August 4, 2025 • 29 mins
The American economy isn't just failing Black Americans—it's designed that way. In this eye-opening episode, we dive deep into the July 2025 unemployment statistics revealing a persistent, troubling pattern: while national unemployment sits at 4.2%, Black men face 7.5% unemployment, Black women 6.1%, and young Black Americans an alarming 17.9%. These aren't just numbers—they represent families living in economic uncertainty and a system that consistently produces racial disparities regardless of which political party holds power.
"Show me your policy and I'll show you your passion," becomes our rallying cry as we examine how the federal government—once a reliable employer offering decent wages and benefits to Black workers, especially women—has systematically dismantled DEI programs, leaving those workers to bear the consequences. The crisis demands targeted solutions: apprenticeships in underemployed zip codes, federal equity audits with actual enforcement power, and reinvestment in sectors that historically employed Black workers.
The conversation broadens into a disturbing examination of how economic truth itself has become politicized, with the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics reportedly fired for publishing unflattering economic data. Meanwhile, new tariffs on Canadian goods, Swiss pharmaceuticals, and auto parts represent economic nationalism masquerading as patriotism—ultimately functioning as taxes on everyday Americans rather than foreign producers.
We also explore how democracy erodes not through dramatic coups but through steady erosion: intimidation of public servants, revenge-driven politics, and media self-censorship on critical issues like Gaza. When journalists are silenced by their employers rather than government censors, and prosecutors face investigation for daring to hold the powerful accountable, we're witnessing the quiet dismantling of democratic norms.
The South Park Republicans of yesterday have evolved into today's MAGA youth movement, but signs of disillusionment are emerging as podcasters who once supported Trump now criticize his policies. Join us for this unflinching analysis of how economic systems, political pressure, and media cowardice shape our collective reality—and what we must do to build a more just society.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Darrell McClain Show coming to
you from California Independentmedia that won't reinforce
tribalism.
We have one planet.
Nobody is leaving, so let usreason together.
You're listening to episode 468.
Let's get into the show.
So the unemployment numbers camein and they're not just bad,
(00:21):
they are predictable.
What's going on?
So we have to look at what'shappening beneath the headlines
and we're going to break downthe most recent unemployment
data, specifically what it meansfor black Americans in the
country.
The number came in for July2025.
And, spoiler alert, it is notlooking great.
(00:42):
But more than that, it's notsurprising, and the part that
should bother you is this theunemployment for July 2020-25
was 7.2% Overall US unemployment4.2% for black men, 7.
(01:02):
Five percent for black women,six point one percent, and if
you're a young black person fromthe age of 16 to 24, you were
sitting at a brutal 17.9 percent.
So you have to think aboutsomething, and that is that
those numbers, those stats,those stories, their pressure,
they are entire families in aneconomic uncertainty, and the
(01:25):
scary part is the type of gapisn't new.
It's actually somewhat expected, and that's where we have to
focus not just on the crisis,but the consistency of it.
This is the country's labormarket and it has a track record
for failing people, and nobodyseems to treat it like it's a
systemic emergency.
(01:45):
Now, of course, I'd make theclaim that it's not just a
glitch in the system, it's afeature.
People love to say things likethe economy's bouncing back or
the job market is strong, andI'm going to always ask the
question for who?
Because every time we hit arecovery mode, the black
(02:06):
unemployment still doubles orworse.
You have to stop asking what'swrong with the people and start
asking what is wrong with thesystem.
This isn't a blip.
This is how the economy wasdesigned to operate keeping
labor on the margins in unstablesectors.
The contract works, the jobwithout benefits, without union
protections, without upwardmobility.
(02:28):
We just have to call it what itis the federal job slap and the
DEI rollback.
We have to talk about thefederal government real quick,
and when I say that it's, a lotof people didn't realize that
the public sector, especiallythe government, has historically
been one of the few placeswhere black workers, especially
(02:48):
black women, could actually getdecent pay, benefits and
stability.
But what happened when the 2025layoffs DI program started
getting gutted?
And surprise, surprise, ofcourse, the people who were
going to get gutted first aregoing to be those black women
who had a majority of jobs inthe federal government.
It's just not a coincidence.
(03:10):
The very programs that weremeant to close opportunity gaps
are being painted as divisive orineffective by a group of
politicians who actually neverwanted the programs to succeed
in the first place.
And to the workers, they werethe ones who were left holding
(03:33):
the bag again.
So there's no easy villains here, it's just systemic truths.
So if you look at the trendsI'm not trying to feed a
narrative that's all happeningbecause of one political party
or another.
Truth is both major partieshave had opportunities to close
these gaps.
Neither one has done enough.
But we also can't let the um.
(03:56):
I don't want us to getnihilistic about it, because
every policy choice, from theminimum wage to job training, to
access to credit, to educationfunding matters.
There aren't just abstractdebates.
They shape real opportunity.
And until we demand thatlawmakers treat the unemployment
crisis like a structural crisis, it is we're going to keep
(04:19):
having this conversation in 2026and 2027, and so on and so on
in 2026 and in 2027, and so onand so on.
So what should we actually do?
And here's what I'm proposing?
