April 22, 2020 • 51 mins
Katy, Robert and Cody try to figure out the origins and mechanisms behind the current social distancing protests, and we mostly kind of maybe a little bit do that.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of My Heart
Radio Everything. So don't don't welcome back to the Worst
(00:22):
Year Ever. Uh. We are recording this on a day
where the price of oil has turned negative, which, if
I understand economics right, means that humanity has finally discovered
free perpetual energy. So congratulations everyone, We didn't did it.
Congratulations to you for for getting that in there, that reference.
(00:45):
We have a whole other episode planned. But Robert was like, ah,
we gotta figure out how to mention the oil thing,
and I didn't. He really did it. I just felt
like we had to acknowledge that the price of oil
has inverted. Thus like glitching glitching the Mario map that
is capitalism and sending the oil. It's just such a
(01:10):
weird year. Oh no, broke April. Yeah, well, you know
we've all learned our lesson. I bought a bunch of
oil yesterday, but that you should have known. I I
tell you every year, wait till May to buy your
(01:31):
your barrels of oil. I know you say it constantly.
You you call me in the middle of the night
and you say that into my ear, and it's just
like you say it so much it's like white noise now,
you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's actually the only way
you can sleep now. But that's a separate discussion. We're
talking about the the possibly astro turfed, possibly authentic, probably
(01:54):
actually a mix of the two series of right wing
I'm gonna call him pro coronavirus rallies. The people hosting
them would call them, uh, anti social distancing or pro
opening up the economy protests. Um, Katie, you've prepared a
summary of kind of what's gone down and what the
action the president and his party's responses have been. So
(02:16):
I'm going to hand things over to you to to
take us through that first you, I will begrudgingly take
that baton. Um. Yeah, it's a nightmare. It's really such
a bomber. These protests right now. They're not just being
fueled by Trump's encouragements of them, which they are and
which we will get into in a second here, but
it's also kind of by his contradictory messaging. Uh. Last Tuesday,
(02:39):
his team was in the process of drafting new guidelines
that would allow some states to reopen businesses possibly this month,
despite you know, public health officials urging people to stay
home all the stuff we all know, um. But then
he was backtracking and saying that governors will have the
power to make those decisions in their states. But these
protests have been going on all last week. In Idaho,
anti get An activists were encouraging gatherings for Easter. Conservative
(03:03):
activists in Oklahoma had a get back to Work rally
at their state capital last Wednesday. Last Monday, protesters gathered
in Ohio carrying those don't tread on Me signs. Uh, let'
say that again. The don't tread on me flags, you know,
associated with the Tea Party, which is another thing that
we're going to get into later. We've also seen protests
in North Carolina, here in California and Huntington Beach, Texas.
(03:27):
The list goes on. Also in Kentucky, after a week
of protests, today they reported their highest new case number
to date, which is very cool. You can read into
that however you want to. UM. On Wednesday, hundreds of
protesters gathered in Michigan state capital, blocking an entrance to
a hospital, many of them waving Trump banners. In our
(03:51):
hospitals something we need right now. They are in some
way during a pandemic. They are indeed very very important.
What about in general also in general as well, but
specifically during this crisis. Yeah, they're pretty important. I'd say
that's just one woman's opinion. Though. What was this? This
is from Governor Gritch and Whitmer. The cars were blocking
(04:13):
one of our hospitals, so an ambulance literally wasn't able
to get into the bay for ten minutes. You know,
it's just I love well, no I hate um. It's
this is really interesting because either these are the same
people who during like um, Black Lives Matter and things
like that, would be furious at protesters for blocking highways. Well,
I just can't stop thinking about stuff like that, Yeah,
(04:36):
or like how we villainize and TIFA. I mean, let's
talk about some of the images real quick that we're seeing.
They're very disturbing, angry, not necessarily violent, but like kind
of the energy of them feel really really intense. People are,
you know, upset, And this is all still getting wrapped
up in Second Amendment amendment stuff. You know, we're gonna
(04:57):
get to that in a second. And you one thing
floating around Twitter today, yeah, communism. Um, you know there's
this this this photo circuling Twitter today of this woman
in this this big truck, uh, you know, leaning out
of her window shouting. Go back to China at nurses
(05:18):
who were calmly counter protesting. It's it's really intense and
what's interesting to me, And unfortunately I've seen Ben Shapiro
make the same point, but here goes nothing. It's like,
if you're protesting for the right to be free, you
have to also at least try to show that you
(05:39):
understand what's at stake. Like in Israel, a lot of
people started protesting net and yah, who's uh lockdown their restrictions,
but they did it with everybody in masks, calmly being
six ft apart. And those images are really stunning because
the aerial view you see they are spread out. Still
probably not the safest thing to be doing, but you know,
(06:01):
you're actually showing us that you you don't give a
funk about what's literally happening. You cannot deny what's happening,
you know what I mean, Um, if you if you
want to. I don't think they deserve their freedom, but
if they want their freedom, quote unquote, then show that
you fucking get it, you know what I mean? Anyway, So, okay,
I mentioned Trump's contradictory messaging. Uh, let's talk a little
(06:25):
bit about that some more. Um. Despite his announcement that
government governors would be able to decide when to reopen
their states, Um, Trump's been all day Friday encouraging people
to break the rules and and and protests. Not just that,
he specifically called out states with democratic governors because a
lot of these protesters are also his supporters. Uh. This
(06:48):
is from The New York Times. In a series of
all cap tweets that started two minutes after a Fox
News report on the protesters, the president declared liberate Michigan
and liberate Minnesota, two states who's democratic governors have impost
strict social distancing restrictions. He also lashed out at Virginia,
where the state's democratic governor and legislature have pushed for
strict gun control measures, saying, liberate Virginia and save your
(07:11):
great second amenent rights. It's under siege. Um. And it's
very alarming. I Mean, that's not the only instance of
him doing this. This has been kind of his emo
over the last few days and over the weekend. His
whole deal and his whole deal, this his whole general thing. Yeah. Yeah,
and it's it's definitely been I have been going through
(07:32):
different right wing groups on Facebook, organizations dedicated to planning
events like this, UM, and I have there have definitely
been a significant number of people who have interpreted this
as a call for violence. Yeah, and including a number
of folks who are actually like on the fascist right,
who actually dislike or hate the president. UM. I'm gonna
(07:53):
I'm trying to pull up an interesting one that I found. Sorry,
there's so much stuff on this page, UM that I
have been putting together. But so I was going through
some of the explicitly fascist telegram channels that I'm monitor
on a regular basis because my life is very fun
and good, uh and cool, and so in the Corona
(08:16):
Chan News COVID nineteen telegram channel, which has a lot
of UM, has a lot of play with like the
Siege community UM and which are like, you know, the
folks that want to push for a violent revolution and
and the collapse of society. I found post with people
basically saying like fuck Donald Trump. But this call is
(08:38):
going to be interpreted by other people as a call
for violence, and that's good for us. So yeah, on
on this news thing, they posted a screen grab of
Trump's liberate Minnesota, Liberate Virginia tweets and then posted below it,
Trump declares you can stop shutdowns governors say he doesn't
have the power to do so, declares himself King, liberate
your states. This man bay maybe a slur for Jewish
(09:02):
people up coked out orange peel, but he did just
stay say you can start shooting and hanging your politicians,
your state politicians. Three thousand nine views on that post.
And yeah, and a lot of these are folks who
actually don't like Trump because they're they're explicit neo Nazis,
and they see him as like yielding to Israel. But
they also see this as an opportunity and permission for violence. Right,
(09:24):
That's all he is to them, right, He's yeah, and
this is a good one. And like, as we are
talking about this, there's another one of these rallies going
on in Pennsylvania. Uh. And one of the videos I
just saw from it is an old military box truck
pulling up with about twenty people with machine guns in
the back. Um saying that from a couple of different
(09:46):
groups just rolling down the streets of an American city. Um,
you know it. It's one of the most striking photos
to me from the Lansing protest was a man on
the States of the like the Capitol building wearing a
skull mask that has a clown makeup and a clown
nose on his skull mask. Uh. And I found a
picture of a peppe wearing an SS cap and a
(10:08):
skull mask with a clown nose on it posted to
eco fascist Central Telegram channel in the very same day. So,
like you can see all of these different like there's
a lot of which is to say that everybody affiliated
with this is of that. In fact that the people
who kind of are explicitly the violent fascist chunk of
these protests is a minority of them. But there's they
(10:31):
want they are a part of this, and they want
to try to use it. In fact, they're going to
capitalize on it. I mean, I can't wait for there
to be some sort of terrorist attack during all of this. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's not just Trump right now, I mean it's conservatives,
Republican law play makers, all of them are are going
along with his line of argument. What was this on Monday?
(10:56):
This is Richard Grinnell, acting Director of the Office of
National Intelligence and the US Ambassador to Jerremany posted a
photo of the Bill of Rights on Instagram with the
title um signed permission slip to leave your house? You know.
White House Economic advisor Stephen Moore said that pro Trump
protesters demonstrating against at home orders are like rosa parks,
(11:18):
and they're calling them government injustices. Yeah. I think it's
important to note from on a practical level that this
is not These people are very much in the fringe. UM.
A Politico Morning Consult poll that was taken last week
UH showed that one of Americans told posters that the
country quote should continue to social distance for as long
(11:41):
as is needed to curb the spread of the coronavirus,
even if it means continued damage to the economy. An
NBC poll found a lower number, but it was still
sixty percent, which is a very sizeable majority. So the
vast majority of Americans, it seems safe to say, are
on board with with social distancing in these restrictions and
see them as necessary and good. Um. This is on
(12:05):
people's mind. It feels even bigger than it feels bigger
than it is because the amount of time, especially if
like Fox News is talking about it right now in
social media and the President's tweets and everything. Yeah, so
like this is what everybody knows, right that the that
these things have happened, the President and some Republicans have
signaled through them. These protests are continuing, and there's a
number of plan for the rest of April and into May.
(12:28):
UM in Salem, Oregon, they'll be doing some stuff on
May first and May second to protest to try to
reopen Oregon Um. And there's you know, uh, there's also
a protest that happened in Maine today that seems to
have blown over without a whole lot of attendees. It's
supposed to last two hours and it didn't last half that.
