George Conway

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everybody, welcome into the back room.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm Andy ASTROI.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
There is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald
Trump's leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we
will fight to defend your right to offer it in
the public square.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
In America, we have the right of free speech.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
We have the right to offend, to provoke, to annoy.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
And to stand up for what we believe in, even
if you.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Find it controversial.

Speaker 6 (00:35):
And this is just a classic left wing hypocrisy. They
want to push their ideological agenda and they want to
silence and punish conservatives. It's unbelievable and we just have
to stand up and say no.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I just believe in freedom.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Why are a liberal?

Speaker 6 (00:48):
Why are liberals so afraid of freedom and freedom of speech?

Speaker 7 (00:52):
I don't get outraged.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
You can turn off the TV, turn off a radio dial,
turn off.

Speaker 7 (00:57):
A podcast, walk out of it.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Commencement, Oh, turn off the TV.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
What a novel concept.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're going to talk about that clip and this whole
Jimmy Kimmel situation in just a second. And we're excited
to have our friend George Conway back on the podcast.
So we'll get to George in a little while.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
The first.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you listening, and we'd
love to hear your comments. So email us at Backwromandy
at gmail dot com and or post on our social
media and we'll read some feedback next time.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
And if you like the podcast, please rate.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
And review and follow or subscribe and you'll be notified
every time we post a new episode. All right, So
that was a bunch of Republicans jd Vance, Megan Kelly,
Sean Hannity, and others. Obviously that's not from the present tense.
That's from the past, when they would lose their shit
every time they thought liberals were denying us our free

(01:52):
speech and hitting us with all this cancel culture bullshit.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Of that they didn't like.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Now, of course, with the indefinite suspension of late night
talk show hosting comedian Jimmy Kimmel, now apparently free speech
doesn't matter to them anymore. Now they're all they're all
about cancel culture. And yeah, like Kennedy said, just turn
off the TV, turn off the TV, turn off Jimmy Kimmel.

(02:23):
You don't like what he has to say, turn off
the TV. But now they're gloating and just drunk on
this cancelation of Kimmel, and you know the President himself
is guilty of this.

Speaker 8 (02:40):
After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts
to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive
order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back
free speech to America.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
And his idea of bringing back free speech to America
is to deny free speech. It's astounding hypocrisy that we're
witnessing right now. That's all they ever talked about was
free speech. That we should all have the right to say.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Whatever we want whenever we want.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Free speech, First Amendment right, anything is okay, except yelling
fire in a crowded theater. But just expression of opinion,
even if it's hate speak, even if you're a k
k K member walking down the street saying Jews will

(03:47):
not replace us, that is protected free speech. Right. Let's
see what Attorney General Pam Bondi has to say.

Speaker 7 (03:55):
There's free speech and then there's hate speech, and there
is no place, especially now, especially.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
After what happened to Charlie in our society.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
We will absolutely target you, go after you if you
are targeting anyone with hate speech. My position is that
even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in
our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I guess who that was. That was Charlie Kirk, and
he was right as far as Pam Bondy when she
says there's no place for hate speak, well, there actually is.
It's called in the Constitution. And we don't have to
agree with it. We don't have to like it. We
can actually hate the hate speech.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
But what we can't do.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
In America, which is governed by the rule of law
and the Constitution, we can't deny people the right of
hate speech. And this is troubling because Pambondy is outside
of Donald Trump, she is the top law enforcement officer

(05:08):
in this country. She is the one who took an
oath to guard and protect and defend the Constitution and
the rights of all of us, including and perhaps especially
the First Amendment. So she needed to be schooled on
the First Amendment. And so this Kimmel situation, I don't

(05:32):
know how you guys feel, but to me, on some level,
it feels like some kind of inflection point. It's either
the start of something really bad or it is the
thing that will unite us. On some level, and I
feel like it's the latter because of what I've been seeing.

(05:55):
It's something that is upsetting.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Conservatives.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Maybe I'm living in a dream world.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Maybe I'm just naive, and there are no inflection points
when it comes to Trump, but it does feel like
we're going to start to see even more pushback on this.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
I think you're correct when you talk about the hypocrisy.
I mean that's first and foremost, and frankly, if people
aren't shaking in their boots right now, I don't know
when they will be optimistic. Andy, I would love, love, love,
love for you to be right and that this will
be the uniter.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
But I don't know as far as it being an
inflection point. I don't think this is really new. I mean,
first of all, we shouldn't be surprised by anything that
Hollywood or the media does, because they created blacklists in
the forties and fifties just for the same thing that
we had the Committee on Americanism. They started this decades ago.

(06:56):
So we can't depend on big media of any type
to support the artists that work for them. That's not new,
and we've seen the biggest problem with this is the
consolidation of media because in nineteen ninety there were fifty
companies that controlled the media. Now there were five. When
you have consolidation, you have the ability for censorship much easier.

(07:17):
So when we pass laws to consolidate media companies or
allow them to make these gigantic monopolies, we shouldn't be
surprised when they're going to cater to the government.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I want to play this other clip, and what do you.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Think Aaron Bond is saying she's gonna go out for
eight speech?

Speaker 9 (07:33):
Is that?

Speaker 10 (07:34):
I mean?

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Far people?

Speaker 5 (07:35):
A lot of your allies they.

Speaker 8 (07:35):
Hate speech is free speech.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Let's probably go after fit.

Speaker 9 (07:38):
But like you because you frieved me so unfairly, it's eight.
You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe
that you're come after ABC. Well, ABC paid me sixteen
million dollars recently for a form of age Big Greedge,
your company paid me sixteen million dollars. We're a form
of age space, So maybe they have they're going after you.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, just for some context, that was true. And ABC
News White House correspondent Jonathan carl And listen to how
Trump talked to him. We're gonna come after you why?
Because he asked him a question about free speech.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
What kind of shit is that?

