changed,
that's totally fallen off the news. Um. And I also
(18:22):
want to mention, like, it's not like immigration was so
great under Obama either, And so you you have these
sorts of partisan associations with these really important moral issues
that are then just totally ignored once the other parties
in power. It's just it's all it's kind of I mean,
I don't want to be black built, but it just
shows how it's kind of all bullshit that no one
really cares about anything and that politics is just a
(18:44):
spectator sport. And I have more to say about that
if you want to go into you know, what I
think is the fundamental political problem of our age? Um, absolutely,
what's the fundamental political problem of our age. I think
that's we have a structural issue, which is that we
have the organizations and institutions of mass democracy that we're
(19:06):
created in the first half of the twentieth century. You know,
mass political parties they go back to Andrew Jackson. But
let's just say their modern instantiation and the progressive era,
mass political parties, a mass media, you know, mass cultural forms. UM.
But as you have the rise of these sorts of
mass institutions broadly defined UM, the way that power is
(19:28):
actually exercised has become increasingly narrow. What do I mean
by that one, It's become increasingly centered in the literal
white house, UM. Congress is less important than it's ever
been UM. But even more than that, it's been increasingly
UM settled in the administrative state, you know, through norms
and rules and bureaucracy, where a lot of power is
(19:50):
actually UM enacted. So on one hand you have the
appearance of mass democracy and on the other hand you
have the reality of how power rates. And so I
think a good thing that really highlighted this to me
was the effect of the anti George Floyd protests, anti
murder of George Floyd protests pro you know, justice for
(20:12):
George Floyd, which I think it's fair to say in
retrospect we're also in some regard anti lockdown protests. They
kind of converge at the same time. And but I
do think that the valance of that was, you know,
reform of police to fund police abolished police wherever you
fall in that spectrum. But I think that what's happened
is that often literally nothing or police funding has increased.
(20:35):
And I think that just pure fact of like this,
this instantiation of mass democracy and like gigantic protests and
the reality of what happened afterward, just highlights the disconnect
between what Americans think they're quote unquote democracy is and
what it actually is. And I think that's a lot
of reason why everyone is going insane because all we
(20:57):
talk about is politics. You know, this is the major
disc for educated elites who are on Twitter, i e.
The people who want to make culture and the people
who determine what political parties do. All we do is
talk about politics and and see we seem to have
almost no effect on it. And another I think instantiation
of that is Biden's refusal to cancel student debt, which
(21:18):
is basically just spitting in the face of a natural constituency,
which is college educated people. And it's just because they
don't matter. Where are they going to go and how
are they going to actually affect power? So we're in
a moment where we talk about nothing but politics but
have no way to actually affect power. So we're all
losing our minds. And where does that go? Not to
(21:40):
force you to make a prediction, but where will that take?
Where does that go? I mean, I mean, frankly, barring
a massive shift, I think we're just going to continue
to cook the planet. Um. I think people are going
to go increasingly nuts. I think that there's no real
way to challenge the American state. Um. You know, it's
not like eight. If you face the American military, you're
(22:01):
gonna lose. Uh. And So I think nothing good. I mean,
I think we're in a really dark period in human history. Now.
There could be some sort of exogenous shock. I can't
predict that. Um, but given where the parties are now,
I don't see much changing. Yeah. I wanted to ask
(22:28):
you something. You're sort of like what we would call
like a young intellectual. Uh and and uh, you know,
people of our generation formative first adult or young adult
event we probably experienced nine eleven followed by a series
of catastrophes in US foreign policy. Um, there was a
brief sort of I'm giving my own interpretation, which you
(22:48):
can feel free to correct, brief sort of sense that
there might be some hope and change in the Obama election,
which I think has been followed by a sort of
sugar hangover that nothing really improved or changed the Trump
election follow that is sufficiently depressing. It seems hard for
me to imagine somebody in their thirties or forties who
(23:09):
would just become a Washington functionary or a young Council
of Foreign Relations person unless they were uh, cynical. So,
who will be running this administrative state in the future.