And so you're seeing a mix with these protests, some
of them that only a few dozen or a couple
(12:49):
of hundred people showed up to in the entire state
and they kind of fizzled out, and some of them,
like in Lansing, like in Olympia, Washington yesterday, people showed up.
It looks like it's potentially a pretty signal figant one
that's that's showing up in Pennsylvania today. Um. And so
you've got this mix of people online who are saying
the media is blowing this out of proportion, and there
(13:09):
aren't nearly as many people involved in this as and
it's like it's it's fully AstroTurf, which is not true. Um,
there are there is a significant amount of this that
is Um. You know, you can argue to the degree
to which it's AstroTurf. But a lot of people support it,
and a lot of people are very angry. And there
are states in which thousands of folks have shown up. Right,
the Lansing, Michigan protest was not an insignificant protest. It
(13:32):
was not a tiny number of people. They generated a
lot of traffic and they had an impact. Um. And
if you're if you're trying to look at the states
where very few people showed up and say that this
is evidence that the whole thing is fake, I I
think that you are ignoring a dangerous reality. Um. Because
it's uncomfortable. All right, There's it's similar with I mean
(13:53):
the Tea party. We're like, yeah, aspects of it obviously
being pushed by moneyed interests and people, but the the
grievance and the anger that's real. Yeah. So I am
in the process of trying to unravel what is actually
happening here, and I want to start with the caveat
that as I try to explain who is behind all
these protests. This is maybe the single most complicated news
(14:17):
story I've ever run into. Not not like in terms
of like I've read stories other journals to put together
that I'm sure we're more complicated, but in terms of
like me trying to unravel, I think this is a
fucking mess. So I'm gonna start by talking about the
Door brothers, Christian and Ben Door. UM. So the Door
(14:40):
family in general are based in I think Michigan, uh,
and they are known as prior to this, have been
known for a while as UM like protest grifters. Uh.
They have really like Zachary Ellwood, who's done some good
reporting up import and has been kind of like breaking
(15:01):
the story on this UM. But there's actually a website
dedicated to the Door Family's scams in the past, So
they've what what what they've been most famous for prior
to this is UM pushing against the Republican parties gun
control positions, considering them to be like way too far
to the left in the n r A, to be
way too far to the left. UM. And they have
(15:23):
created a variety of different websites called like including the
American Firearms Coalition, Florida Gun Rights, Georgia Gun Owners Coalition,
Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, Iowa Gun Owners Association, Iowa Pro
Life Action, Minnesota Gun Rights, Minnesota Right to Life UM.
So they make a whole bunch of different websites, some
of which get thousands of people and try to drum
up protests and the the short explanation for why they're
(15:47):
doing this seems to be that they are attempting to
number one, solicit donations and number two, build a mailing list,
because there's a lot of financial value in having a
mailing list. And actually the the Minnesota Republican Party has
posted like an explainer on their website warning conservatives in
that state against trusting the Door Brothers in any of
their organizations because this has been a problem for a while.
(16:09):
But over the course of the last week or two,
uh they have opened a number of pages with essentially
the exact same name Minnesota's Against Excessive Quarantine, New Yorkers
Against Excessive Quarantine, Ohioan's Against Excessive Quarantine, Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine,
Wisconsinites against Excessive Quarantine. YadA YadA ya. You see, you
see what they're doing, right, So they have made all
(16:31):
of these different groups, some of which have gotten thousands
of people. So for example, the Wisconsinites Against Excessive Quarantine
Facebook group, which I think just got shot down. Let
me actually double check that right now, it had sixty
six thousand followers as of April nineteen. Yeah, so the
door Brothers do hold very no. Yeah, that page is
still around in it now has a hundred and one
thousand members. So and these are the same people behind
(16:56):
the Pennsylvania group. So you can definitely say that this
is asked to a turf to an extent, because these
people are grifters trying to make a lot of money
about this. So like they are asking soliciting from donations
for people who join these groups, and they are trying
to like coordinate and basically build um a network of
human Like they're basically trying to build a list of
people they can contact because you can monetize that very easily.
(17:18):
And this is on the whole pretty old story within
kind of conservative politics, going back to like the Liberty
Lobby and Willis Carto, this idea of like wanting to
have big mailing lists of people. That's kind of what
they're doing. But these groups are being used to plan
actual protests. And this is where it gets really fucking complicated.
Before you get into that, Robert, do you know what
(17:39):
time it is? You know, Sophie, with gas at negative
thirty seven dollars of barrel, you can't afford not to
call British Petroleum our sponsor and order an infinite number
of gasoline barrels because that is the way to lasting
financial independence in our economy order and in finite supply
(18:00):
of fuel right now. Uh, and become a billionaire in seconds,
so by negative money and make money. Yes, that's what
I'm urging people to do. And I would also I'd
also like, it's gonna buy a big barrel. Yeah, just
get it. Get some barrels. They need it. I we're
all worried right now for our number one sponsor, the
(18:22):
Raytheon Corporation UM, and they're going to be hit really
hard by this oil blight. So please donate money to
Raytheon so they can continue building the missile guidance systems
that were Yeah, after you listen to these ads, these
ads for Raytheon thoughts and prayers to raytheon together everything. Okay,
(18:51):
So we're back and I'm trying to explain what the
fund is happening with the Door Brothers and all these people.
What the fund is happening, Um, so let me it's
it's very complicated, it's it's it's a fun So the
Doors created a lot of different groups. Um, it's kind
of impossible to say how many right now, but they're
all along the lines of like such and so and
(19:12):
so against excessive quarantine. And people are saying this is astroturft,
and there's an extent to which that is true. But
the Door Brothers weren't behind the first of these protests
or the starters of these. They didn't kick any of
this off. So Jesus, this is such a fucking mess.
So the Lansing the Michigan protests were organized by which
(19:34):
is kind of like the big one that kicked all
this off, and the one that like first got huge
amounts of media attention, which is like the everyone in
their cars blocking traffic protest that was organized by the
Michigan Conservative Coalition, which is the same organ Yeah, and
and the Michigan the Michigan Conservative coalition in the Michigan
Freedom Fund and the Michigan Freedom Fund. It was funded
by Greg McNeely, who's a political advisor to the Divorce Family. UM. Now,
(19:59):
the Divorce Family has denied having any role in this. Obviously,
the fact that the President backed this and that there's
ties from the organizers of the Michigan protests to the
Divos family has led a lot of people to suspect
that the Divos Family was kind of behind kicking off
the start of this, and there's a good reason to
believe that that's true. Yeah, the protests in Olympia, Washington
(20:19):
that occurred on Sunday, the day before we recorded this,
which drew something or somewhere around people, those were organized
by a Brimmerton, Washington man, Tyler Miller, a Navy veteran,
but they were also organized by a number of different
Facebook groups that kind of trace back to a group
called American Revolution two point oh. And I can't tell
you at this moment who actually started all that. It's
(20:40):
very unclear to me the origin um, but there is
evidence that heavily suggests that Matt Shay, who is a
local militia leader and an elected state represented in Washington
is a part of it. He spoke at the event
in Olympia. He's certainly an advocate, definite. Yeah, And there's
evidence that the Bundy's like they pushed for some rallies
(21:00):
and in Idaho, uh there there they are probably involved
in this. So it looks like some of the stuff
that's happened a situation here. Yeah, an American Revolution two
point oh is planning identical demonstrations in Oregon from May
one and May second. So what you have within Michigan,
you have this group that ties back to the bosses
(21:20):
within Oregon and Washington. You have this group that at
least ties back to definitely ties to some figures in
the militia community um, but also seems to generally be
based in significant amount on on legitimate groups of people
who are are very angry and organizing like it. It
doesn't seem more AstroTurf than any other protest of its
size for me, from what I'm looking at in the
(21:42):
PMW right now, what we saw in Michigan you could
definitely say seems to be astroturfed and seems to have
been folks who have like direct ties to the Republican Party.
And then you have in the wake of that Michigan protest,
and prior to the Washington protest, you have the Door
Brothers kicking starting up all of these X state and
successive quarantines. So and and that part is like, do
(22:03):
we call that astroturft um or do we call that
a scam that is also providing a place for people
to organize and will generate more protests, even though it
seems to be part of this like scam by these
brothers who have been doing this for years to try
and drum up more names and more donations for the
network of groups that they run. Now to make all
(22:25):
of that even more fucking complicated, I started getting tagged
in posts and sent links to a Reddit post that
somebody made over the where they it was a piece
of open source research where somebody revealed that an individual
had purchased dozens and dozens of domains with names like
reopen a L dot com, reopen a K dot com,
(22:45):
reopen a R dot com. So reopen all these different states,
reopen West Virginia, really, liberate West Virginia, liberate Wisconsin. Um.
And this was at the same time as the Door
Brothers are creating what it now seems to be hundreds
of different state groups with titles like such and such
against excessive quarantine. So the way that this was taken
by people who started sharing this viral Reddit post is
(23:08):
that all of these groups were part of a single
concerted effort um and that that this was very clearly
a nationwide concerted astroturfing campaign. But then today Mother Jones
published an article where so if you go, if you
went into that Reddit post and you looked into who
was buying up all these domains, it led back to
(23:29):
an individual whose name I will not use on this.
That individual began getting harassed by huge numbers of liberals
and people on the left because they believed that this
person was behind an AstroTurf campaign to get people out
in public protesting social distancing and the like. That is
not what happened. So Mother Jones caught up with the creator,
with the person who bought all of these websites, and
(23:51):
he has by his own description, and old hippie who
noticed what the Door Brothers were doing and noticed what
had happened in Michigan and bought as many domains, spent
four thousand dollars of his own money buying up all
of the domains that he thought might be used by
groups like this so that he could squat on them
and stop them from being used and hopefully limit the
spread of these protests and of this misinformation. His justification
(24:14):
is basically, I'm going I know that it matters having
a website with a really obvious and easy for people
to remember and easy people to guess u r L.
