Hasan Piker: Fighting the Democratic Establishment

32:48You look at a lot of the rhetoric in America. I find it interesting how in all of those moments, people who were espousing certain opinions and ideas very quickly like pull down a mask and they go, hey, you know, I know sometimes in this country people get heated. But, you know, we need to. And I'm like, wait, wait, what is happening right now? We need to cool down the temperature. Yeah, but I go, you've said that Donald Trump is the second coming of Hitler. You've said that this man is going to abolish the constitution. On a public platform. You've said these things as a person. Yes. Then something happens.

33:28Someone shoots at Donald Trump and misses. And then you come out the next day and you go, guys, guys, guys. I know that he might be the second coming of Hitler, but he's our president and we have to stand behind. I'm like, do you not see... No, but I'm like, do you not see the inconsistency of what you're doing? And more dangerously, do you not see that you are creating kayfabe. You're creating wrestling with real people's lives. Yeah. And then when you start to get afraid, you go, why are you guys taking it seriously? And so I want to know from you, because you've remained like consistent through it all, do you find it difficult to just like be you when you know that some people are playing a character version of themselves?

34:12uh so i had the almost identical experience that you're describing when i went to the white house uh correspondence dinner weekend activities uh one of the weekends many many years ago when i was at the young turks and they were throwing an event i didn't actually attend the uh the the event itself but i walked into a bar and this is at the peak of like trump one all of a sudden the entire press is there right the press pool is there all these commentary people are there and i think it was kellyanne conway that walked into the bar and the room lit up because everyone was excited anthony scaramucci sean spicer all these people walk in and these liberal uh these liberal commentary people these journalists who have like uh written scathing reports about these people were excited to take photos no yes and this thing this is the thing And that's where I was reminded of, and I hate this guy, obviously, rest in piss, Andrew Breitbart.

35:15But I was reminded of his statement about how DC is Hollywood for ugly people. It's true. I mean, sometimes you can be an asshole, but you can get it right. And he was right about that. It is Hollywood for ugly people where it's, for the most part, the kayfabe is absolutely real. Like these guys see what they're doing as theatrics for the most part. They don't like not to say that all reporters are like this. Obviously not. Yeah. There's some brilliant journalists out there and some great people in the commentary sphere as well. And there are certainly issues that they do care about. Right. Where they are uncompromising, where their true side comes out, their true opinions come out.

35:57But for the most part, everyone in that bubble, in the media bubble is playing a role and they see it as such. and maybe it's uh it's not dissimilar to i guess like having a co-worker that you disagree with vehemently but you know you're chill towards them at the at the water cooler i don't know maybe it's something like that but i don't i don't like that at all because like these are my real opinions i can't lie about who i am because i'm live for eight hours a day seven days a week yeah that's what i was that's what i meant it's impossible for me to put on a persona I can be more buttoned up in moments like this on a podcast where I'm not like, you know, inundated with messages coming in on the side on the chat because like the medium that I occupy is very interactive.

36:45That's what makes it so different. Right. But the issues I talk about are emotionally charged and very personal for a lot of people. Right. It's very polarizing. And it's a it's a perfect disaster to say the least. I mean, it's just you have you're talking about politics eight hours a day, seven days a week. And anyone from all around the world anonymously can come in and try to pick apart what you're saying or piss you off or say something in real time in real time. And many people do take advantage of that. That, in my opinion, creates really productive discourse and can be unproductive. But then on top of that, I have entire groups organized on the internet that sit inside of Discord servers and subreddits that spend a good deal of time watching and logging every single thing that happens on the stream so they can clip something out of context and then disseminate it to a lot of right-wing groups.

37:42And I've noticed that this is something that happens almost exclusively to people on the left. People on the left have to face opposition from the entirety of the right wing, right, from moderate Republicans all the way to neo-Nazis and white nationalists alike. But they also face a lot of opposition from a big chunk of the Democratic Party's commentary base as well. Not necessarily the voters, but certainly from consultant groups, lobbyists, and those invested in maintaining the corporate interests at the center of power in the Democratic Party. and AOC has to deal with this all the time as well Bernie Sanders has to deal with this all the time as well there's this like very different set of standards for people who are bold advocates to to you know make people's lives a little bit better than it actually is people who do believe in that people who are considered radical I guess for American politics not so radical for European politics I mean Bernie Sanders would be the average politician in Norway right his attitude His views, yeah, his ideas.

38:47His views are not radical at all. As a matter of fact, he would probably slot into like a center, maybe even a center-right party in some of these countries, right? Or at least his output. But in America, if you're advancing the interest of Medicare for all, the interest of the people over the interest of corporations and profit, you're seen as this like crazy guy. A lot of people have started referring to you as the Joe Rogan of the left. How do you feel about that? I mean, I have my opinions, but I want to know, because you're the person they're speaking about, you know, what you think about it.

39:20I mean, I think Joe Rogan is a goon. A goon? Yeah. What a funny word. He's just kind of a dumbass. Not a word my friend would use. Goon. That's not me. I'm not a goon. Trevor would never say Joe Rogan is a goon. Trevor would say friend? Yeah. Confidant? Trusted confidant? Yeah. Yeah. Ally? Yeah. Fellow bow hunter? Yeah. yeah yeah yeah exactly elk elk elk elk eating yes yeah yeah um yeah i i mean i don't align with joe rogan on on virtually any issue especially as of late no no no but i think what they what they mean is like saying i'm like reaching out they're saying you are yeah there's this there's a school of thought that says you are what ironically the democrats said they needed after trump one even yeah and then going into like trump's second term trump two yeah trump two i like sequels they went they went like oh you know what you know what's lacking on the left the left doesn't have a joe rogan the left doesn't have a manosphere the left doesn't have a space where there's engaging hard discussion that isn't doesn't have a veneer of cnn on it doesn't have the the lobbyist stench on it it needs and and then they said this is the person hassan paika is the Joe Rogan of the left.

40:41And that's what I mean is like, how do you respond to that? So a couple of things. When they were doing that, they kept coming to me and going, you're the Joe Rogan of the left. What do you think is the problem with the party? And I kept telling him, this is an issue that you can't podcast your way out of. Like, this is a problem. This is a crisis within the ranks of the Democratic Party. It's a messaging problem, but more importantly, it's a policy problem, right? Having a bunch of sponsored or well-funded liberal content creators is probably good to combat some of the misinformation if they're focusing all their efforts on tackling the growth of right-wing independent media that's still firmly committed to the party apparatus as a part of its propaganda machine.

41:28But you're not necessarily going to win elections off of that alone. What needs to change is not the media ecosystem, of the media environment what needs to change is the party um one of the biggest issues with kamala harris was that um she was incapable of defining herself with key policy prescriptions that that people could identify with uh and and instead she was defined by her opposition that's why the kamala harris is for they them ad worked i guess if you ask the democratic party consultants Not because everyone was like viciously transphobic and like primarily invested in like punishing one percent of the American population.

