All Politics Are Identity Politics

0:00If you're a conservative who is upset that Tucker Carlson is in bed with Qatar and you don't realize that Trump is doing basically the same exact thing, I think you're still in the denial stage of grief. Because the only difference is that Trump is still on the AIPAC payroll and Tucker isn't. If Trump had somehow lost to that empty pantsuit Kamala Harris, he'd be just as anti-Israel as Tucker because Trump is purely transactional. Meaning that he's only in this for the money. And he'll be your best friend no matter who you are if you give him money. That's why he's always He's playing both sides of the fence.

0:33Qatar gives Trump a luxury 747 jet, and Israel gives him buckets of cash. So he's best friends with everybody, at least until he's not. Just like we've seen this year alone with Elon Musk and now Marjorie Taylor Greene. President Trump brought in the Al-Qaeda leader that was wanted by the U.S. government, who is now the president of Syria. Then within a week, he brought in the crown prince, MBS, who murdered an American journalist. And then he brought in the newly elected Democrat socialist mayor of New York. That was the time span that he called me a traitor. Yes. Who will be the next Judas to Donald Trump within his own disciple rank?

1:17River News Talk Opinion, speculation and satire. It's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. I'm sure we've all seen this video by now, but let's take a quick look at what she was saying there anyway about what Republicans secretly say about Donald Trump behind the scenes. It would shock people. Well, let's shock people. Okay. I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him to when he won the primary in 2024. They all started, excuse my language, Leslie, kissing his ass. Kissing my ass. Decided to put on a MAGA hat for the first time.

1:56Yeah, she's absolutely right about that. She's also batshit crazy, but she is 100 % correct about this and I can confirm it myself. I cannot, however, tell you how many off the air and off record conversations between media folks like myself and Republican politicians alike over the last 15 years that I've personally heard and seen laughing at Trump, mocking the stupid things that he says and ridiculing his general lack of intelligence. And I'm talking about household names that we all know as prolific Trump supporters who secretly hate his guts. I mean, I could tell you who they are, but I won't because you don't stay in this business for as long as I have by burning bridges like that.

2:35So why does everybody behind the scenes in the conservative ranks think that Trump is an idiot? Well, first of all, because he is. But much more importantly, Trump is everybody's useful idiot. Because the only thing you have to do to get anything you'd ever want out of Donald Trump is to kiss his ass. Kissing my ass. And it's worth it for everybody that's in his orbit. Why else do you think these otherwise liberal tech billionaires are consistently gathering around to pucker up to those big orange buttcheeks of his? Kissing my ass. And anyone with a few extra million bucks laying around knows that they can make a lot more money from buying Trump off than they can from fighting him.

3:10So you kiss his ass even though you hate his guts and know that he's an idiot. That's why he won that participation trophy from FIFA the other day. Look at him. Mr. President, this is your prize. This is your peace prize. There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go. Right now. Okay. Let me hold. Fantastic. Oh, come on. He knows it's a bullshit award deep down, but he just can't help but go through the motions just to see if it'll actually make him feel anything. think. So the FIFA Peace Prize is presented annually on behalf of the billions of football loving people from around the world to a distinguished individual who exemplifies an unwavering commitment to advancing peace and unity throughout the world.

4:02Yeah, judging by his appearance there, he didn't feel much. Yeah, if you look closely, I think what happened here is he realized that the medal was either not gold or simply gold plated. Look at that. He looks it looks like his demeanor changes sharply after he touches and looks at that metal briefly what an absolute joke but it was a treat to watch that over the weekend for sure

4:30he called me a traitor and we got to talk about marjorie taylor green i think that she is just one of the few folks too dumb to understand trump's dynamic here because she was clearly one of the true believers in Trump, and I think that's why she got burned by him so badly. Same with Elon Musk for that matter. Because smart people who know that Donald Trump is an absolute dolt won't get burned by Trump because they know better and are wise enough to keep at least an arm's length distance from that dumpster fire. It's only the true believer like Musk or MTG that think they can cozy up to Jabba the Hutt without it trying to eat you.