And if I buy up all of that those websites
right now, they won't be used by bad actors. So
this person went into debt to try to stop the
spread of misinformation and was flooded with harassment and threats
(24:35):
because people somebody found out that he was behind this
um and and publicize that without noting that like, actually,
these websites haven't been created, so no one's done anything
with them. But this is also so you have one
group of right wing, at least one group and probably
a couple of groups of right wing, a mix of
grifters and activists who are mass creating groups that have
hundreds of thousands of members nationwide and that have been
(24:58):
at least involved in the creation of several real protests,
although they didn't start the protest movement that does seem
to have been in part astro turf. But you also
have at the same time these liberals who have bought
up a huge number of domains, this liberal in order
to try to stop the spread of disinformation. So all
of these things are happening at once. Um is so complicated,
(25:19):
it's it's it is very difficult to get my head
around what the funk is happening right now. But what
is clear to say is that thousands of Americans in
a number of different states have turned out, many of
them with firearms, to protest against social distancing and to
in some cases express their their willingness to do violence.
(25:41):
I wanted to clarify in case this was misinterpreted earlier.
When I was saying that the way that Fox News
has been putting out headlines and conservative media's it makes
it seem bigger than it really is. I wasn't diminishing
the fact that this is a very real thing that's
happening with tons of people uh jumping on board. Just like, yes,
(26:04):
it's hard to understand the scale of what it is
that we're working with, and it's you know, everybody scared
of it, and that doesn't quite understand I'm a little
bit baffled by all this, to be honest, and like
it's the things that I think are important. Is number one,
most Americans are not on board protests like these, um.
And it is possible that this it is possible that
(26:28):
the fact that a lot of this is astroturfed will
mean that this movement never really materializes in and on
the ground way. But at the same time, we have
seen it in some places. There are some states where
these rallies have been minimal and basically pointless and shown
that in those states there's very little support for this
sort of thing. And there have been some states where
(26:48):
it has been shown that there is quite a lot
of support for these groups and a lot of very
angry people who are getting increasingly organized, and that is
something to be aware of and concerned by. Yeah. And
they also have, I mean, for whatever the reason and
whatever the motivation, they have the president and his propaganda
(27:09):
wing operating as if they're good and popular and people
should do it um. So I think to even too,
even if there are fewer people then should be a concern.
The ecosystem says that we should be concerned, and like,
I don't know, dismissed, people dismissed. So many things like
(27:30):
this that end up growing because they're dismissed. Literally, the
current president was dismissed as like something that didn't matter,
was silly and unpopular, and here we are and here
we are, and you mean, honestly, it just keeps happening
things that if things get dismissed, and then they happen yah.
(27:53):
And it's the kind of thing people are saying, like, like,
I got into an argument with some folks on Twitter
who were like, uh, there were a little to Somebody
made a post being like, there's only hundreds of people
at these events. They're not a real protest. This isn't
a real thing to be concerned about. The news should
stop covering it. And I pointed out, well, actually people
showed up in Washington and a lot of them had
(28:14):
guns and ties to the militia community, and that's not
something to ignore. That is a real story that is significant.
And the response was like, people is only like, you know,
a fraction of a percent of the state's total population,
and it's like and one of the things that I
would point out to the folks acting like that is that, um,
I've been to Roca, the former capital of the Islamic State,
(28:35):
and I have talked to people who were there when
Isis took over UM and it started with a few
dozen to a few hundred armed people UH moving in
in the wake of the government sort of pulling out
and collapsing in that area and just saying we're in
charge now. And they didn't encounter immediate resistance when there
(28:57):
were only a few dozen of them, and they weren't
that well organized, and more people kept coming and more
people kept coming, and eventually it resulted in the fucking
Caliphate UH taking over huge swats of territory and a horrible,
horrible war. And that is if things go really badly.
The fact that these groups in a couple of states
(29:18):
can pull together a thousand, two thousand armed people and
get them into the center of a capital city UM
at the right point in time could be very important.
And it doesn't matter if millions of people don't agree
with them. What matters is whether or not they are
able to take and hold important chunks of Infratraul structure
(29:41):
at the right time. So this is not something I
think can be ignored. And again, the president is their cheerleader.
Right now. Yeah. Yeah, we see that reaction all the
time with stuff like this, and even like his the
Charlottesville rallies, like it's just it's just like people. Yeah,
well then what yep, yeah, then what where does it
go from there? So, Cody, you have some stuff about
(30:03):
the Tea Party because this is being compared to the
Tea Party and people talking this is again one of
the reasons why I think that the folks who are
saying this is just AstroTurf ignore it or maybe making
a dangerous call, is that, like the Tea Party was
totally an AstroTurf thing, which you're going to talk about,
and then the two thousand ten midterm elections happened. Should
we define AstroTurf for people? Yeah, I'm gonna hand it
(30:27):
over to Cody now. Um. Yeah. So you'll see a
lot of a lot of Democratic leaders these days, especially
referred to like grassroots movements. It's the opposite of grassroots movements.
A grassroots movement is like a naturally occurring movement of
popular people. Like the way grass grows, not the kind
of grass that's planted, yes, the way regular grass grows. Uh.
(30:49):
And then an aster turf is basically a fake movement.
It's fake grass. Um. It's often you know, it'll be
whether it's paying people to protest um or influencing people
to be a part of a movement that they wouldn't
necessarily be a part of otherwise. Um. I mean Donald
Trump paid people uh to applaud when he announced that
(31:12):
he was running for president, things like that. So I
guess to really get into this, let me take you
back a few couple several years. Don't back in time?
Is there's some way that we can be there's some
way that we might uh that we might help our
audience mentally go back in time. If I can't believe
(31:33):
if we continuing bits, this is the bit. It's not
a little bit of mechanism, a machine in order that
that allows us to alter what time it is? If
where do exist? How would it sound, Katie take it away?
Just do it do do do do do do do
do do auditioning a new bit that's disgusting. So anyway,
(32:00):
you know how all those protests, um, like all protests
are funded and created by George Soros, our boss, you know, yeah,
and how everyone like has like Trump syndrome. We do
call him that that's how he signs the checks that
we all get in cash. You know how everyone has
trumped arrangement syndrome these days. You know, like people protested
(32:21):
him in his first month of office. Grow up, grow
up people anyway. In February of two thousand nine, Barack
Obama's first full month in office, he signed a stimulus
package in response to a recession that was surely his fault.
That same month, in Seattle, Kelly Carender, known online as
Liberty Bell b E L L e H on her
(32:43):
blog Redistributing Knowledge, organized the first tea party protest against
government spending. People were in attendance. A few days later,
on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Trade commentator
Rick Santelli ranted about government spending on C n B C,
calling for a Chicago tea party. The clip went viral,
(33:05):
got a lot of popularity Over the next few weeks.
Thousands of people protested in cities across America on these
general ideas. Fox News got on board. Specifically known full
of ship man Glenn Beck got really on board um.
Another prominent figure early on was conservative blogger Michelle Malkin.
Listeners may be familiar with her semi recent activity amidst
(33:28):
the alt right, or her support of Holocaust denier and
basically a Nazi Nick Fuentes. Um. But the soft and
eventually hard racism of the Tea Party movement or heck,
you know what's going on now is really what we're
talking about. Yet, back to the protests was which continued
to grow Facebook groups, and Fox News kept pushing more protests.
(33:52):
This culminator in September Taxpayer March on Washington, the Coux
uh tax derangement syndrome one might call it anyway. At
that march, a Fox News producer can be seen literally
pumping up the crowd for footage they were going to
use later. The producer was disciplined and Fox News would uh,
(34:13):
you know, never make a mistake like that. Again. They
were good from then on out, um. And so we
could actually go on about what happened later as the
Tea Party, which is not a party, pivoted from protesting
UH at these events that were scoffed at by many
people in the media. UH, and they pivoted towards supporting
(34:33):
and electing politicians, many of whom we now know and
love today, including but not only Sarah Palin, Joe Walsh,
Mike Pence, Steve King, Rand Paul, Steve Scalise, Marco Rubio,
Resistance hero, Justin Amash, Michelle Bachman, Mick mulveny, Ted Cruz,
(34:58):
Ron Paul, and Mike Lee. Those are just a few
of them. Now, Cody, the fact that Astro turf to
protests uh started by wealthy GOP tied individuals were behind
the start of the Tea Party protests. That means that
none of those individuals you've listed have gone on to
have a massive and shattering impact on American society, right, Robert, Robert,
(35:26):
I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, so
we can safely ignore it. It seems like this Ted
Cruise fellow, for example, UMO never cloud down the economy.
These this or this organic movement that happened naturally. Um,
that was just silly. Uh, they supported Ted Cruise. I
(35:48):
didn't even know who you're talking about. I'm going to
google right now. I'm sorry, this is so beside the point,
but I just remembered that story I read about. I
believe when Ted Cruz was a new lewd drove his
wife crazy by going to the market and just continually
stalking up on canned soup. He bought too much soup.
(36:08):
She made him return all the soup. I'm sorry, but
Ted ted Cruise was incredibly president. Yeah, no, he was
right about soup. Okay, nobody's saying Ted Cruizers wrong about
Believe that memory just came running back in my brain.
I also can't believe that it's already time for another
ad break. And as you go into this ad break,
(36:28):
remember this piece of second Great Depression wisdom. Broken clock
filled with canned soup is still has calories when there
are runs on the grocery stores. So fill all of
your clocks with as much soup as you can, or
be like that one woman who buried all the beans
in her backyard. Together, every don't. And we're back from
(37:01):
the break. We're back from outer space. And I just
walked in to find you all here with that happy
look upon your face, because we're all gonna keep cast
in a pod. We're going to cast the pods about
the best year of everybody's life. Yes, ending is really
on point today. I know we're nailing it. We're nailing it,
(37:24):
and I think we may have just saved the oil
and gas industry. Because of how well we're doing this podcast.
I don't want to make a prediction, but I predict
everything's gonna be gravy. I literally could not agree with
both of you anymore. Yes, I want to hear more
about the thing you prepared. Oh well, okay, So I
mean we've gone over the the irrelevant people that have
(37:46):
no power today, that we're supported by this movement that
was completely organic and natural and came from popular descent. Um.