Nothing revolutionary, justpartly rational.
Federal and state levelapprenticeships and workforce
(04:42):
investment programs specificallytargeted at the youth in
underemployed, zip codes, afederal equity audit of hiring
practices to the public andprivate sector, not a report
that sits on a shelf, somethingwith the teeth.
Uh, reinventing in sectors thathistorically employed workers,
black workers, postal services,transportations, education and
(05:04):
making them stable again.
Stop pretending DEI is aproblem.
When it was barely tried ingood faith.
You do that and you combine itwith a criminal justice reform,
transportation access andaffordable health care and guess
what?
The unemployment gap starts toclose.
But you got to want it.
You actually have to want tosucceed to close.
(05:25):
But you got to want it.
You actually have to want tosucceed.
You have to do it and you gotto fight for it, because the
system as it is is not going tofix itself.
The final thought on this is, ofcourse, what I always say is a
policy is a moral document.
Show me your policy and I'llshow you your passion.
I'll leave you with thissegment by saying any time a
government writes a budget or acorporation hires a team or city
(05:48):
zones and neighborhood, that'sjust not economics, that's a
moral choice.
And if we continue to look atthe data showing unemployment
consistently double the nationalaverage, especially when it
comes to the black populationand the youth national average,
and do nothing the blackpopulation and the youth
national average and do nothing,we're not just accepting the
(06:08):
inequality, we're starting toendorse it.
But I believe it's better ispossible Not easy, but possible.
If you found the breakdownuseful, do me a favor subscribe,
share, leave a rating and, asalways, keep your politics
grounded, your policy informedand your heart open.
I will be out and about for therest of the day.
I'll do another segment lateron.
Coming to you from California,terrell McClain out.
(06:33):
Welcome back to the DarrellMcLean show, the independent
media that will reinforcetribalism.
Of course.
I am talking to you fromCalifornia.
We're going to talk about whoowns the numbers now, the battle
for economic truth in ourpost-fact age.
You know, once upon a time whenthe numbers came out the jobs
(06:54):
numbers, inflation, the laborforce participation whether you
were on the left or the right,we all somewhat collectively
respected the numbers.
We might disagree about how tofix the problem, but we didn't
just call the math a lie.
But now I think we have crossedthe line.
Last week, erica McArthur, thehead of the Bureau of Labor
(07:19):
Statistics, was fired.
Why?
Because she oversaw theparticipation and publications
of a drop report that didn'tmake the administration look
good.
Not because the numbers wereinaccurate, not because the
Bureau is corrupt, but becausethe economists told the truth.
(07:39):
Now, folks, let me be clear.
This is not just about oneeconomist.
This is about our epistemology,and that's the study of how we
know what's true.
When a nation begins to punishthe truth tellers because the
truth is inconvenient to thecurrent rulers.
We are no longer in a republic,we are living under the shadow
(08:00):
of autocracy.
Now.
The bureau of labor statisticshave been apolitical for decades
.
Its job is to measure, notmassage the facts, but to trend
um, kind of tell you where thetrend line is going when it
comes to the economic output.
If we continue to see stuff likethe firing of the economists
(08:24):
for reporting the facts, you'llstart seeing manipulated data,
and I mean like the manipulateddata we used to see in
authoritarian um and thoseauthoritarian countries that we
used to mock.
Yeah, dear leader, has solvedthe unemployment rate.
Growth is always at 6%.
That's not governance, that'spropaganda.
(08:46):
So now we have to ask who willyou believe the numbers or the
administration who fires anyonewho tells the truth about them.
And here's the kicker when youundermine data, you hurt working
class people first, becauseit's not the wealthy who depend
on food stamp eligibility tablesor the cost of living indexes.
(09:09):
It's the single mom calculatinghow to stretch $13 an hour.
It's the laid off factoryworker wondering why the job
fair is a ghost town.
We need objective data, the waya pilot needs altimeters,
because without it the country'sflying blind and we are headed
for turbulence.
We have to talk about the tarifftantrum and when America taxes
(09:34):
itself in the name of patriotism.
You ever notice nowadays howpoliticians love to frame
tariffs like they're sticking itto the bad guys overseas?
We're going to punish Canada bymaking Canadians pay more.
On TV, at least I should say isthat tariffs are just attacks
(10:04):
on you, attacks on me, onworking class people, and not
some Swiss banker or someshipping Chinese tycoon.
And this week theadministration rolled out the
biggest set of global tariffs inover four decades.
I saw the number at 35 percenttariff on Canadian goods, new
(10:25):
tax on pharmaceuticals fromSwitzerland, and no, these just
aren't foreign problems.
They are costs that theAmerican consumers will end up
eating.
Tariffs on prescription drugsthat means your grandparents pay
more.
Tariffs on dairy from Canada.
That means your grocery pricesgo up.
Tariffs on auto parts thatmeans mechanics are going to hit
(10:49):
you with a new inflation rate.
We have to look at it in a kindof sensible way.
We have to be for fair tradeand we should be that, but we
also have to understand the painof the deindustrialization.
But this isn't the way.
The economic nationalism,dressed up like presiatism, is
(11:15):
going to come back to us with alot of economic self-harm.