42:11Certainly there's some people who wanted that. But it was because of a lack of clear messaging on key policy issues from the Kamala camp that allowed the opposition to define her. We have to fix that was my argument. And I kept warning over and over again leading up to the election. And certainly after the election, I kept talking about this all the time. They, of course, predictably did not listen. They said, no, you're the Joe Rogan of the left. And then I was like, OK, all right, bet. Sure. I'm going to now also push forward candidates that are bold, that are actually invested in making material changes that will improve people's lives.

42:53Zoran Mamdani was one of them, right? And then they went, no, no, no, not like that. We don't want that actually at all. You're a terrorist actually. Hopefully, Trump, he's right here. This guy, get him. That's what it turned into. We'll be right back after this short break.

43:15Picture this. You're about to take off for a long flight and suddenly you realize the Wi-Fi is out. Ladies and gentlemen, the Wi-Fi is not working. You've already seen most of the in-flight movies. And the book you brought feels more like homework than pleasure. This, my friends, is when you'll love having YouTube Premium. Downloading videos before a flight is a must. You can be sitting 30 ,000 feet in the air, halfway through a fascinating interview, a travel documentary, or a cooking series you've somehow become emotionally invested in. No Wi-Fi? No problem. You also get ad-free viewing and background play So if you need to shut off your screen to rest your eyes Or devote your attention to eating those little Biscoff cookies without getting crumbs everywhere You can still keep listening to your content And honestly, a long flight might be my favorite time to have YouTube Premium Because suddenly, you have something you almost never have on the ground Hours to yourself So before a flight, you can almost build your own entertainment system Maybe there's an interview you've been saving because it's two hours long a documentary somebody told you about, a live performance you never got around to watching, something completely random you've always wanted to understand.

44:26That's the fun of it. You get on the plane with this little world you've chosen for yourself, and for the next few hours, you can go wherever your curiosity takes you. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com slash premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. How do you want to split it? Actually, dinner's on me. Okay, big money. Well, I got a Venmo balance that I can spend with my Venmo debit Mastercard, so. Well, I Venmo'd you three times last week, so it's kind of on me, actually. Yeah, you send it, I spend it. Did my money get, like, reincarnated?

45:00Yeah, it was chicken shawarma. Want it back? I can't believe you, like, ate my Venmo. Spend your balance instantly with the Venmo debit card. No monthly fee or minimum balance. Venmo balance account required to get a card and use a balance. The Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior.

45:37So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

45:52There are a ton of articles written about you, as you're saying, from the left, just about like how this guy's the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party. And this guy is, you are destabilizing what doesn't need to be more destabilized. You know, it's funny. I actually want to know what you think. I'm torn on the Kamala and Hillary thing because we are unable to run multiple simulations of our lives, or at least like we don't know if we can. We always say that Hillary lost because of her messaging, blah, blah, blah. We say that Kamala Harris lost because of her messaging, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

46:28I sometimes think we take for granted the fact that they were both women. And I don't know how much you lose by being a woman running for president. America has never had a woman president. radical misogynist no you can because I'm so don't run women this is how we get the clicks no but what I'm saying is what I'm saying is this right Donald Trump lost an election who did he lose to? a man no no stick with me on this right an old man who had never beaten anyone in any major election yeah or fistfight well you don't know that I agree but you don't know Apparently he was what? You know, he did a lot for South Africa's liberation.

47:12Who? Joe Biden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fully. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, fully, apparently. Apparently, like, back in the day, he was... No, no, really. No. No, really? He lied about getting arrested, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he lied about that. That's separate. And yes, no, he was actually anti-apartheid. This is true. Yes, yes, yes. Which was a big step when a lot of people were not. Which was very strange because he was also radically in opposition to desegregation in the United States of America. And even at the same time that he was like anti-apartheid in South Africa, he literally was, you know, co-sponsoring bills alongside Strom Thurmond.

47:49Yes, but why is this guy indefensible? I'm trying so hard. Sleepy Joe. But he was against apartheid. And also at the same time he was against South African apartheid. He was very much in favor of Israel, which, again, another contradiction. Yeah, but you know what's interesting about that? I don't know if you've ever seen the interviews of Nelson Mandela when he comes to the United States just after he's been released from prison. Yeah. And he's like free. The version of him that I call AM. What's that? Angry Mandela. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When he wasn't taking any nonsense. He wasn't taking any nonsense.

48:25And then they like ask him. They go like, so Mr. Mandela, you know, we've got enemies with Israel and why won't you team up with... And he was like, the freedom of the Palestinian people. and he goes in hard and he's like i will never support their freedom and they're like but you're our ally you know he's like just because your enemies are not my enemies yeah your enemies i believe in the front and he goes in hard and you can see they're like ah my man it's also about che Guevara too because they were like they were hitting him on fidel castro and it's like yeah i feel like you're you're oblivious to the amount of effort and manpower uh expended by the Cuban government at a time when they didn't have too much.

49:05They had nothing. They had nothing and they spent so much trying to liberate Africa. And of course, there's going to be some shared resentment against Western colonialism. And why would he turn around and betray other people going through similar plights? Yeah. But what I was saying about, just so we're on the same page, is I sometimes wonder if, I'm sure there's a term for this. We will answer our question based on the results as opposed to actually looking at what happened because we can't know, right? So with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, we'll say they lost because. But if Donald Trump had lost that first election, we would have gone, Hillary ran the right campaign and of course donald trump was going to lose when donald trump lost in 2020 it seemed obvious like well of course he was going to look at all the dumb things he was saying drink bleach of course he's going to lose then when he wins in the next election he didn't really change anything yeah and then and then he wins in that one and i honestly find myself i just i just have to find i have to ask myself the question i have to go how many percentage points come from people in America who are just not willing to vote for a woman.

50:21Just like how many people out there go, I don't think, because I would read this and I would see people saying, I just don't think a woman can run the country. I'm all for women, but I just don't know that a woman can be trusted to run the country. And men and women alike saying this, by the way, spread out over the country. What do you think? Even if it's three percentage points. No, bro, what do you mean? What do I think? Yeah. Can a woman run the country? Can a woman run the country? Oh, man. Any time. Any day. Let me put it this way, Eugene. Yeah. I'm even going to go a step further, my friend.

50:50I'm even going to go a step further, my friend. He's going a step further. Let me say this, my man. In a world where we have lived through multiple world wars and famines and civil wars, and in that world, that's not the time to say, can women do this or not? Does that make sense? 100%. If our plane was flying... You're saying men ruined it already. I was saying, if our plane was flying with no turbulence, no crashes, no disasters at all, if our airline, as men, was running flawlessly. Then I'd be like, ladies, ladies, take a back seat. This is not the time for you to be flying this thing. We got it.