And we could actually we could talk about the fringe
elements of the proto tests over those years, um, which
fringe being civility speak for racist and h fucked up
(38:07):
stuff that people at the protests do not want to acknowledge. Uh,
that might be underlying elements of the movement. But this
episode isn't actually about the Tea Party. Um. You know,
there's so much to say about the effect the movement
has had on our politics, how they pulled the country
further right while claiming Obama's an evil socialist, and how
it was the last big transitional period and path to
(38:30):
our current president. How the first national convention of the
common Man's Tea Party had Sarah Palin speaking for a
hundred thousand dollars with tickets costing five forty seven dollars,
and about how every single person who participated in the
Tea Party movement seems to like forget about it all
these days. But again, this isn't about the Tea Party.
It's the little segment about the origins of the Tea Party,
(38:52):
a completely organic, grassroots movement for the people the end.
Oh also, so wait, sorry, so there's this organization from
the nineties called Citizens for a Sound Economy. It's the
precursor to modern think tanks and orgers like Americans for
Prosperity and Freedom Works. You might recognize those names as
producers of propaganda, like with our good friend Dennis Praeger,
dean of Praguer University, which, according to its website, is
(39:15):
not an accredited university. You also might recognize all of
these organizations as being funded by pals of the cast,
the Coke Brothers of Coke Industries, the second largest privately
owned company in the world. Anyway. In sixteen, Time magazine
published an excerpt from Jim Nesbit's book Poison Tea, How
big Oil and big Tobacco invented the Tea Party and
(39:36):
captured the GOP. It describes a meeting he had when
he was consulting for Citizens for a Sound Economy, which
again later became Americans for Prosperity. The meeting was also
attended by Philip Morris. Quote. The concept that c SE
put on the conference table, which was quickly taken up
by the Philip Morris staff, was a bit shocking to me.
(39:58):
They proposed an unholy allied aiance, Philip Morris money commingled
with Coke money to create anti tax front groups in
a handful of states that would battle any tax that moved.
It would make no difference what kind of tax. The
front groups could battle cigarette excise taxes in the Northeast
and refined oil fees at the coasts. Any tax for
(40:19):
any purpose was bad, and these front groups would tackle
them all. With Philip Morris and the Cokes behind them,
it made good business sense and good political sense as well.
You could relabel just about anything as a tax, and
heaven knows, the American public hates taxes. This at its
core was the beginning of the American tea Party revolt
(40:40):
against the power of the government to pay for its programs.
They could recruit average citizens from a variety of ideological
groups to their cause. They would work side by side
with corporate directed workers and employees providing real boots on
the ground when enough activists weren't readily available, and no
one would be the wiser or even care that these
(41:00):
grassroots quotes anti tax groups would be jointly created and
funded by the largest private oil company and the largest
cigarette company in the world. So much like these protests,
or at least somewhat it's interesting to me at least
that they're all framed as like we're the little guy,
(41:21):
like we're real America, we're being trampled on by the government.
But it's mostly like business owners and landlords pushing it.
So not a lot of people know who rich Fink is.
You know who Rich Fink is? No, Rich Fink maybe
the most apply named person on the planet name unbelievable. UM.
(41:43):
He's a basically it's Charles Coke's political advisor. As Nesbitt
points out, over the years, Rich Fink UM has talked
regularly about their basically their plan to sort of take
over one of the two national political parties UM from
the outside in place more libertarian free market principles in
(42:06):
this place. UM and these ideas are outlined in this book.
Being an extensive academic now, so I'm gonna I'm gonna
read these off, and I think listeners of this podcast,
Katie and Mis podcast, Robert's other podcasts will be familiar
I think with the mechanisms we're talking about here, familiarity
(42:29):
is comforting. In this time, it is very comforting. This
is making me feel really great. Uh, an extensive academic
network to support it intellectually, policy networks in every state
to draw on that intellectual underpinning from hundreds of American universities,
a true political grassroots alliance that extended to all of
those state capitals and work closely with the academic and
(42:49):
policy network. A propaganda arm that could bring tightly controlled
messaging and narratives to the four in the state networks
in a way that looked like independent journalism. And a
national coordinate in group that could enforce discipline in what
would otherwise be a chaotic, unruly, wildly disconnected political network
that ran the gamut from the Patriot movement to American exceptionalism.
(43:11):
So at pro of nothing, I'm just gonna say some
words now, the Sam Adams Alliance, American Enterprise Institute, the
Franklin Center for Government and Policy Integrity, the State Policy Network,
Americans for Prosperity, Pragger University, Job Creators Network, Get Government
off our Back. Enough is enough, Citizens against regressive taxation,
(43:33):
learn liberty, freedom works, and so on. I could go
on and on and on. Anyway, I'm not sure why
I brought all of that up. Um. As Michelle Malkin
told Fox News in twenty uh in two thousand nine,
this is real. These people are here and they're here
to stay. So like two out of three is pretty
good the end okay? On course, so to be fair
(43:58):
um and balanced? Actually uh. In response to this, and
the Coke Foundation put forth a statement saying no funding
has been provided by Coke Companies, the Coke Foundation, or
Charles Coke or David Coke specifically to support the tea parties.
So case closed. Huh. Yeah. So that's just a brief
(44:21):
little uh rundown of the perception I think of the
Tea Party early on, um, the inception of that general movement,
which was in place years before it even happened, um,
and the results of that a astro turf movement, uh,
(44:42):
sort of presented as with elements of grassroots movements. Uh,
and here we have Ted Cruz and Mike Pence. Yea yea.
Do we want to end this with like some sort
of like actionable item for how to uh how to
do the opposite of what these people are doing? Yeah,
you know, I mean the only so one of so
(45:04):
there's there's a couple of things action wise. Number one,
it is a matter of self defense to not pretend
this is nothing, because it's not nothing. This is significant. Um.
One of the things that people should be doing and
should be continuing to do, is to organize in your
communities because if something like what I talked about happening
(45:28):
in Rocca happens in your area. I don't I don't
see this being a nationwide thing, but I think, especially
if things get a lot worse, this is a threat
people as something people might need to consider. And being
organized on a local level and knowing people and having
groups that are used to working together to to do stuff,
even as simple as just providing food to the disadvantage
(45:49):
will be UM an advantage to you. There are more
of us than there are of them. This is a
small movement, but if the majority of us are not
organized enough to counterman them Um, then they might get
what they want anyway, So it is it is worth
having people continue to organize. There's a recent a podcast
(46:09):
that I won't name, but that's name rhymes with slop
mo flap spouse Um made some statements about a kind
of quasi anarchist activist group in the United States called
Food Not Bombs, which provides food and not bombs in
a number of Americans. There's not a lot of central Yeah,
(46:34):
there's a lot of different Food not Bombs groups, and
they focus on providing people who don't have enough food
with what they need, which is food and not bombs.
And the comment they made was essentially that like these
groups weren't super useful because they weren't building power. And
there's a there's a valid criticism to be made about
groups in the left that like focus on direct action
(46:55):
like this as opposed to focusing on electoral action. That's
certainly a conversation that should be had. But I think
people are making a mistake when they don't when they
act as if providing food and other necessities to people
is not a form of power, because especially when things
are bad, the folks who have are used to gathering
(47:16):
and providing these things and organizing have power, UM because
they've been doing something out of empathy and goodness instead
of power. And they also have networks that are organized
that are used to providing things people need. And when
you have things people need and get them to them
and you have a sort of power that is a
(47:37):
kind of yeah, and they trust you to Yeah. So
that is the kind of power people should be continuing
to build. And if there is not something like that
in your local area, try to build it. UM. Look
into groups like Food Not Bombs. Volunteer for them if
they have something near you. Look into Mutual Aid disaster
really volunteer if they are near you, Water not and
(48:00):
along tho. Just a sort of piggyback. I mean that
was directed a lot of people. A lot of our
listeners are living in states and communities that might be
more directly impacted by this shore. But it's still important
for all of us to be paying attention to it,
especially with everything else that's going on UM as as
a support system, as just to not be surprised if
(48:24):
it becomes something bigger than what it is now. You know,
that's not fearmongering, that's practicality. Yeah, Yeah, it's practicality. So
I am, I don't think we should be forming counter protests.
You will notice UM antifa quote unquote has not been
showing up at these right wing marches because fundamentally, the
(48:44):
vast majority of the folks who are in these kind
of anti fascist organizations don't want to make a pandemic
worse UM because because they've already got the masks. Yeah,
they it's it's so. Yeah. If you know another place
you might look is if there are local groups of
anti fascists who have been organizing. You know what. The
reason the Door Brothers are doing what they're doing and
(49:05):
creating all these groups is that there is value, UM,
but a financial value and a political value and a
practical value in being able to communicate to a large
number of UM people who believes broadly similar things that
you do. And uh, yeah, we should be doing that.
(49:25):
More positive note to end on. Yeah, let's end on
that slightly positive note. Um. Also, Ammo prices have gone
back down, although they searched a bit after everyone got refunds,
So you know, just making a note of that too.
Go fill up your car with gas. You'll sell your
Ammo by oil. Yeah, very simple The clear takeaway from
(49:51):
today is that oil is the thing to invest in.
No negative right by negative. Have the oil companies pay
you to take oil from them and then sell the
oil to other people. I love the economy and understanding.
It's so good. I'm gonna have backyard oil parties this summer.
(50:13):
It's going to be sick. We can't hang out inside,
but my backyard is going to be one big like
fire is going to be sick. My boss at Belling
Cat is like, can I pour oil down my my
sink drain? I know I can't do that with cooking oil,
but I can't cook with fuel oil, so it seems
(50:35):
like I should be able to pour it down the sink.
So the logic works. Yeah, I'm waiting for the uh,
like that crowd of like Nike did this thing. So
I'm gonna burn my Nikes but with oil and just
try to try to burn the oil. Just oil feels
lit on fire. Yeah, I can't believe it's only April.
(50:58):
I mean, we are all going to learn at Saddam
Hussein was way ahead of his time with living lighting World.
I've been saying that for years. It was market regulation.
