I’ve Got No Problem With Communism - Hasan Piker

28:17Let's see if China had, if in a hypothetical, if China had encircled the United States of America, and let's say in this hypothetical, I'm like very clearly someone who is going to China and talking to the CPC and saying like, we want Chinese intervention in this country because I hate Donald Trump, please. I think in that regard, America would probably treat me in the exact same way, if not in a worse way, ironically enough. But would they throw you in jail for trying to run democratically? I don't think personally that they would? Oh, they absolutely would, I think. You think the American government would not throw me in jail if I was in a comparable scenario where China had encircled the United States of America, and I was saying, I want to run democratically, I want to be, and I'm demanding that China intervene, I think they would do the same, if not worse, for sure.

29:13Because like I said, it's all a matter of the conditions on the ground. With respect to Eugene Debs, as I was talking about before, America felt threatened even at that time.

29:26Francis Foster:You're talking about wartime. This is not a fair comparison, in my opinion, because wartime is wartime. It's about survival. Britain suspended elections during wartime, right? America didn't actually. They did during the Civil War. But Britain did. America wasn't in war in the same way that Britain was. That's why it's during the Civil War. Yeah, that's fair. But again, it's different. I guess you said something interesting because I was born in the Soviet Union, so we both have direct experience of socialism in various shapes and forms. You talked about, well, there's positives and there's negatives.

30:00Francis Foster:So is there a country that's done socialism the way that you like? I would say that I am hypercritical of all forms of governance, including the American one. I think that's not a surprise to you guys, right? And in that same vein, I think there is critiques to apply to all forms of governance, even socialist ones. And as far as getting closer to what I think has been relatively successful, because if ultimately the point of government is to improve the material conditions of all people to the best of your ability it's not always going to be perfect but when you are getting i don't know the poorest people the poorest of the dispossessed masses out of a situation where uh they they were serviled the landed gentry or they were peasants from an agrarian society or they were uh they were uh you know dominated by the landlords but then ultimately they were able to uh to to come into modernity and become like a powerhouse an industrial powerhouse that is competitive with the largest superpower on the planet.

31:08I would say if that's the point of good governance, and I think you guys might agree with me on that, I would say China is probably the closest. And there are still plenty of failures within the Chinese system as well, plenty of issues within the Chinese system as well. But that's probably the closest, I would say, to an example that we should follow and lessons that we should learn from. This is something that I talk about quite a bit. Ironically enough, we only utilize some of the most repressive elements of Chinese governance here in the United States of America, especially in the second Trump administration, and none of the good stuff.

31:43We don't have any high-speed rail. We don't have any even development. There is seemingly nothing to look forward to in America in terms of economic prosperity, in terms of overall health of society, in terms of scientific achievements. And I think a lot of younger people also feel the same way, where they feel like there's nothing to look forward to here. And I'll give you guys an example from the UK. I remember seeing this TikTok of this guy that goes around and is like asking young British people, would they serve in the British military? And I am not even remotely nationalistic by any measure.

32:23I don't care about those sorts of things. But I think it's important to understand, like, it's a good way to see the temperature, of society and a lot of the young british people were like no why would i fight for england why would i fight for the uk when it seems like my government's not even fighting for me at all

32:43Francis Foster:and see the reason that a lot of them will say that though is um it's not so much about that we're not like china in terms of building high-speed rail although that is a big issue in the uk yeah i agree with you uh the main reason is they feel like they've been let down by mass immigration that's eroding the values of their country. And of course, you know, this is where I think people on the right are very blind to this issue that we already raised, which is wealth and equality and opportunity. I'm sure there are some people who feel that way, of course. But well, think about this. Hold on. Let me just finish a point.

33:16Francis Foster:Like, stereotypically speaking, is it left of center people or right of center people that are going to go and fight for their country? Typically, it's going to be right of center people because of the mindset that they have. I think when push comes to shove, everybody fights for their country because that's why you have to have a draft. In a war. But what we're talking about in this situation is will you go and serve in armed forces? That is going to be a more right-leaning perspective. And those people, you know, we probably, fair to say, no, the UK pretty well. Those people are concerned about the national identity of their country.

33:47Francis Foster:It's like, why would I fight for a country that doesn't feel like my country is the issue for them? This is where the big point of division comes for someone like myself um you're venezuelan originally like you your family came from venezuela your family came from the ussr you guys are the most british people i've ever encountered i have a very british face yes correct yeah exactly you're you're british to the bone yeah and yet your families also came from countries that were somewhat far away from england right and i'm turkish i grew up in Turkey. My whole family lives in Turkey still with some exceptions.

34:28And I would say I'm pretty assimilated to American culture. Uh, I grew up being fascinated by American culture. I grew up consuming American, uh, pop culture as do many people all around the world. And, and what I always find interesting is when people, uh, focus on the, the, uh, the newcomers to say that this is actually destroying the social fabric or social cohesion, not realizing that there are a ton of polls conducted on this stuff. I can just speak for America, especially, where by the second generation, assimilation is almost complete. And by the third one, it's like virtually impossible to distinguish in terms of performance, educational output, and job performance in general.

35:14It's just like everyone becomes American.

35:16Francis Foster:That's not true in the UK, though, unfortunately. So if you look at, for example, Islamist radicalization, second and third generation Muslims are much more radical than first generation. That's the issue that a lot of people in Britain are concerned about is not everyone's assimilating the way that the three of us have done. So here's the interesting point about that. Well, two things I want to address. First, like I said, people assimilate and they become a part of the normal forces of society. they become a part of the culture or they bring some aspect of their culture into British culture.

