I Am Negan: The Dictator's Playbook | Zombie Book Club Ep 92 - Zombie Book Club

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club
where the book is step-by-stepinstructions to install your
very own dictatorship.
If you don't like the one yougot now, just install a new one.
Yeah, make your own.
Make your own dictatorship.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
D-B-I-D, no, b-y-d, b-y-o-d, b-y-o-d.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Bring your own D.
I'm Dan, and when I'm notliving in a modern day
dictatorship, I'm writing a bookabout a world left with a huge
power vacuum after a zombieoutbreak, where wannabe
dictators rush to the spotlightto claim their authority over
the remnants of a shatteredcivilization.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Fun stop stealing my ideas.
I'm leah, and when I'm notwaking up from nightmares but
moving back in with my mom incanada to escape a us
dictatorship, I'm dancing to thesong hostile government
takeover, edm, remix by a giftfrom todd and vinnie marchi yeah
, check it out, shout out, agift from todd and vinnie.
Yeah, really, you've beenkeeping me sane.
If you need to pick, me up.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, I mean that's when we get our spotify wrapped.
It's gonna be a hostilegovernment takeover.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, that and like the luigi mangione songs what a
year.
Today is a casual dead, dan itis.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
We're gonna be casual today.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
That's why I'm drinking a red bull right now
I'm drinking coffee because Ihave not slept much for many
months now yeah, it's been.
It's been a thing yeah, sowe're giving our brains a break
and all of you from the reallife.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Hostile government takeover in the us by turning to
a fictional dictator insteadyeah, this is gonna be fun
because we're gonna be talkingabout everyone's favorite
dictator.
Who's that?
Negan?
I love him.
Yeah, he's so sweet, you know.
Um, before we start, I justwant to say a lot of people, so
many people, an alarming lot ofpeople, so many people, an

(02:05):
alarming number of people havesaid that they stopped watching
the Walking Dead when spoileralert, if you haven't gotten
this one yet, it's only beenlike 15 years when Negan bashes
Glenn's head in with a baseballbat, and I understand that was
very brutal, it was veryupsetting, but I think you're

(02:28):
really missing out on a reallygreat story, because we're going
to be talking about that andhow Negan is playing by the book
as to how to install adictatorship.
He is a dictator and everythinghe does is on purpose in order
to maintain his power.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, and build his empire.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, and it's amazing how much crossover there
is between what Negan does andwhat dictators do in real life.
It's just on a smaller scalebecause there's fewer people.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, because they were killed by or are undead.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
Are there fewer people, or arethere just more undead people?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
There's fewer people, but also there's more undead
people.
But are they people?
Different episode, that is adifferent episode.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
But first we have some updates to share.
You know the usual.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh, the usual.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, some fun stuff, before we get into a man who
bashed everybody's favoriteWalking Dead character, glenn's
head in.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, but also we release episodes every Sunday,
so subscrump it.
That's what I wrote, that'swhat you wrote, yeah, and also,
if you could give us a five starreview, wherever you are, that
helps us immensely and we loveit.
It's kind of like.
It's kind of like when youscratch behind a dog's ears.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, my, my back, or my left, my left leg will just
start like kind of mine'salready going, scratching, going
, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I'm already doing it.
Life updates Leah, I'm going towork in a week in a week a week
in a week, a week tomorrow.
Yeah, I have a stay ofexecution of one week for going
back to work.
Um, one exciting thing, becauseI I talked to my boss and he
said it's gonna be like the weekof the 21st, which that'll be

(04:15):
like one day from when thisepisode comes out if you're
listening to this, on sunday,april 20th, smoke a joint for
dan.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, yeah, eat edible burn went up.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, for me, because I can't anymore.
I'm not allowed, uh,technically not allowed any well
, that's neither here nor there,we won't talk about that.
But I'm going back to work.
I'm not supposed to be high atwork.
It's weird, I know, um, but uh,one exciting thing when the
conversation with my boss, heshared with me that he bought a

(04:45):
Rivian.
We've talked about this before,yeah, and Leah told me to seize
the means of production, whichI believe she meant the Rivian.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, that would include the Rivian.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yes, he was talking to me about a company that he
reached out to to get a testtruck like a, like a, like a
full size class eight semiruckfor our work, from a company
called Revolt, and they make notan electric truck, they make a
hybrid electric truck.
Like all the power of thedrivetrain is electric, but the

(05:17):
diesel engine from thesemi-truck powers a generator
and I think it's really cool andI would love to see our fleet
replaced by these things becauseI mean, I mean, two-thirds of
the costs of operating atrucking company is diesel.
It really is.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
We go through so much it would also make me feel a
little bit better about thescales of our relationship being
a little less like a you cancel.
At my job too, yeah, we'reactually doing a little less
harm yeah, yeah, um, leah helpsthe environment.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, I destroy it.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
We cancel each other out and you help other people
just destroy it by driving theircars.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, I mean this.
I mean you can look it up, uh,if you want to.
They only have like test trucksright now.
They're not like a fullyoperational company, but they do
offer kits for small dieselpickups to to do the conversion
yourself, um, and it's reallyfascinating, and I mean it
doesn't eliminate the theemissions.

(06:16):
But you're going from I mean,one truck that I drove got two
to three miles per gallon that Idrove got two to three miles
per gallon, which was that's bad, but that is also acceptable.
And it'll go from that to morelike 12 miles per gallon.
That's better.

(06:37):
And I imagine, with all thehills that we have in Vermont, a
lot of regenerative brakingopportunities will probably get
better than that.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's pretty awesome .
I just actually think about thefact that my boss is kind of a
visionary and had this idea.
They were on a road triprecently and they had an idea
where they were like why can'twe generate wind power with
vehicles?

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, yeah, why don't you think we can Dan?
It's kind of like running aflashlight off of a solar, a
solar panel right, no, no.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Her conclusion and she's very well versed in this
field is that, uh, they'll neverdo the research or it will be
suppressed.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, because oil um but I was like that's actually
good that's a good idea.
You are creating wind, sothere's gotta be some way to
capture that yeah, um, I thinkthe only thing that wouldn't
work great is that by capturingthat wind, you're creating drag,
so your car has to produce moreenergy in order to counteract
that drag.
Yeah, drag coefficients are areally fascinating subject to

(07:37):
get into.
If you're like learning aboutrace cars, I was gonna say drag
coefficients sounds like I'mabout to go have a nap.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
They they have.
Yeah, but when they do windtunnel testings on on cars when
they like try to make them.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I was going to say drag coefficient sounds like I'm
about to go have a nap.
Yeah, but when they do windtunnel testings on cars, when
they try to make themaerodynamic to go a top speed,
there's a certain speed thatthey can't get over because you
have to generate a certainamount of horsepower to overcome
the resistance of the wind.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, maybe it's not on the car, maybe there's
something that's capturing thewind of all the vehicles on
interstates.
oh, well, possibly but that'snot what we're talking about
today, um other than I guess weare, because we just did, but I
thought it was cool.
It'd also be cool as a way tohave power, uh, in the future
when everything is shit.
Because my um, my dissociationfailed me this week and I had a

(08:23):
really awful nightmare thatinvolved living with my mom.
Oh no, and at the age that I am, I really don't want to do that
ever again.
I yelled at her in my dream.
I was very upset about beingthere.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
So why did you have to move in with your mom?

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Because we were escaping the United States.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, yeah, at this point in history I don't know
when you're listening to thishopefully all of this blew over
and we have a great presidentnow, wouldn't?
That be incredible um oh,please, let us know right now,
uh, they are extra judiciouslyremoving legal residents of the
united states simply becausethey're not citizens, and then

(09:03):
sending them to, uh third worldgulags where we will never see
them again, apparently.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, hopefully the louisiana court is not saying
it's extra judicial.
They're saying that we can usethat uh for every what the
foreign policy act is called.
But basically, if you have, ifyou say anything, uh, that
doesn't agree with the foreignpolicy of the united states, you
can deported, even if you havelegal permanent residency.
And they are.
They are transparently, in fact.
They said in because we aretransparent.