If we want to fix trade, weneed to invest in American
workers.
We need to protect their wages.
We need to rebuild unions.
We need to fund apprenticeshipprograms.
Now what we don't need to do isdon't tax the people who can't
(11:36):
afford another 50 cents on theeggs just because we want to win
the news cycle.
This is what happens when policybecomes performance.
The working class pays theprice for somebody else's
political cosplay drift and thetyranny of the American
(11:57):
exceptionalism is.
Here's the question worthasking.
I'll put it this way how dodemocracies actually die?
Not all at once, not with tanksin the streets, not with
burning flags and fallingstatues.
Sometimes it dies with a shrugand falling statues.
(12:24):
Sometimes it dies with a shrug.
So this past few weeks I watchedan uncomfortable series of
decisions, small in isolation,chilling in totality the firing
of public servants for doingtheir job, the public pressure
on judges and journalists, therefusal to commit peaceful
transitions of power, thestoking of vengeance in politics
and, of course, as we talkedabout on the other show, the
(12:46):
setting on fire of an actualpolitical statement.
And then the slow drip of fearsenators too scared to speak up,
bureaucrats too worried to blowthe whistle.
Voters too exhausted to speakup.
Bureaucrats too worried to blowthe whistle.
Voters too exhausted to fightback.
This is the Americanauthoritarian pattern.
Not a sudden storm, but juststeady erosion.
(13:09):
We tell ourselves we're immuneto it because we wrote the
Constitution.
But history actually doesn'tcare about founding documents.
It cares about habits.
It cares about what you do whenthe powerful break the rules
and do you dare to stop them.
(13:31):
So what we're doing, or what arewe doing, I should say, in
these moments, are we lettingthe normalization of vengeance
politics turn the republic intoa bloodsport?
Are we standing up across partylines to say that no one is
(13:52):
above the law, no office abovecriticism and no democracy
beyond repair, no office abovecriticism and no democracy
beyond repair.
Authoritarianism isn't justsomething other countries
struggle with.
It's a mirror we avoid.
But maybe it's time that wetake a good long look and decide
(14:18):
if we still recognize ourselvesand we have to talk about this
in the revelations, I should say, of the Jack Smith situation
and the Hatch Act and the dangerthat we're in of weaponized I
just say weaponized government,weaponized policing.
When the law becomes a weaponinstead of a safeguard, none of
(14:42):
us is going to be safe for long,not even the prosecutors.
Trump-related cases is now underfederal investigation and the
claim a possible hashtagviolation, the request it came
from Senator Tom Cotton, a manwho made no secret of his
(15:05):
loyalty to the president.
So we can't be naive here.
This isn't about ethics.
This seems to be aboutretaliation.
Jack Smith dared to bring legalaccountability to one of the
most powerful men in the countryand now the system is biting
back, not with counter arguments, but with intimidation.
(15:27):
So let me break this down.
If a prosecutor brings chargesagainst a president and the
consequences is that they getinvestigated, that's not
oversight, that's lawfare,that's not democracy, it's a
warning.
This isn't just about one case.
It's about the precedent.
It's about whether we want theprosecutors to do their jobs or
(15:51):
to check the political windsfirst.
If we allow this tit-for-tatjustice take-rot, we won't have
a legal system anymore.
We'll have a chessboard wherepawns get sacrificed to protect
future kings.
We say no one is above the law,but that's only true if the
(16:13):
people enforcing the laws aren'tafraid they'll get eaten alive
for doing so.
Of course I did the show aboutGaza and it did well in that I
think I talked about it in these, in relations to the church and
(16:36):
the silence on the matter.
But it actually turns out thatit looks like corporate media in
a lot of examples shows comfortover conscience.
It's easy to talk about freespeech when it doesn't cost you
anything.
It is a lot harder when thetruth makes you and your
(16:56):
sponsors really nervous.
So in Australia, journalistsfrom Schwartz Media were banned
from appearing on the 7ampodcast because the show ran an
episode about Gaza that sparkedonline backlash.
Now let me ask you this whatdoes it mean when journalists
are silenced, not by agovernment censors, but by their
(17:19):
own employers?
What happens when newsroomsfear the boardroom?
We are witnessing a globalmoment of editorial cowardice, a
media climate where the risk oftelling the truth about Gaza is
greater than the risk ofgetting it wrong.
And here's the dirty secret.
(17:40):
It's not just one episode, onepodcast, or even one country.
It's actually happeningeverywhere.
The fear of being labeled,boycotted, doxxed, canceled is
causing media outlets to becomesoft where they should be sharp.
It's causing them to becomecautious where they should be
courageous, soul of what we calljournalism.
(18:13):
Because if journaliststhemselves can't speak freely
about the killing of children,the bombing of hospitals, the
blockade of humanitarian aid,then we are not in free
societies anymore, we are justin a polite world.
So to every newsroom makingeditorial decisions based on
backlash instead of facts.
(18:34):
You are not protecting thepublic, you are protecting your
privilege, and we all see you.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
This article is by Michelle Goldberg and read by an
automated voice.