35:52You know, they change the cuisine and people seemingly enjoy it, even if they also simultaneously go attend an EDL rally and then, you know, get a little quick curry afterwards or a little kebab on the side. But beyond that, the reason why people are angry is always going to be because the trains are not running on time, because the NHS is improperly managed due to underfunding. That's what I believe. I think it's always an issue of underfunding, where they're not getting the same services that they once used to, and also things are becoming more and more costly. So in that anger, it's much easier for them to be guided by the right-wing forces to turn around and say, you're angry and you're right to be angry.

36:45And the reason why you're angry, the reason why all of these things are happening is because we are importing all of these random strangers into the country who don't speak your language, who you aren't scared by. and and that I think causes division and it causes friction that makes it harder for people to integrate and that is part of the reason why I think especially in a place like the UK you see a little bit more of this um this this uh resilience towards full-blown integration into society I also think as well Hassan if we're being honest it's also because we have had such huge amounts of immigration come into the country, the people understandably go, this pace of change is too much.

37:32And you have to think, let's go back to 2016, which was the Brexit referendum. Now, Brexit was about many things, but really it was about people wanting immigration to be lowered. And that was nine on 10 years ago. Immigration hasn't been lowered. In fact, it's been ratcheted up. So people voted to lower immigration. And I'm, for instance, since I voted remain. People voted Brexit. I'm like, well, that's democracy. We get on. We're going to make the best of it. I do believe that when you ignore people's wishes at the ballot box and people explicitly vote for something and you ignore them for the best part of a decade, that does generate a lot of anger and understandably so.

38:11Yeah, I think in that same timeframe, if there was enough appetite by the government to address the financial harm that people were experiencing, the economic struggles that people were experiencing, there would still be a lot of people who say, I don't want a brown person. I don't want a black person around in my neighborhood. But ultimately, those numbers would be far smaller. And that's what I always go back to. I'm a leftist. I believe in economic improvements. And I believe that a lot of the reactionary forces actually take advantage of that instability, the economic volatility that exists in an effort to shift the attention away to people who have the same exact interests as you and I do.

38:59Because ultimately, I don't believe that anyone is coming into the United States of America or the UK, as a matter of fact, because they want to bring about a Salafist-style Islamic caliphate in London. I know you won't agree with me on this.

39:14Francis Foster:It's not about whether I agree, it's about whether the facts agree with you. I don't think that's the case. Hold on. Let me just give you some facts then. We have a terrorist attack on a monthly basis by an Islamist, effectively. We just had two in the space of the last month as we're recording this. 33 percent i think of british muslims want sharia law in britain like according to polls more than half want to i haven't seen these polls well we can put them in for people to see more than half want to ban homosexuality right so when you say people aren't coming in to introduce an islamist stuff well some of them want to if they're in a position to do so we have um five mps who are effectively elected on a sectarian ticket like as in we are muslims vote for us because you're a Muslim.

39:59Who would you say those MPs are?

40:01Francis Foster:The five independent MPs. They're called the Gaza MPs or whatever way you want to call them. Are you talking about like Zahra Sultana? I don't know if she's one of them. I think one of them is called Adnan Hussein. There's five of them. We can look them up. We can put them in for people to see. So I think it should be said that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims don't want Sharia law. But if 33 % of them do, you can see why a lot of people who don't want Sharia law might be concerned about that, right? Um, sure. I don't know what... I haven't seen these polls, and I also don't know what British Muslims or the 33 % that are saying they want Sharia law, like, what they're talking about.

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41:30If you like your commentary honest, sharp and entirely uncancellable, find Brad versus everyone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. The counter example always is, I mean, there's plenty of right wing forces in the country that also want to ban homosexuality. and no i'm oh i mean or trans people in general right like there is no one wants to ban trans people in burton no okay well that's not what i have seen so far but maybe i'm wrong on this

42:00Francis Foster:what do you mean but um i mean i feel like there's a lot of uh this is a this is a point of contention for uh for for you guys as well but it's like when you want to ban trans people altogether when you want to remove access to medication for trans people to transition and conform their own gender identity, you don't start off by saying we want to altogether ban trans people. You start off by trying to find the most successful approach that the broadest majority of the masses would be in tune with, would be in agreement with, and then you slowly but surely expand on it. Wouldn't that be like me saying, well, you say you want socialism, but actually you're a communist because you just want to edge your way towards communism step by step.

42:49Francis Foster:That seems like an unfair way of looking at it. No, my retort to that would be that while I don't call myself a communist, I don't have an issue with an end goal of communism. I just think that it's probably not likely to happen, a stateless, moneyless, borderless society. But moving towards that angle. I don't have any real... You'd like communism in America. I think that communism would be most likely an international thing. It'd be like the Star Trek universe. And it feels, especially at this point, it feels far too utopian to achieve. So while I think that the concept in and of itself is not one that I disagree with, and I don't think you would either.

43:29Don't you think it would be nicer? I grew up in a communist country.

43:31Francis Foster:I very strongly disagree with the concept of communism. The USSR was, as you know as well, trying to implement communism. They never actually were able to successfully implement communism. How do you mean? Well, it wasn't a borderless, moneyless, classless society. That was never the goal of communism. It was never to be a borderless, moneyless society. No, that is what communism is. Well, that's not how the communists in Russia defined it. There was a big debate within communism quite early on which was about are we pursuing a global state of communism? Yes, Trump versus Stalin. I'm very familiar.

44:11Francis Foster:Right, but for our audience, this might be worth explaining. Yeah. Some of them wanted to, they basically recognized the only way you might ever get to a communist society is if everyone in the world gets it. Otherwise, there will always be a capitalist system to which people would be keen to defect. Or this is the Stalin option that they ended up going for is you pursue communism within the realm of one country. And in order to do that, they took the wealth away from people who had it. They tried to distribute it to everybody else. They tried to create a state of equality, uplift the poor, as you were talking about.