(09:31):
We're sharing with you that weare looking into, as an
administration, ways to deportcitizens who also don't agree.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, so that's where we're at today I am indeed a
citizen.
I'm also a citizen.
Yeah, where are they going todeport me to?
I'm also a citizen.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, where are they going to deport me to?
That's what I find.
I mean, I think that they'reprobably going to focus, of
course, on people who haveanother country.
Well, never mind, they'll justput you in El Salvador.
What am I talking about?

Speaker 1 (09:51):
They'll put me on a wellness farm.
Yeah, the ones that RFK Jr wastalking about.
Yeah, you'd be a worker there.
Yeah, to end my dependency onantidepressants.
But yeah, I could see how thatmight creep into your dreams as

(10:13):
a stress point.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, I was reading about Mahmoud Khalil and the
fact that the Louisiana judgeordered that he should be
deported, and then there's, likeso many other cases of really
awful things happening right now.
And then to see what's her nameagain, the the press secretary
oh, caroline levitt yeah, to seeher be like yeah, we're looking
into this, we're gonna find away legally.

(10:36):
Um was probably enough.
That was like two things in oneday.
Oh, and then there's a newexecutive order.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
I prefer to refer to her as bleach demon bleach demon
.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, then there's another executive order that
makes it so that it's probablygoing to get um, what's the word
?
Not revoked, but overturnedsaid that it's not possible, but
basically it is directlyattacking the work that I do
around states, legislation andregulation of energy.
So, um, that was all in one day, and thus I had this nightmare
where I yelled at my mom in herhouse and I was like I want to

(11:09):
go back.
I think in my dream I said Iwould rather go back and die
than be here, and I that'sreally, um, probably not true,
but that's how I obviously in mydreams, how I was feeling about
having to leave our home.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
So, um, yeah, it wouldn't, it definitely wouldn't
be easy, but um it, you knowit's.
It's crazy that we're living ina time where that is, there is
a possibility that we might haveto do that.
Yeah, um, which, of course, youknow, you plan, you plan for
the worst and you hope for thebest it's funny because I, like,
I'm always struck every singletime I have these fears or I had

(11:46):
this nightmare.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
I woke up and I was like, but I'm fine.
And then I think abouteverybody who's actually been
through things like that orworse, and I'm just like it's
really hard to process thatbecause it's awful enough with
just the possibility and thefear alone, letting like,
letting alone live through it.
So that's why we're going totalk about negan.
Yeah, let's talk about negan,not yet, though.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Not yet because we have groans from the horde do.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
We haven't done um, a groan from the horde in a while
, from our instagram, but Iwanted to give a shout out to
jacob.
I feel like jacob is rapidlybecoming a zombesty.
Yeah, uh, they are.
Uh, we sort of met each othervia our podcasts Viva La Festiva
podcast is Jacob's, and on ourmost recent Casual Dead, episode

(12:29):
90, where we talked aboutcooperation and how it outlasts
collapse, they left us a reallynice note and it was really
inspiring to hear the greatthings that they're doing, so I
wanted to read it Also.
I wanted to say, jacob, likeyour comments really are the
kinds of comments that keep usgoing.
Yeah, and it's really nice whenpeople make comments about the
fact that they find theseepisodes meaningful, because I

(12:51):
feel like they're necessary andI don't think we can just
pretend that nothing weird'shappening.
Uh, yeah, but sometimes I'mlike, oh, this must be such a
downer for people.
Maybe they're gonna stoplistening to us.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
So you know slight sidebar, when people pretend
that none of this is happening,like, like, I see a lot of like
commercials for like doing yourtaxes or like getting better
insurance, and I'm just like,how can you be talking about
this at a time like this?
I don't want better insurance,I want the freedom of speech.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
And it's like, obviously theinsurance company can't help me

(13:23):
with that, but it still makes memad.
Yeah, well, this will make youhappy.
Okay, good.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Jacob shares.
What a fun, inspiring,invigorating, beautiful episode.
I live right next to myvillage's community center and
I'm already thinking of where wecan build our community garden.
Oh yeah.
So just like nice to hear thethings that you folks are doing,
I'm already thinking of what Iwould give someone for them to
teach me how to change my ownoil.
Thank you guys.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
I could show you yeah , come on over.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, I don't know if you're thinking about going to
Living Dead Weekend, Jacob, butwe'll be there.
Yeah, we'll change your oil.
I'm sure you can give us somepodcast tips, since you're a
fellow podcaster.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, I say this often and I don't do anything
about it, but I also want to getmore involved with the
community in this way.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Oh, I have one more piece of news actually that we
should share, which is that ourlocal library had some people
come in and do a quote-unquoteFirst Amendment audit.
Oh yeah, I remember about thisand I'd never heard of this.
I'm curious if anybody here hashad this happen to them or has
heard of it or has watched thesevideos.
But do you want to explain whata First Amendment audit is, dan
?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, so I did some research on this because it
sounded pretty upsetting, and Ifound some people who make their
living doing this.
It's not actually like agovernment agent that comes by.
It's not an official capacity.
It's some asshole with a camera,is all it is who is very
confrontational and what they dois they come in and they shove

(14:50):
a camera in your face.
If you're a government workerin a government space and they
do all the things that they arelegally allowed to do, like walk
around where there's no signsthat say not to walk there,
signs that say not to walk there, they'll shuffle through your
papers, they'll kick open yourdoor like they're about to shoot
you and then just put a camerain the door and film your
reaction, and their whole thingis that they just want to angry,

(15:13):
anger people into reacting sothat they can, you know, have a
five second clip of rage baityeah they can put on social
media yeah, because apparentlyyou, if you're in a public place
and you're a government workerlike you, have to let them in.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
You can't stop them from filming you and if you
don't, like you said, have signsthat say this is not a like,
this is an employee-only area,they can go wherever they want.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
You have to put up signs.
You specifically have to say noemployee-only area if you don't
want them to go through yourdesk and just start rifling
through your papers.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, so that happened in our little town hall
and our library and it soundedreally, really awful because, as
a worker apparently folks andmaybe you're one of these people
who's had this training Ididn't know what this was until
our librarian friend told usabout it, that it had happened
to her.
But you have to capitulate tothem because otherwise you're
going to be on some awful videoand become viral slash, you know

(16:03):
, be told that you did somethingwrong.
So they received training onhow to address this.
But definitely Google firstamendment audits and make sure
you're prepared too, because myfirst reaction was like I live
seven minutes from the town hall.
Next time this happens I willcome and start filming them.
And then she was like you cando that, but don't say anything,
cause the minute you saysomething, it's going to become
off the chain and and the peoplethat you were looking at, that

(16:24):
lived or lived relatively nearus, do things like, uh, pepper
spray people and all kinds ofother things.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
They've been arrested many times there's one guy and
I don't have his name off offthe the top of my head.
He's got like 178 000subscribers on youtube.
We don't want to drive peopleto him anyways, right, yeah, and
he's.
But he's a local guy and hedoes go around and instigate
other than views and ad revenuefrom YouTube is a civil lawsuit.
Yeah, so like half of hisvideos are like tyrant cop or

(17:15):
angry Karen.
He'll like try to start fightswith people, especially cops,
and try to get arrested.
Quote unquote wrongfully,because technically there's
nothing illegal about what he'sdoing, but he's being a total
asshole and he is disturbing thepeace.
So it would not be hard tounderstand why a police officer
would want to arrest somebodylike this who's going around and

(17:37):
trying to pick fights withpeople.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
But if you do arrest him, then he files a civil
lawsuit and he's hoping to getbig money payout or you refuse
to show him the things that he'sasking to see, that are legally
within his right, becauseyou're frustrated with this
person who's basically attackingyou, yeah, and you can't do
anything.
So it's pretty wild out there.
I had no idea.
Google it so that you're readyin case this ever happens to you
.
And, uh, like I, I think theyprobably come to small towns