Is there not like hollowing out of the generation of
people that would just buy into the American imperialist project,
(23:32):
Like have we not just sort of broken that? It
would be very difficult for me to imagine a forty
year old young person who is like, yeah, rules based
American order still works, let's stay the course. Or am
I missing something? There's a whole world of those people
eager to take those jobs in Washington or New York
or wherever the state is forming itself. Well, I think
there are a lot of people, But I think also,
(23:52):
you don't need that many people to run this thing
at this point. You don't even need that many people
to run the military. You know, this could be several
thousand people. Um, you don't need um, massive numbers. So
and there's certainly several thousand people and many more who
who would like to sort of run this administrative state
and run this bureaucracy. UM. And I think that a
lot of people, you know, are just freaked out and precarious,
(24:15):
and you know, all the Ivy League graduates, uh need
somewhere to go. Um, So most go into finance, some
go into law, and the rest go into running the
administrative state of the status quo. I mean, I do
think that you see, like I could just tell even
amongst like my social circle from college was was you
you do see sort of a recognition that this kind
(24:37):
of thing is illegitimate, like the whole project doesn't work
and it's cooking the planet and if people have kids,
they're worried about their kids, but also a sort of
recognition about what are they gonna do about it? Um?
And so again like I think Bernie Sanders was was
a UM, Bernie Sanders was kind of like Hail Mary
(25:00):
pass Or trying to get an end run around that
whole um problem. And you know, I don't know, um
what Bernie would have been able to accomplish and what
he wouldn't have been able to accomplish um and just
full disclosure, I was a foreign policy advisor to his campaign.
But I think that um things are grim. There are
(25:23):
people to staff the state and nothing is really gonna changed.
It seems to me like there's a space there for
like a sort of celebrity that's like half right wing,
half left wing, mix and match them, but like a McConaughey,
like yeah, like sort of Bernie saying, a guy who
Tulsi Gabbard was almost getting there, like just kind of
(25:44):
a weird analgam of politics that's neither Democrat nor Republican,
because I mean, I think when we when we talk
about the average voter, even a sort of Republican voter,
is often kind of far left on topics like taxing
the rich and stuff. It just doesn't get materialized into
any kind of politics political program. And even you know,
you're Joe Rogan's or something that there's a mixed the
(26:05):
match of leftists and libertarian ideas all cooked together. Do
you not think that somebody could emerge to you know,
you know, I think Bernie Sanders was on the Joe
Rogan Show, Like is there not a way to connect
those two audiences? And have a candidate for that or
is that just never gonna happen. I could, I it
could happen. I'm not sure how much it would matter
or where that person would naturally fit. I guess maybe
(26:28):
the Republican Party kind of. UM, I mean, I think
the Democratic It would be very difficult for a figure
like that to win a Democratic primary. UM. But again,
like I think Truck sort of had some hope that
McConaughey might pick up this mantle and about out UM.
I mean, I think Trump showed and we'll learn more
as more documents become available. But Trump showed, I mean
(26:51):
he also had no political will, Like what does a
Trump with political will look like? Um? And concentration. Maybe
he has actually got things done, but but it did
show that kind of having a less state, the state
just putters along and does what it wants. UM. So
I think there's there's a lot of that. But no,
I don't I don't really see how a figure like
that could could emerge, let alone win a primary. Gotcha.
(27:14):
I don't know if you've been following Dominant coming the
guy who is sort of an advisor to Brexit and
then to Boris Johnson, he had a break with Boris Johnson,
but one of his uh in his sub stock and
podcast interviews and things, he just goes off on how
if you want to get anything done, you need to
just shatter the bureaucracy in the first hundred days. After
that it's over this, the sort of h organ of
the state will just continue to take over and you
(27:36):
can have no no possibility of change. Slightly depressing but
also slightly radical thinking. Yeah, yeah, I mean the question
is is that even possible? How would one do it?