Uh huh. He knew, he knew. We should have listened
to Saddam Hussey say every week. Well, hindsight is in
(51:18):
the episode. Immediately, Daniel, that's the line. Everything, everything, so Dud.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(51:40):
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of My Heart
Radio Everything. So don't don't welcome back to the Worst
(00:22):
Year Ever. Uh. We are recording this on a day
where the price of oil has turned negative, which, if
I understand economics right, means that humanity has finally discovered
free perpetual energy. So congratulations everyone, We didn't did it.
Congratulations to you for for getting that in there, that reference.
(00:45):
We have a whole other episode planned. But Robert was like, ah,
we gotta figure out how to mention the oil thing,
and I didn't. He really did it. I just felt
like we had to acknowledge that the price of oil
has inverted. Thus like glitching glitching the Mario map that
is capitalism and sending the oil. It's just such a
(01:10):
weird year. Oh no, broke April. Yeah, well, you know
we've all learned our lesson. I bought a bunch of
oil yesterday, but that you should have known. I I
tell you every year, wait till May to buy your
(01:31):
your barrels of oil. I know you say it constantly.
You you call me in the middle of the night
and you say that into my ear, and it's just
like you say it so much it's like white noise now,
you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's actually the only way
you can sleep now. But that's a separate discussion. We're
talking about the the possibly astro turfed, possibly authentic, probably
(01:54):
actually a mix of the two series of right wing
I'm gonna call him pro coronavirus rallies. The people hosting
them would call them, uh, anti social distancing or pro
opening up the economy protests. Um, Katie, you've prepared a
summary of kind of what's gone down and what the
action the president and his party's responses have been. So
(02:16):
I'm going to hand things over to you to to
take us through that first you, I will begrudgingly take
that baton. Um. Yeah, it's a nightmare. It's really such
a bomber. These protests right now. They're not just being
fueled by Trump's encouragements of them, which they are and
which we will get into in a second here, but
it's also kind of by his contradictory messaging. Uh. Last Tuesday,
(02:39):
his team was in the process of drafting new guidelines
that would allow some states to reopen businesses possibly this month,
despite you know, public health officials urging people to stay
home all the stuff we all know, um. But then
he was backtracking and saying that governors will have the
power to make those decisions in their states. But these
protests have been going on all last week. In Idaho,
anti get An activists were encouraging gatherings for Easter. Conservative
(03:03):
activists in Oklahoma had a get back to Work rally
at their state capital last Wednesday. Last Monday, protesters gathered
in Ohio carrying those don't tread on Me signs. Uh, let'
say that again. The don't tread on me flags, you know,
associated with the Tea Party, which is another thing that
we're going to get into later. We've also seen protests
in North Carolina, here in California and Huntington Beach, Texas.
(03:27):
The list goes on. Also in Kentucky, after a week
of protests, today they reported their highest new case number
to date, which is very cool. You can read into
that however you want to. UM. On Wednesday, hundreds of
protesters gathered in Michigan state capital, blocking an entrance to
a hospital, many of them waving Trump banners. In our
(03:51):
hospitals something we need right now. They are in some
way during a pandemic. They are indeed very very important.
What about in general also in general as well, but
specifically during this crisis. Yeah, they're pretty important. I'd say
that's just one woman's opinion. Though. What was this? This
is from Governor Gritch and Whitmer. The cars were blocking
(04:13):
one of our hospitals, so an ambulance literally wasn't able
to get into the bay for ten minutes. You know,
it's just I love well, no I hate um. It's
this is really interesting because either these are the same
people who during like um, Black Lives Matter and things
like that, would be furious at protesters for blocking highways. Well,
I just can't stop thinking about stuff like that, Yeah,
(04:36):
or like how we villainize and TIFA. I mean, let's
talk about some of the images real quick that we're seeing.
They're very disturbing, angry, not necessarily violent, but like kind
of the energy of them feel really really intense. People are,
you know, upset, And this is all still getting wrapped
up in Second Amendment amendment stuff. You know, we're gonna
(04:57):
get to that in a second. And you one thing
floating around Twitter today, yeah, communism. Um, you know there's
this this this photo circuling Twitter today of this woman
in this this big truck, uh, you know, leaning out
of her window shouting. Go back to China at nurses
(05:18):
who were calmly counter protesting. It's it's really intense and
what's interesting to me, And unfortunately I've seen Ben Shapiro
make the same point, but here goes nothing. It's like,
if you're protesting for the right to be free, you
have to also at least try to show that you
(05:39):
understand what's at stake. Like in Israel, a lot of
people started protesting net and yah, who's uh lockdown their restrictions,
but they did it with everybody in masks, calmly being
six ft apart. And those images are really stunning because
the aerial view you see they are spread out. Still
probably not the safest thing to be doing, but you know,
(06:01):
you're actually showing us that you you don't give a
funk about what's literally happening. You cannot deny what's happening,
you know what I mean, Um, if you if you
want to. I don't think they deserve their freedom, but
if they want their freedom, quote unquote, then show that
you fucking get it, you know what I mean? Anyway, So, okay,
I mentioned Trump's contradictory messaging. Uh, let's talk a little
(06:25):
bit about that some more. Um. Despite his announcement that
government governors would be able to decide when to reopen
their states, Um, Trump's been all day Friday encouraging people
to break the rules and and and protests. Not just that,
he specifically called out states with democratic governors because a
lot of these protesters are also his supporters. Uh. This
(06:48):
is from The New York Times. In a series of
all cap tweets that started two minutes after a Fox
News report on the protesters, the president declared liberate Michigan
and liberate Minnesota, two states who's democratic governors have impost
strict social distancing restrictions. He also lashed out at Virginia,
where the state's democratic governor and legislature have pushed for
strict gun control measures, saying, liberate Virginia and save your
(07:11):
great second amenent rights. It's under siege. Um. And it's
very alarming. I Mean, that's not the only instance of
him doing this. This has been kind of his emo
over the last few days and over the weekend. His
whole deal and his whole deal, this his whole general thing. Yeah. Yeah,
and it's it's definitely been I have been going through
(07:32):
different right wing groups on Facebook, organizations dedicated to planning
events like this, UM, and I have there have definitely
been a significant number of people who have interpreted this
as a call for violence. Yeah, and including a number
of folks who are actually like on the fascist right,
who actually dislike or hate the president. UM. I'm gonna
(07:53):
I'm trying to pull up an interesting one that I found. Sorry,
there's so much stuff on this page, UM that I
have been putting together. But so I was going through
some of the explicitly fascist telegram channels that I'm monitor
on a regular basis because my life is very fun
and good, uh and cool, and so in the Corona
(08:16):
Chan News COVID nineteen telegram channel, which has a lot
of UM, has a lot of play with like the
Siege community UM and which are like, you know, the
folks that want to push for a violent revolution and
and the collapse of society. I found post with people
basically saying like fuck Donald Trump. But this call is
(08:38):
going to be interpreted by other people as a call
for violence, and that's good for us. So yeah, on
on this news thing, they posted a screen grab of
Trump's liberate Minnesota, Liberate Virginia tweets and then posted below it,
Trump declares you can stop shutdowns governors say he doesn't
have the power to do so, declares himself King, liberate
your states. This man bay maybe a slur for Jewish
(09:02):
people up coked out orange peel, but he did just
stay say you can start shooting and hanging your politicians,
your state politicians. Three thousand nine views on that post.
And yeah, and a lot of these are folks who
actually don't like Trump because they're they're explicit neo Nazis,
and they see him as like yielding to Israel. But
they also see this as an opportunity and permission for violence. Right,
(09:24):
That's all he is to them, right, He's yeah, and
this is a good one. And like, as we are
talking about this, there's another one of these rallies going
on in Pennsylvania. Uh. And one of the videos I
just saw from it is an old military box truck
pulling up with about twenty people with machine guns in
the back. Um saying that from a couple of different
(09:46):
groups just rolling down the streets of an American city. Um,
you know it. It's one of the most striking photos
to me from the Lansing protest was a man on
the States of the like the Capitol building wearing a
skull mask that has a clown makeup and a clown
nose on his skull mask. Uh. And I found a
picture of a peppe wearing an SS cap and a
(10:08):
skull mask with a clown nose on it posted to
eco fascist Central Telegram channel in the very same day. So,
like you can see all of these different like there's
a lot of which is to say that everybody affiliated
with this is of that. In fact that the people
who kind of are explicitly the violent fascist chunk of
these protests is a minority of them. But there's they
(10:31):
want they are a part of this, and they want
to try to use it. In fact, they're going to
capitalize on it. I mean, I can't wait for there
to be some sort of terrorist attack during all of this. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's not just Trump right now, I mean it's conservatives,
Republican law play makers, all of them are are going
along with his line of argument. What was this on Monday?
(10:56):
This is Richard Grinnell, acting Director of the Office of
National Intelligence and the US Ambassador to Jerremany posted a
photo of the Bill of Rights on Instagram with the
title um signed permission slip to leave your house? You know.
White House Economic advisor Stephen Moore said that pro Trump
protesters demonstrating against at home orders are like rosa parks,
(11:18):
and they're calling them government injustices. Yeah. I think it's
important to note from on a practical level that this
is not These people are very much in the fringe. UM.
A Politico Morning Consult poll that was taken last week
UH showed that one of Americans told posters that the
country quote should continue to social distance for as long
(11:41):
as is needed to curb the spread of the coronavirus,
even if it means continued damage to the economy. An
NBC poll found a lower number, but it was still
sixty percent, which is a very sizeable majority. So the
vast majority of Americans, it seems safe to say, are
on board with with social distancing in these restrictions and
see them as necessary and good. Um. This is on
(12:05):
people's mind. It feels even bigger than it feels bigger
than it is because the amount of time, especially if
like Fox News is talking about it right now in
social media and the President's tweets and everything. Yeah, so
like this is what everybody knows, right that the that
these things have happened, the President and some Republicans have
signaled through them. These protests are continuing, and there's a
number of plan for the rest of April and into May.
(12:28):
UM in Salem, Oregon, they'll be doing some stuff on
May first and May second to protest to try to
reopen Oregon Um. And there's you know, uh, there's also
a protest that happened in Maine today that seems to
have blown over without a whole lot of attendees. It's
supposed to last two hours and it didn't last half that.