(18:00):
like ours thinking like maybethey don't know and they're more
likely to do something theyshouldn't, and also I think
they're just prepared.
I'm very proud of uh, our localtown leadership they're.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
They're playing a numbers game, so they're just
going to every place that theycan, especially places that
might not have experienced thisbefore, and just trying to
provoke people.
Yeah, so honestly, I mean Ihate this answer, but the the
best thing to do is to justdistance yourself from it, if
you can, or just remain quiet.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, we know this guy loves Elon for sure.
Oh yeah, Definitely yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
If he could afford a Cybertruck, he would.
He would absolutely be drivingone.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
In a much more fun note, we have a zombie comic
pitch today.
Yeah, we've been getting quitea few.
A zombie comic pitch today?
Oh, yeah, we've been gettingquite a few.
This is another great one fromScott Cirklund of CirqueWorks
Art Labs, who's created a comicseries called Young and the Dead
no Zombies Allowed.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
It kind of sounds almost like a soap opera.
Name the Young and the Dead.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
It does, it does have that vibe.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
I would watch a soap opera in a zombie apocalypse.
I mean, that's what the WalkingDead is, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Well, I never thought of it that way until Jack
Callahan, author of Zombie Nerdand the Half-Term Harrowing,
pointed it out.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Let's give it a listen, so let's hear his pitch.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, neither of us have heard this.
It's totally a live reaction.
Okay, you ready to listen?
I'm ready.
All right, this seven soundsgood.
We're going away from escapecity, yeah, by kayla hicks and
all of the scariness, and nowwe're going up the elevator to
seven to see what horrors awaitus.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
On the seventh floor.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yes, let's listen greetings dan leah and the
extended zombie book club family.
This is scott circling, creatorof young and the dead.
No zombies allowedies Allowed.
A 1980s-themedkids-versus-zombie adventure
comic book series.
Young and the Dead follows theadventures of 11-year-old Sam.
Young and his little brother Tadas they wake up one morning to

(19:54):
find most of the adults in theirquiet suburban neighborhood
have fallen victim to a horrificvirus that has transformed them
into flesh-eating zombies.
Together they team up with aragtag group of neighborhood
misfits, including Sam'swisecracking best friend, mitch
a live-action role-playaficionado named Lloyd a

(20:15):
tough-as-nails tomboy Oxana Oxfor short Sam's secret crush,
stephanie and her overprotectiveolder brother Ricardo aka Rocky
.
It's a race against time asthese unlikely heroes fight to
survive and unlock the clues toa cure that could potentially
reverse the effects of thedeadly zombie outbreak and save

(20:37):
the world in the process.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Young and the Dead has everything I love about
comics, adventure, humor, horror, mystery and, of course,
zombies.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
This comic is my love letter to the kid adventure
films of the 1980s, movies likethe Goonies, the Monster Squad,
explores, et and, more recently,stranger Things.
Young and the Dead captures allthe nostalgia of that era of
storytelling, only with a lotmore zombies.
Just think Goonies meets Nightof the Living Dead.

(21:10):
Now, for the first time, you'llbe able to get the complete
story and trade paperback.
If you love 80s nostalgia, kidadventures, if you love zombies,
then this is the book for you.
The comic is currently fundingon Kickstarterstarter.
Just go to younginthedeadcom tolearn more that sounds like a
trip scott.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
That sounds incredible.
Uh, I meani, it sounds so 80s.
Like when's the last time youheard of a person named tad sam
and tad yeah, and like the wholetime, even though you you
mentioned the Goonies, monsterSquad, et, stranger Things the
whole time.
I was picturing it as the SegaGenesis game Zombies Ate my

(21:52):
Neighbors.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Oh, I've never played .

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Oh, it's wonderful you have like 3D glasses.
Your character has little 3Dglasses, spiked hair, runs
around with a squirt gun filledwith holy water that he shoots
all of his zombie neighbors with.
Oh, it's uh pretty great thatdoes sound great.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I love anything that's 80s nostalgia.
I cannot tell a lie.
I hope that there's like some80s musical references too,
because the stranger things songand soundtrack just fills my
soul with joy.
Yeah, but this sounds super funand it's really exciting.
There's a whole trade paperbackavailable to purchase right now
yeah, I'm excited to check itout yeah, thank you so much for

(22:32):
sharing with us, scott.
We can't wait to read it leah,let's talk about negan our
favorite bat swingingauthoritarian, yeah, yeah yeah,
um, so negan a dictator.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
I don't know if anybody knows that, but he is
absolutely a dictator and wechecked out this thing that we.
Where did we find this Socialmedia?
Somewhere it's called theDictator's Playbook.
Yeah, I probably.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
I don't remember the original, where I found it.
Yeah, you sent it to me.
I don't remember.
You should check this out.
And then I was like we shouldmake an episode about this.
Well, that's, that is not whathappened.
Every good idea on this podcastis mine, just for the record.
I'm kidding, but this one was I.
We talked on our last casualdead about negan.
I think we just brieflyreferenced that negan as a

(23:21):
dictator and like running anempire, since that was the topic
of the show, and I was reallylistening to it for some
potential clips, which I thenforgot to do because I'm
dissociating, playing Catan mostof the time now.
Um, but I was listening to itand I heard that again I was
like, wait, we could do a wholeepisode on Negan.
Uh, to like think about what is, how do dictators come to be?

(23:43):
And eventually, maybe in afuture episode, how do they?
How do they fall?
How do we make sure that we cantrounce them?
Yeah, put them in jail.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
In the case of negan, he doesn't die yeah, um yeah,
and we found this, we, we foundthis on the uh, the dictator's
playbook.
They don't talk about negan,but they talk about all the
tools that a dictator uses totake and hold on to power.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, and the the show notes, will have a website
and some book sources that itpulls from yeah, I think it's
the dictator playbookcom yep toknow, know the just dictator
playbookcom.
Very easy to remember.
But before we get started, forthe people who have just never
watched the walking dead, canyou give me a quick rundown of
who negan is?

Speaker 1 (24:24):
oh, uh, negan shows up.
He negan is referenced inseason six of the walking dead
and we don't meet him until thevery last episode of season six.
Season seven is when we startseeing what negan is all about
is a monster.
Negan uses brutality to forcehis will upon survivors of the

(24:50):
zombie wasteland to join him,yeah, and basically do his
bidding and give him power.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
He's been very successful at rebuilding society
.
Is it a society you'd want tolive in?

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I don't think so, but it's fairly similar to many
that have existed in historyfrom the dead um.
So they have walls the deadcan't get in.
They have, uh, a large militaryforce, um of negan's enforcers
who keep them safe.

(25:34):
They have food, they have accessto medicine and, if they sleep,
with him, yeah, in some caseswell, we'll talk more about how
that operates, but, um, there'sa lot of reasons that people
want to be a part of negan'ssociety.
Um, but the thing is that neganand his people can't
necessarily provide all thethings that those people need,

(25:56):
unless they go to communitiesthat already have those things
and then force them to paytribute to them yeah, an empire.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, he's slowly trying to call us slowly.
He was rapidly trying tocolonize his surrounding area as
far as he could with any otherum group that had kind of
figured out how to live again.
And for those who have justnever, uh, watched the walking
dead to the point where therewas negan, I feel like we need
to give a shout out to the actorwhose name is jeffrey dean
morgan.
Yeah, jeffrey dean morgan, thischaracter, like I understand

(26:31):
the brutality of stopping whenyou see glenn get his face
bashed in and the eyeballpopping out.
I remember that moment.
It was really shocking.
And then I think I watched acouple of episodes into season
seven.
This is back when it first cameout.
It was coming out live and Ihad to stop because I was like
this is so fucking dark, like Ican't help, I can't handle it
and I'm personally not a hugefan of gore.