44:43Francis Foster:And actually, if you take those measures alone, they were very successful at it. The only problem is they ended up putting millions of people in camps in order to do that, creating a tyrannical regime with a secret police that murdered people. and that is the reason communism in my opinion doesn't work is because in order to achieve that goal of equality and basically you're making everybody equally poor as the end result you actually have to use a lot of force right so that was communism what we had in the ussr well that the the end goal was never successfully achieved in the ussr in terms of establishing uh what i'm talking about though and that's why i'm saying it's important to understand and recognize the failures of this implementation in the aftermath of a socialist revolution and choose not to repeat those mistakes.

45:35Francis Foster:So how would you do it differently? Well, that's the reason why I pointed to China. China is run by the Communist Party of China. It builds itself as communist. China is not a communist country. Would you say China is a communist country? It's a mixed country. It has some elements of communism, but it's also got a lot of capitalism going on. Yeah. So it's a it's a mixed market economy is what you're saying. Right. But so is the United States of America, if you look at it from that perspective, because America also has some semblance of social safety nets. The UK also has some social social safety nets, some state run enterprises, you know, especially pre Margaret Thatcher, I would say, versus private enterprises as well.

46:18Venezuela at its peak, I think, had more privatization and more private enterprise in its economy than France did, as a matter of fact. I believe there was a report around 2012, maybe, where they were talking about how Venezuela is not socialist. When these sorts of countries, and you're not wrong, it's a mixture of both, right? It exists. Social safety exists. Some extrapolation initiatives exist. When you think about Norway, for example, the entirety of the extraction industry in Norway is actually nationalized from the forestry all the way down to the oil and gas industry. But then there's also the private market as well, private enterprise as well.

47:04So as far as that goes, I wouldn't say that China is a communist and neither would you, but it's run by a communist party. And so far, they have seen a pretty successful, pretty robust level of growth and development overall. So they have analyzed the failures of previous communist and socialist formations, and they have responded to it in their own way. The challenge is, Hassan, when you centralize power and you give exactly, practically all the power to the government, what happens with that is you're far more likely to have corruption. You're far more likely to have abuse of power. And inevitably, what happens is that the government can't do everything.

47:50There are things that are far better done by private practice than done by state control. I agree with that. Would you also agree that there are things that are far better done in the hands of the government, or at least with heavy market regulation and intervention? I completely agree. Because healthcare, I think, is a great example of this, where it's an inelastic demand, good and service, right? If you don't have healthcare, you die. So you will pay whatever price you have to pay for healthcare. And therefore, I think the American system that is the most maximalist, most capitalist, most free enterprise system has been an abject failure in terms of delivering good results.

48:29And what I mean by that is healthcare as a whole is supposed to improve people's living standards and also make sure that everyone is getting the best quality care possible, right? And in the United States of America, we don't have that. We do have nicer hospitals that resemble hotels as opposed to like - I'll be honest with you, it'd be difficult not to have a nicer hospital than the UK, mate. Yeah, no, but I understand that. I'm from Turkey, I've seen the Turkish public hospitals, but I would rather try to focus on the diminished quality of service and try to improve that in a socialized system than to altogether limit healthcare at the point of being able to pay for it in the way that we have in the United States of America.

49:15And I think this is a major issue with America in general, is that we are so invested in improving our GDP, we're so invested in leaning into the forces of capital that in this sector and in many others, corruption still thrives. We have it in the form of corporate consolidation here in the United States of America, because in the absence of any sort of government intervention, trust busting, and heavy regulatory intervention, all corporations end up trying to seize one another and become a force, a monopolistic force, and if not, an oligopoly, right? And many sectors have seen this, And when you become an oligopoly, you can diminish the quality of service that you're offering slowly but surely because there's no market competition that exists any longer.

50:07So I guess the way I look at it is in terms of corruption, you're right. There is a tendency if the government is all powerful, even though the governments are always all powerful, there is a tendency in more centralized governance that if someone wants to be a ruthless autocrat, they can do so. and the people don't always have the capacity to rise up against that. But I would say that in the United States of America, for example, we also experience a similar dynamic. We just don't see it in the same way because it's not the most direct form of authoritarianism where a lot of people think, well, as long as I can eat a Big Mac, as long as I can watch TV, as long as I can consume porn and gamble on the unregulated cryptocurrency market or gamble my modest income away, what remains after I give the rest to my landlord, then, you know, things are probably fine.

51:05And I think we dull our sensibilities in that regard. And I think it's a different form. It's a different mechanism of control that makes you think that you are actually an active participant in this.

51:14Francis Foster:Well, I mean, I think that's quite a stretch, Hassan, with all respect, because the difference between, I mean, you talk about, we talked about some societies that have attempted to pursue communism, China, the Soviet Union, Venezuela, etc. The difference between those countries is not that they can't eat a Big Mac. The difference is that if they criticize the government, in Russia today even, but of course in the Soviet Union previously, you're going to get killed. In America, that's not what happens. In America, you don't get... We don't know where we're going to go yet. I mean, Hassan, to be fair, you are very successful.

51:48Francis Foster:I agree with you. You in China or in the Soviet Union would be killed if you were critical of that regime. I would definitely be jailed. You'd definitely be jailed. So that's the difference between these countries and America. It's not a Big Mac, it's freedom. No, so I love that you brought that up because I agree with that. I'm from Turkey, a country that has never had the First Amendment or freedom of speech. And ironically enough, the current regime, the person in charge of the current regime, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was jailed in the past for a poem that he wrote for incitement, right? He read a poem about Altatürk, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.

