Malcolm Nance welcomes Thom Hartmann to Black Man Spy.
The pair discuss the current state of American democracy, looking at Trump's mental decline, the Epstein controversy, the current right wing media ecosystem and the influence of billionaires on American politics.
If you liked this episode, leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or share it with a friend!
Click the link below to subscribe to our Newsletter:
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/
The pair discuss the current state of American democracy, looking at Trump's mental decline, the Epstein controversy, the current right wing media ecosystem and the influence of billionaires on American politics.
If you liked this episode, leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or share it with a friend!
Click the link below to subscribe to our Newsletter:
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Democrats that are waiting for a leader as opposed to
all of us as leaders rising up. How do we
stop our own self fuckery?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, a large part of the problem is that, and BOYD,
did you identify it well, is that the right wing
machine helps people with great wealth. I mean, you know,
it's all. You've got most billionaires in America paying less
than three percent income taxes. That's the result of the
right wing machine. So therefore, you had one hundred and
(00:33):
fifty billionaire families who were the major donors to Republican
causes in the last election. You had three billionaire families
on the left, you know, who are making large donations.
Because for a billionaire, you know, first of all, to
become a billionaire, you generally have to be fairly well
animated by greed. And for a billionaire, putting money into
(00:53):
politics is just a wise investment.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
This is black Man Spy. Hi, I'm Malcolm Nance, and
welcome to black Man's Spy. This week's episode is going
to be exciting because we have the number one progressive
talk show host in America on this episode. Now, even
though he is the progressive talk show host, this show
(01:26):
is favored by everyone who loves democracy, believes in the
American experiment, and that clearly does not mean people who
are in MAGA, but all the rest of us, the
seventy eight million people that didn't vote for Donald Trump,
and most likely the eighty million people who didn't vote
at all, believe in what America stands for. And there's
(01:47):
no better person that I can think of right now
to give us some sage advice. I know that a
lot of people have been down on age, but sometimes
you need to meet and listen to people who truly
have a long, deep depth of knowledge of what America
is and what America stands for, and where America is
(02:12):
going now that we are well into our knees up
to our knees in authoritarian fascist dictatorship that is the
Trump regime. And a person who is well known for
this is Tom Hartman. Tom Hartman is an author, businessman,
(02:34):
radio broadcaster, forever progressive political commentator who has seven million
listeners to his program, The Tom Hartman Show. What I
like about his show is he has all these people
who are writing progressive ballads, bluegrass country songs, and rap
(02:54):
songs about the situation we're going through today. And I
lookingly said one time. Now come, we're not hearing any
music like you know Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan and
Joan Baiez in this era of resistance to government, and
it's there. It's played on his show, he has it
(03:18):
on tune In, he has it on Twitter, he has
it on Apple Music. It's amazing. But if you listen
to the Tom Hartman program, you will hear it between
every commercial break, and some of that music is absolutely amazing.
He is also author of the latest of his I
don't know thirty five forty books. He's going to show
(03:39):
us his bookcase later, The Last American President, which he
wrote about the dire situation that we're in, which was
published just three months ago and has barely scratched the
surface of the crisis. With that, Let's listen to this
interview with Tom Hartman and I'll meet you on the
other side. Tom Hartman, Welcome to black Man's Spy, the
(04:04):
podcast for people that don't listen to you every day
at twelve o'clock, which means they're going to hear this once.
But afterward this I hope that everyone will be listening
to Tom Hartman. You know, this is where I get
a lot of my information. Like many people, I don't
watch cable news anymore after the election and all the
(04:27):
sucking up that the news media has been doing to
the current regime. So welcome and thank you for coming.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, thank you, Malcolm. It's an honor and pleasure to
be here with you. I appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
It is absolutely my pleasure. Well, first, before we go
into the disaster that is the what shreds remain of
the American experiment. I understand you have a relatively new book.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, it's The Last American President is the title. End,
And it's basically it starts out with, you know, how
Trump got psychologically destroyed by the environment he grew up
in and and you know, turned into this essentially psychopath
or sociopath and hooked up with Roy Cohen, who was
(05:15):
really a psychopath and who taught him as tricks. And
then how he's using those tricks to basically end democracy
in America and what we can do about it. That's
a summary.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, you know one thing that I've noticed, because I've
you know, I do a podcast once a week or
a subst extreme with Michael Cohen and Left Parnas, right,
which we call unleash, but I call two felons in
a spy. And you know, but these are people who
sat and worked with him on a day to day basis,
(05:47):
particularly Michael Cohen. And one of the things that they
say is that he uses the same methodologies over and
over and over again because they're successful for him, and
he's managed to expand it to a national scale. But
like you said, you know, this was the things that
were hammered into his head by Roy Cohen. And you know, always,
(06:10):
you know, whatever the truth is is what you say.
It is never back down if caught in a lie, right,
and never ever ever surrender in the face of your
enemy or or or you know, in any circumstance admit
fault ever. And this strikes me as psychopathy. I mean,
(06:31):
you know, I haven't had Mary Trump on, but she
talks about this extensively. And as you know, George Conway
last year with a group of people of psychiatrists who
had written a book about called Unfit, which also was
made into a movie about Donald Trump, that this what
we're watching is a mental health crisis unfold in a
(06:54):
man who has four thousand, five hundred atomic bombs. Would
you agree to them. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
In fact, it's one of the main premises of my
new book, and I it's an extraordinarily dangerous moment for America.
And by the way, I would add, and I know
you know this, Malcolm, this is not a unique circumstance.
Hitler was a psychopath, Mussolini was a psychopath, Stalin was
a psychopath. Paul Pott was a psychopath. Orbon Is a psychopath,
(07:21):
or at least as sociopath. You know, Pinochet was a psychopath.
You know, people who actually not just you know, live
in a delusional state, not just are willing to impose
their delusion on others, not just becoming successful cult leaders,
but also people that would just be kind of the sociopaths.
These are also people who delight in causing other people pain.
(07:42):
They draw power, they draw, you know, an internal psychic
power from other people's pain and agony. Thus he can
go down to Alligator Auschwitz and look around and go
oh boy, oh boy, you know, and just delight himself
at you know, making a Brego Garcia in a prison
in Nel Salvador, or the you know, the game makeup
(08:05):
artist from Los Angeles. I mean, it's just this is
this is extraordinarily dangerous for any democracy and and particularly
for you know, the United States.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
You know, I'm glad you brought that point up, because
between the two felons that I consult over how Donald
Trump thinks, one believes that what we see on the
face that in fact, Donald Trump doesn't delight in the
pain of others. He just doesn't give too fucks about
(08:36):
the pain of others. What he delights in is the
ritualistic humiliations that he's able to extract from them, like
Marco Rubio right head of the you know the reason
they chose Rubio as Secretary of State in terms of
the way that Donald Trump sees, Uh, this ritualistic humiliation
(08:58):
that he needs. He needs to break people who have
contradicted him in the past, drag them through the mud,
and make them show fealty to him on an international scale,
right to literally give up everything you have ever believed
(09:19):
to satisfy the narcissism of Donald Trump. I mean, if
Rubio is just one example, I mean those.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Are his front I would argue the pain of his enemies.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So I think both that, yeah, okay, that I really
buy because we're the enemies, right And uh, but my
real problem with all of this, because of course this
is a national security forum that were generally talking in here.