(26:51):
So it was just really a lot.
But then Dan came back into mylife and convinced me that it
was worth it and I'm so gladthat I pushed through that part,
thankfully, through that part.
Thankfully.
I knew that part was coming soI could just like look away.
Yeah, um, so I'm encouragingyou.
If you find this interesting,it might be.
It might be time to return backto the walking dead and watch

(27:12):
negan's character, because he'sfascinating and he's so well
acted.
Yeah, like you, what's scaryabout him?
Like many dictators, he's verycharming.
We'll get into that in a minuteas well.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
He's a very charming and likable guy.
They want you to feel the sameway that the people who are
under his rule feel.
They want you to feel ashopeless as everyone else and
they want you to feel like youronly choices are to submit or
die.
And that's why it's so hard towatch that season, but it's so
worth it to watch it becauseyou're not only going to see all

(28:02):
of these tools of author,author, author, terror,
dictatorship you can keep that,probably.
Uh, you're not gonna.
You're not just gonna see allthese tools of dictatorship and
all the brutality and thesenseless violence, but you're
also going to see how peopleresist it.
And that's not a spoiler.
You know the show's about rick,so you're going.

(28:23):
You're going to see that happen.
It's not a spoiler.
You know the show's about Rick,so you're going to see that
happen.
It's not the Negan show, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
So what we're going to do in this chat of ours today
with you is that we're going togo through the four phases of
the dictator's playbook.
The first is phase oneconsolidate power.
The second is phase two erodedemocratic institutions.
Phase three establishtotalitarian control.
And phase four sustain yourregime.
And we're going to actuallywalk through all of the ways

(28:50):
that Negan actually does this,and I think it's a great example
of how good television isalways drawing from reality.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, there's a lot to draw from.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yes, there are so many examples of dictators in
our history as a species.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
It's not a new thing.
It's been going on for a very,very long time do you think
there was ever a chimpanzeedictator?
Oh sure you think they have sosame as coco coco and he wanted
to control the entire supply ofbananas do not blasphemy coco,
he just died, and he was abonobo.
Who was?
Who was coco?

(29:24):
Hold on, I'm unfamiliar withthis chimpanzee that you refer
to as coco you don't?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
oh coco's a gorilla, so you were deriving from
something.
I was thinking of konzi leah.
Konzi's a bonobo that isspecies konzi did die and also,
I'm pretty sure, coco is alsodead.
Let me just confirm this.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yes, they died in 2018.
I'm familiar with coco, thesign language regardless.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Coco and kanji, not dictators, but I think I said
this before.
But I find it reallyfascinating that our closest
relatives are the bonobos andthe chimpanzees and that the
chimpanzees can be violent andkind of assholes and bonobos
solve things very peacefully andvery egalitarianly.
If that's erotically anderotically, yes, sex erotically
yes, sex solves everything.
I think that Polymorphous Leeis the episode where that came

(30:09):
out, where we talked aboutBonobos, I think so I don't
recall, but I do remembersomething about that yeah, Shout
out to the zombie re-erection.
Only Sex Can Save Us.
By Polymorphous Lee.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
So let's go back to phase one.
Okay, consolidate power.
This is the first phase thatyou need to do if you want to be
a dictator, and the first waythat Negan is going to do it is
he's going to exploit a powervacuum, take control of
leadership from a weakpredecessor during chaos.
So Negan only hints to this.

(30:40):
We don't actually see thishappen because they're just
talking um back and forth.
Negan and his right hand person, simon, are talking about the
person who was running thesanctuary before them and they
say that.
They say that he was weak andneeded to be taken out.
So they identified that theirleader was not capable of

(31:02):
leading them through this crisisand they, I imagine, used a lot
of the things in this list todo it back then.
But we don't see that becausethat's not part of the show.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
They do hint to it more and more.
In Dead City, the first seasonof Dead City, we'll get to learn
a little bit more, which alsois one of the better spinoffs, I
will say.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, you know what I mean it's definitely better
than daryl dixon.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Don't.
Even daryl is a betrayal of theentire.
It really is it's universe.
It's upsetting, norman reedus,you betrayed us anyways, oh poor
norman why poor norman, he'smaking money, poor rich norman.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Okay, so, uh.
The second thing is uh, crisesare actually opportunities.
Um so, for a dictator?
For a dictator, absolutely fora dictator, because the postal
apocalyptic disorder of thewalking dead made people
desperate for leadership, andthat's where Negan stepped in.

(32:02):
He became the strong man thatstepped in and said I'm going to
lead you through this.
All you have to do is give meall of your loyalty.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yep, and there's a really great book that still
stands true today.
If you haven't read it, it'scalled the Shock Doctrine by
Naomi Klein, a Canadian, whichis a critique of neoliberalism.
It was written in 2007.
Which is a critique ofneoliberalism.
It was written in 2007.
Basically, she shows thismechanism of shock therapy where
, anytime there's any kind ofcrisis that's when global powers

(32:34):
, united States and some othersAre you okay?
Through mechanisms like theWorld Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, do these thingscalled shock therapy, where they
introduce new legislation whena country's constituents are
just too overwhelmed to contestthem because they're dealing
with crisis, sounds familiar.
Palestine is going through thatright now, where it's like
we're, you know, literally thereis Trump's vision of taking

(32:57):
over Palestine and making itinto his own little paradise and
essentially controlling it, sothat's very similar.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
He wants to open a casino that he'll bankrupt.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, I have not read the Shock Doctrine, so I should
probably check that out.
It'll be good.
It's depressing.
Good research for what I'mdoing.
Next on the list Savior Complex.
Literally, he calls his peoplethe saviors.
They live in the sanctuary.
He presents himself as the onlyone who can enforce peace and

(33:30):
order yeah, without him, it'schaos, it's zombies, it's
definitely death.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, you know, you trade your freedom and your
sense of autonomy and your ownmind for safety by the saviors
yeah and uh.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Charismatic rule next in the list.
I mean that's kind of negan'sthing yeah, negan is incredibly
charming yeah uh, you would likehim until you knew anything
about him he gives you a fivemile smile as he's bashing your
head in yeah, he lookshorrifyingly happy about it yeah
, um, also he, he's got thisunique persona.

(34:07):
He's got the leather jacket, theslicked back hair, the big
smile.
He's handsome.
He's handsome, he's got goodjokes, he's strong.
He has a baseball bat, who hasa name, lucille, that he uses as
a tool to implement this, thisvision, this, uh vision of his
persona and uh, the whole ideais to appear strong and iconic

(34:30):
and irreplaceable.
Like you can't replace negan,who's taken?

Speaker 2 (34:34):
negan's place.
Everyone is negan, which we'llget to in a second, but the
other thing that he does is likeinside of the sanctuary, which
is like what an old factory, danyeah, it's like a.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
I think it's a steel mill.
They have a foundry.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Yeah, they probably make steel parts and they have
multiple locations, but the mainlocation is this uh big
building and he always addresseshis people from this balcony.
Yeah, so he has this like umbravado about him and everybody
just stops and listens whennegan speaks.
You do not talk back to neganyeah, also.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
They are forced to bend the knee, kneel before him
and he does not accept any talkback yep at all um propaganda
and messaging.
Uh, he has a mantra wait, don'tsay it dan.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Who are you?

Speaker 1 (35:20):
I am negan why I am negan am Negan.
I don't know, I don't know theanswer to why?

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, probably nobody's allowed to even ask
that question, why they have tosay I am Negan that would really
fuck somebody up.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
if Negan was just like why?
Then they'd just be like whatyeah?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
So he has this phrase that he makes everybody who is
a part of his sanctuary andwants to be a savior Say I am
Negan, who is a part of hissanctuary and wants to be a
savior, say I am everyone.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
If he says who are you, you have to say I am negan.
That's right.
It erases uh personal identityand spreads loyalty through
identity control.
Um, you'll see this like incults, where, like you give
people new names or you makethem dress a certain way dare I
say there might be somecomparisons and correlations
between cult leadership and adictator.