And so you're seeing a mix with these protests, some
of them that only a few dozen or a couple
(12:49):
of hundred people showed up to in the entire state
and they kind of fizzled out, and some of them,
like in Lansing, like in Olympia, Washington yesterday, people showed up.
It looks like it's potentially a pretty signal figant one
that's that's showing up in Pennsylvania today. Um. And so
you've got this mix of people online who are saying
the media is blowing this out of proportion, and there
(13:09):
aren't nearly as many people involved in this as and
it's like it's it's fully AstroTurf, which is not true. Um,
there are there is a significant amount of this that
is Um. You know, you can argue to the degree
to which it's AstroTurf. But a lot of people support it,
and a lot of people are very angry. And there
are states in which thousands of folks have shown up. Right,
the Lansing, Michigan protest was not an insignificant protest. It
(13:32):
was not a tiny number of people. They generated a
lot of traffic and they had an impact. Um. And
if you're if you're trying to look at the states
where very few people showed up and say that this
is evidence that the whole thing is fake, I I
think that you are ignoring a dangerous reality. Um. Because
it's uncomfortable. All right, There's it's similar with I mean
(13:53):
the Tea party. We're like, yeah, aspects of it obviously
being pushed by moneyed interests and people, but the the
grievance and the anger that's real. Yeah. So I am
in the process of trying to unravel what is actually
happening here, and I want to start with the caveat
that as I try to explain who is behind all
these protests. This is maybe the single most complicated news
(14:17):
story I've ever run into. Not not like in terms
of like I've read stories other journals to put together
that I'm sure we're more complicated, but in terms of
like me trying to unravel, I think this is a
fucking mess. So I'm gonna start by talking about the
Door brothers, Christian and Ben Door. UM. So the Door
(14:40):
family in general are based in I think Michigan, uh,
and they are known as prior to this, have been
known for a while as UM like protest grifters. Uh.
They have really like Zachary Ellwood, who's done some good
reporting up import and has been kind of like breaking
(15:01):
the story on this UM. But there's actually a website
dedicated to the Door Family's scams in the past, So
they've what what what they've been most famous for prior
to this is UM pushing against the Republican parties gun
control positions, considering them to be like way too far
to the left in the n r A, to be
way too far to the left. UM. And they have
(15:23):
created a variety of different websites called like including the
American Firearms Coalition, Florida Gun Rights, Georgia Gun Owners Coalition,
Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, Iowa Gun Owners Association, Iowa Pro
Life Action, Minnesota Gun Rights, Minnesota Right to Life UM.
So they make a whole bunch of different websites, some
of which get thousands of people and try to drum
up protests and the the short explanation for why they're
(15:47):
doing this seems to be that they are attempting to
number one, solicit donations and number two, build a mailing list,
because there's a lot of financial value in having a
mailing list. And actually the the Minnesota Republican Party has
posted like an explainer on their website warning conservatives in
that state against trusting the Door Brothers in any of
their organizations because this has been a problem for a while.
(16:09):
But over the course of the last week or two,
uh they have opened a number of pages with essentially
the exact same name Minnesota's Against Excessive Quarantine, New Yorkers
Against Excessive Quarantine, Ohioan's Against Excessive Quarantine, Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine,
Wisconsinites against Excessive Quarantine. YadA YadA ya. You see, you
see what they're doing, right, So they have made all
(16:31):
of these different groups, some of which have gotten thousands
of people. So for example, the Wisconsinites Against Excessive Quarantine
Facebook group, which I think just got shot down. Let
me actually double check that right now, it had sixty
six thousand followers as of April nineteen. Yeah, so the
door Brothers do hold very no. Yeah, that page is
still around in it now has a hundred and one
thousand members. So and these are the same people behind
(16:56):
the Pennsylvania group. So you can definitely say that this
is asked to a turf to an extent, because these
people are grifters trying to make a lot of money
about this. So like they are asking soliciting from donations
for people who join these groups, and they are trying
to like coordinate and basically build um a network of
human Like they're basically trying to build a list of
people they can contact because you can monetize that very easily.
(17:18):
And this is on the whole pretty old story within
kind of conservative politics, going back to like the Liberty
Lobby and Willis Carto, this idea of like wanting to
have big mailing lists of people. That's kind of what
they're doing. But these groups are being used to plan
actual protests. And this is where it gets really fucking complicated.
Before you get into that, Robert, do you know what
(17:39):
time it is? You know, Sophie, with gas at negative
thirty seven dollars of barrel, you can't afford not to
call British Petroleum our sponsor and order an infinite number
of gasoline barrels because that is the way to lasting
financial independence in our economy order and in finite supply
(18:00):
of fuel right now. Uh, and become a billionaire in seconds,
so by negative money and make money. Yes, that's what
I'm urging people to do. And I would also I'd
also like, it's gonna buy a big barrel. Yeah, just
get it. Get some barrels. They need it. I we're
all worried right now for our number one sponsor, the
(18:22):
Raytheon Corporation UM, and they're going to be hit really
hard by this oil blight. So please donate money to
Raytheon so they can continue building the missile guidance systems
that were Yeah, after you listen to these ads, these
ads for Raytheon thoughts and prayers to raytheon together everything. Okay,
(18:51):
So we're back and I'm trying to explain what the
fund is happening with the Door Brothers and all these people.
What the fund is happening, Um, so let me it's
it's very complicated, it's it's it's a fun So the
Doors created a lot of different groups. Um, it's kind
of impossible to say how many right now, but they're
all along the lines of like such and so and
(19:12):
so against excessive quarantine. And people are saying this is astroturft,
and there's an extent to which that is true. But
the Door Brothers weren't behind the first of these protests
or the starters of these. They didn't kick any of
this off. So Jesus, this is such a fucking mess.
So the Lansing the Michigan protests were organized by which
(19:34):
is kind of like the big one that kicked all
this off, and the one that like first got huge
amounts of media attention, which is like the everyone in
their cars blocking traffic protest that was organized by the
Michigan Conservative Coalition, which is the same organ Yeah, and
and the Michigan the Michigan Conservative coalition in the Michigan
Freedom Fund and the Michigan Freedom Fund. It was funded
by Greg McNeely, who's a political advisor to the Divorce Family. UM. Now,
(19:59):
the Divorce Family has denied having any role in this. Obviously,
the fact that the President backed this and that there's
ties from the organizers of the Michigan protests to the
Divos family has led a lot of people to suspect
that the Divos Family was kind of behind kicking off
the start of this, and there's a good reason to
believe that that's true. Yeah, the protests in Olympia, Washington
(20:19):
that occurred on Sunday, the day before we recorded this,
which drew something or somewhere around people, those were organized
by a Brimmerton, Washington man, Tyler Miller, a Navy veteran,
but they were also organized by a number of different
Facebook groups that kind of trace back to a group
called American Revolution two point oh. And I can't tell
you at this moment who actually started all that. It's
(20:40):
very unclear to me the origin um, but there is
evidence that heavily suggests that Matt Shay, who is a
local militia leader and an elected state represented in Washington
is a part of it. He spoke at the event
in Olympia. He's certainly an advocate, definite. Yeah, And there's
evidence that the Bundy's like they pushed for some rallies
(21:00):
and in Idaho, uh there there they are probably involved
in this. So it looks like some of the stuff
that's happened a situation here. Yeah, an American Revolution two
point oh is planning identical demonstrations in Oregon from May
one and May second. So what you have within Michigan,
you have this group that ties back to the bosses
(21:20):
within Oregon and Washington. You have this group that at
least ties back to definitely ties to some figures in
the militia community um, but also seems to generally be
based in significant amount on on legitimate groups of people
who are are very angry and organizing like it. It
doesn't seem more AstroTurf than any other protest of its
size for me, from what I'm looking at in the
(21:42):
PMW right now, what we saw in Michigan you could
definitely say seems to be astroturfed and seems to have
been folks who have like direct ties to the Republican Party.
And then you have in the wake of that Michigan protest,
and prior to the Washington protest, you have the Door
Brothers kicking starting up all of these X state and
successive quarantines. So and and that part is like, do
(22:03):
we call that astroturft um or do we call that
a scam that is also providing a place for people
to organize and will generate more protests, even though it
seems to be part of this like scam by these
brothers who have been doing this for years to try
and drum up more names and more donations for the
network of groups that they run. Now to make all
(22:25):
of that even more fucking complicated, I started getting tagged
in posts and sent links to a Reddit post that
somebody made over the where they it was a piece
of open source research where somebody revealed that an individual
had purchased dozens and dozens of domains with names like
reopen a L dot com, reopen a K dot com,
(22:45):
reopen a R dot com. So reopen all these different states,
reopen West Virginia, really, liberate West Virginia, liberate Wisconsin. Um.
And this was at the same time as the Door
Brothers are creating what it now seems to be hundreds
of different state groups with titles like such and such
against excessive quarantine. So the way that this was taken
by people who started sharing this viral Reddit post is
(23:08):
that all of these groups were part of a single
concerted effort um and that that this was very clearly
a nationwide concerted astroturfing campaign. But then today Mother Jones
published an article where so if you go, if you
went into that Reddit post and you looked into who
was buying up all these domains, it led back to
(23:29):
an individual whose name I will not use on this.
That individual began getting harassed by huge numbers of liberals
and people on the left because they believed that this
person was behind an AstroTurf campaign to get people out
in public protesting social distancing and the like. That is
not what happened. So Mother Jones caught up with the creator,
with the person who bought all of these websites, and
(23:51):
he has by his own description, and old hippie who
noticed what the Door Brothers were doing and noticed what
had happened in Michigan and bought as many domains, spent
four thousand dollars of his own money buying up all
of the domains that he thought might be used by
groups like this so that he could squat on them
and stop them from being used and hopefully limit the
spread of these protests and of this misinformation. His justification
(24:14):
is basically, I'm going I know that it matters having
a website with a really obvious and easy for people
to remember and easy people to guess u r L.