Speaker 2 (08:16):
This is America.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
This is America. We can say whatever we want. Reporters
can say whatever we want, News organizations, media corporations can
say whatever they want, unless, of course, we don't live
in a democracy. But what's interesting to me is that
in the immediate hours after Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination, Donald

(08:43):
Trump blame it on leftists. Before the assassin was even caught,
we had no idea who he was or what his
beliefs were. So are we to point where we're actually
holding a late night talk show host and comedian to
a higher standard than we are the US president. It's

(09:04):
okay for the US president to accuse the left, but
it's not okay for a late night talk show host
to accuse the right. And so we're at a point
where if the government, through coercion, through fear, through intimidation,

(09:25):
it's going to stifle creativity, stifle free speech.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
I mean, this is the thing that's got to unite
us folks. I mean, just look at countries all over
the world. It's no fun living in a dictatorship. You
have no freedom, no choice that I have to sit
here and literally explain to people in America, people who
have served in the military, people who have fathers and

(09:56):
grandfathers and great grandfathers who died in battle to protect
our democracy, that we have to explain what it would
be like in a dictatorship. But that's where we're at.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Think about this.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Last week Fox and Friends co host Brian Killmead, in
the discussion of the homeless problem in America, suggested that
we euthanize the homeless, and then he literally said, kill them.
Show me one Republican since Charlie Kirk has been assassinated,
since Jimmy Kimmel said what he said, show me one

(10:29):
Republican who says, look, our communities should not be subjected
to show me where they're going. After Brian, kill me
where they're going? After Fox News, you're forgetting about Nancy Mace.
Isn't she all over this?

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Isn't she upset and outraged by what's happening because she's
such a stand up human being.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, Nancy Mace who said it was a tranny who
had killed Charlie Kirk. This is before the asses and
was even apprehended. But where's the outrage of Fox News,
which gets to say whatever it wants, gets to lie,
gets to gaslight, gets to intentionally use fake clips from

(11:15):
years ago in different stories to shape the narrative. If
we're truly concerned about sick things that are being said,
which is what the FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said about
Jimmy Kimmel, how is there nothing on the right that
upsets the FCC, nothing on the right that upsets Donald Trump?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Are liberals really the only people who are guilty of this?

Speaker 1 (11:42):
It's outrageous, It is truly outrageous.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
If you're coming to power under the auspices of the
blueprint of Project twenty twenty five, and it's so terrible
that you actually have to deny that you're using Project
twenty twenty five, and then you get into office and
you're following every single Project twenty twenty five outline. I think,

(12:08):
just based on what you said before, the only way
people will understand and feel it is when the economy tanks, well,
it is one hundred percent. I just can't reiterate that enough.
I think that's that's what you're looking at.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
That's a great point, all right, Let's get to our
winners and losers.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
My winner Trump, censorship and corporate greed. My loser freedom
of speech.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
My winner is the New York Governor Kathy Hope for
having the good sense to endorse Smart Donnie. And my
loser is Bob Iger, who has mastered the art of
never being satisfied with as much money as he has
because he could have stopped what happened to Jimmy Kimmel. Instead,
he was perfectly happy to have it happen.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
I've got two losers this week, the First Amendment and
free speech, and CC Chairman Brendan Carr because history will.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Not be kind to him.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
That gets us to the Weekly Rant. So, in the
wake of Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination, right wingers from President
Donald Trump, Republican congress people, and those in the conservative
media sphere have been yapping incessantly about how liberals are
being quote radicalized by a nefarious left wing cabal comprised

(13:27):
of media, colleges and universities and leftist organizations, whatever the
fuck that means. But in none of these conversations is
anyone talking about MAGA, which is the greatest example of
radicalization in the history of mankind that upwards of eighty
million people Americans have been seduced by misinformation and disinformation, lies, bigatry, incivility, cruelty,

(13:52):
and device of hate speak into a far reaching, impenetrable
cult of personality. Nor do we hear from the right
about how Fox News for decades is brainwashed nearly half
the population, selectively filtering out real news and instead broadcasting
shameless propaganda as if it is Russian state TV.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
We also don't hear from the right that.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Almost half the country has had their minds.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Co opted by this propaganda.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
To the point where they have pledged undying loyalty to
a president and party, even if it meant voting against
their own interests. It is true that lone assassins and
mass shooters may have become radicalized by things they see
on television, or on social media or in chat rooms
in the deep dark web, and they can come from

(14:37):
the left or the right, But that is but a
speck on an elephant's ass when compared with the radicalization
of tens of millions of MAGA faithful.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
The truth is Trump and his.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Party are very very skilled at projection.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
That's their tell.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Actually, we know they're doing something hurtful or dangerous nanosecond
they accused Democrats of doing it. Freud would be proud.
Part of the rights radicalization includes MAGA being.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Told that they are not radicalized, but rather.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Fighting for what's rightfully theirs, that they're defending the flag,
the national anthem, the constitution, democracy, and Trump himself. And
in the past week there's been myriad lies and mis
and disinformation being spread that most acts of political violence
are being committed by those on the left. Yet studies,

(15:31):
including those from the very conservative Cato Institute and the
Department of Justice last year, a report which, by the way,
the Department of Justice last week has not surprisingly taken
off its website. These reports have contradicted that duplicitous claim
and stated instead that these acts of political violence are
mostly committed by right wing extremists more projection. As part

(15:54):
of what could and should be called Operation Radicalize, Trump
and his sixse have very effectively convinced MAGA that he
and they are the perpetual victims of a vast left
wing conspiracy and that's the glue that keeps them together.
But that conspiracy doesn't exist, but it does on the right,

(16:16):
from billionaire kingmakers like the Koch Brothers to ruthless operatives
including Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and Stephen Miller, to the
self castrated Republican Congress, to the right wing media ecosystem,
to corrupted conservative Supreme Court justices. There are incredibly powerful
people in this country who, for the past several decades,