You'd have to really be the master of bureaucracy, and
that's not exactly who's winning elections these days. Um. Yeah,
I I am very hopeless, um about anything. I joke
(27:57):
with nandom like that's why I'm all about hashtag tent
because I think we're just going into the brick wall
of climate change. I'm really I I see, um, no
obvious way forward now. Again, there could be some sort
of exogenous thing that I'm unaware of, always very possible, um,
but nothing that I could see right now. So walk
(28:18):
me through how you see that playing out? Like we'll
just slowly gradually there'll be more floods, there'll be more migration,
there will be more. Basically, crops will fail. That's okay,
creeping thing, not a sudden apocalyptic crisis. No, I don't
think there'll be a sudden apocalyptic crisis unless there's some
sort of event that causes a food shortage or something
along those lines. But I think in the United States, UM,
(28:40):
in elite spaces, we're not going to really experience much.
I think you'll see the Uh, you might see real
city death in a place like Miami or areas of
Louisiana and Florida. Um, you might see city death in
coastal cities, in some coastal cities. But overall, I think
the structure is going to be able to go on
pretty much uninterrupted for a pretty long time. Um. I
(29:03):
think it's going to be worse years. It's hard to know.
I would say fifty you know, at least fifty. Um, yeah, no,
I think it's. Yeah, there's really very little hope right now.
You have to go look at like that, just one
final look at the COP twenty six climate thing, you know,
like they're doing nothing, they're throwing a penny in the fountain. Yeah,
(29:27):
I mean truly, just we're hopeless, man, Why not invite
a lepricaunt of the conference. Okay, Daniel, thank you very much.
It's actually been I find it kind of inspiring to
talk to anyone who's who's you know, even if the
predictions are dire, to have an independent, interesting mind who's
working on them is always uh makes me feel kind
of get I want before you go. I know you
(29:48):
have too many important meetings today, but before you go,
I want you to give us something that's hopeful, or
someplace where you see inspiration, or something that helps you
get out of bed in the morning. Even though you
think that we're cooking ourselves than when our political systems toast. Um,
there's a lot of content to consume, you know, so
I think content. I think I think you're going to
(30:08):
see what I think is interesting. I'm not sure this
is I'm not sure if this is positive or not.
But I do think you'll start seeing legalization of sort
of like, um, more drugs. I think you'll start see
I think you'll see legalization of things like sex work. Um,
I think you'll see legalization of vices generally quote unquote vices,
you know, just using that as a term, not making
any moral judgment, because I think as we you know,
(30:30):
slip into the abyss. Um. The government is going to
have to keep people occupied. So I think you know
you're going to see liberalization of laws, um in ways
that could be positive for people lived experience in actual life. Um.
But yeah, and there's ship ton of fucking content coming
out all the time. You know, I watched the Beatles documentary.
(30:51):
Is more things to distract myself. I've been shocked as
I pay attention in a minor way to sports that
basically the acceptance of sports gambling is close to I
mean it's not here in California. We're gonna have a
measure on the ballot in uh I think two that's
called something like Californian Solutions for Schools and Homelessness that's
(31:11):
actually funded by DraftKings. It's basically gonna legaliss sports gambling
here in California, and it's coming in almost every state.
And when you watch a sports podcast, they're pretty open
about talking about the spread now, of course in a
way that it used to be kind of like you
didn't do that. Yeah, bookies are now legal. I mean
like the bookies are effectively legal now. And I think
you're going to see more of that. Um, big Time
(31:33):
so um, stuff like that and more content that keeps
me going. Daniel Besner, where can people find you for
more of your insights on American Prestige podcast Yeah yeah,
check out the American Proceged Podcasts. Subscribe to it. Uh
and I'm at Twitter on Twitter at d Bestner. I'm
gonna follow you immediately. Thanks so much, guys, thanks for
(31:54):
listening for a Fourth from the South. We'll get Fab
back once we get the infrastructure repaired, although if Daniels
predictions are maybe this is a permanent outage, we'll never
hear from Fab again. But hopefully we'll have them on
soon because there's a lot going on in Chile and
on doors and everywhere in Latin America, and we'll bring
you somewhere that on the next episode of Four from
the South. Thanks very much, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Four from the South is hosted by Me, Steve Healey,
(32:15):
and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is our producer. Original theme
song by Amy Stolsenbach. Four from the South is a
production of Exile Content Studio in partnership with I Heart
Radio's Michael Tour podcast Network. For more podcasts from my heart,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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