In 2003, andrew Sullivan wroteabout a breed of conservatives
that he called South ParkRepublicans, who shared the
irreverent, profane ethos of thecartoon which debuted in 1997,
and delighted in ridiculingliberal sacred cows.
These Republicans were sociallylibertarian, some smokepot and
(19:06):
contemptuous of politicalcorrectness, and they thought
protesting the invasion of Iraqwas lame.
If people wonder why anti-warcelebrities like Janine Garofalo
or Michael Moore failed to winover the younger generation, you
only have to watch South Parkto see why, wrote Sullivan, the
next generation sees through thecant and piety and cannot help
giggling.
Sullivan's concept had so muchcurrency that the author, brian
(19:29):
C Anderson, expanded it into abook, south Park Conservatives,
which came out in 2005.
It is a fascinating snapshot ofthe last time the right saw
itself as culturally ascendant.
George W Bush had recently wonre-election, this time with the
popular vote.
Conservatives didn't just thinkthey were on the verge of a
permanent Republican majority,they thought their movement was
(19:50):
finally becoming cool.
A new post-liberalcounterculture has emerged.
Anderson announced History, asthey say, doesn't repeat, but it
often rhymes.
Substitute woke for politicallycorrect, and much of South Park
conservatives could have beenwritten today.
Anderson touted a new generationof nationalist comedians who
hated the liberal media anddidn't shy away from ethnic and
(20:12):
racial jibes.
Their contemporary analogs arethe podcasters like Joe Rogan
and Andrew Schultz, both withbackgrounds in stand-up comedy,
who helped bring disaffectedyoung men into the MAGA fold.
Last fall Anderson celebratedpost-feminist female college
students who, quote-unquote,emphasized getting married and
raising a family as primarygoals.
Now a similar set of youngwomen is clustering around
(20:35):
right-wing wellness influencers.
A big question is whether thisnew iteration of the young right
fares as badly as the last one.
Anderson saw in the generationwe now call millennials the
vanguard of a conservativerevival.
South Park conservatism oranti-liberalism will become more
prevalent in popular cultureand on the campus.
(20:55):
He wrote the politicalcorrectness that this brash
sensibility skewers is anathemato younger Americans.
He was wrong.
Almost everyone wouldeventually realize that the dour
, no-fun critics of the war onterror were correct.
Republicans once treated Bushlike an action hero.
It's hard to remember now, butsome publicly fawned over how
his crotch looked in a flightsuit.
(21:16):
By the time his presidencylimped to its end amid economic
ruin, he was widely seen as anembarrassment and he turned many
young people against theRepublican Party permanently.
It is impossible to know if thesame thing will happen with
Donald Trump, but some signspoint in that direction.
According to a recent CBS Newspoll, trump's approval ratings
have declined more with adultsunder 30 than with any other
(21:38):
group, falling from 55% afterhis inauguration to 28% now.
Several of the podcasters whobacked Trump last year have
since become critics.
Who backed Trump last year havesince become critics, blasting
him over issues including hishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein
files, his bombing of Iran andhis indiscriminate deportations.
Schultz, who interviewed Trumpon his flagrant podcast shortly
(22:00):
before the 2024 election, saidlast month that he's doing quote
the exact opposite ofeverything I voted for.
Rogan accused Trump of tryingto gaslight people over the
Epstein case and attacked hisimmigration crackdown.
They're kicking students outthat like write articles they
don't like.
He said he was referring toRumeza Ozdurk, a Turkish student
(22:24):
who spent 45 days inimmigration detention after the
administration revoked her visabecause she was a co-author of a
pro-Palestinian op-ed.
The podcaster and comedian DaveSmith, a frequent Rogan guest,
apologized for his Trump support.
And then there's South Parkitself, whose latest episode led
me to revisit Anderson's book.
At a time when much of themedia is bowing to Trump, the
(22:48):
opening of the show's new seasonridiculed.
His megalomania, hisintimidation of the media is
bowing to Trump.
The opening of the show's newseason ridiculed his megalomania
, his intimidation of the mediaand his manhood.
Longtime South Park viewersknow that the show had a subplot
about Satan's affair withSaddam Hussein.
Now the devil is sleeping withTrump, though he finds the
president exasperating.
You remind me more and more ofthis other guy, the first used
(23:08):
to date Like a lot.
The creators of South Park areno longer young, but much of
their audience is.
I've recently given up onkeeping the show away from my
12-year-old son.
With almost 6 million views,this season's debut was a huge
ratings success, including withthe 18-49 demographic.
(23:29):
The show's savage mockery ofTrump set to continue, if online
teasers are any indication innext week's episode doesn't mean
that creators Trey Parker andMatt Stone have become
progressives.
They just go where they thinkthe taboos are.
Ripping on Republicans is notthat fun for us only because
everyone else does it, stonetold the Huffington Post during
(23:49):
Barack Obama's first term.
It's so much more fun for us torip on liberals only because
nobody else does it and notbecause we think liberals are
worse than Republicans.
But as their latest episodesatirizes.
Trump is now using the power ofthe state to silence his
opponents in ways that makecomplaints about liberal cancel
culture seem quaint.
He has so far been terrifyinglysuccessful at cowing media
(24:10):
conglomerates, law firms anduniversities.