(16:39):
in an extremely well orchestrated and calculated manner, have quite
successfully manipulated the electorate to vote for them, despite getting
absolutely nothing appreciable in return except lies and betrayal. So
how and why these Americans have become radicalized is the
billion question we should all be asking. All right, let's

(17:03):
get to our friend, George Conway. George is an attorney,
political activist, and legal and political commentator. He is board
president of the Society for the Rule of Law and
a founder of the Lincoln Project. He is also a
host of the Bulwarks podcast George Conway Explains It All
to Sarah Longwell, and he is a contributing writer to
the Atlantic. He previously worked as a litigator for three

(17:25):
decades at the law firm of Walktel, Lipton, Rosen and
Katz in New York City. George, welcome back into the
back room. Glad to be here, so let's start with
the big news that broke last night news. Uh, just
a little bit is you know, I really struggled this
morning to make a list of things to talk about,
but this one was just thrown at me last night,

(17:46):
which is ABC's indefinite suspension whatever the fuck that means
of late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. So talk
to me, you what's what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (17:57):
People are capitulating to a government that essentially seeks to
eliminate criticism and opposition. And it's something that I had
never conceived could happen in the United States. But we
have a Congress that really doesn't do anything. We have

(18:21):
people who care more about the bottom line from quarter
to quarter than they do about the country. And we've
seen that.

Speaker 7 (18:34):
Before with.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Universities caving and law firms caving. And it's as though
no one wants to personally bear the cost of fighting
this administration when it comes to the fundamental right to
criticize the government to for almost anything. It's like everybody

(19:01):
wants somebody else to do something about it. And that's
how bad things happen. That's how that's how you know,
we it's really really distressing I don't even know where
to begin with it. And I mean particularly too. I
think the problem too is with you know, corporations, large

(19:26):
corporations that have so many business interests and there are
so many ways for the government to punish them that
the cost benefit analysis if you just look at it purely,
and you put your role as a CEO, or put

(19:46):
your role as a as somebody who is out to
profit and make money, you put all these roles ahead
of your citizen, your role of citizen, and you have

(20:10):
basically a complete failure of people to stand up for themselves.
It's so fundamentally un American. I just find it incredibly distressed,
and I'm almost at a loss.

Speaker 7 (20:24):
For the words.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, but you know.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Which is usually not the case.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Well, it's interesting because those corporations and law firms that
have stood up to Trump and taken in the court,
they're undefeated. The courts are firmly behind free speech. And
in this particular case, from a legal standpoint, I mean,
there's no way that had the ABC stood up to

(20:52):
the administration and this gone to court, there's no way
they would have lost this case because you can't strip
a license, a broadcast license because somebody broadcasts something you
don't like.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Right, you can't. The government cannot punish people for expressing
their views, period. They can't coerce them. They can't.

Speaker 7 (21:17):
You know that.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
It is the most fundamental principle of the First Amendment
that you cannot be punished by the government threatened by
the government for exercising your right to express your views,
even if the views are missed are wrong, even if
the views are even if it's hate speech, literally hate speech.

(21:39):
The only thing that you can really come after people
for is you can come after people for making threats,
physical threats. You can come people at people for making
statements that can cause imminent harm to people, like yelling
fire in the crowd a movie theater when there is

(22:01):
no fire. You can't do it for expressing views, no
matter how repugnant you may find them to be. And
it's particularly worse than this circumstance because.

Speaker 7 (22:16):
Jimmy Kimmel did.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Not say anything that's you know, he said. What he
said was basically inarguable. You may not like it if
you are a conservative. I don't call these people conservatives anywhere.
I don't know what they're fascists and authoritarians Okay, they
get really mad when you say that, and then they

(22:38):
go out and say we will do X to you,
which is exactly what the fascists and the authoritarian regimes
of history would have done. So I don't under It's
just a tremendous irony and a tremendous, tremendous hypocrisy here.

Speaker 7 (22:59):
I wish I were more or hear about it.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I'm trying to organize my thoughts about it, and it's
just looking after that I woke up this morning. It's
just it's just so it's like everything we've said that
could happen if you put people in power who act
in bad faith, who don't care about the constitution, don't

(23:23):
care about laws, who are only concerned about their personal
betterment in terms of acquiring power and wealth, and who
seek only to serve a man whose only interests are
it is promoting his own power and glory.

Speaker 7 (23:43):
And this is what you get. This is where we are,
and I don't yet.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Last night just felt like an inflection point. I'm in
A friend of mine who is a prominent journalist, was
talking to me last night night and we've been talking
for a long time about the impending crisis and the
looming crisis. And this journalist, who's really a sunny, optimistic

(24:13):
person by nature, said, it's over that it's that, it's
over if if people are not willing to fight for
their rights, the people who are and these people who
are powerful, right, they are powerful. I mean Disney, I

(24:34):
mean Disney, the Disney. Disney has so much money, right,
Disney has so much power. Disney can take Disney could
easily take on the government and they would easily win.
But it's not worth it, right, get rid of this
one show?

Speaker 1 (24:52):
But is it?

Speaker 3 (24:52):
I mean is but in a very short term if
you look at everything in the shore term, WHOA. We're
gonna have to fight to maintain our license, We're gonna
pay legal fees and we even if we win, we
may lose. But all we gotta do is get rid
of this one thing. The problem is it's extremely short sight.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Well it's not just one thing. It's this, is this,
This is the second thing now and there'll be a third,
they'll be a fourth. Does ABC want Donald Trump and
the FCC calling up saying, Hey, that sitcom that aired
last night at eight o'clock, you gotta next week make
sure there's no lines like that in there, like that's
what's going to happen. I don't understand it is short term.

(25:36):
They don't see long term. They don't understand that it's
just gonna keep happening over and over and over again. Yeah,
until they have no control over their own content, and
then we're living in Hungary or Turkey or worse.