51:24The fellas got it. But I'm just saying, the way the fellas have been handling things. The fellas don't got it? Right now, how much are you paying for gas? That's the fellas. I don't see any women involved in those negotiations. Invasions? I'm just saying. Fellas. So, I'm not saying the women would be better. I'm not saying that. You're not saying they'll be better? I'm just saying that. They'll be okay. We should not act like the thing that is happening now is the one. Wait, but sending out one lady to go against many fellas that are out there running countries and starting wars and conflicts.

51:58You know who was one of the most effective? Do you think that woman would have been a chance? Margaret Thatcher? Angela Merkel. Oh, God. Angela Merkel was one of the most effective in that. Now, she's not perfect by any means, but I still have yet to meet a perfect president. I'm going to put it out there. Yeah, I am diametrically opposed to all of these conversations. I say no women. No, I'm kidding. You're a damn, I'm like, you're a dead baby! I think... We got him! It's a wrap. I go back to Barack Obama. I think in the United States of America, hatred for women is definitely a real thing. We live in a patriarchal society, but we also live in a very anti-black society.

52:40So when you're a young black man whose middle name is Hussein, and you're running, there's going to be hurdles that you have to climb. Yes. And you can overcome those hurdles. My problem with Kamala Harris was that she recognized, she understood that there were hurdles. She's a black woman running against a white supremacist like Donald Trump. But she didn't have the campaign and the platform that would actually convince people that this was someone to vote for. I completely agree with you there. So I don't discount the notion that people who are not old white guys are going to have a harder go at it.

53:21That's certainly true. But I think they can overcome that with good policies. And if you want, you can have an old white guy as well, Bernie Sanders. He had the good policies. People loved him. Yeah. I think in every poll, and I stand to be corrected because there are many polls, I know this, but in most polls where he was up against Trump, he won. Yeah. Yeah. And Trump knew that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. Every time they asked people Bernie versus Trump, Bernie would win. Yeah. Now, people will say, oh, well, Hillary Clinton would have won in those polls too, which is true. But I think what the people were looking for at that point and are still looking for really was an anti-establishment candidate.

54:01Someone because they came at it with the recognition that the system wasn't working for them. Right. In all of the different parts of the country that are forgotten, whether it's West Virginia or Gary, Indiana. Yeah. There are a lot of people who are suffering. And it felt like neither the establishment Republicans nor the establishment Democrats were actually focusing on their economic hardships. They only offered sometimes lip service to it, but never any like bold radical changes. So when Trump comes in like a wrecking ball and ritualistically humiliates the establishment Republicans and is seen as like a heterodox Republican who, ironically enough, in 2016 was actually running as a moderate.

54:41A lot of people forget this. he was pro-trans in 2016. He was anti-war. He was anti-war, pro-trans. Even when he said about guns, he was like, there's too many of them, to be honest. You didn't say it like that. Okay, the way he said it, he was like, and I mean, my sons love them. They love the guns. To be honest, I'm a little uncomfortable. A little uncomfortable with how many they have. But I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, we leave it up to the States. But if I had my way, we'd have a few, fewer of them. But I mean, we'll see. We'll see. That's how he said it. Yeah. Clip that one. He knows how to do it really well because they talk.

55:17They're always talking. They're always conversing. But you see, whenever I listen to how Trevor views American politics, and I obviously watch some of your content and I hear you speaking, from an outsider's point of view, I think to myself, You're like, why is Trevor not more like Hassan? Exactly. That's what I think. I'm like when we look outside whenever we hear America doing something to another country it's because apparently that country's leader does not respect democracy so when I look at your guys' Ndabas which is news I go surely you guys voted for this situation and you spend 8 hours a day every day talking about this kind of stuff you're arguably in the coalface of what people really want and you get to hear unfiltered what people want So from an outsider, isn't that what America voted for?

56:12And for you being in there, what do people want now? I think most people don't really know what they want. And there is a very sophisticated influence peddling operation that is actively subverting democracy. So it's not a secret that Americans are not the most educated. They don't have a lot of political education. They don't have a profound understanding of history. and I think that's by design as well. I mean, our institutions are crippled, public education, public schooling in general and I think that's deliberate, especially since the Reagan era. But outside of that, most people are just kind of operating off of vibes.

56:52Most people are not voting. The plurality is usually not voting, right? But out of the people that are voting and there's a multitude of factors for that. There's the electoral college and the fact that you vote not on a federal holiday but on a work day on a tuesday that's these are hurdles specific hurdles designed to stop certain people from voting and so most people need a buy-in they they they need something to motivate them to go out and vote and if the democratic party's uh modus operandi is to say look the other side is so much worse than us come on just vote for us who are we gonna vote for nobody come on and then most people go all right bet i'll vote for nobody neither party is uh representing my interests and i don't really care it doesn't really matter i have to go back to work every morning i have to focus on my life i have to go and deliver uber uh why do i care about whether it's a democrat or republican ruining my life but most people rate the party as the national democratic party and the national republican party and they look at the output and and they grade the national democratic party off of its weakest uh individuals off of its weakest members there's a concept called the rotating villain within the democratic party's infrastructure where there's always a vote that will spoil a radical agenda that a democrat runs on this happened with joe biden it was joe manchin and kyrsten sinema that uh that undermined build back better the ira and and watered it down tremendously is this a formal thing you're saying or are you saying it just you notice that's that's what we that's what we call it in i guess poli sci and that's okay You know, that's what people in the commentary are called.

58:32So it's one person within the Democratic Party. Not one. Usually there's always a, depending, if there's six people. Okay, but they are the rotating. So they go like, okay, you guys are going to be the villains for this run. Yeah. You're going to vote against everything that is progressive that the people want. But then we all get to say we voted for it. And then you guys get, you'll be the bad guys for this run. Yeah, yeah. And just make sure it doesn't happen. Like outbound, outbound congresspersons that are not running for re-election, that are retiring. Jared Golden is one of those guys right now.

59:01And he was the lone voice that voted against the War Powers Resolution. And there's always a guy, Joe Lieberman, under the Barack Obama coalition, was the sole vote that stopped the public option from being advanced, which would have been radical change in this country. Is this happening on the Republican side as well as much? No. The Republicans, I think, are much better at whipping votes because they're... not necessarily because they're more organized, but because they can be open about being pro-corporation. Like that's their whole thing. Whereas the Democrats, on the other hand, run against corporations, but when they're legislating, they still have to be very cognizant of the corporate investors, the real benefactors, the corporate benefactors.

59:47And any Democratic Party initiative that they advance will actually harm one sector's investment or one sector's interest in profit. So they can't really do that. Because if they were to advance Medicare for all, let's take that for one policy that is unbelievably popular. Every other OECD nation has one form of socialized health care except for us. There's reporting on this. I believe it's up to 48 ,000 people every year that die because they don't have access to health care in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Like they they could just go to the they could go to their primary care physicians and like figure out what's wrong with them ahead of time or, you know, get the necessary help.