(36:11):
Yeah, a little bit, yeah.
Another tool that they're goingto use is he's going to
discredit his rivals.
Episode of season six where orno?
First episode of season sevenwhere, after um killing two of
his people, he degrades rick infront of alexandria.

(36:31):
He does that through multipleepisodes, making him carry
around lucille um, giving himthe power to kill negan and,
knowing that he won't, just todegrade his authority also
incredible, acting like ricklooks destroyed, absolutely
destroyed, because he is he is.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
He is psychologically tortured in a way that is also,
I will say, like one of themore painful episodes to watch.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, the initial torture that he does to make him
submit to him and and the wholeidea is that he wants to
undermine that leadership andthat's going to keep people from
rebelling If they don't have aleader that they can believe in.
You know, certain currentevents remind me of this.
When a leader shows themselvesto not be a very good leader,

(37:16):
suddenly people lose faith thatthey can rebel against something
.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, but also if that person that you did trust
says to you we have to go alongwith this yeah they're not
standing up.
Why would you stand up?

Speaker 1 (37:30):
yeah you're suddenly alone in this rebellion feels
very familiar with.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
I think a lot of us feel abandoned by the folks who
are considered our um democraticleaders, chuck schumer, like if
they don't stand up, how are we, the little people, supposed to
stand up?
And I think that that ispsychologically like really
makes a lot more people submit.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, he also uses fear to reduce leaders like
Ezekiel from the king kingdomand Gregory from the hilltop
into submissive roles.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Briefly, the kingdom and the hilltop are two other
communities that are relativelynear Alexandria, which is where
I think if you've watched this,you know that he treats the
hilltop.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
The kingdom is much more like.
He knows that Ezekiel is goingto err on the side of caution.
So, instead of risking havingto go to war with these people,
he knows that Ezekiel will dothe things that he wants him to
do.
If he just gives him a gooddeal and promises that he will
keep his end of the bargain yeah, whereas Gregory, the leader of
Hilltop, is a sycophant him agood deal and promises that he
will keep his end of the bargainyeah, whereas gregory, the
leader of hilltop, is asycophant yeah, and he just, he

(38:49):
just dominates gregory andgregory just capitulates to his
every, every whim because he'safraid that he'll be, uh,
executed and have his headchopped off and he also wants to
maintain his leadership.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
so he gets to be the leader of hilltop because negan
still sees him as a leader ofHilltop.
Meanwhile, people really havelost faith in him because he's a
shitty leader.
Watch the show, see why.
And you can see these real lifeopposition suppression examples
happening right now in theUnited States, like with Mahmoud
Khalil being detained andtrying to be deported.
You can look at Turkey, putin,obviously, and Russia, venezuela

(39:24):
.
You can look at Turkey, putin,obviously, and Russia, venezuela
.
There's lots of examples ofplaces where anybody who has a
different view is said to be theenemy.
You might be heading towards adictatorship slash in one.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, well, good thing that's not happening.
No, that would never happenhere.
And finally, you want to divideand co-opt Division.
Are there any examples ofsomebody trying to divide a
people that you can think of inorder to co-opt them?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean, some people are really attached to the
colors red or blue, Like reallyattached.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
The directions of both left and right.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, um, whether or not they like animals like a
donkey or an elephant, yeah,which I really like elephants I
like them both and I like thecolor red.
I don't want to have to choosethis way yeah, what if you like
purple?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
that's true, yeah somebody needs.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
We need a third party .
That's the purple.
We can call the purple peopleeating party.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah, although that doesn't sound very appealing,
people eating, never mind group,um, some, some nails that were

(40:48):
sticking up, that he needed tohammer down, some areas where he
needed to divide rebelliousparts of that group in order to
undermine the group as a whole.
And and two that are mostobvious are daryl and eugene can
I talk about daryl?

Speaker 2 (41:01):
yeah I think the why he treats daryl in the way that
you're about to describe andthis is Daryl Dixon, the Daryl
Dixon we know and love, not thenew Disney Daryl, no.
Disney Daryl, no.
This is the Daryl we've come tolove through many seasons of
the Walking Dead.
I think that's because he knewthat Daryl was second in command
and he knew that Daryl was nothaving any of it.

(41:21):
He could see it and he had totry and also make sure that that
person was not there to alsoorganize a resistance.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, I think also he recognized right away that
Daryl has a rebellious nature,daryl's kind of like a wild dog,
and that's how Negan sees him,and he thinks you can either
shoot this wild dog that's crazyand trying to bite you, or you
can try to tame it and the waythat he thinks that is best is

(41:52):
to um, isolate in prison, starve, emotionally, manipulate him
like the entire time that he'slocked in a closet and starved
and like being tortured withwith music.
What was that song?
Uh, easy street it willabsolutely be easy street.
We're using that for thethumbnail episode, yeah, and

(42:12):
instagram and and the whole timethat he's in that closet, he is
feeling the guilt of beingresponsible for glenn's death.
Because glenn dies becausedaryl stands up and tries to
attack Negan and Negan doesn'tkill Daryl, he kills Glenn
instead Because he could havejust killed Daryl and had that

(42:37):
problem solved and it would havebeen a more just solution to
what he was perceiving as athreat.
But he also saw potential indaryl.
If he could turn daryl and uhindoctrinate him, daryl could be
one of his lieutenantsabsolutely one of his best, his,
his, uh catchphrase is peopleare resources, which is true.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
I would like to say that in our jobs, we're called
human resources, which is kindof creepy.
I never thought about that.
Oh, I've always thought I'mlike I'm a resource, okay, got
it, but people are resources.
And so it's one of his ethos,like, while he will willingly
kill people, he I think one ofthe I don't want to say nicer
parts of Negan, but like hedoesn't want to kill people,

(43:22):
actually he does it when hethinks he needs to.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
So, like in the case of, like Abraham and Glenn, his,
his idea behind that is I'llkill two people and that means I
won't have to kill 25 people or50 people who have been
honestly highly antagonistic andaggressive against my people

(43:46):
and attacked first.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, yeah, we should say if you've never watched the
Walking Dead.
Rick's rip is not entirelyinnocent in this circumstance.
Yeah, but that's a whole othercan of worms.
I think the point here ondivision and co-option is that
he figures out what a person ismost likely to succumb to and
uses it, like with Eugene, whowe have a history of seeing as

(44:08):
being very soft, yeah, and usingpeople for the for his own
survival.
He just gives him everything hewants.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Yeah, he uses comfort and flattery.
He knows that the same thingthat he thinks will work on
daryl isn't necessary for eugene.
It probably would work, but heknows that if he just gives
eugene a comfortable apartmentwith video games and kettle
cooked potato potato chips, thateugene is.

(44:35):
He you're not.
You're not even gonna have toask.
He's gonna be like I am negan.
I figured out this riddle.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah, the riddle is I am negan and I will use all of
my massive big brain to dothings for you, negan.
Yeah, let's move on to phasetwo.
So we have, at this point,consolidated power.
Negan's got it.
Good job, negan, you're doinggreat at your dictatorship
project a plus.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
The next phase is to erode any kind of other
institution that is democraticor involved, where people the
people make decisionscollectively yeah, he had a
really um, a really bigadvantage in this department and
he probably had to do more ofthis in the off-screen part in
the beginning, where he tookover the sanctuary that we don't

(45:20):
know about.
What we see is the result ofwhat he's done off screen that
we don't know about.
So the first thing is youcontrol all the decision making.
So, while he does have a boardof advisors that we learn about
in season eight, um, there'sthere's no council, there's no

(45:40):
voting.
Negan's word is absolute.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Sounds like somebody we know yeah, the the council
that he has is vying for his earbecause they know that it gives
them additional power withinthe context, but they don't have
any actual power without negangiving them power and saying I
agree with you, we should dothis even with his advisors
simon uh, not dan's brother.
An evil simon a different.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Simon um eugene becomes part of that.
He's got a few otherlieutenants in there.
Dwight is one of them.
I can also see an interplaythere where him asking them for
their opinions is him gatheringinformation to make a better
decision.
But also it's this game wherehe is playing with how valuable

(46:24):
they think they are and playingthem against each other so that
they don't get comfortable andwork together with them because
they are the closest to him.
They have the best chance ofjust putting them out.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
It's actually a good point that he's dividing them.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
He makes it so they compete with each other for
Negan's favor, which I wonderwhat it's like behind the scenes
in our current federaladministration.
If it feels like that, it'sprobably it's probably exactly
like yeah um so, at the end ofthe day, there's no council,
there's no vote, there's no vote.
Negan's word is law.
You do what negan says or thereare consequences.