Speaker 7 (25:49):
Basically almost there.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
The thing that Kimmel about what Kimmel said is interesting
to me because there are two parts to what he said.
There was one that I didn't really agree with, which
is the part that he said about you know, the
shooter was like Lee and Maga or wasn't where that
Republicans were trying to, you know, change the narrative on that.
And then the second thing was the joke about a
true event, which was a reporter asked Trump, how are

(26:14):
you handling your grief over Charlie Kirk, and like within
two seconds he starts talking about construction trucks. That's fine,
I mean, if you if you want to laugh at Trump,
that's funny. It's also real, right, it's also absolutely But
the thing that boggles my mind is the first part,
Like I don't agree with it, but I didn't agree
when Trump came out immediately after the assassination of Charlie

(26:37):
Kirk and said it was leftists. So are we holding
our late night talk show hosts to a greater standard
than we are the US president? I mean, that's a bizarre.

Speaker 7 (26:46):
Place answer, right.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
I mean, the traditional American view is that the remedy
for speech that you disagree with or that is wrong
is more speech, not pressing the speech that you don't
want to hear. And again, I mean, there's no good
faith on behalf of the government, right, this is not

(27:10):
even really about Charlie Kirk. And I think that's shown
what happened to Charlie Kirk, and the fact that it
was caught on video is really one of the most
horrible spectacles I think we've seen in a very long time.
And nobody deserves to die for their words, no matter

(27:32):
how noxious those words. But what the government is trying
to do here is they're using it as a pretext.
And this is a classic authoritarian move. And people going
to get mad at me for saying what I'm about
to say. But the most prompt example that immediately came

(27:58):
to mind, and I've been saying this online, I said
it on another podcast is the way the Nazis took
advantage of the death of a young man in nineteen
thirty whose name.

Speaker 7 (28:11):
Was Horse Vessen.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Worst Vessel was a brown Shirt. He was a young
member of the Essay and the Nazis had not yet
acquired power. But the Weimar Republic is a very unstable place,
and there was violence on the streets, more than we
have here, thank you know, thank goodness, we don't have
that level of violence at this point. Communists had people

(28:39):
with arms and guns, and there were street fights, and
the Nazis had their own paramilitaries, and there was, you know,
sporadic violence on the streets. And what happened with this
fellow horse Vessel is that he was killed by a
couple of communists, actual card carrying communists. And it's not

(29:06):
clear whether the motive for the killing was political, and
there may have been some kind of a business dispute
or a dispute about paying some woman. I don't it's
very strange, but it really doesn't doesn't matter. What Gerbel
saw in that killing was a way to.

Speaker 7 (29:24):
Rally his troops. They made a martyr of.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
This kid, who really, you know, I mean, he didn't
deserve to die yet family. I'm sure it was oral
for his family, but he you know, he was engaging
in bad stuff because he was a member of the Essay,
but didn't deserve to be killed for that. He and
they turned him into a martyr, to the point that
the Nazi Party and through through the end of World

(29:53):
War Two was the horse vessel Salon. And what these
authoritarian styles regimes do is they thrive on division. They
thrive on creating enemies. They thrive on making people feel
like they personally are being attacked by a nameless, faceless

(30:16):
enemy and that they are at risk, and that the
only way to fight back is to engage in violence.
And again, leaving Charlie Kirk and his history aside, I
don't think he advocated violence. I think there is truth
to saying that he did things the right way in

(30:38):
the sense that he promoted discussion on college campuses. But
on the other hand, having seen a lot of the
clips of what he has said, there was an incredible
degree of gas lighting and race baiting and all sorts
of things that were I find personally distasteful and I find,

(31:02):
you know, not constructive in the public dialogue.

Speaker 7 (31:05):
To say the least.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
But what they're doing to him now is they're lionizing him.
They're making it to the point where you cannot even
they want to criticize people for even quoting him or
paraphrasing him, and suggesting that he was something other than
this noble person who you know, extolled free speech and

(31:32):
free discussion and was open minded and wonderful and loved people.
And I you know, it doesn't matter how good or
bad he was, except that they are creating a cultish,
a cultish martyrdom for him that is designed to promote

(31:57):
more division, and ultimately I fear more of and we
can hear it in the language that Trump uses. We
need to beat the hell out of the left. We
need to punch left. And again, just as they.

Speaker 7 (32:10):
Assumed that.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
The murderer of Charlie Kirk was a leftist, they now
it's not clear exactly what he was. He was clearly
it seems like he was clearly transfixed on.

Speaker 7 (32:32):
Kirk's attacks on.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Trans people, and that the defendant murderer was, you know,
had had a relationship with a man who was convert
was transitioning to female, and so maybe there was that
personal motive there, But was it a thorough ideological thing.

(32:55):
I don't know, but it certainly there is no evidence
that it is some kind of a product of left
winging organization, whatever that may be Antifa, the Democratic Socialists
of America, the Democratic Party, the liberal media. I don't know,
but they're creating this view that this is somehow, this

(33:16):
guy in South this young kid who spent all his
time online on discord and who grew up in South
Utah shooting a gun with maga parents. They're portraying that
somehow he was a tool of a grand conspiracy, a
conspiracy that doesn't exist. And they're also using it, it's

(33:42):
not just the martyrdom aspect of it, to rally people.
They're also basically asserting this in essence, the criticism of
Trump and criticism of people who support Trump is the
equivalent of inciting violence against them, which is absolutely absurd. Right.

(34:07):
For example, my comparison of how Trump and Miller and
others are treating the death of Kirk the way Joseph
Goebel treated the death of Horst Vessel, and there's.