1:00:32Yeah. I mean, it's a Yale study. I think the numbers might even be higher than that. I find it unbelievable as well. It's just ridiculous number. Right. so um people want this why don't the democrats advocate for it why do the democrats actually actively push back against it as joe biden did in the 2020 primaries in the 2019 primaries when bernie was the medicare for all candidate joe biden came out he's like oh i want the public option jack never talked about it again by the way that's a great joe biden jack at the end that was a great joe biden yeah that was actually good so yeah yeah it's because me and him talk on the phone yeah but but he he ran in opposition to medicare for all and and he didn't have any investment in actually pushing for the public option at all he never talked about it once he actually became the candidate he stopped talking about the public option altogether he never brought it up um he never pushed for it that was designed specifically to tackle medicare for all in its popularity and the reason why the democrats do this is because aetna blue cross blue shield and all of these for-profit health care providers are massive investors in the democratic party they fund they fundraise for all these candidates so of course they don't care about the population like the politicians that win their raises they don't care about you know fixing this massive crisis in this country.

1:02:01They care about managing the crisis and they care about doing PR for the crisis and they care about winning reelection and maintaining the current system, no matter how cruel it is. And that's just how it works. So that's also part of the reason why I go back to how frustrated a lot of these think tanks are about me and have been writing extensively about the dangers that I present for the Democratic Party, because now I've moved on from just talking about how shit the Democrats are to actually working with other on the ground groups and organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America and numerous other orgs to actually run candidates that are pro Medicare for all, that are uncompromising on the issue of Israel, where they're like, I'm an anti-Zionist.

1:02:46Why are we giving unlimited bombs to this country that's doing war crimes, that's doing a genocide? And that's a very frustrating reality for the Democrats because the more Zoran Mamdani's that they see all around the country pop up, and the more grassroots momentum that these people have, the more people are going to look at that and go, wait a minute, you said Zoran was going to be incompetent. You said he was going to be a scary commie. Yep, and yet the budget is balanced. Yeah, budget's balanced. He's one of the best mayors that New York has had. It's just, every time I come here, it feels like I'm entering an alternative universe where things are working somehow.

1:03:25It's ridiculous. Like we're watching from afar a totally different reality in New York City, totally different vibes. Why can't we have that? And once people start asking that question, once people start believing that the government can help and the government should help. Yes. Once they have more confidence in good governance and once they associate that confidence with democratic socialism, socialism, communism, all of a sudden people are going to want that. And we've seen that in the polls as well. We've seen that in the membership with the DSA, which crossed the threshold of 100 ,000 paid members.

1:03:59It's a very significant number. And we've certainly seen that with the approval ratings for democratic socialism in general, where I believe it's like in certain polls, it's like either the plurality or the majority of Democrats say they have sympathies for democratic socialism or even self-identify around like 44%. percent self-identify as democratic socialists within the democratic party. So when you look at the young people in those worlds and specific, because I'm assuming your audience skews young just because of streaming, this is an assumption that I have like on that platform specifically.

1:04:33Yeah, definitely. Because I know on YouTube, you've got a different viewership, you know, you're on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think the Democratic establishment is missing about how young people are viewing all of this right now? Because you're speaking to young people and young people are watching you in a very specific way. What are they missing? What are they missing that the Republicans don't seem to be missing, I should say? Because on the Republican side, it seems like they've got their young men on lock. Yeah. Well, they have a different crisis or a similar crisis on the Republican side as well for youth vote and youth turnout.

1:05:06Oh, no. Share. Share. And it's actually Israel. because uh that has become the lightning rod yeah yeah uh i believe it's 54 percent of republicans under the age of 55 have a negative opinion of israel that is a crisis yeah for the state that is a crisis for the republican party that wants to maintain unlimited loyalty to israel and that's certainly a crisis for israel in general that cannot exist especially in the violent ways that it currently does in the maintenance of an apartheid in in constant territorial expansion without unlimited support from the United States of America and the rest of the Western world and without the political cover that America offers as the hegemon.

1:05:44So that's a huge problem. If they lose the Republicans, it's over. Okay, Israel's done. That's going to be clipped. What you mean is the way it's currently existing. You know clips, bro. This guy's clipping. Clip that one. Clip him saying clip. Don't clip. Clip him saying clip. Clip yourself clipping that. Clip, clip him. Clip, clip him. I've said way worse things about Israel than that. Trust me. And it drives people crazy. It drives, like, the pro-Israel advocacy groups crazy, where they're like, why won't people see that he's a dangerous radical terrorist? Like, I go to the Vanity Fair Oscars party, and they're like, why is he allowed to be there?

1:06:24He shouldn't be allowed in mainstream circles. It's like Jonathan Greenblatt and his bald head being like, it should have been me at the Vanity Fair party. Yeah. It's so funny. Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. So you think on the right, that's the lightning rod? That's the lightning rod for sure. On the left, what is shifting? Why are we seeing a Zoran? Why are we seeing election results like we're seeing? Because I mean, there's a few that we're seeing now where it looks like there's a shift that's happening. Do you think it's a ripple or do you think it's going to be a wave? I think it's going to be a wave.

1:06:59I mean, they're trying to stop it for sure. They are doing everything they can to stop this momentum, to stop this insurgent campaigning that's taking place all around the country right now. How do you think the messaging has, or what do you think is going right in the messaging? Because a few years ago, when you said the word socialist in any way, the first thing most Americans would say is, those are the people who come and take your money. You can't own anything. You can't work towards anything. There's no point in having a job. You can't build wealth. You can't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:07:35That used to be almost across the board, what people would say, right now to your point whether it's polling whether it's online conversations where it seems like people are shifting but there's there's there's two interesting sides to it there's one where people are going that's not what socialism is or democratic socialism and then there's another side going let them take all the money and let them you know where they're going i i still think it's that but i'm actually happy i want them to take everything away and they want them to so like what do you think is resonating about that message specifically i think it's the it's the contradictions they're worsening and they're becoming more apparent and people are cognizant of the reality that they experience pain and they understandably blame the system for it so they go this is not working for me i need an alternative and this alternative seems fine i mean i'm i'm willing to try this out even in a country as propagandized at the heart of empire the country that won the Cold War, the country that is the defender of, the ultimate defender of capitalism, has destroyed the living standards of its own citizens to such a degree that they go, you know, I don't believe the Red Scare propaganda, actually.