And if I buy up all of that those websites
right now, they won't be used by bad actors. So
this person went into debt to try to stop the
spread of misinformation and was flooded with harassment and threats
(24:35):
because people somebody found out that he was behind this
um and and publicize that without noting that like, actually,
these websites haven't been created, so no one's done anything
with them. But this is also so you have one
group of right wing, at least one group and probably
a couple of groups of right wing, a mix of
grifters and activists who are mass creating groups that have
hundreds of thousands of members nationwide and that have been
(24:58):
at least involved in the creation of several real protests,
although they didn't start the protest movement that does seem
to have been in part astro turf. But you also
have at the same time these liberals who have bought
up a huge number of domains, this liberal in order
to try to stop the spread of disinformation. So all
of these things are happening at once. Um is so complicated,
(25:19):
it's it's it is very difficult to get my head
around what the funk is happening right now. But what
is clear to say is that thousands of Americans in
a number of different states have turned out, many of
them with firearms, to protest against social distancing and to
in some cases express their their willingness to do violence.
(25:41):
I wanted to clarify in case this was misinterpreted earlier.
When I was saying that the way that Fox News
has been putting out headlines and conservative media's it makes
it seem bigger than it really is. I wasn't diminishing
the fact that this is a very real thing that's
happening with tons of people uh jumping on board. Just like, yes,
(26:04):
it's hard to understand the scale of what it is
that we're working with, and it's you know, everybody scared
of it, and that doesn't quite understand I'm a little
bit baffled by all this, to be honest, and like
it's the things that I think are important. Is number one,
most Americans are not on board protests like these, um.
And it is possible that this it is possible that
(26:28):
the fact that a lot of this is astroturfed will
mean that this movement never really materializes in and on
the ground way. But at the same time, we have
seen it in some places. There are some states where
these rallies have been minimal and basically pointless and shown
that in those states there's very little support for this
sort of thing. And there have been some states where
(26:48):
it has been shown that there is quite a lot
of support for these groups and a lot of very
angry people who are getting increasingly organized, and that is
something to be aware of and concerned by. Yeah. And
they also have, I mean, for whatever the reason and
whatever the motivation, they have the president and his propaganda
(27:09):
wing operating as if they're good and popular and people
should do it um. So I think to even too,
even if there are fewer people then should be a concern.
The ecosystem says that we should be concerned, and like,
I don't know, dismissed, people dismissed. So many things like
(27:30):
this that end up growing because they're dismissed. Literally, the
current president was dismissed as like something that didn't matter,
was silly and unpopular, and here we are and here
we are, and you mean, honestly, it just keeps happening
things that if things get dismissed, and then they happen yah.
(27:53):
And it's the kind of thing people are saying, like, like,
I got into an argument with some folks on Twitter
who were like, uh, there were a little to Somebody
made a post being like, there's only hundreds of people
at these events. They're not a real protest. This isn't
a real thing to be concerned about. The news should
stop covering it. And I pointed out, well, actually people
showed up in Washington and a lot of them had
(28:14):
guns and ties to the militia community, and that's not
something to ignore. That is a real story that is significant.
And the response was like, people is only like, you know,
a fraction of a percent of the state's total population,
and it's like and one of the things that I
would point out to the folks acting like that is that, um,
I've been to Roca, the former capital of the Islamic State,
(28:35):
and I have talked to people who were there when
Isis took over UM and it started with a few
dozen to a few hundred armed people UH moving in
in the wake of the government sort of pulling out
and collapsing in that area and just saying we're in
charge now. And they didn't encounter immediate resistance when there
(28:57):
were only a few dozen of them, and they weren't
that well organized, and more people kept coming and more
people kept coming, and eventually it resulted in the fucking
Caliphate UH taking over huge swats of territory and a horrible,
horrible war. And that is if things go really badly.
The fact that these groups in a couple of states
(29:18):
can pull together a thousand, two thousand armed people and
get them into the center of a capital city UM
at the right point in time could be very important.
And it doesn't matter if millions of people don't agree
with them. What matters is whether or not they are
able to take and hold important chunks of Infratraul structure
(29:41):
at the right time. So this is not something I
think can be ignored. And again, the president is their cheerleader.
Right now. Yeah. Yeah, we see that reaction all the
time with stuff like this, and even like his the
Charlottesville rallies, like it's just it's just like people. Yeah,
well then what yep, yeah, then what where does it
go from there? So, Cody, you have some stuff about
(30:03):
the Tea Party because this is being compared to the
Tea Party and people talking this is again one of
the reasons why I think that the folks who are
saying this is just AstroTurf ignore it or maybe making
a dangerous call, is that, like the Tea Party was
totally an AstroTurf thing, which you're going to talk about,
and then the two thousand ten midterm elections happened. Should
we define AstroTurf for people? Yeah, I'm gonna hand it
(30:27):
over to Cody now. Um. Yeah. So you'll see a
lot of a lot of Democratic leaders these days, especially
referred to like grassroots movements. It's the opposite of grassroots movements.
A grassroots movement is like a naturally occurring movement of
popular people. Like the way grass grows, not the kind
of grass that's planted, yes, the way regular grass grows. Uh.
(30:49):
And then an aster turf is basically a fake movement.
It's fake grass. Um. It's often you know, it'll be
whether it's paying people to protest um or influencing people
to be a part of a movement that they wouldn't
necessarily be a part of otherwise. Um. I mean Donald
Trump paid people uh to applaud when he announced that
(31:12):
he was running for president, things like that. So I
guess to really get into this, let me take you
back a few couple several years. Don't back in time?
Is there's some way that we can be there's some
way that we might uh that we might help our
audience mentally go back in time. If I can't believe
(31:33):
if we continuing bits, this is the bit. It's not
a little bit of mechanism, a machine in order that
that allows us to alter what time it is? If
where do exist? How would it sound, Katie take it away?
Just do it do do do do do do do
do do auditioning a new bit that's disgusting. So anyway,
(32:00):
you know how all those protests, um, like all protests
are funded and created by George Soros, our boss, you know, yeah,
and how everyone like has like Trump syndrome. We do
call him that that's how he signs the checks that
we all get in cash. You know how everyone has
trumped arrangement syndrome these days. You know, like people protested
(32:21):
him in his first month of office. Grow up, grow
up people anyway. In February of two thousand nine, Barack
Obama's first full month in office, he signed a stimulus
package in response to a recession that was surely his fault.
That same month, in Seattle, Kelly Carender, known online as
Liberty Bell b E L L e H on her
(32:43):
blog Redistributing Knowledge, organized the first tea party protest against
government spending. People were in attendance. A few days later,
on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Trade commentator
Rick Santelli ranted about government spending on C n B C,
calling for a Chicago tea party. The clip went viral,
(33:05):
got a lot of popularity Over the next few weeks.
Thousands of people protested in cities across America on these
general ideas. Fox News got on board. Specifically known full
of ship man Glenn Beck got really on board um.
Another prominent figure early on was conservative blogger Michelle Malkin.
Listeners may be familiar with her semi recent activity amidst
(33:28):
the alt right, or her support of Holocaust denier and
basically a Nazi Nick Fuentes. Um. But the soft and
eventually hard racism of the Tea Party movement or heck,
you know what's going on now is really what we're
talking about. Yet, back to the protests was which continued
to grow Facebook groups, and Fox News kept pushing more protests.
(33:52):
This culminator in September Taxpayer March on Washington, the Coux
uh tax derangement syndrome one might call it anyway. At
that march, a Fox News producer can be seen literally
pumping up the crowd for footage they were going to
use later. The producer was disciplined and Fox News would uh,
(34:13):
you know, never make a mistake like that. Again. They
were good from then on out, um. And so we
could actually go on about what happened later as the
Tea Party, which is not a party, pivoted from protesting
UH at these events that were scoffed at by many
people in the media. UH, and they pivoted towards supporting
(34:33):
and electing politicians, many of whom we now know and
love today, including but not only Sarah Palin, Joe Walsh,
Mike Pence, Steve King, Rand Paul, Steve Scalise, Marco Rubio,
Resistance hero, Justin Amash, Michelle Bachman, Mick mulveny, Ted Cruz,
(34:58):
Ron Paul, and Mike Lee. Those are just a few
of them. Now, Cody, the fact that Astro turf to
protests uh started by wealthy GOP tied individuals were behind
the start of the Tea Party protests. That means that
none of those individuals you've listed have gone on to
have a massive and shattering impact on American society, right, Robert, Robert,
(35:26):
I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, so
we can safely ignore it. It seems like this Ted
Cruise fellow, for example, UMO never cloud down the economy.
These this or this organic movement that happened naturally. Um,
that was just silly. Uh, they supported Ted Cruise. I
(35:48):
didn't even know who you're talking about. I'm going to
google right now. I'm sorry, this is so beside the point,
but I just remembered that story I read about. I
believe when Ted Cruz was a new lewd drove his
wife crazy by going to the market and just continually
stalking up on canned soup. He bought too much soup.
(36:08):
She made him return all the soup. I'm sorry, but
Ted ted Cruise was incredibly president. Yeah, no, he was
right about soup. Okay, nobody's saying Ted Cruizers wrong about
Believe that memory just came running back in my brain.
I also can't believe that it's already time for another
ad break. And as you go into this ad break,
(36:28):
remember this piece of second Great Depression wisdom. Broken clock
filled with canned soup is still has calories when there
are runs on the grocery stores. So fill all of
your clocks with as much soup as you can, or
be like that one woman who buried all the beans
in her backyard. Together, every don't. And we're back from
(37:01):
the break. We're back from outer space. And I just
walked in to find you all here with that happy
look upon your face, because we're all gonna keep cast
in a pod. We're going to cast the pods about
the best year of everybody's life. Yes, ending is really
on point today. I know we're nailing it. We're nailing it,
(37:24):
and I think we may have just saved the oil
and gas industry. Because of how well we're doing this podcast.
I don't want to make a prediction, but I predict
everything's gonna be gravy. I literally could not agree with
both of you anymore. Yes, I want to hear more
about the thing you prepared. Oh well, okay, So I
mean we've gone over the the irrelevant people that have
(37:46):
no power today, that we're supported by this movement that
was completely organic and natural and came from popular descent. Um.