I'm seeing enormous signs of mental decline, mental illness, so
(09:57):
we're talking about his basic mental illnes. The man is
a sociopath or psychopaths, as as George Conway and the
psychopath put it. But in fact, this guy's mental decline
is way far receive anything Joe Biden ever had, and
the media gives this a one pass. How do you
(10:18):
explain that?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I think it's entirely possible that he's always been
this way, that that you know, what we're seeing isn't
really dementia. It's obviously there's a little bit of age
related cognitive decline there that you would expect a seventy
nine year old, you know, mixing people's names up and
dates and things like that. Sure, but I think he
(10:42):
has always been, you know, Dunning Krueger syndrome off the scale.
You know, people who believe that they're experts when they
have no expertise at all. He's he's always exhibited that
dark triad of behaviors. I I'm not convinced that he's
(11:04):
actually in a major state of decline, and I you know,
I've you know, not just you know, having been a
psychotherapist once, but you know, I watched my own mother
go through Alzheimer's and die of it, and I just
think he's always been this way, frankly, and you know,
(11:25):
he's obviously you compare his speeches now to his speeches
a decade ago, or his interviews and things. You know,
he's nowhere near as sharp as he was. But he's
also seventy nine years old. I'm not certain that, you know,
if they're going to do a twenty fifth amendment, if
that's the goal of this kind of armchair psychoanalyst psychoanalysis,
(11:47):
I don't think they're going to find enough evidence for that.
It's got to be his mal and his criminality and
his destruction of democracy rather than his lack of you know,
cognitive function.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, I mean, he essentially operates a Pollitt Bureau, right
the Soviet rubber stamp that you know, was the communist
elite that we now call his cabinet and the and
the leadership of the Republican Party. So I don't think
twenty fifth amendment is ever going to be on the table.
They'll pull a full Nancy Reagan here, right, they'll allow
(12:25):
him to uh to sit in the office and and
dribble before they'll ever do that.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I thought it was interesting that JD was calling for
all of the files to be released, you know, the
the Epstein files. That's got to be the last thing
Trump wants.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, but you know, you know, I believe that there's
a scripted White House here. Right. This is literally Donald
Trump's reality show, and he enjoys. This is the Apprentice
International you know, international events, h version of Apprentice. And
I think that JD. Vance doesn't open his mouth without
(13:05):
them having had the nine am meeting and them telling
j D what he will say that day, because JD's
the foil, right like the In case you guys wonder
why I pulled that word out, I got that from
Bullwinkle when I was a kid and they said, you know,
bordhis we need foils, and he says moose and squirrel,
(13:26):
and that is I'm sorry, I knew you would appreciate
that'll hold or kickback, but this is black man spot.
But JD. Vance is foils, Okay, when they need someone
to come out and play the fool or to ameliorate
or mollify their their their base. I think that that's uh,
(13:51):
that's that's where it happens. And I don't think anything
that comes out of it. You and I both know
as as as adults, this is just the worst administration
in the history of the United States. The Trump administration's
organization really strikes me. Like the Governor's office of Governor
(14:11):
Latomain in blazing saddles right Brook with the pig pong
paddles for everybody right in the secretary with the big booth.
You know. However, Governor Latomain's office is more organized. You know. Uh,
he understood, right, the significance of Bart being black, and
(14:36):
he understood the significance the consequences of what would happen
if they put him in that position and you know,
carried out, you know, signed uh, you know, the authorization
to come to share. I don't see any of that
organization in the Trump administration. I see individuals who were
lined up, who are taking advantage of the fact that
(14:58):
they can loot. No.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I agree, and this is something that always accompanies autocracy,
every autogogery in the world. You know, LCC in Egypt
is suddenly a billionaire, you know, orbon is suddenly, you know,
a multi hundred millionaire. Putin is suddenly a billionaire. You know,
you just you don't find an autocrat. You know, when
(15:22):
I was doing international relief work back in the eighties
and working in their world countries all over the world,
I was in a lot of countries that were run
by these kind of autocrats, and every single one of them,
you had the elite and the autocrat himself, you know, uh,
basically looting the country. And that's what Trump is doing
right now. And you look at I mean, I was
(15:43):
just just reading this morning a piece from David Sirotos,
you know, the Lever I think it was Lever News
about how Jeff Yaz, the billionaire, you know, who is
the biggest investor American investor in TikTok. TikTok was supposed
to be sold. It's a law, right, but Yaz gives
Trump fifteen million dollars for his you know, personal little
leadership pack. And I believe with leadership packs on after
(16:07):
you leave office, and suddenly Trump delays, you know, the
forced sale of TikTok. It's it's it's like everything is
for sale. It's it's organized looting. It's organized crime. And
you know this, Malcolm, You've worked in these countries too,
and so that's what I'm seeing. He's turned America into
(16:27):
a third world country.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Well, we certainly have the attitude of it. I mean
I go to Canada almost every week. I'm pretty close
to Canada, and I see a completely different country when
I go there. You know, their version of you know,
their their their version of a very light socialist democracy
is run with forty million people. I mean, there are
(16:52):
two million less Canadians in this world. Then there are
African Americans, right, there are more African Americans than Canadians.
But what I see up there is I see a
higher level of industry. I see a higher level of
buy in. Not just you know, people complain about the
queba Quand government and all that. But what I see
(17:13):
is I see a more unified nation now than I've
ever seen it before. I cross the border back at
you know, the Champlain border crossing, and I see only
a few cars going south on a Friday afternoon, you know,
as there used to be hundreds. And then I cross
and I feel the oppression now in the United States.
(17:37):
Going through Nexus is an adventure to see whether I'm
on the hit list, do I have to neutralize my phones?
I mean to me, I'm from Philadelphia, so the American
experiment is very personal to me, very personal. But you know,
now that we have this fire sale of a government,
we have aff you know what Don thinks is a
(17:59):
mafia dawn in there. We all know is what I
call and you know, a constitutional dictator. Right, the constitution
will apply to some people, but not to everyone. Right,
what are the counteractions that we can do to come
face to face with this?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Well, you know, Eric Channa with Erica Chenna, with the
statistician learned or put political scientists to popularize this notion
that when three point five percent of the population gets
in the streets, that may or may not be our salvation,
but it's certainly a goal we're shooting for. I think
our last big demonstration got to around two percent. We
(18:46):
The striking thing to me, and I've written about this
a couple of times, is that if just five or
six Republicans in the House and three or four Republicans
in the Senate were to simply decide that the fate
and future of American democracy is more important than their
own political future and and start taking positions that reflected
(19:11):
some integrity. And for a minute there I thought Tom
Tillis was.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Going to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I mean, he went to but but now he's back.
You know, he's probably looking at, you know, a future
million dollar year lobbying job or something. So he's got
its own the line. I don't know, but you know,
if we could just get a small handful of Republicans
to do to the GOP what the Republicans convinced Kristen
(19:35):
Cinema and Joe Manchin to do to us when we
were trying to for the people acting the John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act, you know, we could put a
stop to this. We don't need to wait for the
next election. And so I've been encouraging my listeners. I mean,
you know, we're on serious exam and on radio stations
all over the country. We got a lot of listeners
(19:55):
in red states. I'm encouraging them to constantly reach out
to your republic Can elected representatives and tell them, you know,
now's the time to leave the party, or now's the
time to defy the party, or at least defy the
president and you know, go back to becoming Eisenhower or
even a Romney Republican instead of one.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right. Yeah, I had this discussion with Jim Acosta, Joe Walsh,
and Michael Cohen, and I said, all we require, you know,
or Keem Jeffries his full time job, his full time job,
since we don't see him doing very much other things,
you know, other than making statements from the cooling saucer
(20:36):
of democracy. Right, his full time job should be trying
to get for them to flip, to flip, promise them anything, chairmanships.
You know, now's the time to game like Lincoln, right,
Postmaster general, whatever you want to do, right, get those
four to flip. And I thought we had identified those four.