52:22and he was jailed. And now he's one of the most ruthless jailers of the press in the country. Now, so I come from that background. I can't go back to Turkey, for example, for these reasons. I've written about Turkey extensively. And let's just say the administration is not super fond of me and my perspective. Having said that, that is the reason why I I want the First Amendment to remain in the United States of America, even though, as I brought up earlier, there have been instances throughout American history where the First Amendment has been actively violated or threatened. There are still contemporary examples of violations of the First Amendment.

53:05One example I will use is the anti-boycott divestment and sanctions laws that exist in the United States of America. famously was Bernie Sanders and Dianne Feinstein, rest in peace, who actively called it out to prominent Jewish politicians in the country. These are laws directly written by AIPAC that dictate that if you want to become a school teacher in the state of Texas, for example, you have to sign a loyalty pledge to ensure that you never protest against the state of Israel. It's ridiculous, right? And it's a direct violation of the First Amendment. So there is encroachment towards the First Amendment.

53:39Francis Foster:That will always happen because people will always contest it. But the point I'm making to you is when you compare China and the Soviet Union and Venezuela to America, that is not an accurate comparison. It's not an accurate comparison. But if you recall earlier, I just said I'm worried that we here in the United States of America are now moving in that direction in terms of social repression, in terms of political repression. And this is something that I very much fear. And I think the entry point to this is usually around Israel and what people decry as anti-Semitism. But that's not where it's going to end.

54:19If you look at the Trump administration's active, the active initiatives the administration is taking. Yesterday, my friend Kat Aboukzale, who used to be a reporter who is now running in Illinois for Congress, was indicted. She was indicted because she participated in the protests against ICE outside of an ICE facility. and there are videos of her getting slammed to the ground in the concrete with this militarized massed uh federal police force right not only they beat her up which was already ridiculous to begin with but then they also chose to indict her um there are examples of of uh students writing for their student newspaper uh and and getting kidnapped and thrown into a immigrant detention facility, whether it be Mahmoud Khalil, who still has an ongoing legal case for being a student activist, a student protester, and having a green card while doing it.

55:21We have the same thing in our country in different ways. I hear you.

55:24Francis Foster:The reason I'm interrupting you is we've moved sideways from the topic. So remember where we started this conversation, right? So just to address your point. Well, the repression didn't start in China by everybody being like, all right, it's over, we're throwing you in jail. It builds up to it, is what I mean. And it's entirely dependent on the starting point. Because if you were looking at China, if you're looking at the Chinese Civil War, post-World War II, 30 million Chinese people have been slaughtered ruthlessly by the Japanese imperialists. That's a very different set of material circumstances for the end of that civil war and to develop governance.

56:03Francis Foster:I'm just trying to bring you back to the central argument with central discussion we're having. Francis made the point that when the government is in a position to be authoritarian, where it seems to inevitably end up in every communist country in the history of the world. Right. That is a situation which inevitably then leads to levels of repression of the kind that you will not see in America for 100 years. I take hold on. I take your point about individual protesters or individual people who've made statements about a highly controversial issue today. we have the same thing in our country where people are being sent to prison for tweets that they've done, right?

56:36Francis Foster:Left and right. We've got Palestine action on the left. We've got right-wing people criticizing immigration. So I agree with you. The direction of travel in the West in terms of freedom of expression is not good. And I've made that point in my book and elsewhere. But that is not the same as what the point we're trying to make, which is the system of government you are open to, based on our discussion today at least, inevitably leads to authoritarianism, which inevitably leads to repression on a scale that a Western country won't imagine. Isn't that, that's the reason that a lot of people are very worried about people like you who say they're open to communism.

57:14Francis Foster:We all know smartphones are essential, but they've also become the ultimate surveillance machines. That's why we were so interested when former trigonometry guest Eric Prince created the UpPhone. This isn't just another handset. The UpPhone runs on unplugged OS, free from big tech ecosystems. It comes with a firewall that blocks third-party trackers and gives you full transparency into who's trying to access your data. And it works straight out of the box. I got one of these myself because I want to know my phone is serving me. Not Google, not Apple, and not some faceless data broker. And that's the point.

57:50Francis Foster:Your phone should serve you, not spy on you. Check it out at unplugged.com slash trigonometry and use our code trigonometry for$20 off a protective case with your ARP phone. So here, I'll try to put a nice button on it. OK. The reason why the United States of America and countries that are under the security apparatus, the global security umbrella of the United States of America have had. much more success with liberal democracy, as opposed to all these other countries that are not under the immediate security umbrella, is because it's been the domineering force around the globe, especially after the end of the Cold War.

58:35But even during the Cold War, it was a dominant force on the planet. When you are the dominant force, you get to have these freedoms. Your people get to have these freedoms. Your people get to say whatever they want, because they're not a threat, right? I would be more of a threat in the respective nation that I'm in if they don't have that same level of security. And that is the reason why I'm very fearful because as America's power on the global stage is waning, we are going to see more direct authoritarianism coming from Western nations as liberalism decays, as it did in the 20s and the 30s.

59:12And what came after that was a wave of fascism. Now, fascism at that time was seen as a revolutionary thing. It was seen as a new thing. In many instances, fascists were actually fashioning themselves as though they were like a different kind of socialist, even though they were mostly killing socialists and had their beef with socialists. And then they were able to align with liberals eventually and become the domineering authoritarian forces. And I think you guys wouldn't disagree with me that like, you know, Italy's Mussolini and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany were ruthless fascist forms of governance where there was unimaginable repression.