Speaker 10 (34:25):
A ce you're saying, we're not season you want to
have us killed, because you know we had to people
had you would want to kill Hitler and so on
and so saying that that's not what I'm saying. You
haven't reached the point of violent civil war or revolution
or anything like that, or a holocaust or whatnot. What

(34:45):
we're talking about is history and analogies and comparisons to history,
which we learn in order to understand current events.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
History does don't repeat itself, but as the you know,
the old saying goes, it rhymes and the exact same tactics,
not just in respect to the handling of this death,
the manipulation of people's emotions in the wake of this death,

(35:20):
and then also a slew of so many other things,
the control of law enforcement in cities, the the the
tax on allies, the the discontinual lies, the disregard of
constitutional and legal provisions. The whole program of the Trump

(35:41):
second administration is of a peace with authoritarian takeovers in
countries all over the world, in the past and even
in the present, as you say, in Hungary. And that's
the point. The point is what's happening here. People need

(36:03):
to be absolutely crystal clear, not only that it is
not normal, and clearly what's happening is people are getting
used to the abnormal. They're getting used too. I mean,
it's it's something that psychologists called malignant normality, where the

(36:23):
things that are just bad, that you would have considered
bad at some point in the past, become normal and accepted.
It's not just that, but it's just like, yeah, we
we have to understand the.

Speaker 7 (36:38):
Danger that.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
This is leading us to, and I don't think enough
people do that. I think they're looking at things too narrowly.
I'm glad to see there's a lot of defense of
free speech today, but I don't really think that people
are connecting it up to the overall destruction of you know,

(37:06):
essentially a civil society in a democratic republic, and that's
what we're seeing here and the abandonment of constitutionalism. And
what this gets us to is we do get to
a lawless state at some point, and if you want
to end up in a situation where there's some kind
of like a Spanish civil war in the United States,

(37:29):
well this is we're headed down that path. And in fact,
many of the people, you know, many of the MAGA
extremists you see online who have incredibly large following following,
like a timpoole who has been talking about civil war,
civil war for a long time. They want this. People

(37:50):
want this on the extreme right, and they are using
the Kirk assassination as an attempt to get there, including people,
you know, like Laura Lumer, Right, Laura Lumer was critical
of Charlie Kirk because she thought he wasn't you know,
he thought they thought she thought he was squashy in

(38:11):
some ways to use the term that they like to use,
that he was, you know, soft on things. And now
she's basically saying, you know, but she deleted her I
think she deleted her tweets about that, or she certainly
walked those back. And she's saying that I want Donald
Trump to become the dictator that the left claims to be.

(38:38):
I don't claim he's a dictator yet. I claim he's
getting there and wants to be one. And this is
a step along the way to getting here.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
And how But isn't it incumbent upon Democrats to start
messaging this the right way to say to those in
MAGA or moderate Republicans, like do you really want a dictator?
Because this is what happens tatorship. You don't get to
listen to the music. You want to listen to. You
don't get to laugh at the comedians you want to

(39:06):
laugh at. You don't get to watch the movies you
want to watch, you don't get to read the books
you want to watch, because those choices, of those freedoms
of choice are taken away from you. Because guess why,
because the dictator makes those choices for you. And you
could talk about you could spread that out to your
health decisions, your work decisions, every decision in your life.
Take a look at China, take a look at North Korea,

(39:27):
take a look at Hungry, take a look at Turkey
and every other dictatorship. But how come democrats aren't out
there going people? Is this what you and your fathers
and grandfathers suited up for, to die and battle over
to become a dictatorship?

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Maybe you know, some democrats might say this is unfair,
But what I'm seeing in this country is just this
weird disconnect between the people who want to point that

(40:03):
out and fight back. And I don't mean that literally
and be careful with my words. That they want to
push back against authoritarianism, and to do that requires you
to label it as such, and explain it as such,
and put it in its context as such. But there's
a disconnect between people who do that and people who

(40:23):
are organizing in certain ways, Like I have all these
friends who are bringing lawsuits that are you know, that
have achieved some remarkable results. I don't think they're the
complete answer to this, because I don't think you could
have litigated you could have litigated, you know, I don't
think you could have enjoyed the rise of fascism in

(40:43):
Italy or or or Nazism in Russia, or Putinism in
I mean Nazism in Germany and Putinism in Russia. But
there is this weird disconnect between the political bop, the
political op position, the actual party political opposition, Democrats, and

(41:06):
the people who are doing the most to push back.
And I don't understand that. That being said, I mean
I see that there are people who are saying the
right things and understand what's going on here. I saw
the senator from Connecticut. His name isn't slipping the eye Murphy, Murphy,

(41:31):
Yes he was. He He did a little selfie video
that he tweeted online or posted on social media where
he basically said, what we are saying now, what I
am saying that this is you know, this is we're
marching down the road toward authoritarianism. And there are some
there are other Democratic senators who do that or doing it, but.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
How do they do it in a way that cuts
through because they're tweeting? Chris Murphy tweeting? Is that? To me,
it's like, let's have every Democratic senator I have a
press conference together on the steps of the Capitol that
tell the American tell the American people, we are in
an emergency. Our democracy is dying and here's why, and
here's what you're gonna lose. Like Chris Murphy with a tweet,

(42:18):
What the fuck does that do?

Speaker 3 (42:19):
But you know, I mean, but Chris Murphy, I'm praising
Christomurphery because at least he's saying the right things. The
problem is there isn't at And this is I'm agreeing
with you here because you just said more quickly than
I what I was about to go to, which is
there's no cohesiveness to it, there is no critical mass
to it. It is just that so many people, I

(42:39):
think in the Democratic Party just think, ah, well, wait
for the midterms.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Right, it's like twenty eight, it'll be over, We'll get
our guy is.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Like, you're assuming a lot here. Yeah, Okay, I agree. Look,
I think if the mid you know, if things proceeded
in a normal course and we had free and fair
elections into twenty twenty six, I think the Republicans would
get plastered. And I think we're seeing that in some
of the people who are just not deciding not to run.

(43:09):
I think we're actually seeing maybe some panic with Trump
in the White House on this because I think that's
part of how frenetic they are is because they know
there's a clock running, right, Okay, they got to get
all this. They got to do as much as they
can to consolidate power in the next year or so.