(20:58):
Don Bacon Fitzgerald from Pennsylvania. These were two heavies over Ukraine.
You know, as you know, I served in the Ukrainian Army,
So for me that was very important. These guys were
die ride or die Ukrainian guys. And then once Trump
made his reversal on Ukraine, they went and voted for
the big beautiful bill. Three damn. One of the Republicans
(21:20):
we thought that were maliable in somewhere, or were true
patriots in some way. Lisa Murkowski, you know, I never
pay attention to Susan Collins, right, we know she's always
gonna lie, she's always gonna flip. But none of these
people seem that they are willing to keep, you know,
(21:43):
to really live up to their oaths. It's almost ann
Randian in the way that, you know, the way she
described in the Fountain had the nepotism and the favoritism
of the government. Holy cowt wh it's the Republican Party,
and none of them seem loyal to the constitutional or
to the flag. And they don't give two fucks about
(22:05):
an oath, and oath is something they have to do
to get an office in Capitol Hill, uh, and to
be and to allow the money machine to start churning
it out. And there's no difference. I mean, I'm gonna
be honest, or any of these people ever going to
be Oscar Schindler. Are we going to get to the
point where we need an Oscar Schindler?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Well, I think you know many would argue, particularly Hispanics
that were and many black people as well, and increasingly
women and white women that were there, you know, right that,
but particularly you know the circumstances around Ice. You know
that definitely we're there, and uh, it's it's a wild time, Malcolm.
(22:51):
I mean, you know, we we we are now in
the midst of an authoritarian breakthrough of you know, the
destruction of our democracy.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You know, I still think that we're branching into baby
autocracy here, you know, as I call it. I wrote
in my book that the plot to destroy democracy, that
Trump is a fundamental component of Putin's plan to have
an access of autocrats around the world, where now oligarchy,
(23:20):
brolagarchy and money does all the talking. And you know,
I jokingly wrote that book that you know, someday that
Putin would do something to prove my point, And within
days after it was published, he came out and said
liberal democracy is finished. Right in essence, oligarchy, money, fascism, right,
(23:44):
which Mussolini called the dictatorship of the corporate right, is
the way that the world is today. And my problem
is I fought against warlords and dictatorships life this and
it usually takes an enormous amount of two thousand pound
laser guided bombs to resolve this issue. But I'm a
(24:08):
big believer too. In the three point five percent protest movement,
in the nonviolent protest movement. We had seventy six million
people vote for Kamala Harris, two million didn't vote for Trump.
What do we get? I mean, if we had nass
a third of the Kamala Harris voters, we would have
(24:29):
broken the four percent sustained, by the way the Harvard
study said, sustained protests like they do in Belgrade, like
they're doing in Buddha Pesh. What is it with us?
I mean, death doesn't seem to motivate Americans. Are we
that broken? Is it going to take something nationally catistraphic
(24:54):
beyond nine to eleven levels for the American public to
wake up to these threats?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, that's kind of the fourth turning hypothesis, you know,
is thought, every eighty years we have an economic crisis
followed by a war followed by a progressive reboot. And
you know, the starting with the eighteen seventy one crash
leading to the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War, the
eighteen fifty seven panic leading to the Civil War, the
(25:21):
public and Great Depression leading to World War Two. I
could argue for or against you know Straussen Howe's literal
interpretation of all those details. But what one of the
big lessons that history does tell us is the Americans.
And I think I think it's human nature, frankly, only
respond in a really, really genuinely big way to a really,
(25:44):
really genuinely big crisis. And I think with our media
capture and Trump's intimidation of the media, ABC and CBS
having already rolled over, he's disempowering corporation for public broadcasting.
He's locked Associated Press out of his White House briefings. Know,
the press is dialing back. The New York Times is
regularly saying washing him. The Washington Post and the LA
(26:06):
Times now owned by billionaires who've decided that going right
wing is much better for them. We've got this massive
media consolidation that brought us fifteen hundred right wing radio
stations as a result of Bill Clinton signing the Telecommunications
Act in nineteen ninety six. You've got the end of
the fairness doctrine and Reagan fast tracking Ruper Murdoch's citizenships
(26:28):
so that he could, you know, develop Fox News. You know,
there's this media ecosystem in the United States that it
is now possible to live in a right wing bubble
and literally never leave it. And I, you know, I
get these guys on my radio program to debate them,
sometimes you know, formally, and sometimes it's just callers. And
they literally live in a different world than the real world.
(26:51):
They believe things that don't exist, and the few things
that do exist, they believe them in a context that
is bizarre. And then on top of that, you've got
the two biggest social media sites in the United States,
you know, x and Facebook, also run by right wing
billionaires who have tweaked their algorithms, and apparently Google has
(27:11):
done this with YouTube as well, to promote right wing
content and downgrade progressive content. I mean, I remember back
eight nine years ago when AlterNet dot org was the
aggressive website, and then change their algorithms so they no
longer spidered it, so no longer showed up and search results,
(27:32):
and within seven months they were bankrupt and they had
to sell themselves and you know, owned by an individual
guy who's a good guy, Michael, you know, it runs
the company well, but it's no longer a nonprofit and
it's no longer that it used to be because Google
changed their algorithm to the right, you know, to promote
right wing sites and demode left wing sites.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Apparently, right and trust me, go ahead oh, I was
going to say, trust me, I'm a victim of that.
I lost one hundred I had one point one followers
on election day. I lost one hundred thousand followers the
day after election day because they were bots. They were
a completely false echo chamber atmosphere that was designed to
attack me. And you know, tweets that used to get
(28:14):
forty fifty thousand likes almost a million views now get
a few hundred. And I mean, throttling is not a joke.
But you've brought us speaking of alternate you've brought me
to a point that you know that I'd like to
discuss last here for a moment of self reflection. As
people who are liberals conservatives never trumpers, right, we don't
(28:39):
operate the way that they do. I debated Ben Shapiro
on Real Time with Bill Maher and people were like,
oh my god, I didn't really know who you were,
you know, other than your what you did on MSNBC.
And I said, that's because Sheldon Adelson didn't hand me
ten million dollars and tell me to go create a
(29:00):
new a web paper and a block, then hand me
fifty million more later. This does not funding liberal causes.
Funding democratic causes does not exist amongst progressives. I don't
know a liberal millionaire. I know people who have made
over a million dollars, but we do not have a
(29:22):
system where they are funding their ideology, which of course
is the corporate right Mussolini talked about right. But we
don't even have individuals that care enough to do that.
We you know, there used to be Networks Nation. Networks
Nation was an enormous progressive platform in the nineteen nineties,
(29:46):
in the early two thousands. Now I stumble upon that
they still run it, and they still run a few things,
but it's not Sea Pack, it's not Turning Point USA.
These people are literally running a global network, right. Steve
Bannon's Gladiator School is global. I was in Greenland just
(30:10):
recently investigating Trump's you know, nefarious little antics up there,
and the one guy that they're calling the Trump of
Greenland wasn't there for me to interview because he was
in Hungary on election day, brought there by Eric Trump Junior,
and they were funding him to speak at this right
(30:33):
wing conglomeration. And we don't have this right. We don't
have a globally funded constant Nuremberg Rally. The way that
the right wing does. We have a hard time organizing.
We just did No Kings and an Indivisible stood up
for that. No offense to Eric to Eric Levin, but
(30:59):
they tend to right after a major campaign, whereas we
need to be out every weekend. And Democrats as tyas
Stetmyer just sat on my show last week and Joy
Reed are waiting for a leader as opposed to all
of us as leaders rising up. How do we stop
(31:21):
our own self fuckery?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, a large part of the problem is that, and boyd,
did you identify it? Well, a large part of the
problem is that the right wing machine helps people with
great wealth. I mean, you know, it's all. You've got
most billionaires in America paying less than three percent income taxes.