59:51My fear is that that is where capitalism inevitably leads. Why? If left unaddressed, because capitalism is always going to deteriorate. It's slowly going to improve material conditions as opposed to feudalism. It's a far better system, for sure. It's far better than monarchies, right? I agree. But there will come a point where it outlives its usefulness, and those who own the capital, the owners of capital, will have to make a decision. There's too much instability. There's too much chaos. We need to restore order. And if they can't do that through liberal democracy, at least historically, especially when there is a counterbalance revolutionary socialism out there that they are genuinely fearful of, work stoppages happening all around, and the flows of capital being disrupted, and profit margins are threatened, they end up finding fascism to be that domineering force that restores the law and order, so that people are still working in the factories, and any kind of dissent is directly and indirectly suppressed.

1:00:59And I fear that that is where we're moving in the United States of America, as America's global superpower status is threatened by the rise of China.

1:01:09Francis Foster:So your thesis is that as a country, if a different country was dominant, it was a global hegemon, they would have more freedom for their citizens. So you think the Chinese Communist Party would allow criticism of them if they were the dominant country in the way? I think with respect to where they were in terms of like, I mean, the most maximalist position is the cultural revolution, right? Like if you look at the cultural revolution versus where China is now in terms of dissent, it's in comparison to the United States of America. Yes, there's still heavy control over that sort of stuff. There's a lot of surveillance.

1:01:44Having said that, it has become far more tolerant as material conditions have improved. And that's my main thesis is that countries, regardless of their individual forms of governance, as long as they are advancing the material needs of the broadest subset of the masses and become like a domineering force on their own and have full sovereignty and full autonomy, they will inevitably become more tolerant to this kind of freedom. because this is the most successful way, I think, of making sure that the masses feel satisfied. Civil liberties is the most successful way that I think neoliberalism has become a hegemonic power beyond the endless militarism and whatnot.

1:02:32I think that that is the reason why people feel the way that they do in the United States of America, in spite of all of the alarm bells that are ringing about how economic devastation is imminent, seemingly, or there's so much poverty and so much instability. And people still go, well, at least I got some freedoms, right? As opposed to not having those freedoms elsewhere. So that's my main thesis, is that if they improve material conditions, they have to inevitably allow more civil liberties, more social liberties. So it's interesting what you've been saying about America and that it's losing its power on the global stage, that is then reflected in more and more, shall we say, imbalanced chaos in the actual society itself.

1:03:20And we've kind of seen that in a way with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, with Luigi Mangione. I found some of your comments really interesting about Luigi, and I'd love to talk to you about them. So you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, push back on if I'm wrong, that you think that he's innocent and unfairly maligned. How did you come to that position, if I'm correct? I mean, that's a meme for the most part. Oh, OK. But what does that mean? It's a meme. We're like, we're not rumors, but we're like elderly millennials. The notion that someone is innocent until proven guilty or that he wasn't there.

1:03:54It's like a common thing that people do on TikTok and elsewhere as well.

1:04:00Francis Foster:But you don't think he's innocent? Well, I don't know. I don't know if he's the one that actually did or not. We'll see once the court case finalizes. But is he... Sorry, I may not understand what meme means in this context. Like, I guess what I'm asking is when you say he's unfairly maligned, do you believe that or not? That's what I'm asking. Well, as far as unfairly maligned, it depends on where the quote is coming from. Because I could be talking about like being perp walked or getting hit with a terrorism charge, which was actually taken off recently because the New York courts also found that it was overextended to this case.

1:04:41I think there was a lot of panic around his actions, allegedly. And that is probably what I was talking about, if you're talking about that. But as far as like, oh, Luigi's innocent, it's just like a thing that people say. As far as innocent is... Why do they say it? I think that is actually the more interesting conversation. Okay. The reason that, and I had a conversation with Ross Douthat about this on the New York Times, where he brought this up on numerous occasions. I think that people are experiencing tremendous anger and discontent. And one of the most visible aspects of that, one of the visible aspects of a system of healthcare that should not be privatized or should, at the very least, even if it's privatized, work to make sure that every single person is getting the adequate care that they need, otherwise they die, has created this environment of tremendous anger.

1:05:38It has almost virtually universalized the pain. Every single American knows at least one immediate or distant relative that has suffered through chemotherapy as they have to hunt down their their insurance provider to make sure that the thing that they were paying for, for years and years, the premiums, the costly premiums that they were paying into actually end up helping them cover the cost of this life saving quality care that they desperately need to survive. And, and I think a lot of Americans have so much discontent for that experience that they have seen personally, that their immediate reaction once before they even found out who had done the shooting, but their immediate reaction to who the victim was, was met with a response that shocked me, as well as I think many other people.

1:06:35What I mean by that is America's very draconian. They're very black and white. It's like you do a crime, you get punished and a lot worse than you would get punished elsewhere, right? We talk about how Norway is much more understanding and much more rehabilitative in their prison structure because they're pussies. We throw you in jail and we torture you.

1:06:53Francis Foster:You have the death penalty. Yeah, we have the death penalty, all this stuff. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So, and America's broadly, like American culture is broadly very receptive to that. We're fairly rugged in our approach to crime and punishment. And in spite of that, because of how much harm the private healthcare sector has done to so many different people in this country, I think they saw it as like, okay, well, this guy is now the faceless placeholder for the person, for the system that actually killed my grandparents. That's the way they saw it. I get the anger. Which I don't think is healthy, for the record.