(43:34):
But that being said, it's like, okay, fine, we make
it too. And and also the redistricting, right, the redistricting
in Texas. I think it's good that the that the
Democrats are fighting back at the state level to counter
that in other states. Yeah, in Texas, it may end
up backfiring because the hispan he's cratered Trump and the

(43:57):
Raiders cratered on voters and the districts that have been drawn.
As I understand it, I don't you know, I don't
do the math here. I'm just listening to people who
know the demographics and understand polls and understand.

Speaker 7 (44:15):
Where people are in Texas.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
The drawing of these districts was premise, and the proposition
that the Republican gains among Hispanics in twenty twenty four
would be maintained henceforth. And if it's not, I'm told again,
I don't I don't have the computer models, and I
don't have the wisdom of the demographic I don't have
a demographic map of Texas in my brain or on

(44:40):
my desk. It could actually cause the Republicans to do
worse than they would have done had they not fucked
around with the districts.

Speaker 7 (44:52):
Okay, fine, and.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
To your point, and to your point, here's why. The
new polls that came out this morning, I believe show
that Texas Republicans on the economy, Trump went from being
up nine to like down forty. I mean, he is
beyond cratering. They have jump ship, jump ship. And if
we believe Carville that it's the economy stupid, which it

(45:15):
always seems to be, yes, that's devastating.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
It is devastating, and it's like, okay, so from there
you could draw the conclusion that's fine.

Speaker 7 (45:26):
Whatever he does.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Now, we'll just wait it out and he'll get plastered and.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
We can fix it all lay. But he's not going
to cooperate with that plan.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
That's a little, a small little factoi, a.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Small little fact tooid. And we are dealing with a
man who tried to launch a coup against the Constitution
in the United States in twenty twenty one. We're talking
at a man about a man who only left office
because he physically had too okay, because he understood that

(46:04):
he would be dragged out of the office if he stayed,
because he didn't have control of the system in the
way that he would have needed to do the state
in pout. He wanted to have that control. He wanted
to get the Justice Department to support him. He wanted

(46:25):
to get people to support him. He wanted to get
the people on Capitol Hill.

Speaker 7 (46:29):
To basically reject the electoral votes, send them back to
the states. That it wouldn't be so.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Joe Biden would not have been elected president by a
vote account by.

Speaker 7 (46:40):
The Electoral College on January six, twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
But now he's taking control or trying to take control
of policing and individual cities, including the city of Washington,
D C. And as we've seen in any number of
struggles against authoritarian in the past, control of the military
and police in a capital city is absolutely crucial. I mean,

(47:08):
whether you think of the Chilean air force bombing the
presidential Palace in Santiago in nineteen seventy whatever, or the
Operation Valkyrie in nineteen forty four, or anything else like that.
If Trump had had control of policing and physical force

(47:33):
in Washington, D C. On January sixth, twenty twenty one,
he would have called out the National Guard, which he didn't,
And guess what he would have done. He would have
shut down what was going on in Capitol. He would
have had those troops would have joined the mob that
he sent up there. Right, So, why are we assuming that, A,

(48:00):
We're going to have free and fair elections and B
if we have free and fair elections and the Republicans
get plastered, Trump's not going to try to do something
to prevent that a Democratic majority in Congress or one
house or the other from taking office, or three even
if a democratic majority in Congress in both houses is established.

(48:28):
What makes us think He's going to pay any attention
to it instead of declasically declaring them irrelevant under Article.

Speaker 7 (48:35):
Two of the Constitution.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Right he you know, he's he's not going you know,
he's firstly, he's going to do everything in his power
to prevent the turn of the House because he knows
that once you get two hundred and eighteen Democratic votes,
he's going to get impeached. And there has been no
president in our lifetime and probably ever. I mean, you

(49:01):
you could draft a bill, a bill of impeachment that
would make the length of the bill of impeachment against
Andrew Johnson look like a pocket part, a little you know,
thing you could put in your pocket. He has committed
so many I think, high crimes and misdemeanors within the
meeting and the constitution. Uh, you know, and he's doing

(49:24):
it every day. I mean, it was just rampant corruption.

Speaker 7 (49:27):
It's the use you know what.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
But you know what, and this is the problem I
have with Democrats because you are one hundred percent right.
But let's say we have a midterm, Republicans get trounced,
we have a twenty eight election, a Democrat wins. If
this was Vegas, and I said, where would you put
your money on Democrats? Impeaching him or going, you know what,

(49:50):
let's let bygones be bygones. Let's be above the fray
and not look in the rear view mirror. Right, That's
what they would probably do, especially after or what we've
been through. But it's that mentality that they're also demonstrating today.
It's like the house is on fire, democracy is dying.
But let's not actually act like the house is on

(50:10):
fire and democracy is dying. Let's act like we're running
against Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty. That's what I see
them doing. Once in a while, somebody shines through a
Corey Booker, somebody else, Bennett out in Colorado. People who
have fire in the belly, people who are angry, who
are saying it's going to be over soon if we
don't fight. The rest of them are like, you know,

(50:31):
it's like Chuck Schumber with his like strongly worded letters,
you know, like that's how we're fighting this thing.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yeah, and I thoroughly agree with that. I mean, there's
just so many individuals who have been fighting in different
ways expressing oppositions to the government among the Democrats that
I like. But again, there's no cohesiveness. There is no immunity.
I mean, part of the problem is, you know, we

(50:57):
have this system in the United States where they're is
really no party leader for the opposition. You know, we
have legislative leaders, but there is really no party leaders
the opposition until the party has a convention. The out
of power party has a convention a few weeks before

(51:19):
a presidential election.

Speaker 7 (51:20):
So that's part of it.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
And part of it is just that the temperament of
the Democrats, they don't have that instinct of basically there.
They're not a lot of them just aren't fear less enough,
and they.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Don't they don't and they don't instill fear. Like at
the hearing this week when Corey Booker was questioning Cash Betel,
the look on his face it's like you want it
to be, like, oh, I don't want to mess with
this guy. Yet most of them when they start talking
the senators Bloomenthal, whoever, it's like cash Bethel goes and
like that. You can just blow them over mine. You know,

(52:01):
where's the well.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
It's nonexistent because A they have the power of the
federal government on their side, and B if you ever
had done.