(31:44):
That's the result of the right wing machine. So therefore,
you had one hundred and fifty billionaire families who were
the major donors to Republican causes in the last election.
You had three billionaire families on the left, you know,
who are making large donations. Because for a billionaire, you know,
first of all, to become a billionaire, you generally have
to be fairly well animated by greed, and and for
(32:06):
a billionaire putting money into politics is just a wise investment.
I mean, it's a very inexpensive investment. Frankly, as Elon
Musk found that. You know, look at how his companies are,
you know, still getting more government contracts. You know, and
they and they figured this out back in the eighties
about media, that they just needed to build out this
media infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I have I have an acquaintance sort of a friend
who's a right wing talk show host. He's not one
of the top tier. He's he's on maybe two hundred stations,
but it's just you know, it's he's somebody who probably
most people wouldn't recognize his name unless they were conservatives.
And we were traveling together once we went to South
(32:52):
Sudan and to Darfur together and telling me the story.
I was like, you know, we just started talking about
salaries and you know, income and you know what was
going on. I said, you know, how much do you make?
And he says, I make about seventy thousand dollars a year.
He's got a huge you know, he's got a lot
of radio stations in a fairly huge show. I'm like, wow,
that's not a lot of money for what you're doing.
And he's like, no, no, here's how it works. He says,
(33:14):
you know, twenty thirty times a year, I'll go speak
in a high school auditorium to two hundred kids, and
every time I do, I get a twenty thousand dollars
check from this foundation.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, he's on the speakers circuit and it's.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Not even da Tony thing. And this is available apparently
to every right wing host in America. So you know,
you can make a million bucks a year in speaking fees,
you know, even though the network is only paying you
sixty or seventy grand a year. I mean, it's just
there is this.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Politico, this was four or five years ago, outed the
fact that Rush Limbaugh was getting two million dollars a
year from Heritage and Sean Hannity was getting a million
dollars a year from Heritage. I mean, they've got this
very very well funded machine that just pours money into
right wing media and has for years and years and years.
And you know when when Russia got busted for giving
(34:06):
one hundred thousand dollars a segment to these right wing podcasters,
everybody thought, oh my god, it's an anomaly. Now they
were simply doing what the right wing billionaires have been
doing all along. I'll start Air America Radio. I wrote
the original business plan for it, and I remember start
the thing, and you know back in two thousand and three,
two thousand and four, and we didn't have enough money
(34:27):
to buy radio stations, so we were we leased a time.
We leased stations, fifty four stations from Clear Channel. And
so in two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama wins
the presidency in two thousand and nine, Mitt Romney decides
that the next cycle around, he's going to run against
Obama and he wants to become president.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So he has his.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Company buy Clear Channel, and within a year or within
a year and a half, every single one of the
stations that we were on flips to sports format, claiming
the right and I know they weren't losing money. I
was operating out of one rate here in Portland. I
mean we were using their studios. You know, the management
was close close friends upon it. But you know, he
(35:07):
killed Air America because you know, they just took us
off the air, they just deplatformed us. These guys are
are very methodical and very powerful, and they've got a
hell of a lot of money, and they've largely cowed
the national media in the United States. And I think
that that accounts for this phenomena that you're describing here, Malcolm,
(35:27):
and I don't have an easy answer for it other
than the structural stuff that is so important, which is
reversing citizens United and basically reinstating something like the Voting
Rights Act. I think it's absolutely insane that if Georgia
wants to take away your gun, they have to go
to a court and prove that you shouldn't have a gun.
But if Georgia wants to take away your vote, they
(35:48):
don't even have to tell you. They just do it.
And and you know, in other word, was our right
to a gun our second Amendment right is greater than
our right to vote, even though the nineteen ninety three
I think it is voting National Voting Rights Act. You know,
the Motor Voter Law explicitly says both in the preambleance
and the black letter of the law voting is a
(36:09):
right in the United States. It says that the phrase
right to vote appears in the Constitution as well, but
the Supreme Court has never ratified. In fact, you know,
if anything in Shelby County. They knocked it down. And
you know, we've got to get back to the point
where voting is a right and money is no longer
the biggest influence in politics. Those two things that the
cancer at the core of our system that have brought
(36:30):
us Trump, that have brought us to this point. And
it's going to take a hell of a challenge. And
like we said earlier, I suspect that we're on the
edge of a major economic disaster here in the United States.
That may well be the wake up cause like it
was in nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Well that's happy, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Oh it's better than there was a war.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Every once in a while, I try very hard to
make a joke his show, and that is as good
as I'm going to get there. And I want to
thank you for coming and explaining this today. And I
think you've given us some points here that for listeners
who can't cut away and listen to you for two
(37:16):
three hours a day on serious XM or like I do,
I cheat, I go to tune in. I listened to
WCPTA twenty out of Chicago, so I get it for free.
But thank you again for coming. And I appreciate you
broadcasting from Powell's bookstore. Actually that's your just your house,
(37:37):
ye massive for those of you who are listening on
tune in he or on Apple. He has an enormous
library behind him. I used to think that I had
a big library. Now I want to know who installed
his bookcases. But it does looks.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
On the shelves right here, this half of the shells
right here.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
He's pointing to the listener. You wrote those, yes, every time,
I joking about thirty books.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah, from here to here, from here to here, they're
all books that I wrote, editions, you know, and one's
hardback and one's paperback and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Holy cow. You know you can tell everything about a
man or a woman by the way their library is
presented in their home. And I'm trying to install them
right now, but you know, the ice has arrested all
of the carpenters here in upstate New York. Not joking,
and I will have to hand build a bookstore. A
(38:38):
bookcase is thirteen different bookcases just to manage to start.
But your house really does look like the Lovely Palace
books in Portland, and that you have written. I don't
even want a count if I'm going ten per self,
you know, thirty forty books I don't know, and various
editions tells us that you are truly one of the
(39:00):
stages of leadership that we need to consult all the time, or,
as the Republicans call you, a bunch of dirty old
hippies who want to bring communism to America. Thanks for
coming in and giving me the opportunity to have that
one joke during this show. So thank you so much,
and I'll come on your show anytime.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I look forward to it, Malcolm, and thanks so much
for inviting me. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Okay, good to see you. Take care well. I managed
to get one joke in during this or otherwise somber interview.
Sobering is a better way to put that, because even
though we were both having this conversation about the decline
of the United States and this cracking of the American experiment,
(39:49):
I think it's great to understand that Tom Hartman has
been at this for decades, decades, and if he believes
that we can get out of it, that we can
use people power to reach that three point five percent threshold.
And I'm out to fight for that, and and to
make sure that we always have the stage council of
(40:09):
you know gray beards. Well, I have a great beard,
but beard not Tom Hartman, who his bookcase alone is
a significant sign of the depth of knowledge of this
man and we should all pay attention to him. Please
subscribe to him on Tom Hartman Program, Listen to the
Tom Hartman Program on progressive radio station Sirius XM, on Apple,
(40:34):
on Stitcher, and all other places that find podcasts are heard.
He is well worth listening to all the time. With that,
thank you for coming to another exciting adventure of black
Man's Spy. You can also hear me on Apple, Stitcher.
You can find me on Twitter or x as they
(40:55):
call it, at Malcolm Nance Bluesky and Malcolm Nance dot
bky dot social YouTube, at the black Man Spy podcast
on YouTube, and most notably where I do most of
my work, which is on substack. That's where I do
all of my written work in many of our short videos.