Yet the more thuggish hisadministration becomes in its
demands for compliance, the moreobvious it will be that the
MAGA movement is aboutrepression rather than freedom.
In the new South Park, thesociopathic fourth grader
Cartman laments that withwokeness dead.
His flamboyant insensitivity nolonger makes him special.
You can just say retarded.
(24:31):
Now Nobody cares, he wails.
Everyone hates the Jews,Everyone's fine with using gay
slurs.
There's no more pretending inSouth Park or in America that
it's rebellious to bereactionary.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
So that came out of the New York Times.
So that came out of the NewYork Times and the article was
written by Michelle Goldberg inthe opinion section, august 1st,
and the article is called SouthPark Skewers and New Kind of
Sanctimony, again by opinioncolumnist Michelle Goldberg.
(25:07):
This has been an episode of theDarrell McLean Show coming to
you from Huntington Beach,california.
See you on the next episode.
Welcome to the Darrell McClain Show coming to
you from California Independentmedia that won't reinforce
tribalism.
We have one planet.
Nobody is leaving, so let usreason together.
You're listening to episode 468.
Let's get into the show.
So the unemployment numbers camein and they're not just bad,
(00:21):
they are predictable.
What's going on?
So we have to look at what'shappening beneath the headlines
and we're going to break downthe most recent unemployment
data, specifically what it meansfor black Americans in the
country.
The number came in for July2025.
And, spoiler alert, it is notlooking great.
(00:42):
But more than that, it's notsurprising, and the part that
should bother you is this theunemployment for July 2020-25
was 7.2% Overall US unemployment4.2% for black men, 7.
(01:02):
Five percent for black women,six point one percent, and if
you're a young black person fromthe age of 16 to 24, you were
sitting at a brutal 17.9 percent.
So you have to think aboutsomething, and that is that
those numbers, those stats,those stories, their pressure,
they are entire families in aneconomic uncertainty, and the
(01:25):
scary part is the type of gapisn't new.
It's actually somewhat expected, and that's where we have to
focus not just on the crisis,but the consistency of it.
This is the country's labormarket and it has a track record
for failing people, and nobodyseems to treat it like it's a
systemic emergency.
(01:45):
Now, of course, I'd make theclaim that it's not just a
glitch in the system, it's afeature.
People love to say things likethe economy's bouncing back or
the job market is strong, andI'm going to always ask the
question for who?
Because every time we hit arecovery mode, the black
(02:06):
unemployment still doubles orworse.
You have to stop asking what'swrong with the people and start
asking what is wrong with thesystem.
This isn't a blip.
This is how the economy wasdesigned to operate keeping
labor on the margins in unstablesectors.
The contract works, the jobwithout benefits, without union
protections, without upwardmobility.
(02:28):
We just have to call it what itis the federal job slap and the
DEI rollback.
We have to talk about thefederal government real quick,
and when I say that it's, a lotof people didn't realize that
the public sector, especiallythe government, has historically
been one of the few placeswhere black workers, especially
(02:48):
black women, could actually getdecent pay, benefits and
stability.
But what happened when the 2025layoffs DI program started
getting gutted?
And surprise, surprise, ofcourse, the people who were
going to get gutted first aregoing to be those black women
who had a majority of jobs inthe federal government.
It's just not a coincidence.
(03:10):
The very programs that weremeant to close opportunity gaps
are being painted as divisive orineffective by a group of
politicians who actually neverwanted the programs to succeed
in the first place.
And to the workers, they werethe ones who were left holding
(03:33):
the bag again.
So there's no easy villains here, it's just systemic truths.
So if you look at the trendsI'm not trying to feed a
narrative that's all happeningbecause of one political party
or another.
Truth is both major partieshave had opportunities to close
these gaps.
Neither one has done enough.
But we also can't let the um.
(03:56):
I don't want us to getnihilistic about it, because
every policy choice, from theminimum wage to job training, to
access to credit, to educationfunding matters.
There aren't just abstractdebates.
They shape real opportunity.
And until we demand thatlawmakers treat the unemployment
crisis like a structural crisis, it is we're going to keep
(04:19):
having this conversation in 2026and 2027, and so on and so on
in 2026 and in 2027, and so onand so on.
So what should we actually do?
And here's what I'm proposing?
Nothing revolutionary, justpartly rational.
Federal and state levelapprenticeships and workforce
(04:42):
investment programs specificallytargeted at the youth in
underemployed, zip codes, afederal equity audit of hiring
practices to the public andprivate sector, not a report
that sits on a shelf, somethingwith the teeth.
Uh, reinventing in sectors thathistorically employed workers,
black workers, postal services,transportations, education and
(05:04):
making them stable again.
Stop pretending DEI is aproblem.
When it was barely tried ingood faith.
You do that and you combine itwith a criminal justice reform,
transportation access andaffordable health care and guess
what?
The unemployment gap starts toclose.
But you got to want it.
You actually have to want tosucceed to close.
(05:25):
But you got to want it.
You actually have to want tosucceed.
You have to do it and you gotto fight for it, because the
system as it is is not going tofix itself.
The final thought on this is, ofcourse, what I always say is a
policy is a moral document.