Speaker 7 (52:13):
That thirty years ago, where let's say you were.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
I don't know. Let's let's just say you were a
cabin an FBI director for Reagan or George W. Bush,
and you know Howard Metzen Bound or whoever was would
have been on the Judiciary Committee back then, asked some
really really obnoxious question, you know, even an asshole like

(52:44):
Howard Medsen Bound, right, and you mouthed off at him
and treated mets and Bound who they all hate. They
mostly even the Democrats didn't like him, as.

Speaker 7 (52:57):
I recall, right, if.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
You had treated him with the kind of disrespect that
cash Betel was treating members of the United States Senate
at the hearing this week, Republicans would have gotten upset
because their view is, Okay, you know, I may not
like that my senator across the aisle there, but this

(53:23):
is a question of respect for our institution, the Senate
of the United States, the Congress of the United States.

Speaker 7 (53:31):
And there's none of that anymore.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
And that's all you know there, you know, So we
have this sort of weakness. First of all, we have
it's basically just moral corruption on part of Republicans. They
are no longer willing to stand up for themselves. They're
no longer willing to stand.

Speaker 7 (53:47):
Up for the Constitution.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
They're no longer willing to stand up for the institutions
to which they were elected, which the Framers, the Congress
of the United States, the Framers considered to be the
most important, actually the most dangerous branch. They they're they're
they're completely ineffectual. Their view is we just rubber stamp

(54:08):
what Trump says. We can't criticize him. And you know,
no matter what disrespect somebody shows the institution to which
they were elected, it doesn't matter to them.

Speaker 7 (54:21):
It's just what I mean.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
And and these people say, why do you want I
don't understand why do these people want to become congressman
and senators if there's nothing.

Speaker 7 (54:30):
They just want the jobs.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
What is it that they what is it that they
would lose their jobs for. What is it that they
would say, as a matter of principle, I will I
will risk my job and forcedly I have to go
back to actually work in the private sector or something.

Speaker 10 (54:49):
Right?

Speaker 7 (54:51):
What is it? What is it that they.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Will stand up for? And at this point, given where
we are, the answer is clearly not.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah. Look, I have a lot of people on this
podcast who were running for Congress, running for Senate. And
that's one of the questions I always ask him, is like,
why on earth would you want to wade into this cesspool?
And I get a range of answers. There are still
people who believe in the constitution and our democracy. Yeah,
and they think they can make a difference in Yeah.

Speaker 7 (55:20):
Jeff Duncan in Georgia.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
I mean he's now, he's I guess he's switched parties.
He's he's amazing. He's doing it for the right reasons.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
And maybe that's the answer. Maybe it's just a slow haul.
But the more Jeff Duncans in this world, Mallory mcmorrow's,
the more righteous people on both sides of the aisle,
maybe we're not going to see much of a difference
in a year or two, but maybe it is the
thing that will save democracy. I just want to ask you,

(55:53):
because I'm not a very biblical man, but when you
think about David and Goliath, it makes you wonder that,
maybe not today, but ultimately, like who actually is David
and who's Goliath? Is it Trump the goliath or is
it really we, the American people, the constitution, democracy that

(56:16):
ultimately is going to be the victor because it is
the bigger, the stronger, the more mighty thing in this country,
and that even when it looks terrible, looks bad and
we're frustrated and we're angry, that we're depressed watching what
Trump does in his autocratic march, that we have to
stay focused and that we are the goliath, not him.

Speaker 7 (56:39):
We are.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
I absolutely agree and think that that's where we want
to be.

Speaker 7 (56:48):
But right now everybody is kind of siloed.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Everybody's like looking at someone else, whether it be the
corporate chieftains who are our cave to the ft FCC,
or members democratic elected officials, everybody is looking for someone
else to do something, and that's sense.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Should should we take a lot of solace into people
like Jeff Duncan who should Maybe they know, maybe they
know something we don't, which is no, this fight is
far from over, and they want to get in it.
They want to get in that trench and they want
to fight. And that's very inspirational.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
It is inspirational, But I right now we don't see
people being inspired the way we need to be inspired. Now.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Maybe it's numbers, greater numbers for sure.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Right maybe it's going to take some further crisis. I
don't know what that crisis would be. Maybe it's all
the Jimmy Kemmel fans in the world are going to
say what and they're going to start fighting back.

Speaker 7 (57:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
I don't know what it is going to take. It
has not happened yet, and much to my much to myself,
much to my shock. I mean, I I'm a retire er.

Speaker 7 (58:08):
I shouldn't.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
I should be just playing these guitars, right, I really
would be. It really would make me happy. I don't
you know. It turns out I have more fun talking
and yapping and podcasts and TV than I ever thought
I would.

Speaker 7 (58:25):
But it wasn't my intent to do that.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
I I thought naively in twenty nineteen when I started
just I went off the reservation. I thought that, look,
it's like if I can do what people are going
to say, yeah, I can do that too. And because
I know there were so many lawyers, conservative libertarian type

(58:51):
lawyers who were concerned about the direction that things were going,
that they you know, because people will come up to
me like a Federal Society conference, thank you for speaking out.
And I thought that, like, okay, you just have to
show them that you know, and people will follow and

(59:11):
I also thought, at some point people are going to say, oh, Boston,
this guy's too much. What is he doing? And it
went the other way. Fry I thought this like, to me,
Trump was always the nails on the chalkboard, because it
was offensive that the sound of him, the sound, the