(41:16):
That's Malcolm Nance dot substack dot com. Please become a
paid subscriber there. I do this for you, but you
are sustaining me in this fight against dictatorship and autocracy,
and I thank you for subscribing or even just listening
to this because I need to vent and you are
my ventie. So as I say next week, I will
(41:40):
see you again on the beach.
Democrats that are waiting for a leader as opposed to
all of us as leaders rising up. How do we
stop our own self fuckery?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, a large part of the problem is that, and BOYD,
did you identify it well, is that the right wing
machine helps people with great wealth. I mean, you know,
it's all. You've got most billionaires in America paying less
than three percent income taxes. That's the result of the
right wing machine. So therefore, you had one hundred and
(00:33):
fifty billionaire families who were the major donors to Republican
causes in the last election. You had three billionaire families
on the left, you know, who are making large donations.
Because for a billionaire, you know, first of all, to
become a billionaire, you generally have to be fairly well
animated by greed. And for a billionaire, putting money into
(00:53):
politics is just a wise investment.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
This is black Man Spy. Hi, I'm Malcolm Nance, and
welcome to black Man's Spy. This week's episode is going
to be exciting because we have the number one progressive
talk show host in America on this episode. Now, even
though he is the progressive talk show host, this show
(01:26):
is favored by everyone who loves democracy, believes in the
American experiment, and that clearly does not mean people who
are in MAGA, but all the rest of us, the
seventy eight million people that didn't vote for Donald Trump,
and most likely the eighty million people who didn't vote
at all, believe in what America stands for. And there's
(01:47):
no better person that I can think of right now
to give us some sage advice. I know that a
lot of people have been down on age, but sometimes
you need to meet and listen to people who truly
have a long, deep depth of knowledge of what America
is and what America stands for, and where America is
(02:12):
going now that we are well into our knees up
to our knees in authoritarian fascist dictatorship that is the
Trump regime. And a person who is well known for
this is Tom Hartman. Tom Hartman is an author, businessman,
(02:34):
radio broadcaster, forever progressive political commentator who has seven million
listeners to his program, The Tom Hartman Show. What I
like about his show is he has all these people
who are writing progressive ballads, bluegrass country songs, and rap
(02:54):
songs about the situation we're going through today. And I
lookingly said one time. Now come, we're not hearing any
music like you know Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan and
Joan Baiez in this era of resistance to government, and
it's there. It's played on his show, he has it
(03:18):
on tune In, he has it on Twitter, he has
it on Apple Music. It's amazing. But if you listen
to the Tom Hartman program, you will hear it between
every commercial break, and some of that music is absolutely amazing.
He is also author of the latest of his I
don't know thirty five forty books. He's going to show
(03:39):
us his bookcase later, The Last American President, which he
wrote about the dire situation that we're in, which was
published just three months ago and has barely scratched the
surface of the crisis. With that, Let's listen to this
interview with Tom Hartman and I'll meet you on the
other side. Tom Hartman, Welcome to black Man's Spy, the
(04:04):
podcast for people that don't listen to you every day
at twelve o'clock, which means they're going to hear this once.
But afterward this I hope that everyone will be listening
to Tom Hartman. You know, this is where I get
a lot of my information. Like many people, I don't
watch cable news anymore after the election and all the
(04:27):
sucking up that the news media has been doing to
the current regime. So welcome and thank you for coming.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, thank you, Malcolm. It's an honor and pleasure to
be here with you. I appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
It is absolutely my pleasure. Well, first, before we go
into the disaster that is the what shreds remain of
the American experiment. I understand you have a relatively new book.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, it's The Last American President is the title. End,
And it's basically it starts out with, you know, how
Trump got psychologically destroyed by the environment he grew up
in and and you know, turned into this essentially psychopath
or sociopath and hooked up with Roy Cohen, who was
(05:15):
really a psychopath and who taught him as tricks. And
then how he's using those tricks to basically end democracy
in America and what we can do about it. That's
a summary.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, you know one thing that I've noticed, because I've
you know, I do a podcast once a week or
a subst extreme with Michael Cohen and Left Parnas, right,
which we call unleash, but I call two felons in
a spy. And you know, but these are people who
sat and worked with him on a day to day basis,
(05:47):
particularly Michael Cohen. And one of the things that they
say is that he uses the same methodologies over and
over and over again because they're successful for him, and
he's managed to expand it to a national scale. But
like you said, you know, this was the things that
were hammered into his head by Roy Cohen. And you know, always,
(06:10):
you know, whatever the truth is is what you say.
It is never back down if caught in a lie, right,
and never ever ever surrender in the face of your
enemy or or or you know, in any circumstance admit
fault ever. And this strikes me as psychopathy. I mean,
(06:31):
you know, I haven't had Mary Trump on, but she
talks about this extensively. And as you know, George Conway
last year with a group of people of psychiatrists who
had written a book about called Unfit, which also was
made into a movie about Donald Trump, that this what
we're watching is a mental health crisis unfold in a
(06:54):
man who has four thousand, five hundred atomic bombs. Would
you agree to them. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
In fact, it's one of the main premises of my
new book, and I it's an extraordinarily dangerous moment for America.
And by the way, I would add, and I know
you know this, Malcolm, this is not a unique circumstance.
Hitler was a psychopath, Mussolini was a psychopath, Stalin was
a psychopath. Paul Pott was a psychopath. Orbon Is a psychopath,
(07:21):
or at least as sociopath. You know, Pinochet was a psychopath.
You know, people who actually not just you know, live
in a delusional state, not just are willing to impose
their delusion on others, not just becoming successful cult leaders,
but also people that would just be kind of the sociopaths.
These are also people who delight in causing other people pain.
(07:42):
They draw power, they draw, you know, an internal psychic
power from other people's pain and agony. Thus he can
go down to Alligator Auschwitz and look around and go
oh boy, oh boy, you know, and just delight himself
at you know, making a Brego Garcia in a prison
in Nel Salvador, or the you know, the game makeup
(08:05):
artist from Los Angeles. I mean, it's just this is
this is extraordinarily dangerous for any democracy and and particularly
for you know, the United States.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
You know, I'm glad you brought that point up, because
between the two felons that I consult over how Donald
Trump thinks, one believes that what we see on the
face that in fact, Donald Trump doesn't delight in the
pain of others. He just doesn't give too fucks about
(08:36):
the pain of others. What he delights in is the
ritualistic humiliations that he's able to extract from them, like
Marco Rubio right head of the you know the reason
they chose Rubio as Secretary of State in terms of
the way that Donald Trump sees, Uh, this ritualistic humiliation
(08:58):
that he needs. He needs to break people who have
contradicted him in the past, drag them through the mud,
and make them show fealty to him on an international scale,
right to literally give up everything you have ever believed
(09:19):
to satisfy the narcissism of Donald Trump. I mean, if
Rubio is just one example, I mean those.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Are his front I would argue the pain of his enemies.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So I think both that, yeah, okay, that I really
buy because we're the enemies, right And uh, but my
real problem with all of this, because of course this
is a national security forum that were generally talking in here.
I'm seeing enormous signs of mental decline, mental illness, so
(09:57):
we're talking about his basic mental illnes. The man is
a sociopath or psychopaths, as as George Conway and the
psychopath put it. But in fact, this guy's mental decline
is way far receive anything Joe Biden ever had, and
the media gives this a one pass. How do you
(10:18):
explain that?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I think it's entirely possible that he's always been
this way, that that you know, what we're seeing isn't
really dementia. It's obviously there's a little bit of age
related cognitive decline there that you would expect a seventy
nine year old, you know, mixing people's names up and
dates and things like that. Sure, but I think he
(10:42):
has always been, you know, Dunning Krueger syndrome off the scale.