Show me your policy and I'llshow you your passion.
I'll leave you with thissegment by saying any time a
government writes a budget or acorporation hires a team or city
(05:48):
zones and neighborhood, that'sjust not economics, that's a
moral choice.
And if we continue to look atthe data showing unemployment
consistently double the nationalaverage, especially when it
comes to the black populationand the youth national average,
and do nothing the blackpopulation and the youth
national average and do nothing,we're not just accepting the
(06:08):
inequality, we're starting toendorse it.
But I believe it's better ispossible Not easy, but possible.
If you found the breakdownuseful, do me a favor subscribe,
share, leave a rating and, asalways, keep your politics
grounded, your policy informedand your heart open.
I will be out and about for therest of the day.
I'll do another segment lateron.
Coming to you from California,terrell McClain out.
(06:33):
Welcome back to the DarrellMcLean show, the independent
media that will reinforcetribalism.
Of course.
I am talking to you fromCalifornia.
We're going to talk about whoowns the numbers now, the battle
for economic truth in ourpost-fact age.
You know, once upon a time whenthe numbers came out the jobs
(06:54):
numbers, inflation, the laborforce participation whether you
were on the left or the right,we all somewhat collectively
respected the numbers.
We might disagree about how tofix the problem, but we didn't
just call the math a lie.
But now I think we have crossedthe line.
Last week, erica McArthur, thehead of the Bureau of Labor
(07:19):
Statistics, was fired.
Why?
Because she oversaw theparticipation and publications
of a drop report that didn'tmake the administration look
good.
Not because the numbers wereinaccurate, not because the
Bureau is corrupt, but becausethe economists told the truth.
(07:39):
Now, folks, let me be clear.
This is not just about oneeconomist.
This is about our epistemology,and that's the study of how we
know what's true.
When a nation begins to punishthe truth tellers because the
truth is inconvenient to thecurrent rulers.
We are no longer in a republic,we are living under the shadow
(08:00):
of autocracy.
Now.
The bureau of labor statisticshave been apolitical for decades
.
Its job is to measure, notmassage the facts, but to trend
um, kind of tell you where thetrend line is going when it
comes to the economic output.
If we continue to see stuff likethe firing of the economists
(08:24):
for reporting the facts, you'llstart seeing manipulated data,
and I mean like the manipulateddata we used to see in
authoritarian um and thoseauthoritarian countries that we
used to mock.
Yeah, dear leader, has solvedthe unemployment rate.
Growth is always at 6%.
That's not governance, that'spropaganda.
(08:46):
So now we have to ask who willyou believe the numbers or the
administration who fires anyonewho tells the truth about them.
And here's the kicker when youundermine data, you hurt working
class people first, becauseit's not the wealthy who depend
on food stamp eligibility tablesor the cost of living indexes.
(09:09):
It's the single mom calculatinghow to stretch $13 an hour.
It's the laid off factoryworker wondering why the job
fair is a ghost town.
We need objective data, the waya pilot needs altimeters,
because without it the country'sflying blind and we are headed
for turbulence.
We have to talk about the tarifftantrum and when America taxes
(09:34):
itself in the name of patriotism.
You ever notice nowadays howpoliticians love to frame
tariffs like they're sticking itto the bad guys overseas?
We're going to punish Canada bymaking Canadians pay more.
On TV, at least I should say isthat tariffs are just attacks
(10:04):
on you, attacks on me, onworking class people, and not
some Swiss banker or someshipping Chinese tycoon.
And this week theadministration rolled out the
biggest set of global tariffs inover four decades.
I saw the number at 35 percenttariff on Canadian goods, new
(10:25):
tax on pharmaceuticals fromSwitzerland, and no, these just
aren't foreign problems.
They are costs that theAmerican consumers will end up
eating.
Tariffs on prescription drugsthat means your grandparents pay
more.
Tariffs on dairy from Canada.
That means your grocery pricesgo up.
Tariffs on auto parts thatmeans mechanics are going to hit
(10:49):
you with a new inflation rate.
We have to look at it in a kindof sensible way.
We have to be for fair tradeand we should be that, but we
also have to understand the painof the deindustrialization.
But this isn't the way.
The economic nationalism,dressed up like presiatism, is
(11:15):
going to come back to us with alot of economic self-harm.
If we want to fix trade, weneed to invest in American
workers.
We need to protect their wages.
We need to rebuild unions.
We need to fund apprenticeshipprograms.
Now what we don't need to do isdon't tax the people who can't
(11:36):
afford another 50 cents on theeggs just because we want to win
the news cycle.
This is what happens when policybecomes performance.
The working class pays theprice for somebody else's
political cosplay drift and thetyranny of the American
(11:57):
exceptionalism is.
Here's the question worthasking.
I'll put it this way how dodemocracies actually die?
Not all at once, not with tanksin the streets, not with
burning flags and fallingstatues.
Sometimes it dies with a shrugand falling statues.
(12:24):
Sometimes it dies with a shrug.
So this past few weeks I watchedan uncomfortable series of
decisions, small in isolation,chilling in totality the firing
of public servants for doingtheir job, the public pressure
on judges and journalists, therefusal to commit peaceful
transitions of power, thestoking of vengeance in politics
and, of course, as we talkedabout on the other show, the
(12:46):
setting on fire of an actualpolitical statement.