1:08:47Or even if I do believe it, I like it, like you said. That's because people are suffering and they want an alternative. And in some ways, that's what Donald Trump did in both 2016 and then when those wounds were not healed or addressed after four years of Biden. And the only thing people remember from the Biden administration was negative real wage growth for one and a half years as a lot of these economists, and they're still doing this, by the way, kept saying, well, this is a vibe session, actually. Things are great on the economy front. What are you guys complaining about? I mean I have where do you get these terms vibe session you're making us sound old no no no that's what they said that's what they said yeah because what they said was it's really interesting how they phrase this right what they try and do is especially the people who run like media in the biggest way what they do is they'll try and tell you as people on the ground that what you're experiencing is not real yeah these are your feelings the economy is doing better than ever yeah you have no idea what we're doing in the background yeah but working towards no but they even go like Your life is better, even though you don't think your life is better.

1:09:55Your life is better. Yeah. But what's really sinister? It's exactly. It's gaslighting and it's sinister. You know why? Because they talk about the economy like everyone is an equal participant in it. Yeah. No. That's one of the smartest things they do is they talk about the economy. Look at the GDP. Look at the economy. Look at the stock market. The stock market has never been better. But it's like, guys, if Jeff Bezos gets into a bus with all of us, the GDP of that bus has gone up dramatically. The value of that bus has gone up. But you know, we do not have that money. You can say this bus is doing well, and that is technically true.

1:10:34But if one person gets off that bus, the bus is broke now. And the ones that are in the bus are benefiting. But now, no, they're not even benefiting. Not even? No, because the people in the country are on the bus, right? And they're going, you're doing well. Look how much money is in this bus. And people are like, yeah, but it costs me 30 % more to go and buy ground beef before I go do a barbecue. It's costing me like 20, 30 % more for my gas. It's costing me 20, 30 % more. My wages are not keeping up. My cost of living is going up. But apparently, we're having a good time. It's like, no, the country, yes, the bus is technically doing well.

1:11:11Yes. Because of a few passengers who are doing well. Yes. But the passengers - Not doing well. Are not actually doing well. And so that, to your point, it becomes like this gaslighting feeling where they go, no, no, no, they can't. They go like, no, no, no, it's a vibe session. You guys - I love that word. It's not a recession. The numbers are not bad. Your vibes are bad. You need to change yourself. Yeah. And that was obviously, yeah, that was incredibly frustrating for people to see. That's crazy. It's one of the things I brought up in the lead up to the 2024 election over and over again, where it was like, well, the economy is rebounding, which is true.

1:11:45It was right. But what I kept repeatedly explaining to people or trying to was, well, in 2016, Trump won and the economy was seemingly on a much more positive trajectory than it was in 2024. And clearly people were suffering enough back then that they thought, I'm going to vote for this crazy guy. Right. And they don't read it as that. They think, oh, it's got to be all these different reasons. And sometimes those different reasons are true. You know, white supremacy is powerful force. Obviously, misogyny is a powerful force. But at the end of the day, those hurdles are climbable. Those hurdles can be destroyed if you have a candidate that can communicate honestly and come across as earnest in defense of the people over the interests of corporations.

1:12:28Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing I've noticed. And I think people are noticing en masse. Whether you are for or against the Republican Party, I mean, now really, it's the Donald Trump party because it's not it's not what it was as a machine before it is the donald trump party yeah it does what it says in many ways there's many things where it doesn't but it like so you know they go like oh but he didn't build a wall it's like yeah but he sort of did he didn't build the physical wall but he built a wall if you're honest if you look at like the visas the bans yeah how few people actually can come into america now how few people can get jobs deported he built the wall you know you go like oh no i'm gonna shut this down he did trade wars etc etc he's sort of doing the thing whether it's good for the country or not is a separate conversation because you look at your bank balance and ask yourself not you but then on the other side it feels like the Democrats Donald Trump comes in and opens up a toolbox of government and then the Democrats come in and they go we don't really have any tools it's like that guy's got hammers he's got screwdrivers he can build or dismantle anything And then every time the Democrats get power, they go, yeah, let's just keep it the way it is.

1:13:42And let's be grateful that it still exists. Or let's balance the budget. Oh, yeah. It's always, it's never something radical. It's never something that's going to change people's lives. Exactly. And even when they do actually make necessary changes, like the ACA was a profound achievement altogether. It wasn't bold enough. It wasn't brave enough. The public option should have been passed as well. um but even then in the process of of passing the uh the affordable care act republicans never were going to caucus the democrats on this issue and they attacked it over and over again and they took advantage of the gridlock that they were creating where the democrats could have just advanced it they could have they had the numbers they could have advanced they could have been like fuck off right but they allowed this gridlock to take place where republicans used that that time on the clock where they were running out the clock which gridlock is something that most americans hate donald trump doesn't ever do that yeah he doesn't notice that's what i mean nope we're doing this and i'm going to do an executive order if necessary and then you're going to have to work backwards yeah so so um obviously uh there was a reluctance to to you know break things uh with this is this rapid uh successive attacks against the republicans they didn't do that um but in that process the republicans had an opportunity to lie about what the aca was they said it was death panels death panels yeah they said um obviously one of the most radical uh propositions in the affordable care act obamacare was uh the the uh provision that insurance companies private health care providers would no longer be able to deny coverage to people for pre-existing conditions.

1:15:22Now, that is such an inhumane concept. And it's so insane because we live in the post-Obamacur world where healthcare companies can't do that, that people don't believe that that was the norm. And people don't believe that Republicans, some of which are still in office, were actively advocating against that. It's such an inhumane thing. It's a normal part of Republican policymaking that that most Republicans, there's a poll on this. Republican voters don't believe the actual impact of the Republican legislative agenda when they're asked about it, where they'll go, OK, you want to vote for Republicans.

1:16:03Republicans are against abortion. Abortion is murder. They're like, yes, I'm against abortion. Abortion is murder. So when they actually are faced with the impact and we saw this happen in the lead up to the 2024 election when they recognize oh my god uh if we you know ban abortions then my daughter might not be able to get a an emergency uh abortion to take care of an ectopic pregnancy this is now a real crisis a real health care crisis they change their tune real quick um so they don't even believe how violent their legislative agenda is that they're pushing that they're uh that they're advancing, the Republican voters.

1:16:39And that is a real problem. The other problem is it's much easier to break things, especially if you are directionally on the side of capital. If you're a capitalist, if you're openly on the side of corporations, as Republicans are, it's much easier to move in that direction. Democrats, on the other hand, have a base that is, in some ways, maybe not a card-carrying communist or whatever, but anti-capitalist in certain instances like they are against profit seeking from corporations. If you want regulations like environmental regulations to protect certain natural resources like the water supply, all of a sudden you're harming the profits of DuPont.