(59:33):
sound of what the substance of what he does was
effectively to my ears and to my intellect at like
the sound it is this hill scraping of the constitution
of truth and of justice, and everything's like, I can't right.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
It's funny to say that, because recently I've said that
listening to Trump is like listening to a combination of
nails on a chalkboard, a screaming cat in heat, and
a toddler who won't stop whining. Put all that together,
that's what we're having to listen to.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Every What happened was people put on earplugs, or they
got used to it, or they started going.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Well, let me ask you this about something you said
earlier when we were talking about the Jimmy Kimmel thinks,
I think this is really the most important thing we
should be looking at right now, and that is you questioned,
if we are now at an inflection point. You know,
we saw before the election last year that Republicans were
just a gast at attacks on free speech, a gas

(01:00:41):
at cancel culture. I mean, like that and epstein are
the two things that seem to drive them the most.
It's the air that they breathe, the blood that runs
through their veins. Now we're seeing this massive attack on
free speech, all the things that they supposedly they love.
They fought for, that's why they love him. But we're

(01:01:02):
also now seeing this interesting mix of condemnation coming from
people like Tucker Carlson and the Etorial Page exactly, like,
is this going too far to people that we need
in this country, moderate Republicans, independence, maybe even some of maga.

(01:01:23):
Is this the thing that makes them go, wait a second, No, No,
this is not what I voted for. I wonder if
you're raising something that's really important.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
I wish that to be the case. I hope you're right.
It would be great if it were. But I think
the fundamental problem is that too many people are willing
to look at things in a one sided, narcissistic way

(01:01:55):
that when my rights are violated, if my First Amendment
rights are violated, if I am uh silenced, or canceled
whatever that means. I mean, they kind of go too
far that because it's not just about the government.

Speaker 7 (01:02:16):
But that's bad.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
So we need to do exactly to the other side
what they're trying to do to me. And it's just
this very narcissistic like the rules applied to protect me
and against them, but not the other way around. And
that is sort of the essence of trump Ism, because

(01:02:41):
it's the essence of Trump. The rules don't apply to him.
The rules apply are to be manipulated and to apply
to everyone else. So yeah, I mean, Tucker Carlson, it's like, okay,
well I'll take I'll take Tucker Carlson, and I'll take
the Wall Street Journal editorial page. And the Wall Street
General editorial page actually is a thinking editorial page. They

(01:03:02):
just sometimes kid themselves into thinking that Trump isn't as
bad or that the Democrats are worse.

Speaker 7 (01:03:08):
But let's set that aside.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
But look at Brendan Carr. Okay, Brendan Carr is celebrating
the fact that he was able to threaten major media
outlets into changing their programming because he could threaten them
with regulatory sanctions illegally.

Speaker 7 (01:03:29):
But let's let's set that aside.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
And yet I was watching television this morning and somebody
played a super clip of all the times that Brendan
Carr in social media were in public video statements said
you know, we have to defend free speech.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, and who else said and who else tweeted that
and said that all the time. Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 7 (01:03:55):
Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Now, how do you think his his fans, his followers are,
what are they thinking right now? And they're like, wait
a second, we love that guy because of all that
stuff he said, and now we're watching but that, you.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Know, I mean, I'd like to think that that's how they.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Think some of them, hopefully some of them might be,
but they all don't. They don't call me optimistic Andy
for nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
Yeah, I've been hanging around with pessimistic people like JV.

Speaker 7 (01:04:21):
Lass at the Bullard.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
They view it as the other side is the enemy
a lot of them, and that trumps, so to speak,
everything else principle. And it's sort of interesting. Somebody tweeted
out the other the other day there was a psychologist
I think his name is Cole Bird who basically created

(01:04:45):
some kind of a hierarchy of moral development and It
first starts off with it's all about me, me, me, me,
and then the second is I'm avoiding punishment, and then
it goes to, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna be a
good boy because people would be nice to me. It's
a question of how you internalize rules to be respectful

(01:05:07):
of other people. And it takes a few steps to
get to the top where you've matured enough emotionally and
psychologically and intellectually that you act on principle and principle
meaning what applies to them applies to you. And that's

(01:05:29):
ultimately an expression of empathy because you have to understand
that what happens to that other person could happen to you.
So you want to live I mean, you know, it's
kind of like rawles.

Speaker 7 (01:05:40):
You want to know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
The system that's best is the one that if you
were born as the least fortunate person, you'd be okay
with the system. It's this. People don't think that way.
Too many people don't think that when we have lost
the capacity many of us, particularly young people who I

(01:06:02):
mean who are lesser educated, to think of principles in
the abstract and how they can be applied to different
people in different contexts fairly, and that's critical when it
comes to free speech. I protect Charlie Kirk's right to

(01:06:22):
be a race bat because I don't want Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 (01:06:28):
To be able to suppress my speech.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
That requires that requires a level of moral and intellectual
thinking that not enough people in this country have anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Well, that's the key right there. I always say that,
given how our elections these days are one and lost
on the margins, we only need a few people to
recognize what you just said and then the game changes.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Well, that's exactly right, I mean, and that's also a point.
It's like, that's actually a very very important point. But again,
I mean, bad things have happened in other societies where
the bad people didn't have a majority. The Nazis never
achieved an electoral majority to election. The second election they
had after they took power. The election was an election

(01:07:17):
where they took power. They had I don't know, thirty
five percent of the vote, and you know, Hitler was
asked the form of government. There was an election a
few months after that they did worse, but it didn't matter.
They allowed the opposition.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Yeah, George, always a pleasure, always insightful, come back against him.

Speaker 7 (01:07:34):
Always thank you, Take care.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
This episode was produced and edited by me Andy Astroid.
It was co produced by Matti Rosenberg and Jenhamood for
Radio Free Ryan Cliff, with additional editing by Matti Rosenberg,
music by Andrew Hollander, and graphic design by Cricket Lngale
and with his special thanks to our sponsor, The Epicurean. Again,
thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Please rate and review.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Or if you get your pot guests and subscribe to
the back Room with Antiostra, a YouTube channel where you
can watch full videos of our interviews.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
See you next time.