And then the slow drip of fearsenators too scared to speak up,
bureaucrats too worried to blowthe whistle.
Voters too exhausted to speakup.
Bureaucrats too worried to blowthe whistle.
Voters too exhausted to fightback.
This is the Americanauthoritarian pattern.
Not a sudden storm, but juststeady erosion.
(13:09):
We tell ourselves we're immuneto it because we wrote the
Constitution.
But history actually doesn'tcare about founding documents.
It cares about habits.
It cares about what you do whenthe powerful break the rules
and do you dare to stop them.
(13:31):
So what we're doing, or what arewe doing, I should say, in
these moments, are we lettingthe normalization of vengeance
politics turn the republic intoa bloodsport?
Are we standing up across partylines to say that no one is
(13:52):
above the law, no office abovecriticism and no democracy
beyond repair, no office abovecriticism and no democracy
beyond repair.
Authoritarianism isn't justsomething other countries
struggle with.
It's a mirror we avoid.
But maybe it's time that wetake a good long look and decide
(14:18):
if we still recognize ourselvesand we have to talk about this
in the revelations, I should say, of the Jack Smith situation
and the Hatch Act and the dangerthat we're in of weaponized I
just say weaponized government,weaponized policing.
When the law becomes a weaponinstead of a safeguard, none of
(14:42):
us is going to be safe for long,not even the prosecutors.
Trump-related cases is now underfederal investigation and the
claim a possible hashtagviolation, the request it came
from Senator Tom Cotton, a manwho made no secret of his
(15:05):
loyalty to the president.
So we can't be naive here.
This isn't about ethics.
This seems to be aboutretaliation.
Jack Smith dared to bring legalaccountability to one of the
most powerful men in the countryand now the system is biting
back, not with counter arguments, but with intimidation.
(15:27):
So let me break this down.
If a prosecutor brings chargesagainst a president and the
consequences is that they getinvestigated, that's not
oversight, that's lawfare,that's not democracy, it's a
warning.
This isn't just about one case.
It's about the precedent.
It's about whether we want theprosecutors to do their jobs or
(15:51):
to check the political windsfirst.
If we allow this tit-for-tatjustice take-rot, we won't have
a legal system anymore.
We'll have a chessboard wherepawns get sacrificed to protect
future kings.
We say no one is above the law,but that's only true if the
(16:13):
people enforcing the laws aren'tafraid they'll get eaten alive
for doing so.
Of course I did the show aboutGaza and it did well in that I
think I talked about it in these, in relations to the church and
(16:36):
the silence on the matter.
But it actually turns out thatit looks like corporate media in
a lot of examples shows comfortover conscience.
It's easy to talk about freespeech when it doesn't cost you
anything.
It is a lot harder when thetruth makes you and your
(16:56):
sponsors really nervous.
So in Australia, journalistsfrom Schwartz Media were banned
from appearing on the 7ampodcast because the show ran an
episode about Gaza that sparkedonline backlash.
Now let me ask you this whatdoes it mean when journalists
are silenced, not by agovernment censors, but by their
(17:19):
own employers?
What happens when newsroomsfear the boardroom?
We are witnessing a globalmoment of editorial cowardice, a
media climate where the risk oftelling the truth about Gaza is
greater than the risk ofgetting it wrong.
And here's the dirty secret.
(17:40):
It's not just one episode, onepodcast, or even one country.
It's actually happeningeverywhere.
The fear of being labeled,boycotted, doxxed, canceled is
causing media outlets to becomesoft where they should be sharp.
It's causing them to becomecautious where they should be
courageous, soul of what we calljournalism.
(18:13):
Because if journaliststhemselves can't speak freely
about the killing of children,the bombing of hospitals, the
blockade of humanitarian aid,then we are not in free
societies anymore, we are justin a polite world.
So to every newsroom makingeditorial decisions based on
backlash instead of facts.
(18:34):
You are not protecting thepublic, you are protecting your
privilege, and we all see you.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
This article is by Michelle Goldberg and read by an
automated voice.
In 2003, andrew Sullivan wroteabout a breed of conservatives
that he called South ParkRepublicans, who shared the
irreverent, profane ethos of thecartoon which debuted in 1997,
and delighted in ridiculingliberal sacred cows.
These Republicans were sociallylibertarian, some smokepot and
(19:06):
contemptuous of politicalcorrectness, and they thought
protesting the invasion of Iraqwas lame.
If people wonder why anti-warcelebrities like Janine Garofalo
or Michael Moore failed to winover the younger generation, you
only have to watch South Parkto see why, wrote Sullivan, the
next generation sees through thecant and piety and cannot help
giggling.
Sullivan's concept had so muchcurrency that the author, brian
(19:29):
C Anderson, expanded it into abook, south Park Conservatives,
which came out in 2005.
It is a fascinating snapshot ofthe last time the right saw
itself as culturally ascendant.
George W Bush had recently wonre-election, this time with the
popular vote.
Conservatives didn't just thinkthey were on the verge of a
permanent Republican majority,they thought their movement was
(19:50):
finally becoming cool.