You know, people who believe that they're experts when they
have no expertise at all. He's he's always exhibited that
dark triad of behaviors. I I'm not convinced that he's
(11:04):
actually in a major state of decline, and I you know,
I've you know, not just you know, having been a
psychotherapist once, but you know, I watched my own mother
go through Alzheimer's and die of it, and I just
think he's always been this way, frankly, and you know,
(11:25):
he's obviously you compare his speeches now to his speeches
a decade ago, or his interviews and things. You know,
he's nowhere near as sharp as he was. But he's
also seventy nine years old. I'm not certain that, you know,
if they're going to do a twenty fifth amendment, if
that's the goal of this kind of armchair psychoanalyst psychoanalysis,
(11:47):
I don't think they're going to find enough evidence for that.
It's got to be his mal and his criminality and
his destruction of democracy rather than his lack of you know,
cognitive function.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, I mean, he essentially operates a Pollitt Bureau, right
the Soviet rubber stamp that you know, was the communist
elite that we now call his cabinet and the and
the leadership of the Republican Party. So I don't think
twenty fifth amendment is ever going to be on the table.
They'll pull a full Nancy Reagan here, right, they'll allow
(12:25):
him to uh to sit in the office and and
dribble before they'll ever do that.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I thought it was interesting that JD was calling for
all of the files to be released, you know, the
the Epstein files. That's got to be the last thing
Trump wants.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, but you know, you know, I believe that there's
a scripted White House here. Right. This is literally Donald
Trump's reality show, and he enjoys. This is the Apprentice
International you know, international events, h version of Apprentice. And
I think that JD. Vance doesn't open his mouth without
(13:05):
them having had the nine am meeting and them telling
j D what he will say that day, because JD's
the foil, right like the In case you guys wonder
why I pulled that word out, I got that from
Bullwinkle when I was a kid and they said, you know,
bordhis we need foils, and he says moose and squirrel,
(13:26):
and that is I'm sorry, I knew you would appreciate
that'll hold or kickback, but this is black man spot.
But JD. Vance is foils, Okay, when they need someone
to come out and play the fool or to ameliorate
or mollify their their their base. I think that that's uh,
(13:51):
that's that's where it happens. And I don't think anything
that comes out of it. You and I both know
as as as adults, this is just the worst administration
in the history of the United States. The Trump administration's
organization really strikes me. Like the Governor's office of Governor
(14:11):
Latomain in blazing saddles right Brook with the pig pong
paddles for everybody right in the secretary with the big booth.
You know. However, Governor Latomain's office is more organized. You know. Uh,
he understood, right, the significance of Bart being black, and
(14:36):
he understood the significance the consequences of what would happen
if they put him in that position and you know,
carried out, you know, signed uh, you know, the authorization
to come to share. I don't see any of that
organization in the Trump administration. I see individuals who were
lined up, who are taking advantage of the fact that
(14:58):
they can loot. No.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I agree, and this is something that always accompanies autocracy,
every autogogery in the world. You know, LCC in Egypt
is suddenly a billionaire, you know, orbon is suddenly, you know,
a multi hundred millionaire. Putin is suddenly a billionaire. You know,
you just you don't find an autocrat. You know, when
(15:22):
I was doing international relief work back in the eighties
and working in their world countries all over the world,
I was in a lot of countries that were run
by these kind of autocrats, and every single one of them,
you had the elite and the autocrat himself, you know, uh,
basically looting the country. And that's what Trump is doing
right now. And you look at I mean, I was
(15:43):
just just reading this morning a piece from David Sirotos,
you know, the Lever I think it was Lever News
about how Jeff Yaz, the billionaire, you know, who is
the biggest investor American investor in TikTok. TikTok was supposed
to be sold. It's a law, right, but Yaz gives
Trump fifteen million dollars for his you know, personal little
leadership pack. And I believe with leadership packs on after
(16:07):
you leave office, and suddenly Trump delays, you know, the
forced sale of TikTok. It's it's it's like everything is
for sale. It's it's organized looting. It's organized crime. And
you know this, Malcolm, You've worked in these countries too,
and so that's what I'm seeing. He's turned America into
(16:27):
a third world country.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Well, we certainly have the attitude of it. I mean
I go to Canada almost every week. I'm pretty close
to Canada, and I see a completely different country when
I go there. You know, their version of you know,
their their their version of a very light socialist democracy
is run with forty million people. I mean, there are
(16:52):
two million less Canadians in this world. Then there are
African Americans, right, there are more African Americans than Canadians.
But what I see up there is I see a
higher level of industry. I see a higher level of
buy in. Not just you know, people complain about the
queba Quand government and all that. But what I see
(17:13):
is I see a more unified nation now than I've
ever seen it before. I cross the border back at
you know, the Champlain border crossing, and I see only
a few cars going south on a Friday afternoon, you know,
as there used to be hundreds. And then I cross
and I feel the oppression now in the United States.
(17:37):
Going through Nexus is an adventure to see whether I'm
on the hit list, do I have to neutralize my phones?
I mean to me, I'm from Philadelphia, so the American
experiment is very personal to me, very personal. But you know,
now that we have this fire sale of a government,
we have aff you know what Don thinks is a
(17:59):
mafia dawn in there. We all know is what I
call and you know, a constitutional dictator. Right, the constitution
will apply to some people, but not to everyone. Right,
what are the counteractions that we can do to come
face to face with this?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Well, you know, Eric Channa with Erica Chenna, with the
statistician learned or put political scientists to popularize this notion
that when three point five percent of the population gets
in the streets, that may or may not be our salvation,
but it's certainly a goal we're shooting for. I think
our last big demonstration got to around two percent. We
(18:46):
The striking thing to me, and I've written about this
a couple of times, is that if just five or
six Republicans in the House and three or four Republicans
in the Senate were to simply decide that the fate
and future of American democracy is more important than their
own political future and and start taking positions that reflected
(19:11):
some integrity. And for a minute there I thought Tom
Tillis was.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Going to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I mean, he went to but but now he's back.
You know, he's probably looking at, you know, a future
million dollar year lobbying job or something. So he's got
its own the line. I don't know, but you know,
if we could just get a small handful of Republicans
to do to the GOP what the Republicans convinced Kristen
(19:35):
Cinema and Joe Manchin to do to us when we
were trying to for the people acting the John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act, you know, we could put a
stop to this. We don't need to wait for the
next election. And so I've been encouraging my listeners. I mean,
you know, we're on serious exam and on radio stations
all over the country. We got a lot of listeners
(19:55):
in red states. I'm encouraging them to constantly reach out
to your republic Can elected representatives and tell them, you know,
now's the time to leave the party, or now's the
time to defy the party, or at least defy the
president and you know, go back to becoming Eisenhower or
even a Romney Republican instead of one.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right. Yeah, I had this discussion with Jim Acosta, Joe Walsh,
and Michael Cohen, and I said, all we require, you know,
or Keem Jeffries his full time job, his full time job,
since we don't see him doing very much other things,
you know, other than making statements from the cooling saucer
(20:36):
of democracy. Right, his full time job should be trying
to get for them to flip, to flip, promise them anything, chairmanships.
You know, now's the time to game like Lincoln, right,
Postmaster general, whatever you want to do, right, get those
four to flip. And I thought we had identified those four.
(20:58):
Don Bacon Fitzgerald from Pennsylvania. These were two heavies over Ukraine.