1:07:36Francis Foster:Okay. Well, this is what I'm getting to is like, I understand anger. And by the way, you know, I don't want to wade into the debate about American health care. I don't know a lot about it. I understand there's some really bad situations for people. People should also know that in the UK, there's also lots of people who are dying without care because they're waiting for an operation for a year and a half or they're waiting two months for a scan. But let's let's not get into that. No, but the NHS is you're right. The NHS has had significant austerity measures implemented to it. The NHS budget keeps growing every year, but it doesn't matter because the population is growing.

1:08:07Francis Foster:Let's not get into it. What I'm saying is I understand people's anger. What I don't understand is why that would make Luigi Mangione, who allegedly killed this guy, innocent. Why? Because that's where we started, right? Why do people say he's innocent? The way people see it, and I'm not I'm not subscribing to this notion, but the way that I think people see it is. Are you familiar with the concept of social murder? no engels wrote about this he said that like the systematized death and destruction of the masses is oftentimes hidden it's oftentimes invisible um i think private health care is a great example of this where it's to the recipient to the victim or the victim's families they see that as murder right they see that as an unnecessary death that took place and and they feel that pain all the same in the same way that uh that brian thompson's family i'm sure uh was was and still is mourning the death of Brian Thompson.

1:09:02There are millions of Americans out there that have individuals in their lives that they loved, loved ones, immediate loved ones, distant relatives that they've seen suffer in their last, in their final moments as they, you know, go through the process of trying to figure out the paperwork in a system that is designed to, let's be real, take as much money as possible from you in the form of premiums, and then create a profit incentive by refusing to pay for the health care.

1:09:31Francis Foster:Hassan, I get all that and I empathize with that pain that those people feel. But what I'm getting at is you said he's innocent. Then you said it's a meme. You say it's just a thing that people say. What I'm trying to understand is... The reason why people say that is because I think... Their anger doesn't make him innocent, right? If he shot a man who runs a health care company, health care insurance company, and they are angry with healthcare in America, that doesn't make him innocent, right? It doesn't. So isn't you and them saying that just flat out wrong? Well, my reason for saying it is because you're innocent until proven guilty.

1:10:09But as far as what everyone else is saying, or if I'm to analyze it, which I do as a part of my job, what I'm trying to explain to you guys is that from their perspective, it's revenge. And this is a very, very unhealthy feeling to have. This is why I talked about with Ross Dow that the concept of adventurism. This is something that traditional Marxists actually are very critical of. Adventurism does not lead to any sort of serious changes, any sort of serious revolutionary changes, especially. And yet, and all it does is create an environment of instability. I think that the perfect solution to ensure that this never happens, to ensure that there's no level of discontent that bubbles up to this degree that would require a mechanism of enforcement by the government to enact stability, of course, which would also be just as violent, if not even more brutal, to a larger percentage of the population to ensure that there isn't another, you know, Luigi Mangione-style situation is good legislation, is fixing these systemic problems.

1:11:23Luigi Mangione is the breaking point. Luigi Mangione is the perfect demonstration of the system failing people. And I think that Luigi Mangione and the response to him has been one of the clearest examples that I have seen in a country like the United States of America, where people are normally supposed to be like horrified by cold-blooded murder in the middle of the day. Their response being much more receptive to the action shows me that there is so much pain in people's immediate experiences that they recognize this instability. They don't have a vehicle to communicate it. They don't have a vehicle to communicate this discontent.

1:12:05And they're simply moving into the least productive way to do politics, which is revenge, violent revenge. I think that that is something that we have to solve immediately because it can't go on. You can't have more people just like randomly gunning people in the streets. That's not what a civilized society is supposed to work towards. That's instability. That's chaos. I don't want that.

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1:13:43Francis Foster:Click the link in the description or go to pure-gold.co slash trigger to get your free copy of the investor guide. That's pure-gold.co slash trigger. Take control of your financial future today. So one of the things that I found shocking with the assassination of Charlie Kirk is obviously the incident itself, but it's also the reaction and the rhetoric that went around it. the people on the left who were celebrating it, which to me is, and to most right-thinking people is absolutely abhorrent. And also the reaction on the left. And there were some people, particularly large influencers, who's what they said was unforgivable.

1:14:25Where did you stand on it? And what were your opinions on the whole incident? I mean, I was, I was shocked. It was horrifying, but uh mainly horrifying because like it's impossible for me not to to have a personal stake in this because i was about to debate charlie in uh in in two weeks like two weeks prior to his assassination uh or two weeks after his assassination we were supposed to be debating at dartmouth college and um and and this was a person that i had uh uh basically uh developed the political career in competition with, if that makes sense. Like I was on the left side, he was on the right side.

1:15:07We debated plenty of times. We debated a politicon. We were very familiar with one another. And seeing that the number one fear that every person that does what I do become reality in real time was shocking. It was devastating. As far as my opinions on it, I mean, I had the misfortune of seeing it in real time happen as I was trying to figure out what had taken place. And we were one of the first media outlets that actually broke the story. Um, and, uh, and my first thought was that this is going to, uh, lead to, uh, even more violence, even more violence in the form of revenge, decentralized violence, and also, uh, that this is going to lead to state repression as well in an effort to, to stamp out, uh, any kind of political discontent or any kind of political dissent, which hasn't fully come to fruition yet, thankfully.

1:16:13But the administration certainly tried to use this as an opportunity to build new guidelines around surveillance and build new surveillance targets in general. The Trump administration has this, they released a memorandum, national security memorandum, that declared the intelligence communities to shift their priorities and attention of surveillance to Antifa, which they had previously declared a domestic terrorist organization, which is not a designation that exists in the United States of America because it is at direct odds with the First Amendment. This is the reason why the KKK is not considered a domestic terror organization.