A new post-liberalcounterculture has emerged.
Anderson announced History, asthey say, doesn't repeat, but it
often rhymes.
Substitute woke for politicallycorrect, and much of South Park
conservatives could have beenwritten today.
Anderson touted a new generationof nationalist comedians who
hated the liberal media anddidn't shy away from ethnic and
(20:12):
racial jibes.
Their contemporary analogs arethe podcasters like Joe Rogan
and Andrew Schultz, both withbackgrounds in stand-up comedy,
who helped bring disaffectedyoung men into the MAGA fold.
Last fall Anderson celebratedpost-feminist female college
students who, quote-unquote,emphasized getting married and
raising a family as primarygoals.
Now a similar set of youngwomen is clustering around
(20:35):
right-wing wellness influencers.
A big question is whether thisnew iteration of the young right
fares as badly as the last one.
Anderson saw in the generationwe now call millennials the
vanguard of a conservativerevival.
South Park conservatism oranti-liberalism will become more
prevalent in popular cultureand on the campus.
(20:55):
He wrote the politicalcorrectness that this brash
sensibility skewers is anathemato younger Americans.
He was wrong.
Almost everyone wouldeventually realize that the dour
, no-fun critics of the war onterror were correct.
Republicans once treated Bushlike an action hero.
It's hard to remember now, butsome publicly fawned over how
his crotch looked in a flightsuit.
(21:16):
By the time his presidencylimped to its end amid economic
ruin, he was widely seen as anembarrassment and he turned many
young people against theRepublican Party permanently.
It is impossible to know if thesame thing will happen with
Donald Trump, but some signspoint in that direction.
According to a recent CBS Newspoll, trump's approval ratings
have declined more with adultsunder 30 than with any other
(21:38):
group, falling from 55% afterhis inauguration to 28% now.
Several of the podcasters whobacked Trump last year have
since become critics.
Who backed Trump last year havesince become critics, blasting
him over issues including hishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein
files, his bombing of Iran andhis indiscriminate deportations.
Schultz, who interviewed Trumpon his flagrant podcast shortly
(22:00):
before the 2024 election, saidlast month that he's doing quote
the exact opposite ofeverything I voted for.
Rogan accused Trump of tryingto gaslight people over the
Epstein case and attacked hisimmigration crackdown.
They're kicking students outthat like write articles they
don't like.
He said he was referring toRumeza Ozdurk, a Turkish student
(22:24):
who spent 45 days inimmigration detention after the
administration revoked her visabecause she was a co-author of a
pro-Palestinian op-ed.
The podcaster and comedian DaveSmith, a frequent Rogan guest,
apologized for his Trump support.
And then there's South Parkitself, whose latest episode led
me to revisit Anderson's book.
At a time when much of themedia is bowing to Trump, the
(22:48):
opening of the show's new seasonridiculed.
His megalomania, hisintimidation of the media is
bowing to Trump.
The opening of the show's newseason ridiculed his megalomania
, his intimidation of the mediaand his manhood.
Longtime South Park viewersknow that the show had a subplot
about Satan's affair withSaddam Hussein.
Now the devil is sleeping withTrump, though he finds the
president exasperating.
You remind me more and more ofthis other guy, the first used
(23:08):
to date Like a lot.
The creators of South Park areno longer young, but much of
their audience is.
I've recently given up onkeeping the show away from my
12-year-old son.
With almost 6 million views,this season's debut was a huge
ratings success, including withthe 18-49 demographic.
(23:29):
The show's savage mockery ofTrump set to continue, if online
teasers are any indication innext week's episode doesn't mean
that creators Trey Parker andMatt Stone have become
progressives.
They just go where they thinkthe taboos are.
Ripping on Republicans is notthat fun for us only because
everyone else does it, stonetold the Huffington Post during
(23:49):
Barack Obama's first term.
It's so much more fun for us torip on liberals only because
nobody else does it and notbecause we think liberals are
worse than Republicans.
But as their latest episodesatirizes.
Trump is now using the power ofthe state to silence his
opponents in ways that makecomplaints about liberal cancel
culture seem quaint.
He has so far been terrifyinglysuccessful at cowing media
(24:10):
conglomerates, law firms anduniversities.
Yet the more thuggish hisadministration becomes in its
demands for compliance, the moreobvious it will be that the
MAGA movement is aboutrepression rather than freedom.
In the new South Park, thesociopathic fourth grader
Cartman laments that withwokeness dead.
His flamboyant insensitivity nolonger makes him special.
You can just say retarded.
(24:31):
Now Nobody cares, he wails.
Everyone hates the Jews,Everyone's fine with using gay
slurs.
There's no more pretending inSouth Park or in America that
it's rebellious to bereactionary.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
So that came out of the New York Times.
So that came out of the NewYork Times and the article was
written by Michelle Goldberg inthe opinion section, august 1st,
and the article is called SouthPark Skewers and New Kind of
Sanctimony, again by opinioncolumnist Michelle Goldberg.
(25:07):
This has been an episode of theDarrell McLean Show coming to
you from Huntington Beach,california.
See you on the next episode.
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