You know, as you know, I served in the Ukrainian Army,
So for me that was very important. These guys were
die ride or die Ukrainian guys. And then once Trump
made his reversal on Ukraine, they went and voted for
the big beautiful bill. Three damn. One of the Republicans
(21:20):
we thought that were maliable in somewhere, or were true
patriots in some way. Lisa Murkowski, you know, I never
pay attention to Susan Collins, right, we know she's always
gonna lie, she's always gonna flip. But none of these
people seem that they are willing to keep, you know,
(21:43):
to really live up to their oaths. It's almost ann
Randian in the way that, you know, the way she
described in the Fountain had the nepotism and the favoritism
of the government. Holy cowt wh it's the Republican Party,
and none of them seem loyal to the constitutional or
to the flag. And they don't give two fucks about
(22:05):
an oath, and oath is something they have to do
to get an office in Capitol Hill, uh, and to
be and to allow the money machine to start churning
it out. And there's no difference. I mean, I'm gonna
be honest, or any of these people ever going to
be Oscar Schindler. Are we going to get to the
point where we need an Oscar Schindler?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Well, I think you know many would argue, particularly Hispanics
that were and many black people as well, and increasingly
women and white women that were there, you know, right that,
but particularly you know the circumstances around Ice. You know
that definitely we're there, and uh, it's it's a wild time, Malcolm.
(22:51):
I mean, you know, we we we are now in
the midst of an authoritarian breakthrough of you know, the
destruction of our democracy.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You know, I still think that we're branching into baby
autocracy here, you know, as I call it. I wrote
in my book that the plot to destroy democracy, that
Trump is a fundamental component of Putin's plan to have
an access of autocrats around the world, where now oligarchy,
(23:20):
brolagarchy and money does all the talking. And you know,
I jokingly wrote that book that you know, someday that
Putin would do something to prove my point, And within
days after it was published, he came out and said
liberal democracy is finished. Right in essence, oligarchy, money, fascism, right,
(23:44):
which Mussolini called the dictatorship of the corporate right, is
the way that the world is today. And my problem
is I fought against warlords and dictatorships life this and
it usually takes an enormous amount of two thousand pound
laser guided bombs to resolve this issue. But I'm a
(24:08):
big believer too. In the three point five percent protest movement,
in the nonviolent protest movement. We had seventy six million
people vote for Kamala Harris, two million didn't vote for Trump.
What do we get? I mean, if we had nass
a third of the Kamala Harris voters, we would have
(24:29):
broken the four percent sustained, by the way the Harvard
study said, sustained protests like they do in Belgrade, like
they're doing in Buddha Pesh. What is it with us?
I mean, death doesn't seem to motivate Americans. Are we
that broken? Is it going to take something nationally catistraphic
(24:54):
beyond nine to eleven levels for the American public to
wake up to these threats?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, that's kind of the fourth turning hypothesis, you know,
is thought, every eighty years we have an economic crisis
followed by a war followed by a progressive reboot. And
you know, the starting with the eighteen seventy one crash
leading to the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War, the
eighteen fifty seven panic leading to the Civil War, the
(25:21):
public and Great Depression leading to World War Two. I
could argue for or against you know Straussen Howe's literal
interpretation of all those details. But what one of the
big lessons that history does tell us is the Americans.
And I think I think it's human nature, frankly, only
respond in a really, really genuinely big way to a really,
(25:44):
really genuinely big crisis. And I think with our media
capture and Trump's intimidation of the media, ABC and CBS
having already rolled over, he's disempowering corporation for public broadcasting.
He's locked Associated Press out of his White House briefings. Know,
the press is dialing back. The New York Times is
regularly saying washing him. The Washington Post and the LA
(26:06):
Times now owned by billionaires who've decided that going right
wing is much better for them. We've got this massive
media consolidation that brought us fifteen hundred right wing radio
stations as a result of Bill Clinton signing the Telecommunications
Act in nineteen ninety six. You've got the end of
the fairness doctrine and Reagan fast tracking Ruper Murdoch's citizenships
(26:28):
so that he could, you know, develop Fox News. You know,
there's this media ecosystem in the United States that it
is now possible to live in a right wing bubble
and literally never leave it. And I, you know, I
get these guys on my radio program to debate them,
sometimes you know, formally, and sometimes it's just callers. And
they literally live in a different world than the real world.
(26:51):
They believe things that don't exist, and the few things
that do exist, they believe them in a context that
is bizarre. And then on top of that, you've got
the two biggest social media sites in the United States,
you know, x and Facebook, also run by right wing
billionaires who have tweaked their algorithms, and apparently Google has
(27:11):
done this with YouTube as well, to promote right wing
content and downgrade progressive content. I mean, I remember back
eight nine years ago when AlterNet dot org was the
aggressive website, and then change their algorithms so they no
longer spidered it, so no longer showed up and search results,
(27:32):
and within seven months they were bankrupt and they had
to sell themselves and you know, owned by an individual
guy who's a good guy, Michael, you know, it runs
the company well, but it's no longer a nonprofit and
it's no longer that it used to be because Google
changed their algorithm to the right, you know, to promote
right wing sites and demode left wing sites.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Apparently, right and trust me, go ahead oh, I was
going to say, trust me, I'm a victim of that.
I lost one hundred I had one point one followers
on election day. I lost one hundred thousand followers the
day after election day because they were bots. They were
a completely false echo chamber atmosphere that was designed to
attack me. And you know, tweets that used to get
(28:14):
forty fifty thousand likes almost a million views now get
a few hundred. And I mean, throttling is not a joke.
But you've brought us speaking of alternate you've brought me
to a point that you know that I'd like to
discuss last here for a moment of self reflection. As
people who are liberals conservatives never trumpers, right, we don't
(28:39):
operate the way that they do. I debated Ben Shapiro
on Real Time with Bill Maher and people were like,
oh my god, I didn't really know who you were,
you know, other than your what you did on MSNBC.
And I said, that's because Sheldon Adelson didn't hand me
ten million dollars and tell me to go create a
(29:00):
new a web paper and a block, then hand me
fifty million more later. This does not funding liberal causes.
Funding democratic causes does not exist amongst progressives. I don't
know a liberal millionaire. I know people who have made
over a million dollars, but we do not have a
(29:22):
system where they are funding their ideology, which of course
is the corporate right Mussolini talked about right. But we
don't even have individuals that care enough to do that.
We you know, there used to be Networks Nation. Networks
Nation was an enormous progressive platform in the nineteen nineties,
(29:46):
in the early two thousands. Now I stumble upon that
they still run it, and they still run a few things,
but it's not Sea Pack, it's not Turning Point USA.
These people are literally running a global network, right. Steve
Bannon's Gladiator School is global. I was in Greenland just
(30:10):
recently investigating Trump's you know, nefarious little antics up there,
and the one guy that they're calling the Trump of
Greenland wasn't there for me to interview because he was
in Hungary on election day, brought there by Eric Trump Junior,
and they were funding him to speak at this right
(30:33):
wing conglomeration. And we don't have this right. We don't
have a globally funded constant Nuremberg Rally. The way that
the right wing does. We have a hard time organizing.
We just did No Kings and an Indivisible stood up
for that. No offense to Eric to Eric Levin, but
(30:59):
they tend to right after a major campaign, whereas we
need to be out every weekend. And Democrats as tyas
Stetmyer just sat on my show last week and Joy
Reed are waiting for a leader as opposed to all
of us as leaders rising up. How do we stop
(31:21):
our own self fuckery?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, a large part of the problem is that, and boyd,
did you identify it? Well, a large part of the
problem is that the right wing machine helps people with
great wealth. I mean, you know, it's all. You've got
most billionaires in America paying less than three percent income taxes.
(31:44):
That's the result of the right wing machine. So therefore,
you had one hundred and fifty billionaire families who were
the major donors to Republican causes in the last election.