1:16:55This is the reason why the Proud Boys and the Atomwaffen, which is like a neo-Nazi formation that tries to recruit from the military. None of these guys are, none of these organizations, even if you would normally consider them domestic terror organizations, are actually considered that. So it was a severe violation of the First Amendment. And then the follow-up to the surveillance targets and the surveillance priorities made me even more fearful about where this administration was going, where they declared any sort of anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, anti-American sentiment to be an indication of someone being an extremist, violent terrorist, potentially.

1:17:39But then on top of that, there was even more vague things that they brought up. I think it was like being critical of the American moral family unit or something like that. Basically, it was just the what the Republicans consider what the entirety of the liberal and all the way to, you know, extreme leftists or whatever think about the Republicans was now up for grabs in terms of priority targets for the for the surveillance apparatus. And like I said, we don't know where this is going to go for the time being. It is directly at odds with the First amendment but there have been some instances where people have been uh indicted uh kat abu because i like like i said who's running for office is like one of the first uh high profile uh politicians that have been targeted in this way and uh i i worry that once free speech goes away and once due process goes away in this country we are full tilt fascist but do you i think that's a very valid point.

1:18:46My concern is as well, and it's the rhetoric that is getting ratcheted up on both sides, both on the right, but both on the left. So for instance, I'll give you an example. In my own country, we have Zara Sultana, who's a very prominent left-wing politician. She said the words, we need to fight the fascists in parliament. Okay. And then we need to fight them in the ballot box and we need to fight them in the streets. Now, the problem is if you ask most people what fascism is, I don't think they would be able to give you a clear, coherent explanation or an analysis of the political ideology of fascism.

1:19:18Francis Foster:Well, let's be honest. By fascist, she means people like Reform, who are not fascist. They are a center-right party. They're not fascist. I don't know if I would agree with that. Hold on a second. You think the Reform Party is a fascist? I think the Reform Party, as it stands currently, is a nascent fascist parliamentary group that hasn't reached its full potential yet. Could you define fascism in this instance? In the same way that I would say the modern Republican Party is or was throughout most of its history a liberal party, a far-right but liberal party nonetheless, and it is becoming an illiberal or post-liberal party that is moving in the direction of fascism.

1:20:00Fascism is, what's the best definition for it? paleongenetic ultranationalism, an in-group out-group dynamic that is constantly seeking to destroy the out-group and dominate the out-group, even if the out-group is actually a part of civilized society, and surrounding itself with this mythologized understanding of this national or ethnic or religious mythology of the higher group.

1:20:34Francis Foster:But it would also include authoritarianism, the end of one-party state, like all of these. Not always, but yeah, usually. Usually, yes. So by which of those standards would you say reform is a fascist or neo... I can't remember how you said a nascent fascist party. Well, the reason why I say that is because, I mean, Mussolini's fascist party was not a party that... I mean, Mussolini's fascist party was an active fascist party within the parliament before it became the centralized form of governance. But they said we are fascist, right? But that was because the word fascism was just being invented at that point.

1:21:15And therefore, it was still packaged as like a revolutionary, new, illiberal way. They didn't come into power. We now live in the post-World War II universe where like you can't say that you're fascist.

1:21:26Francis Foster:So you think that if Nigel Farage, which is currently there leading the polls, You think that if he is elected, eventually he will suspend democracy. He will start pogroms against Muslims using the state. He will, you know, have a one party state. You think that's where this is heading? Bearing in mind that the chairman of Reform Party, Siyah Yusuf, is a Muslim. Yeah, still doesn't matter. I mean, there was Jews that worked within the Nazi government. command structure as well. It's just like, there are always going to be people that, that, uh, come from, uh, this, uh, they come from the background of the targeted out group in general.

1:22:04And it doesn't even end with Muslims is what I mean. It's going to, it, it always has to, it always has to excise, uh, what it considers, uh, aberrations. And, uh, there is always like with Nazi Germany, for example, the next stage, if they hadn't failed so dramatically in its endless militarism, would have most likely been to create the ubermensch structure, like the start going after people who were maybe brown haired and didn't have blue eyes. Like it was, there's an endless expansion of that sort.

1:22:41Francis Foster:And you think that's what reform will do? They'll suspend democracy. They'll start a one-party state. I mean, this is super, super in the future if they actually get to that point. But I don't think that it is far-fetched to assume that, yes, reform through a process of, initially, reforms, I could totally see them getting to that position. Yes. What's your basis for saying that? It's entirely dependent on how material conditions unwind. If it gets to a point where there's tremendous economic stability, then instead of solving those issues in the same way that the American movement, the Trump movement is not solving these issues.

1:23:18They will continue to be a force of political repression.

1:23:24Francis Foster:But what's your evidence for this? This is a thing I don't understand. The evidence is the historical patterns that I'm looking at, the historical patterns of why fascism has been implemented in the past. And now, like I said, we live in a post-fascist world. we live in a nuclear world the dynamic is different okay so um fascism will not come as a a third way as a as an outsider any longer i think instead you will see far-right elements within liberal society within the parliamentary structure move in that direction but my worry with this is and this is why i'm not trying to like debate bro you or anything i'm genuinely engaging with what you're saying.

1:24:06Francis Foster:I hope you feel that, right? Yeah. The issue I have in the context of the discussion we're having about Charlie Kirk is you've got a situation where people, you are calling reform fascists. I know some people in reform, they're not fascists. They don't believe in a one-party state. They don't want to end democracy, right? We've had Nigel Farage on our show. It's very clear where he's, he's an old school Thatcherite kind of guy, right? But you're saying he's a fascist. And my worry is... I think he will get there. Okay, you're saying he will get to fascism. Fair. If material conditions get to a point where there's mass instability in an effort to restore...