(47:01):
Yeah, like your life, or likesomebody else's life, or getting
an iron to the face.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, or something worse.
Yeah, he creates a legalillusion.
So he talks about the rules andthey are framed as being
totally necessary.
Without rules, you have chaos.
None of this works withoutrules.
He tells us all of these thingsand, yes, it's good to have
chaos.
None of this works withoutrules.
He tells us all of these thingsand yes, it's good to have

(47:26):
rules.
And I and that's one of thethings that I do like about
Negan's society is that heunderstood the importance of
having rules and making surethat people follow those rules.
Um, but the thing is, the rulesreally only serve his own
interests.
Yeah, so he has rules.

(47:48):
Like everyone kneels before him, everyone answers I am Negan.
No one touches his harem ofwives.
No one runs away you run away.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
You die, yeah, or they're going to try to kill you
.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
He controls whether or not somebody can have uh
intimacy with another person.
So, like in the case of ofdwight, he offers dwight the
opportunity to have sex with aperson because he did a good job
but not his actual wife, who'snow negan's wife, not, not, not
her, but he does offer Not her,but he does offer a time

(48:26):
together for them.
Just no touching, because that'sagainst the rules.
But that was also a loyaltytest and Dwight turned it down.
And also, whatever he saysabout the resources that he
wants, he gets it.
He gets everything he wants.
He doesn't actually have tofollow the rules.
Everybody else does.
He doesn't actually have tofollow the rules.
Everybody else does.

(48:46):
He is the law.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, and here's where capitalism comes in,
because a lot of his way oflooking at things is
capitalistic.
He makes sure that all of thepeople who are resources for him
have something to scrape by.
So he doesn't take every singlething, but he takes enough that
it makes it really hard.
It makes it really hard tosurvive.
Yeah, sound familiar.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Just enough so that they feel safe from the outside
world, but not enough that theyfeel like they don't have to
contribute anymore because theyhave everything they need.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Well, I think that the folks inside the sanctuary
might feel safe, but thecolonies that he has, oh yeah,
they don't feel safe, but theyknow that if they give it to him
, they're at least safe fromNegan.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
I don't see the people in the colonies as being
sanctuary citizens.
They are the externalizedworkforce that is under Negan's
rule.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
That's a good point.
Going back again to divisionand co-option, I think that
that's a really clear intention,because you get to be.
If you're a member of thesanctuary, you have privileges
and you have access to thingsand you can.
It's portrayed as a meritocracywhere you can, like, earn your
way up.
Yeah, but it's not.
Earning your way up is justdoing whatever Negan says.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
basically, and that goes into suppressing
alternatives.
So communities like Alexandriaand the Kingdom are not allowed
independent governance ormilitary strength.
I think that these are reallygood examples.
These communities are actuallycolonies.
Negan has colonized thesecommunities and now they serve

(50:22):
the saviors, but they don'tnecessarily benefit from the
sanctuary other than thesanctuary.
Just won't attack them if theyplay by the rules yeah, that's
the benefit.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, that's people do it and that if they do what
he says, then at least he'lltake less of their resources and
they can have a little morecomfortable, have a little more
food to rely on.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, um, eliminating key institutions.
So we mentioned that.
He overthrew the previousleader of the sanctuary, emerged
as a strong man.
There's also another reallygreat example where, for reasons
that we'll discuss in a bit, heneeds a new doctor.
Hilltop has one.
And they're like come with us,You're our new doctor now you

(51:04):
live at the sanctuary, you justgot an upgrade.
And meanwhile the people at theHilltop are like what are we
supposed to do?
We have medical needs.
So they removed thatinstitution of health care.
And they're like well, we don'twant to leave you high and dry,
so they left behind a pallet ofibuprofen.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
That fixes everything , yeah, especially your liver.
Take it every day multipletimes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
I actually learned from personal experience that
ibuprofen is fine for your liver.
It's terrible for yourdigestive system, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Let's not.
You should never take medicaladvice from us.
Just saying that for legalpurposes.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Right now, my medical advice is don't take ibuprofen
three times a day every day for20 years.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, don't do that.
But if you're looking to be adictator, you got to move on to
phase three, which isestablishing totalitarian
control.
Yeah, fun, yeah.
So what are you going to do tomake sure that you have full
totalitarian control?
You need to eliminate dissentwith brutality.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
We see a lot of that.
That's the thing that peopleare upset about when they watch
the Walking Dead.
He killed Abraham and Glenn infront of all of their best
friends, slash Maggie, who wasespecially upset.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Glenn's wife Glenn.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah, there's a, the doctor that I mentioned before,
glenn's wife working with one ofhis wives to facilitate a

(52:44):
relationship outside of Negan'sharem marriage.
Um, and just suspicion of thatwas enough for him to take that
doctor and throw him into afurnace and burn him alive in
front of everybody while theywere taking the knee.
Um, this was after, uh, maimingthe boyfriend of his harem wife

(53:08):
after he confronted them and headmitted to it and he burned
his face with an iron.
So he's eliminating thatdescent with brutality.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
And that creates a culture of fear, which is the
next part of this, where you,first of all, you have to kneel
and repeat I am Negan, becauseif you don't't, it could be you
going into the fire, it could beyou being branded with a hot
iron on your face, like dwight,who resisted at one point yeah,
dwight get.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Dwight has a bad scar on his face that he didn't have
a season before and that'sbecause he escaped with his wife
and somebody else um and stolesome insulin and they just
wanted to escape.
They wanted freedom and theyended up going back um for a
variety of reasons survival.
Yeah, feeling like there's noother option.

(53:58):
Um, didn't want to live on therun, I guess, but yeah, the
culture, the culture of fear,that that's.
That's something that we.
That is the most obvious whenwe're watching the walking dead
in these seasons is that he iscultivating fear among everyone.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
He's ruling with fear and he controls the economy.
Which the economy?
Is this like fancy word for howyou get what you need.
That's what it is.
Yeah, economy is just thesystems in place that help
people get what they need anddistribute what is available, uh
, fairly or unfairly yeah, um.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
So he has a few ways to do this.
First of all, he controlsaccess to supplies like medicine
, weapons and food weapons.
He just takes them away, unlessyou're part of his, uh,
military group, his paramilitarygroup.
Um, because he wants everybodydependent on him for things like
the tribute system.
The tribute system is thethings that he does with the

(54:53):
communities slash colonies, yeah, where he takes a certain
percentage of everything thatthey have.
It doesn't matter if it'sthings that they grow in their
field, if it's the ammunitionthat's in their vault, it
doesn't matter if it's medicineor if it's beds or furniture.

(55:17):
He's taking it and he isallowing you to keep half of it.
That's the tribute system.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
It's like If you're being good.
If you're not good, you don'tget.
You get less Lucky you.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
You get to keep half of everything you work so hard
for Instead of 100% of it.
But if you want 100% of it,then we are going to come and
bash your gate down and let in ahorde of zombies and then shoot
you and burn your houses down.
It's a great show, uh.