You had three billionaire families on the left, you know,
who are making large donations. Because for a billionaire, you know,
first of all, to become a billionaire, you generally have
to be fairly well animated by greed, and and for
(32:06):
a billionaire putting money into politics is just a wise investment.
I mean, it's a very inexpensive investment. Frankly, as Elon
Musk found that. You know, look at how his companies are,
you know, still getting more government contracts. You know, and
they and they figured this out back in the eighties
about media, that they just needed to build out this
media infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I have I have an acquaintance sort of a friend
who's a right wing talk show host. He's not one
of the top tier. He's he's on maybe two hundred stations,
but it's just you know, it's he's somebody who probably
most people wouldn't recognize his name unless they were conservatives.
And we were traveling together once we went to South
(32:52):
Sudan and to Darfur together and telling me the story.
I was like, you know, we just started talking about
salaries and you know, income and you know what was
going on. I said, you know, how much do you make?
And he says, I make about seventy thousand dollars a year.
He's got a huge you know, he's got a lot
of radio stations in a fairly huge show. I'm like, wow,
that's not a lot of money for what you're doing.
And he's like, no, no, here's how it works. He says,
(33:14):
you know, twenty thirty times a year, I'll go speak
in a high school auditorium to two hundred kids, and
every time I do, I get a twenty thousand dollars
check from this foundation.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, he's on the speakers circuit and it's.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Not even da Tony thing. And this is available apparently
to every right wing host in America. So you know,
you can make a million bucks a year in speaking fees,
you know, even though the network is only paying you
sixty or seventy grand a year. I mean, it's just
there is this.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Politico, this was four or five years ago, outed the
fact that Rush Limbaugh was getting two million dollars a
year from Heritage and Sean Hannity was getting a million
dollars a year from Heritage. I mean, they've got this
very very well funded machine that just pours money into
right wing media and has for years and years and years.
And you know when when Russia got busted for giving
(34:06):
one hundred thousand dollars a segment to these right wing podcasters,
everybody thought, oh my god, it's an anomaly. Now they
were simply doing what the right wing billionaires have been
doing all along. I'll start Air America Radio. I wrote
the original business plan for it, and I remember start
the thing, and you know back in two thousand and three,
two thousand and four, and we didn't have enough money
(34:27):
to buy radio stations, so we were we leased a time.
We leased stations, fifty four stations from Clear Channel. And
so in two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama wins
the presidency in two thousand and nine, Mitt Romney decides
that the next cycle around, he's going to run against
Obama and he wants to become president.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So he has his.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Company buy Clear Channel, and within a year or within
a year and a half, every single one of the
stations that we were on flips to sports format, claiming
the right and I know they weren't losing money. I
was operating out of one rate here in Portland. I
mean we were using their studios. You know, the management
was close close friends upon it. But you know, he
(35:07):
killed Air America because you know, they just took us
off the air, they just deplatformed us. These guys are
are very methodical and very powerful, and they've got a
hell of a lot of money, and they've largely cowed
the national media in the United States. And I think
that that accounts for this phenomena that you're describing here, Malcolm,
(35:27):
and I don't have an easy answer for it other
than the structural stuff that is so important, which is
reversing citizens United and basically reinstating something like the Voting
Rights Act. I think it's absolutely insane that if Georgia
wants to take away your gun, they have to go
to a court and prove that you shouldn't have a gun.
But if Georgia wants to take away your vote, they
(35:48):
don't even have to tell you. They just do it.
And and you know, in other word, was our right
to a gun our second Amendment right is greater than
our right to vote, even though the nineteen ninety three
I think it is voting National Voting Rights Act. You know,
the Motor Voter Law explicitly says both in the preambleance
and the black letter of the law voting is a
(36:09):
right in the United States. It says that the phrase
right to vote appears in the Constitution as well, but
the Supreme Court has never ratified. In fact, you know,
if anything in Shelby County. They knocked it down. And
you know, we've got to get back to the point
where voting is a right and money is no longer
the biggest influence in politics. Those two things that the
cancer at the core of our system that have brought
(36:30):
us Trump, that have brought us to this point. And
it's going to take a hell of a challenge. And
like we said earlier, I suspect that we're on the
edge of a major economic disaster here in the United States.
That may well be the wake up cause like it
was in nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Well that's happy, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Oh it's better than there was a war.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Every once in a while, I try very hard to
make a joke his show, and that is as good
as I'm going to get there. And I want to
thank you for coming and explaining this today. And I
think you've given us some points here that for listeners
who can't cut away and listen to you for two
(37:16):
three hours a day on serious XM or like I do,
I cheat, I go to tune in. I listened to
WCPTA twenty out of Chicago, so I get it for free.
But thank you again for coming. And I appreciate you
broadcasting from Powell's bookstore. Actually that's your just your house,
(37:37):
ye massive for those of you who are listening on
tune in he or on Apple. He has an enormous
library behind him. I used to think that I had
a big library. Now I want to know who installed
his bookcases. But it does looks.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
On the shelves right here, this half of the shells
right here.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
He's pointing to the listener. You wrote those, yes, every time,
I joking about thirty books.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah, from here to here, from here to here, they're
all books that I wrote, editions, you know, and one's
hardback and one's paperback and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Holy cow. You know you can tell everything about a
man or a woman by the way their library is
presented in their home. And I'm trying to install them
right now, but you know, the ice has arrested all
of the carpenters here in upstate New York. Not joking,
and I will have to hand build a bookstore. A
(38:38):
bookcase is thirteen different bookcases just to manage to start.
But your house really does look like the Lovely Palace
books in Portland, and that you have written. I don't
even want a count if I'm going ten per self,
you know, thirty forty books I don't know, and various
editions tells us that you are truly one of the
(39:00):
stages of leadership that we need to consult all the time, or,
as the Republicans call you, a bunch of dirty old
hippies who want to bring communism to America. Thanks for
coming in and giving me the opportunity to have that
one joke during this show. So thank you so much,
and I'll come on your show anytime.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I look forward to it, Malcolm, and thanks so much
for inviting me. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Okay, good to see you. Take care well. I managed
to get one joke in during this or otherwise somber interview.
Sobering is a better way to put that, because even
though we were both having this conversation about the decline
of the United States and this cracking of the American experiment,
(39:49):
I think it's great to understand that Tom Hartman has
been at this for decades, decades, and if he believes
that we can get out of it, that we can
use people power to reach that three point five percent threshold.
And I'm out to fight for that, and and to
make sure that we always have the stage council of
(40:09):
you know gray beards. Well, I have a great beard,
but beard not Tom Hartman, who his bookcase alone is
a significant sign of the depth of knowledge of this
man and we should all pay attention to him. Please
subscribe to him on Tom Hartman Program, Listen to the
Tom Hartman Program on progressive radio station Sirius XM, on Apple,
(40:34):
on Stitcher, and all other places that find podcasts are heard.
He is well worth listening to all the time. With that,
thank you for coming to another exciting adventure of black
Man's Spy. You can also hear me on Apple, Stitcher.
You can find me on Twitter or x as they
(40:55):
call it, at Malcolm Nance Bluesky and Malcolm Nance dot
bky dot social YouTube, at the black Man Spy podcast
on YouTube, and most notably where I do most of
my work, which is on substack. That's where I do
all of my written work in many of our short videos.
(41:16):
That's Malcolm Nance dot substack dot com. Please become a
paid subscriber there. I do this for you, but you
are sustaining me in this fight against dictatorship and autocracy,
and I thank you for subscribing or even just listening
to this because I need to vent and you are
my ventie. So as I say next week, I will
(41:40):
see you again on the beach.
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