1:17:23DuPont just wants to dump chemicals and whatever they want off of their factories directly into the water supply and dilute the water supply with toxic pollutants that's very profitable for them to do so now the democrats all of a sudden have to punish duPont republicans never have to do that republicans are never going to punish duPont they say no it's great uh they say they say it'll figure itself out most of the time it'll figure itself out or they do this thing where they're like transgender people and then they walk the other direction right like they'll be like oh duPont chemical okay have you thought about trans people existing isn't that weird and fucked up and then everyone's like yeah actually that's right transgender people do exist and i fucking hate that you could the smartest thing you can do to distract people from a real issue is to bring up an issue that doesn't actually affect their real lives their daily lives but is easier to grasp and and dispute or argue yeah because it's just it's just what is the chemist how much should a company be able to dispose or where should they dispose or how should they what are the classes of different chemicals and how far is a river from a residential place.

1:18:30How many people are they employing? What is toxicity? How do we measure toxicity? Has anyone died from it? Yeah. When do we measure the death? Or is it related? Is it a cause? All of these things are difficult. You know what's easy? Going, is this person a man or woman and should they be in my bathroom? That's like an easy thing. But it feels like, and this is actually why I want to get back to it from like your side. The political side, you know, for lack of a better term, it feels like it's metastasized in America. But the world you're in feels like it's fledgling. It feels like something's changing.

1:19:04It feels like something is growing. Like I want to tap into that world and understand a little bit more about it. Like why streaming? You could have done anything else online, but why streaming in particular? Well, when I started streaming, i feel like it was different overall we didn't have the claviculars of the world right i mean there were different versions of that even before my time but they were nowhere near as popular it hadn't reached like mass popularity i think it was ninja that like did the drake collab of right night and that's when people are like whoa what is this what is the sector what is going on here and people started paying attention to it um but at that point most people were just playing video games i came in and i was like i'm not gonna play video games i'm not very good at video games i I mean, I did play video games initially, but I was like, I want to do political commentary while I play video games and then stop playing video games altogether and just do political commentary.

1:20:01So that was my evolution. And the reason why I did that - What games were you playing when you started? Fortnite. Oh, okay. And then, you know, horror games that people love. I was playing Hunger Games. Yeah. I didn't know what you were like - No, okay. So you were - Were you a gamer? Yeah. And I still play video games when I have time. sometimes but when do you have time we watch you you're on eight hours a day no no i play on i play on stream or sometimes okay so you still play on yeah i still every now and then play play games on stream but uh nowhere near to the same degree i used to because at the time i was at the young turks i wanted to place uh the community of my own i didn't want to just like work for someone i was like i should have something on the side for myself like something more creative and i also wanted to practice off the cuff speech because everything that i had done prior to that was all pre-scripted i would write my own scripts i would turn them into articles for huffington post um i was doing that and i was getting better at it but i was really bad at uh off the cuff commentary and i guess you know it's been eight years now it probably worked as i never seemed to shut the fuck up weren't you worried about like making mistakes weren't you worried or do you embrace that in the you know because it's live it's happening in the moment yeah no it was definitely harrowing at first it was definitely terrifying like putting up a stat for instance you know if you're wrong you go 40 percent of and it's like oh it was actually 20 percent and it's it's not that and it was actually people under the age of 50 not people under the age of 15 and people you know what i mean yeah that happens from time to time but it's okay i mean i'm a human being and And when that does happen, I correct it.

1:21:40Usually chat is also very on it. Yeah. Where they'll be like, oh, you got this stat wrong. I like that. So there is definitely that. But I have completely dropped that fear. You can't have that fear if you're going to be a live broadcaster, a Twitch streamer. And when you're doing this, how do you strike the balance between inflaming tensions and inspiring and mobilizing people? um i mean you got to do a bit of both i think that's a it's a real problem with the democratic party is that they don't identify enemies they try to get along with everybody else in their commentary and i think it's good to just say like no billionaires are bad you know sometimes they could be all right like steyer is probably one of the better candidates in the california governor's race but um you know democrats are too afraid to identify who is actually creating problems in society that many workers can feel.

1:22:36So then do you think things are as bad as they are in America because the Republicans govern the way they govern or do you think it's gotten that way because Democrats are so feckless that Republicans can't govern? I don't even think it's the duopoly. I think the duopoly is a normal part of the process. Look, I'm a socialist. I think it's capitalism. I think that is the real - You think that's the fundamental issue? 100 percent i think that like at its root we have two liberal parties one is actually now turning into an illiberal party one is turning into a fascist party as as fascism rose a hundred years ago when liberalism was failing right uh liberalism is in crisis liberal capitalist democracy is not working for a lot of people and they're looking for alternatives and reactionaries are taking advantage of that crisis by uh reasserting dominance and control in the same exact way that adolf hitler did same exact way that mussolini did when fascism was first being implemented in europe uh as this revolutionary movement that would counter the nefarious forces of socialism communism and trade unionism because that if if uh if left to their own devices if they were successful would truly disrupt the the hierarchy of capital and that's why these movements these fashion movements were able to go to small businesses petite bourgeois and also you know, these industrialist, capitalists, and gain a lot of allegiances from these groups.

1:24:04And they were able to get liberals to concede as well. And that's how they reasserted dominance. So I hear what you're saying, but I think some people might hear that and go, so are you saying that we then go to communism? And I don't think that's what you're saying, if I hear you correctly. I mean, look, I say I'm not a communist, but people call me that. And I don't have any problems with communism. I think it's a decent endpoint. You know, classless, moneyless, borderless society. Star Trek universe. Whenever I say that, people go, how could he even mention this? But I feel like if you think about it, I don't think that's a bad way to live.

1:24:41If it was implemented, so this is where I struggle with it as I go. we oftentimes will judge a system based on the examples that we have of it even if those examples are not accurate does that make sense so when so there's been there's been many attempts and a lot of that has led to failure for a multitude of different reasons there's mismanagement being one of the biggest sometimes we have to ignore we always have to acknowledge the interference yeah because when people will talk about capitalism they will always espouse it's like a students oh but look at this and look at this and that is correct but when people will talk about socialism you know communism may be more is a harder one because i i have yet to see an example of communism that wasn't interfered with or sabotaged so i don't i don't know personally well but even in spite of that sabotage there is one successful example of or a couple successful examples of countries that are run by communist parties yeah um it's obviously not uh at its end stage or anything like that but china is is run by a communist party vietnam cuba also run by a communist party now obviously there's varying degrees of successes here and varying degrees of failure successes in comparison to like their starting point right or uh at their in their heyday right like the cuban uh the cuban revolution was unbelievably successful and that's precisely the reason why the American government sought to punish them endlessly.