5:06I do. I think Trump would turn on Israel just as fast as he turned on Musk or Marjorie Taylor Greene because he turns on anyone and everyone who tells him no about anything. Trump can't stand being told no because he's never successfully been told no in his entire life and he's got the IQ of a 12-year-old boy. That's why he's always talking about his IQ and everybody else's. Because he's only just smart enough to subconsciously know how stupid he really is and it kind of explains why he's so insecure about it. If he had a modicum of honest intelligence, he would quickly realize that there's no reason to fight it at this point.

5:41Because you can't fix stupid. And it doesn't matter anyway, because you've already been president of the United States twice. Don't worry about it. More than half the country does not care that you're a stupid idiot, Donald. So quit defending yourself so much. It's as tacky as your Oval Office design. That looks like you lifted it from Jeffrey Epstein's living room. Look at that. God dang, it's ugly. But look, I've been thinking about that quote from Nietzsche the past couple weeks that says, you know, if you're fighting monsters, don't become a monster yourself. I'm paraphrasing there. I think I'm guilty of becoming the monster when I go after Trump to some degree, because if I'm being brutally honest, I truly, I hate this person.

6:19I hate Donald Trump. I'm not afraid to admit it. I think he's a liar. I think he's stupid. And I think he's corrupt beyond compare. And I wouldn't let him in my house or anywhere near my family, for that matter because I don't associate with people like this, let alone vote for them. But what's disturbing, I think, is the more I lean into those feelings, the more I start to act like he does, and that cannot be a good thing either. So what am I supposed to do then? Ignore the dumb bastard? I mean, that just enables his behavior. Do we fight fire with fire and call him out for being the degenerate swamp monster that he is?

6:54That doesn't seem to work either. Because this swamp monster has a chokehold on us that's gonna last at least until his body gives out on him, or another three years, whichever comes first. Just be happy that he's not 10 or 20 years younger. The only thing stopping him from an indefinite Trump presidency is father time and Trump's own failing body and mind. Person, woman, man, camera, TV. Which are fighting him better than any of us were capable of, apparently. But it is. It's important not to become like the monsters that we're fighting. because after a while they start to define who you are if you're not careful.

7:29And this isn't just about Trump. The identity sickness on the right has an identical twin on the left. I got another example of it over the past few weeks with this weird guest pitch that I received from an author who will remain nameless, raceless, and genderless as to not embarrass them. But this person was obviously a liberal college professor who wanted to be a guest here on Newsweek Radio to talk about how black people were treated disproportionately in New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. So I wrote back to this person who reached out to me with their pitch on LinkedIn and explained that I don't normally have guests on Newsweek Radio and that I have a strict, colorblind, genderblind approach to politics and that it might not be the best fit for the show.

8:11But I intentionally left the door of this conversation open for this person to easily put their foot in and make their way. I was waiting for her to come back and re-engage me and sell me on this idea that they were pitching. But instead, this person blocked me. It is kind of funny, but it's also kind of sad. But there was no follow-up, there was no thanks anyway, no trying to get me to reconsider, just blocked. You know, kind of a digital assassination, whatever. I guess I was being pretty naive to think that this highly educated college professor was open-minded enough to at least make an attempt at responding to what I had said through, God forbid, a human first lens, but then it dawned on me that a lot of people out there are simply not ready to accept that race and gender are absolutely meaningless in the big picture, because that superficial identity is sadly all they have.

9:04And I feel bad for this person because they're unable to look at the world without looking at it through this lens of skin color. I offended this person terribly because I refuse to buy into this narrative that there's some sort of mystical difference between white people and black people. So I call it for what I see it, and I say it's racism in its most basic form. Racism comes in every color, shape, and creed, and anybody who says that some races are racist and others can't be are some level of racist themselves or just confused or maybe indoctrinated, maybe a little bit of all of the above.

9:39But they should be called out wherever they speak this kind of stuff if you want to put an end to racism. Anybody who talks about their skin color with any amount of pride is just a surface-level racist. White pride, black pride, brown pride, it all comes from the same proud class of people across the spectrum. But they're never quite able to see their own bullshit because they don't think that they're required to look in the mirror just like everybody else. I also saw this article over at the Huffington Post over the weekend. Here's the title. I'm black, but look white. Here are the horrible things white people feel safe telling me.