(55:48):
Within, within the sanctuary,they have a point system, and
points is like more likemonetary money currency, so
everybody works for points.
They keep track of how manypoints everybody has.
If you want to buy a sandwichsandwiches are like the main
food item that everybody wantsum, but if you want a sandwich,

(56:10):
you got to buy it with points.
If you want a tv vcr combo soyou can watch sitcoms from the
90s, you got to buy that withpoints.
If you want an ipod that'sloaded with a bunch of music,
you got to buy that with points,and they keep track of it.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
It's just disturbing.
The parallels of our real world, and even before things got to
the point that they are rightnow like this is capitalism with
a dictator.
I think that communism is oftenthe one that is perceived and
shown historically as whereauthoritarians or dictators show
up.
But we are in a capitalisteconomy and we are on the verge

(56:47):
of a dictatorship in thiscountry right now.
Um, and just show, it's notreally.
Those two things are separate.
You can have an economic system,and then you have the people
who enforce it, the politicalcontrol, uh, and so points
really are just money.
And then there's the illusionof meritocracy, like you earned
it, which makes you a betterperson.
Right, you have more respect ifyou have more points, if you're
closer to negan, the morerespect you get, the more you

(57:07):
can abuse others too.
Um, so let's move to phase foursustain the regime.
So at the point in which we aremeeting negan, this is
basically what he's doing.
And then he's doing stuff alongall the other four phases to
either bring in new colonies, uh, suppressed dissent, things
like that.
But now you know he's, he'sbuilt a very impressive empire.
We have to give him credit yeah,he was very successful yeah, uh

(57:30):
, rick thought and his groupthought that they were just like
one.
What they thought was theentire thing, the entire
community and civilization, wasan outpost of Negans, their
regime.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
They're going to maintain a monopoly on violence,
so they're going to have theirown armed loyal inner circle of
lieutenants.
They're also going to havetheir armed paramilitary groups

(58:03):
that go out into the wild tofind communities, to find
resources to do bad things topeople.
But only these trusted peopleare going to be allowed to be
armed and they are going to bequite violent and they are going
to be tested there's.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
They are not immune from the possibility of, like
dwight, uh like others, of uh adownfall.
If negan doesn't, for whateverreason, decides that they're not
100 trustworthy, yeah, so theyhave to keep earning his trust
by being loyal.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Also, he's going to distract with external threats
Also sounds familiar.
So things like the walkers, theother communities, people who
defect, people who defectTraitors from within, the
constant threats that are tryingto undermine his control, these
are all going to be framed asbeing evil or subhuman,

(58:58):
existential threats that notonly want to take out Negan but
destroy their way of life, allof their safety, take away all
their stuff and possibly killeverybody inside because they
just hate you so much.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, those people at the hilltop and Alexandria,
they want your sandwich.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yeah, they don't have sandwiches at the hilltop.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
And that's because they it's their fault.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Yeah, really they hate us for our sandwiches, our
freedom sandwiches.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
So with external threats, we already see that.
I think the obvious examplesare with ice and deportation and
detention of people who areconsidered to be quote unquote
threats, even though many ofthem end up just being gardeners
or regular people who don'tagree with Trump.
I want to just briefly sharewith you what that does.

(59:52):
So Trump enacted theInternational Emergency Economic
Powers Act and said we have anemergency.
So he's manufactured a threat,essentially by doing all this
weird shit with the tariffs.
A lot of his executive ordersare about this, like perceived
threat of other countries ofpeople who don't identify as

(01:00:13):
male or female or are intersexLike I love that.
That executive order justthinks those people don't exist,
or female or are intersex.
Like I, I love that.
That executive order justthinks those people don't exist.
Um, and the emergency thisemergency economic act allows
him to do things that otherwisehe would not be allowed to do a
fun one.
As an example, by using he usedthis act to order the removal
of social media platforms liketiktok back in 2020, before the
end of his first presidency.

(01:00:33):
Oh, wow, that was because ofthe quote-unquote national
emergency, uh, of having achina-based company running a
popular platform.
Yeah, he tried.
Nope, that that's not an issueanymore.
Like nobody, I haven't heardanything about tiktok yeah, well
, this is the the one.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
in 2020, though, he was unsuccessful, and then he
successfully tried to remove itin January of 2025.
And that lasted like 12 hoursbecause he was like wait a
second.
I have a lot of supporters onTikTok who are spreading my
misinformation for me.
I want that back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
So he manufactures this crisis and then, through
the benevolence of the dictator,he gave it back to us and,
literally, the gay rightsattacked Islam.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
And also the first presidency of Trump, we saw a
ban on any Muslim countries,just framing people who he
didn't like as dangerous enemies, a convenient scapegoat.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Yeah, basically.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
And that's a really common tool to influence the
people into thinking that thereis something out there trying to
hurt them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah, and it's one of the strategies, which is to use
indoctrination, yeah, toconvince people that the
narrative that you're sharing istrue and this is the enemy.
Yeah, to convince people thatthe narrative that you're
sharing is true and this is theenemy.
Like, if you read, um,fortunately, because I live in
vermont now and I'm not marriedto somebody anymore who had,
horrifyingly, uh, whitesupremacist family members uh, I
don't have to deal with itevery day, but I do still have

(01:02:27):
some folks on facebook that werelike acquaintances that I see
post once in a while their loveof trump and they believe all of
it.
They believe that immigrantsare the enemy, um, and that
trump is doing wonderful thingsand it's all going to be better
because of his tariffs.
they have been fullyindoctrinated they believe that
he won all of those golftournaments so we can't talk

(01:02:48):
about negan and his dictatorshipand empire without talking
about how he uses it to abusewomen specifically.
Um, I want to come on therecord here and say this might
be unpopular polygamy a one manhaving many wives is not, on its
face, evil.
Okay, it is a marriagestructure that's exist, for
existed for a very long time inmany cultures.

(01:03:10):
However, when it is through, uh, coercion and threat of
violence, it's a problem.
Yeah, when the, the women,don't have actual power or
decision making involved, that'sa problem.
And, uh, this is the one areathat, in the future, we see
negan possibly have some regretabout and shame yeah, and, and

(01:03:32):
it starts.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
I mean so, negan, he, his harem of wives are
typically former spouses ofpeople that work for him, either
his lieutenants or people thatare just working in the uh, in
the compound, the, the sanctuary, and usually they need
something like they needmedicine, like insulin, or their

(01:03:57):
family member needs medicine ortheir spouse has done something
that Negan wants to punish themseverely for.
So they agree to marry Negan,and when they agree to marry
Negan, that means that he nowhas ownership over them.
They are his wives now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
And they all dress the same, in little black
dresses the LBD.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Little cocktail dresses.
They hang out in his loft andhe has his pick of whoever he
wants.
And he doesn't see a problemwith this because he doesn't
have to play by the rules.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
He has different rules he does say that he would
never um that that sexualassault's not okay.
But again I want to be clearthat uh man trigger warning
already.
Sorry too late this isabsolutely sexual assault,
because even folks who claimthat they're there for their own
free will, they're therebecause in one example, the
woman needed medicine for hermom and negan could provide it

(01:04:55):
if she just have sex with himand be his wife, yeah, and and
by by the end of season eight,rick confronts him about this
and I really appreciate thispart of the story because in
that moment, you know, he callsNegan out for sexual assault
while they're while they'refighting to the death.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
And Negan's like I never forced myself on anyone.
And uh, and that's when Rick islike I've heard about your
harem, are those women there bychoice?
And then, like you see thismoment where he's thinking about
it and he's he doesn't like theanswer that comes from his mind
.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Yeah, but he doesn't.
He still has them until hecan't yeah, well, the end is
coming.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
At that point, yeah, which is something that we'll
talk about in a later episode doyou think that he adjusts his
propaganda or strategies in anyway?
ah, I don't have any examplesoff the top of my head, but he's
.
I mean, if you don't adapt, youdon't survive.
Yeah, so you know, strategy isalways an adapting thing.
So like that's what he saw withEugene.