1:26:09And they were only able to survive throughout that process because the USSR came in and was like, we're going to put our nukes here. Did you get a subpoena about Cuba? I have not received it yet. I only heard about a subpoena being delivered to me from Fox News. Wait, what? But I haven't gotten it. No, you can't be serious. So you haven't received anything. No. But all the news is saying that you have received something. it goes beyond that they are claiming that i'm a subversive uh i am a foreign agent that hasn't registered with farah uh and it's really funny because like like i'm pretty open about my ideology like i'm a socialist and i think we should not kill the the cuban population i we're we've been starving them for 60 years i think it's unbelievable it's heinous a war crime and we should stop that and then they go oh he must be getting paid by the cuban government to say this and it's really funny because it's like with what money they're broke they have no money cigars like they don't have anything i mean i guess they have cigars i don't know i i didn't even i didn't even get to uh experience that when i was there but how long were you there for i was there for two days and i just you back-to-back interviews we were there on a humanitarian aid mission with Progressive International, Code Pink, and with like 600 delegates, politicians.

1:27:32Corbyn was there, numerous other people, and journalists as well. And I got a journalism visa on top of the humanitarian aid mission that we were accomplishing. So it's doubly messed up that the admin is coming after me. Yeah, because you see the story, even now the way you told it, the story doesn't, it makes it seem like you and one other person went to Cuba because you were paid by an organization there. The two of you, only two people. Madea Benjamin, the founder of Copank. Yeah, it's just the two of you. You went there and then you conspired with their group, state-sponsored mission. And they were like, hey man, here's some money, Hasan.

1:28:08We need you to do this to America. And then you were like, all right, I'm heading back now. Remember when earlier we were talking about how they were like, oh, have you ever communicated with like a member of Hamas or anything like that? So Cuba's technically considered a state sponsor of terror. But of course, I've communicated with members of the Cuban government. I interviewed them on camera. Carlos Cosio is literally the vice foreign minister. And I interviewed him for my documentary. So it's not only not illegal, but it's been out there for months. So they're like, oh, but what if that's what if we decided that that was illegal?

1:28:42You know, a lot of this conversation revolves around people's stupidity and people's lack of understanding of how things work where they'll describe this is something i talk about with conservatives all the time they describe something uh as though it's nefarious they do this all the time they rely on people's lack of uh understanding of complex subjects or even sometimes simple subjects where uh one example i always use is transgender surgeries they describe this process as like gruesome mutilation where they're like oh the doctors come in with a hacksaw and like they cut off body parts and all this stuff and it's like yeah that's just every type of surgery you're just describing like can you imagine if you were like well open heart surgery they come in with a hammer and a pick and they just like open up your chest and they have like a what are the jaws of life they like rip your your they rip your cage open they split you in two and they yeah yeah they cut you up imagine if you were like i hate open heart surgery because it scares me it's like we no one should be able to get an open heart surgery it scares me but that's how republicans operate on a lot of issues and that's kind of what they're doing right now with the story.

1:29:44Not only did this subpoena not even arrive, let's say it's happening, right? And I've described it in great detail to my audience. I've talked about my experiences in Cuba. I did a documentary on it, all this stuff, right? They'll take pieces of my commentary and be like, he's leaking all the secrets. He's leaking the pay structure that exists. And it's like, no, that's not everything that I'm mentioning is like publicly available information that you can find on wikipedia but because people are so stupid and and they're so ready to to think that this is some sort of like sinister operation they go oh my god he's already turned uh you know state witness yeah yeah oh he's so stupid for snitching before he even talks to his lawyers what an idiot and it's like or maybe nothing that i'm saying is illegal have you thought about that but i think we live in a world now where the accusation is more powerful than oh yeah than the prosecution Oh, yeah.

1:30:42Prosecutions don't matter anymore. Yeah. If you think about it in the world we live in, because the swell of what happens in media and online is so big. It used to be the same with a newspaper. Front page, this person has done this. Many months later, retraction, actually they didn't, or a small little article in the corner. Now, in that world, it was bad enough because it was front page versus page four, slight retraction, or just an update on the story. now it's the whole internet. Yeah. It's TikTok, it's Instagram, it's Facebook, it's Google search results, web pages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

1:31:21And with AI? Massive, and it just gets like, yeah, it just gets amplified and blown up and amplified and blown up. By the time it's verified, it's finished, really. And there's also a lot of biases that people have where they constantly are seeking out confirmation bias. Yeah. And they want to confirm their priors no matter what. So like, I'll give you one example. One of the most common things that I receive from people is, criticisms that I receive from people is like, oh, you're a socialist, but you're wealthy, right? And it's true. I am very successful. I'm very fortunate, right? But it's not at odds with my worldview in any way, shape, or form.

1:32:01It's at odds with how you perceive my worldview, right? I mean, it was Deng Xiaoping who said, socialism isn't about poverty to be rich, to be glorious. it's misattributed to him but he never corrected the record he said something similar to that but um but at the end of the day like i want everyone to have autonomy i want everyone to to be able to live comfortable lives like that's what i'm advancing that's what i'm advocating for that's my perfect society it's not about everyone being like equally poor or starving you made that up i never said that that's what i wanted who would want that right and yet because of this like a pre-established notion that socialism is supposed to be a poverty cult they constantly advance this narrative and in order to make this narrative stick they'll be like oh he's a nepotism recipient which is true i i am a nepotism recipient i worked for my uncle's uh youtube show not exactly cnn right it was a 26 person youtube damn burn uncle i mean but it's true it was a 26 i was a 26th employee on a uncle's like come on come on but it was a i was a 26th employee on a youtube show right called the young turks um it definitely helped and i always will recognize that but then they'll expand on it and they'll be like well his father is really wealthy it's not true i take care of my parents and i'm very fortunate to be able to do that it's my duty and i love that and i love them um but because there's no evidence of this uh the idea that like my father is just like multi-billionaire which they claim they've just generated evidence through ai articles so now when you look at the seo if you're stupid enough not to check or cross-reference this stuff there's articles out there from like hindustan times it's like uh hasan piker's father is a billionaire that's a terrible source and it's really funny on the hindustan times i've read everything on the hindustan times but it's really interesting because it's like if if my father was a billionaire he would be the third wealthiest person in turkey like that would be on a list like you would know about it it would be publicly available information it's it's so ridiculous but yet they still advance it because they're so desperate to confirm their priors and to justify their worldview because they never want to think about the message.

1:34:10Don't press anything. We've got more What Now after this.

1:34:17How do you want to split it? Actually, dinner's on me. Okay, big money. Well, I got a Venmo balance that I can spend with my Venmo debit MasterCard, so. Well, I Venmo'd you three times last week, so it's kind of on me, actually. Yeah, you send it, I spend it. Did my money get like reincarnated? Yeah, it's chicken shawarma. Want it back? I can't believe you like ate my Venmo. Spend your balance instantly with the Venmo debit card. No monthly fee or minimum balance. Venmo balance account required to get a card and use a balance. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Hey everyone, it's Stavros Halakis and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Stavis World.

1:34:51Each week we're joined by great guests like Josh Safdie, Eric Andre, Caleb Heron and more. It's sort of an interview show, but really we're just messing around, making each other laugh and hopefully making you laugh while you're washing the dishes or grocery shopping or on a long drive. Plus, I take listener calls where we have honest conversations about dating life and everything in between. Imagine if your therapist was a vulgar degenerate whose office was in a Greek diner. No scripts, no polish, and absolutely no holding back. Listen to Stavi's World wherever you get your podcasts. Most women wait years before seeking relief from menopause symptoms.