And we could actually we could talk about the fringe
elements of the proto tests over those years, um, which
fringe being civility speak for racist and h fucked up
(38:07):
stuff that people at the protests do not want to acknowledge. Uh,
that might be underlying elements of the movement. But this
episode isn't actually about the Tea Party. Um. You know,
there's so much to say about the effect the movement
has had on our politics, how they pulled the country
further right while claiming Obama's an evil socialist, and how
it was the last big transitional period and path to
(38:30):
our current president. How the first national convention of the
common Man's Tea Party had Sarah Palin speaking for a
hundred thousand dollars with tickets costing five forty seven dollars,
and about how every single person who participated in the
Tea Party movement seems to like forget about it all
these days. But again, this isn't about the Tea Party.
It's the little segment about the origins of the Tea Party,
(38:52):
a completely organic, grassroots movement for the people the end.
Oh also, so wait, sorry, so there's this organization from
the nineties called Citizens for a Sound Economy. It's the
precursor to modern think tanks and orgers like Americans for
Prosperity and Freedom Works. You might recognize those names as
producers of propaganda, like with our good friend Dennis Praeger,
dean of Praguer University, which, according to its website, is
(39:15):
not an accredited university. You also might recognize all of
these organizations as being funded by pals of the cast,
the Coke Brothers of Coke Industries, the second largest privately
owned company in the world. Anyway. In sixteen, Time magazine
published an excerpt from Jim Nesbit's book Poison Tea, How
big Oil and big Tobacco invented the Tea Party and
(39:36):
captured the GOP. It describes a meeting he had when
he was consulting for Citizens for a Sound Economy, which
again later became Americans for Prosperity. The meeting was also
attended by Philip Morris. Quote. The concept that c SE
put on the conference table, which was quickly taken up
by the Philip Morris staff, was a bit shocking to me.
(39:58):
They proposed an unholy allied aiance, Philip Morris money commingled
with Coke money to create anti tax front groups in
a handful of states that would battle any tax that moved.
It would make no difference what kind of tax. The
front groups could battle cigarette excise taxes in the Northeast
and refined oil fees at the coasts. Any tax for
(40:19):
any purpose was bad, and these front groups would tackle
them all. With Philip Morris and the Cokes behind them,
it made good business sense and good political sense as well.
You could relabel just about anything as a tax, and
heaven knows, the American public hates taxes. This at its
core was the beginning of the American tea Party revolt
(40:40):
against the power of the government to pay for its programs.
They could recruit average citizens from a variety of ideological
groups to their cause. They would work side by side
with corporate directed workers and employees providing real boots on
the ground when enough activists weren't readily available, and no
one would be the wiser or even care that these
(41:00):
grassroots quotes anti tax groups would be jointly created and
funded by the largest private oil company and the largest
cigarette company in the world. So much like these protests,
or at least somewhat it's interesting to me at least
that they're all framed as like we're the little guy,
(41:21):
like we're real America, we're being trampled on by the government.
But it's mostly like business owners and landlords pushing it.
So not a lot of people know who rich Fink is.
You know who Rich Fink is? No, Rich Fink maybe
the most apply named person on the planet name unbelievable. UM.
(41:43):
He's a basically it's Charles Coke's political advisor. As Nesbitt
points out, over the years, Rich Fink UM has talked
regularly about their basically their plan to sort of take
over one of the two national political parties UM from
the outside in place more libertarian free market principles in
(42:06):
this place. UM and these ideas are outlined in this book.
Being an extensive academic now, so I'm gonna I'm gonna
read these off, and I think listeners of this podcast,
Katie and Mis podcast, Robert's other podcasts will be familiar
I think with the mechanisms we're talking about here, familiarity
(42:29):
is comforting. In this time, it is very comforting. This
is making me feel really great. Uh, an extensive academic
network to support it intellectually, policy networks in every state
to draw on that intellectual underpinning from hundreds of American universities,
a true political grassroots alliance that extended to all of
those state capitals and work closely with the academic and
(42:49):
policy network. A propaganda arm that could bring tightly controlled
messaging and narratives to the four in the state networks
in a way that looked like independent journalism. And a
national coordinate in group that could enforce discipline in what
would otherwise be a chaotic, unruly, wildly disconnected political network
that ran the gamut from the Patriot movement to American exceptionalism.
(43:11):
So at pro of nothing, I'm just gonna say some
words now, the Sam Adams Alliance, American Enterprise Institute, the
Franklin Center for Government and Policy Integrity, the State Policy Network,
Americans for Prosperity, Pragger University, Job Creators Network, Get Government
off our Back. Enough is enough, Citizens against regressive taxation,
(43:33):
learn liberty, freedom works, and so on. I could go
on and on and on. Anyway, I'm not sure why
I brought all of that up. Um. As Michelle Malkin
told Fox News in twenty uh in two thousand nine,
this is real. These people are here and they're here
to stay. So like two out of three is pretty
good the end okay? On course, so to be fair
(43:58):
um and balanced? Actually uh. In response to this, and
the Coke Foundation put forth a statement saying no funding
has been provided by Coke Companies, the Coke Foundation, or
Charles Coke or David Coke specifically to support the tea parties.
So case closed. Huh. Yeah. So that's just a brief
(44:21):
little uh rundown of the perception I think of the
Tea Party early on, um, the inception of that general movement,
which was in place years before it even happened, um,
and the results of that a astro turf movement, uh,
(44:42):
sort of presented as with elements of grassroots movements. Uh,
and here we have Ted Cruz and Mike Pence. Yea yea.
Do we want to end this with like some sort
of like actionable item for how to uh how to
do the opposite of what these people are doing? Yeah,
you know, I mean the only so one of so
(45:04):
there's there's a couple of things action wise. Number one,
it is a matter of self defense to not pretend
this is nothing, because it's not nothing. This is significant. Um.
One of the things that people should be doing and
should be continuing to do, is to organize in your
communities because if something like what I talked about happening
(45:28):
in Rocca happens in your area. I don't I don't
see this being a nationwide thing, but I think, especially
if things get a lot worse, this is a threat
people as something people might need to consider. And being
organized on a local level and knowing people and having
groups that are used to working together to to do stuff,
even as simple as just providing food to the disadvantage
(45:49):
will be UM an advantage to you. There are more
of us than there are of them. This is a
small movement, but if the majority of us are not
organized enough to counterman them Um, then they might get
what they want anyway, So it is it is worth
having people continue to organize. There's a recent a podcast
(46:09):
that I won't name, but that's name rhymes with slop
mo flap spouse Um made some statements about a kind
of quasi anarchist activist group in the United States called
Food Not Bombs, which provides food and not bombs in
a number of Americans. There's not a lot of central Yeah,
(46:34):
there's a lot of different Food not Bombs groups, and
they focus on providing people who don't have enough food
with what they need, which is food and not bombs.
And the comment they made was essentially that like these
groups weren't super useful because they weren't building power. And
there's a there's a valid criticism to be made about
groups in the left that like focus on direct action
(46:55):
like this as opposed to focusing on electoral action. That's
certainly a conversation that should be had. But I think
people are making a mistake when they don't when they
act as if providing food and other necessities to people
is not a form of power, because especially when things
are bad, the folks who have are used to gathering
(47:16):
and providing these things and organizing have power, UM because
they've been doing something out of empathy and goodness instead
of power. And they also have networks that are organized
that are used to providing things people need. And when
you have things people need and get them to them
and you have a sort of power that is a
(47:37):
kind of yeah, and they trust you to Yeah. So
that is the kind of power people should be continuing
to build. And if there is not something like that
in your local area, try to build it. UM. Look
into groups like Food Not Bombs. Volunteer for them if
they have something near you. Look into Mutual Aid disaster
really volunteer if they are near you, Water not and
(48:00):
along tho. Just a sort of piggyback. I mean that
was directed a lot of people. A lot of our
listeners are living in states and communities that might be
more directly impacted by this shore. But it's still important
for all of us to be paying attention to it,
especially with everything else that's going on UM as as
a support system, as just to not be surprised if
(48:24):
it becomes something bigger than what it is now. You know,
that's not fearmongering, that's practicality. Yeah, Yeah, it's practicality. So
I am, I don't think we should be forming counter protests.
You will notice UM antifa quote unquote has not been
showing up at these right wing marches because fundamentally, the
(48:44):
vast majority of the folks who are in these kind
of anti fascist organizations don't want to make a pandemic
worse UM because because they've already got the masks. Yeah,
they it's it's so. Yeah. If you know another place
you might look is if there are local groups of
anti fascists who have been organizing. You know what. The
reason the Door Brothers are doing what they're doing and
(49:05):
creating all these groups is that there is value, UM,
but a financial value and a political value and a
practical value in being able to communicate to a large
number of UM people who believes broadly similar things that
you do. And uh, yeah, we should be doing that.
(49:25):
More positive note to end on. Yeah, let's end on
that slightly positive note. Um. Also, Ammo prices have gone
back down, although they searched a bit after everyone got refunds,
So you know, just making a note of that too.
Go fill up your car with gas. You'll sell your
Ammo by oil. Yeah, very simple The clear takeaway from
(49:51):
today is that oil is the thing to invest in.
No negative right by negative. Have the oil companies pay
you to take oil from them and then sell the
oil to other people. I love the economy and understanding.
It's so good. I'm gonna have backyard oil parties this summer.
(50:13):
It's going to be sick. We can't hang out inside,
but my backyard is going to be one big like
fire is going to be sick. My boss at Belling
Cat is like, can I pour oil down my my
sink drain? I know I can't do that with cooking oil,
but I can't cook with fuel oil, so it seems
(50:35):
like I should be able to pour it down the sink.
So the logic works. Yeah, I'm waiting for the uh,
like that crowd of like Nike did this thing. So
I'm gonna burn my Nikes but with oil and just
try to try to burn the oil. Just oil feels
lit on fire. Yeah, I can't believe it's only April.
(50:58):
I mean, we are all going to learn at Saddam
Hussein was way ahead of his time with living lighting World.
I've been saying that for years. It was market regulation.
Uh huh. He knew, he knew. We should have listened
to Saddam Hussey say every week. Well, hindsight is in
(51:18):
the episode. Immediately, Daniel, that's the line. Everything, everything, so Dud.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(51:40):
your favorite shows.
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