(01:05:59):
Eugene was a way tostrategically adapt to a
situation.
Eugene had a lot of ideas aboutthings like how to keep walkers
from rotting on the fence,which he decided to pour molten
metal over the walkers whilebeing pushed against the fence
so that they were welded to thefence and kept other walkers
away.
Very innovative, ingenious,yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Also a disturbing visual.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Well done ANC.
Yeah, negan says that is rad ashell.
The reason that Eugene comesunder fire from Neggan and gets
abducted in the first place isbecause he manufactures bullets
for rosita, who tries toassassinate him, and he saw the

(01:06:43):
value of somebody smart enoughin the wasteland to be able to
manufacture a bullet.
And you want to channel thatresource and it comes in handy
later because ammunitionscarcity becomes a problem for
the saviors in their war againstAlexandria and their partners.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
So, having heard all of this, I feel like if you
haven't watched the Walking Dead, you may be feeling a lot of
dread and a lot of like oh shit.
This sounds very familiar, evenif it's in a zombie wasteland
equivalent, and this is why Ithink you should watch the show,
because there are actually alot of ways that people fight
back and eventually this empirecrumbles and eventually Negan

(01:07:24):
falls.
And the different strategiesthat people use, the resistance
efforts that happen some thatfail, some that require the
sacrifice of life are notnecessarily always easy to watch
, but I think that they are avery useful allegory that we can
learn from if we think about itthat way.
Or you could read some greatbooks like how Democracies Die

(01:07:44):
by Stephen Levitsky and DanielZablatt, or, dan's favorite, the
Anatomy of Fascism, by Robert RPaxton.
Or On Tyranny 20 Less lessonsfrom the 20th century by Timothy
Schneider.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
That's your favorite.
I said the wrong one, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Oh, there's also a great one called the dictator's
handbook, why bad behavior isalways almost always good
politics.
And apparently there's a PBSdocumentary which I kind of want
to watch now, called thedictator's playbook, which is
this I found.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
I found that trying to find the link for the
dictator's playbook that we'retalking about in this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Yeah, it profiles figures like Saddam Hussein, kim
Il-sung, can you say KimIl-sung?

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Yeah, he's one of the dictators of North Korea before
Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-il.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
They're going to have to update this with other
examples.
There's plenty, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Also the Freedom House report.
What, what's that?
I don't know.
It's on your list, but I justread it I haven't read it myself
from freedomhouseorg.
We'll have all the links downthere in this in the description
.
If you want to read these.
I'm pretty sure on tyranny youcan read online, but also I'm I
think it was free on audible.
Um, if I'm not mistaken, freeor very cheap because it's a
it's kind of a short read.

(01:08:59):
I was you, you, uh, you getthrough the audiobook in like an
hour or two and apparently youcan stream the print the
dictator's playbook, uh, livefrom pbs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
So we'll add that to the show notes because it's free
and I think let's watch it.
Probably worth watching, yeahyeah, I want to watch it it's
important to recognize whatthese things are, because I know
back in like 2017, 2016, 2015,many people made it very clear
that this is where we wereheading.
Yeah, and a lot of us,including myself, was like I
don't know if we should becomparing it to hitler oh my god

(01:09:31):
.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Even even jd vance was telling us that this was
going to happen.
Really, marco rubio was tellingus that this was going to
happen.
And now they are trump'sbiggest supporters.
Love it, because they'resycophants.
They gain.
They gain from contributing tothe system.
They're gregory's on the hill.
Um, you've got some other booksto read here that you have

(01:09:54):
listed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, there are some other suggested books.
When I was looking up examplesof books around dictatorships, I
have not read them, except forthe last one Strongman Mussolini
to the Present by RuthBen-Ghiat.
Twilight of Democracy by AnneApplebaum.
The Origins of Totalitarianismby Hannah Arendt I have talked
about Hannah Arendt before, anamazing academic, and this one I

(01:10:15):
have read.
Manufacturing Consent by NoamChomsky and Edward S Herman is a
really, really great one.
But again, we could just diveinto the dissociative world of
the Walking Dead.
Feel like it's too depressingto look at real life examples,
but you want to be thinkingabout ways you could resist.
I think that there's an actualplaybook of resistance in the

(01:10:36):
walking dead too, which is whatwe're going to talk about in our
next casual dead, unlesssomething really heinous happens
between now and then that wehave to talk about instead.
That's possibility yeah, um.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
What I love about all these books, all this suggested
reading which links in thedescription, um is that it helps
me understand things like theWalking Dead more, and this
helps my writing when I'mreading on tyranny.
This is helping inform me howthese systems work and improves

(01:11:10):
my writing, because that's whatI'm writing about, and improves
my writing because that's whatI'm writing about.
So, if you're interested in thezombie apocalypse and this is a
part of your story whether ornot they run into a big force
like Negan or just some randompsychopath understanding how
these things work might give yousome ideas Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
And it was an excuse for us to talk about the Walking
Dead, which we haven't donevery much.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yeah, it's true, there's so much to talk about.
Think we need time afterwatching season 11.
We need a time so season.
We talked about season 11 onepisode 9 and since then it's
it's either just us talkingabout how terrible daryl dixon
is or just like raging about howbad season 11 was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
Didn't we do an episode on the ones who live?
I feel like we did.
I think we, yeah, we probablydid.
I can look this up.
I do have a list.
Hold on, it was good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
How about that?
That's our, that's our onesentence it was good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, it wasn't the best, but it was good.
Yeah, yeah, and we'lleventually probably do on dead
city, maybe when the next seasoncomes out.
Yeah, you know what dead city?
Pretty great, really enjoyed it.
A couple of flaws, but overallpretty great yeah, a couple
flaws, but it's no daryl dixon Iwant to know are you convinced
to go back and watch the walkingdead now, or are you just

(01:12:28):
saying I can't do it, it's toomuch like reality?

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
let us know, because I I feel like if you aren't
watching tool at least the endof season eight, like you're not
actually getting the fullwalking dead experience.
I agree, you can quit afterseason eight.
Nine and ten are fine.
Eleven's horrible, yep umeleven.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
You can just skip, you can just do it I know you
liked a few of the firstepisodes, but take it from
people who have now watched theentire series multiple times
yeah, um, but thanks everybodyfor uh tuning in to the zombie
book club.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Do people tune into things anymore?

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
I mean, they're not turning a dial back and forth,
that dial they're going to theirpodcast app and going oh,
zombie book club has a newepisode.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
let me click on that and they turn that dial to go to
the Zombie Book Club podcast.
Yeah, exactly how it works.
If you want to give us somesupport we talked about this at
the very beginning you can leavea rating, preferably five stars
Love, five stars Delicious.
You can also leave us a reviewwe love those.
You can also send us avoicemail up to three minutes at

(01:13:37):
614-699-0006.
You could even leave us a, a,uh, an elevator pitch, if you
have a book that you want topitch to us and talk about?

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
um, yeah, that's always a bright spot, especially
now, like I love hearing aboutpeople's amazing ideas.
And don't forget to go checkout young and the dead.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
No zombies allowed by scott, check out young and dead
.
It's not a soap opera, it's acomic book.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Goonies meets night of the living dead Sounds
amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
You can also follow us on Instagram at zombie book
club podcast.
Hey, if you're on blue sky,look me up, Dan the zombie
writer.
You can also search for ZombieBook Club Podcast and my name
will pop up.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Yep, and, last but not least, dan made a newsletter
because all of this is going tofall one day.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Yeah, one day, it's all going to collapse and we're
going to need you on a list sothat we can tell you when
there's a new episode.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
I think the truth is that Dan wants to be a dictator,
and this is his way ofcollecting followers is through
the newsletter.
So if you want to be a part ofour sanctuary and say I am Dan,
this is what you do, and on thatnote, I'd like to end with this
note.
On that note, I'd like to endwith a note, A few notes.
Tell me about this note.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
We're in the middle of a hostile government takeover
.
I want to talk about it, butI'll be late for work.
And if you say wait a minute,do we have to stop this?

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
We have one, but you didn't want that lady in autism.
Bye everyone, Bye everybody.
Bye, Bye.

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I Am Negan: The Dictator's Playbook | Zombie Book Club Ep 92

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}I Am Negan: The Dictator's Playbook | Zombie Book Club Ep 92