10:15And look, I think it was an awful article. I'm not going to read it to you, but I did quickly realize one thing after reading it, though, that it made me feel bad for the author because it sounds like racism ultimately turned her into a racist. And I think it happens a lot. I've even had a professional run in with somebody who looks white and demanded that everyone around her treat her like she was black. How are we supposed to treat you like a black person? It doesn't make any sense because everybody SHOULD be treated equally. That wasn't good enough for them. And look, I'm not going to name any names because there is no good reason to give these already damaged folks any more shame than they've already needlessly placed upon themselves.

10:53But this person had two white parents, a white grandmother, and a grandfather on one side of her family who was half black. So she likes to walk around calling herself a person of color, which inevitably confuses a lot of folks. So they would ultimately ask some questions, which would cause this person to then accuse them of being racist. I swear to God, I saw them do this so many times. It was like their regular routine, a total racist. If I've ever seen one my entire life, but the psychological structure behind being so insecure in your own skin that you'd find the need to routinely entrap people and shame them for such trivial and unimportant details is so complicated that there's no way in my mind to rationalize this person's insanity other than to write it off as simply insane.

11:39And to that sense, I feel terrible for this person to this day also, because they believe in the lie that they are just a data point in an algorithm, that they are true believers who get hurt when they judge books by their cover. And look, it's not just race and gender. The point I'm getting to here is that there are many living among us who are so caught up in the meaningless, minute, defining details in life like race and gender, politics and religion, that their worlds completely crumble if somebody doesn't see their truth and recognize it as their own publicly. It would be like me right now, getting offended for somebody not understanding immediately what I'm talking about at this moment.

12:18I understand that this message isn't for everybody, and I'm sure that it's highly offensive to some people. But you are not your race. You are not your gender. You're not your politics, your religion, your sexuality, your job, your trauma, your childhood, your bank account. You are not your diagnosis, your tribe, or your reputation, or the algorithms. You're not your mistakes, your accomplishments for that matter. And don't tell me about your age or your body. You're not your house or your car. You're not a Republican or a Democrat or a Lesbratarian or anything in between. Do you ever stop to ask yourself who you are just once in a while?

12:53It's not an easy question to answer. Who are you? Are you a black lesbian woman CEO? Are you a straight white unemployed man? Are you a brown transsexual anarchist trust fund baby? Who the hell cares? It's all meaningless and there is nothing new under the sun, brother, because those things are not what makes people who they are. Most people never figure out who they are, so they cling to those superficial traits like skin color and gender and religion and politics to help them feel connected to who they think they are. Who are you? Look, I can't answer it for you, because I'm having an extremely difficult time figuring that out for myself as well.

13:26The point is that we all are, and nobody on this planet has it easy. I've been asking myself who I am for decades now, and the best answer that I can come up with is that I am nobody but a single point of consciousness. You don't have to have your heart stopped and flatlined to have a near-death experience. And once you've seen that side of things, it becomes pretty obvious that we're not our skin color. We are not our genitals. We are consciousness living in the physical realm as training grounds for how to operate in our truest form, which is in the spirit. Now, I realize that probably sounds crazy to a lot of you out there, but I don't care.

13:59It's taken me 45 years to realize that there is no such thing as identity, and that every single label that we try to describe ourselves with is just our lame attempts at trying to understand who we are, because we don't. So I really want you to try this little exercise, if you don't mind, and really think hard about it or meditate on it, if you will. Who are you? Don't tell me that you are your family or what you do for a living or any other nonsense about your culture or where you come from, because that is not relevant in the big picture. They might be defining and interesting attributes to you on the individual level, but just assume that it all goes away when you wake up on the other side one day and realize what it truly means when you can't take any of it with you.

14:42I'm obviously talking to those of us who believe in the afterlife, but even if you don't, who the hell are you? Are you the car you drive or the house that you live in? I don't think so. You're just the observer along for the ride who wouldn't recognize themselves in the rearview mirror if it smacked you in the forehead. So am I. That's it for today. And until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time. Bye. And we say bye-bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of the Trust Project. Mr. President, this is your prize. This is your peace prize. There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.

15:22I can wear it right now. Okay, let me hold. Ah, fantastic. The fuck?