1:24:45Francis Foster:It's an Asian fascist party that in the right context will become fascist. I get it, right? In the same... Not as similar to the AFD, the nationalists in France... Reform is very different from the AFD, but it doesn't matter. My point is this. If I thought the fascists were coming, I would feel it's my duty to participate in armed resistance against that. And my worry is part of where the political violence is coming from is people like you who are using this term, in my opinion, far too loosely and projecting historical analogies onto people that you're not that familiar with, actually. and then you're really putting a target on their back.

1:25:24Francis Foster:And my worry is the reason Charlie Kirk was killed is there were far too many people calling him a fascist, which he wasn't, right? And that's my concern with all of this irresponsible language, which I think it is. So what's interesting about the utilization of language here is the fact that you can't really point to a single Democratic Party politician that has celebrated Charlie Kirk's death. Sure. But you can actually, in many instances, point to Republican politicians that have made a mockery of the Democratic legislators. And we've had people make that point on the show. You don't need to make it because we've had it.

1:26:03Francis Foster:But you're on the left, and I'm asking you about the left wing of the vote. The reason why I'm saying that is because, like, there are always going to be people on the right and on the left that engage in this kind of commentary as a reflection of how much discontent that they experience But ultimately, if we're talking about... I'm saying you're one of them. You are calling reform fascist. No, no, no, no. That's a totally... First of all, my analysis on the way... Like, calling someone a fascist if they're exhibiting fascist, historic fascist tendencies, is perfectly valid. The consideration that this actually is, like, turning up the temperature as opposed to, like, directly calling for violence against a nascent fascist party as opposed to trying to deal with it through the existing means within the democratic structure is ridiculous.

1:26:54There's no comparison here. Fascist movements, when they were initially forming, albeit in a much more violent time, engaged in street protests and there were counter-protests against it. I am in favor of always exhausting all available options within the confines of liberal democracy. And I think what the problem is, is that a lot of people point to the endpoint of fascism and what they know is the endpoint of fascism and say, well, they have to be dealt with militarily. And the time for that is now. I'm saying the time for that is not here. And I hope that it never gets there so that we can successfully resist against growing fascist movements that are born out of initially distractions or red herrings that put the crosshairs on some of the more vulnerable populations and try to deal with it within the confines, within the existing confines of liberal democracy, and then try to get our politicians to address some of these material problems so that we don't have to exhibit the instability and even potentially a fascist form of governance that comes out of that instability that then at that point will be resisted against militarily through sabotage or through direct acts of war.

1:28:08The issue that I have with your argument, Hassan, is this, is you're saying they're exhibiting on the way to fascism. You can make that argument about Keir Starmer and go, we're on the way to communism. But you laugh, but there are people on the right who say that, right? Do you feel like they're also... But that's not my point. They're putting a crosshair on Keir Starmer when they say that? We don't have the same issues with communism, but I think if you describe people as communists in this country, I think you are putting the crosshairs on people. I really do, because there are people... I mean, I get called a terrorist every day.

1:28:42And I think that's disgusting. That's putting crosshairs on you. And I absolutely vehemently would say that is unacceptable. But my point is, when you use that language of fascism or communists, these are labels that have a very, very real emotional trigger to people. Understandably so. And what you have in this country is, unfortunately, there is a decent swathe of the population who have severe mental illnesses, plus access to guns. And what inevitably happens is it leads to a Charlie Kirk situation. Or it leads to somebody on the left like you, God forbid, happening. Oh, I get a lot of death threats.

1:29:23Don't worry. But I do worry, because it's a sign that a society is in crisis. And I think that it's our responsibility, both people on this side, both people on your side, that we ratchet it down, Hassan. I think that if we're talking about increasing the tension, people in positions of power have a lot more responsibility than random citizens that are, in many instances, reacting to that. In all due respect, we're not random citizens. We've both, successful, we've both got huge platforms. No, no, no. I was just talking about the broader left that you were talking about. They said, oh, they're celebrating Charlie Kirk or whatever.

1:30:03But beyond that, in terms of applying analysis to the actions of any person, Charlie Kirk or Nick Fuentes or whoever, and say that these are people who are implementing a lot of bigoted tendencies, a lot of racist opinions, and moving the American political direction towards fascist governance. I don't think that saying that you shouldn't be able to say that because you're invoking violent sentiment against your political opposition is crazy. I don't mind if people call me a communist. I don't mind if they call me a terrorist. It's not true. And it certainly makes a lot of people very angry and they want to talk to me all the time about how they want to kill me and come to my house and murder me and my family.

1:30:52But it is unfortunately a part of the political discourse. I wish it didn't exist. But having said that, I am never going to stop myself from making accurate assessments and warning people that at this stage, we are at the precipice of something far more dangerous, especially in Western liberal democracy, as liberalism is genuinely failing. And that collapse is most likely going to bring about a lot of fascist governance that will try to restore order in the most militant ways, and it will resemble historic fascist patterns. Hassan, look, firstly, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for entering into the spirit of debate in the way it's intended.

1:31:38Really appreciate it. Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I mean, we did talk quite a bit about the collapse of liberalism around the globe. I guess in this instance, and I can't speak to all the other conversations that you guys have had, we didn't get to talk about Israel too much. And that's something that I wanted to talk about, which has also exhibited historical patterns of fascism in and of itself in a vein that is not dissimilar to what we're seeing in Western liberal democracies as well.

1:32:11Francis Foster:But that's what I want to say. I wish we had more time. Maybe next time we can pick up some other topics. All right. Appreciate your time. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

1:32:21Thank you.