1:35:30Menopause happens, but the suffering doesn't have to. Alloy was built by women who dealt with all of it. It's an all-in-one platform that provides expert care and real effective treatment. Complete a simple online intake, get matched with a menopause-specialized doctor who creates a treatment plan and provides unlimited messaging support, and once approved, your prescription ships straight to your door. Join the women who found real relief. Head to myalloy.com and use code SXM20 for 20 % off your first order. Valid on products only.

1:36:08Did you read the interview? I think it was in The New Yorker. The CEO of Flutterfy. So if you haven't. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, the CEO of Floodify gave a really amazing interview about what he does. And Floodify is basically a clipping service online where they will make anything seem more popular than it is. But the way they do it is not using traditional advertising. So you have an album that you want to release, but you're an artist who only has like 50 ,000 fans. you go to a company like flutter fire they're one of the companies that do this you pay them in a certain amount of money and that money will determine like how much reach you're going to get and then they have a network and i mean like an insane network that blows it up across quote unquote real people having real opinions about your music and you can seem bigger than you are as an artist which then sort of catches its own fire because that's that's how fame works and that's how news works and that's how and and you you now on that level you're like killer this is this is how clavicular became famous yeah so you think now you think oh i mean who cares that music you want to this is where it gets sinister right and and we really have to worry about this in society it is for politics too for for everything no way yeah um a south african influencer put this up recently on their on their page she has a full-time job but she also does like makeup and And clothing.

1:37:46But just really for fun. And then she put out this thing. Just telling her fans. She's like, hey. I don't know if this has happened to anyone else. But this is a weird thing that I'm experiencing. Someone's been sending me emails. Over the last year-ish. Where they're offering me money. Just to talk shit about South Africa. They'll pay me up front. I never got that. They ask for nothing in return. I'm doing this for free. They pay me up front. They ask for nothing in return. No way. And they don't give you a script. Yeah, be organic. All they want is for you. And when you put these pieces together, you look at the Flutterfy guy.

1:38:24I'm not saying he does that. But he did say in the article that Eric Adams' team wanted to pay him. And he doesn't say whether they did or didn't do it. But he says what they wanted him to do was create a campaign of New Yorkers complaining about Mamdani and all the things that are going horribly and what could go... No, no, really. And he was like, we need a groundswell campaign. Eric Adams' team wanted this. And when you realize that, you go, guys, we're on the precipice of something that I don't think society is ready for. Because it's one thing if we go like, oh, Hassan took money from Cuba, but it's a lie, et cetera.

1:38:59It's a different thing if we think we're living in a world where the people around us are having an experience that they're not. We live in a world where we think our neighbors have pitchforks ready, but they don't. we live in a world where we go like oh man everyone around me is scared there's crime in new york but everyone actually doesn't feel that way that is happening right now but that's what i mean but i'm saying as that as that compounds it goes beyond just politics and business it goes to like the erosion of society which then yeah as you know because you've studied it leads to the ultimate forms of fascism because if everyone is scared of everything and nobody trusts anyone we then look to one strong man who will protect us all and create the calm that we need and voter apathy is a yeah why would you vote because it's all ringed anyway so you don't want to vote you don't want to participate you don't want to do things it's it's i and you want to punish people you want to punish people that you've been taught are responsible for the pain that you're experiencing and that's why i say it's important to also identify the systems of of oppression rather than to let it dangle as though there is nothing wrong at all, or even sometimes identify certain things that are wrong, but never talk about who's responsible for it, because that leaves an opportunity for the Republicans to go back and recenter that anger and refocus that frustration at vulnerable populations, transgender people, immigrants, some of the people that have no defense in American society at all, some of the people that are just contributing to the American working class in very meaningful ways in our productive output and not even getting anything in return for it.

1:40:36And yet we have designed society in a way where that's who's responsible for all of the angst, for all the suffering that you're going through. And it's certainly not the billionaires. It's certainly not the megacorporations. And when both parties are designed in a way where they defend corporate interests, the amount of defense that you can, the amount of countering that you can do, the amount of counter messaging you can do against the right-wing reactionary thought is going to be very limited and that's what uh that's what i think is a big problem with the democratic party's platform in general where they can't just say it's corporations of the wealthy that's making the system the way it is dumb ass what are you talking about you think a random trans person is responsible for you not getting health care are you fucking stupid you're going to get health care we're going to give you health care that's my advocacy i'm like we're going to give you health care you need health care we're going to build a house for you yeah house you're racist okay you can't be racist any longer we're not going to deny you health care or uh or a roof over your head because you're racist but you got to vote for the not racist party who will give you those things some people will look at that and go no i'm so racist i don't want a roof over my head but not many people are going to make that i don't think that'll happen i don't think that'll happen we saw that with um i mean not that we were there but um who was it uh chairman fred hampton right black panther party where he went let's go to these white people who are racist and they were like fully racist and he said, you're poor, we are poor.

1:42:02Ask yourself a question. If we are the N-words that you call us and we're against you, why are we also poor? Shouldn't we have the money? And why are you poor? So if we're poor and you're poor, somebody is tricking both of us. So he's like, I'm going to work together. We're going to get you food. We're going to try and eat food as well. And then let's figure this thing out. And then shortly after that, he was dead. Yeah, they fucking murdered him in his sleep. Yeah, Because it is the upending of that thing. There's so much money in it, man. And this is, again... A Marxist-Leninist, by the way.

1:42:37This is where it's important to throw an addendum in, by the way. They make it seem like you're saying no one should earn money, no one should do well. No one should prosper. No one should prosper. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. No, what we're saying is in a system where money is like water, the water should flow, right? And in the same way, countries that share major rivers have to have an agreement that the water cannot be stopped by any one country. They have to have agreements on that. You know that, right? Because one country who's at the top of a river can just block the water and then all the other countries, that's literally an act of war.

1:43:18they go no you can only block this much for your dams and you can and you can block this and then the next country can block this much the same understanding should be had in my opinion of money because we forget that we've create systems now that sort of have crippled what money was supposed to do it was an exchange of time and and debt yeah to trade but if somebody can create like a dam a dam and they've got robots that earn the money and then machines that make the money and then robust and the money keeps going here and then they earn interest on the money and then they get loans on the money but then they don't pay taxes on that money but then we pay the taxes on the money because all of us sitting everywhere here we pay the taxes on it then you go like what what are we what are we building what are we you know what i mean like where we're building wealth for the upper class for the capital owning class in american society and in the western society and people don't understand how small that number is oh yeah but that's what i want i want systemic change and i'm never i've never been an advocate for adventurism that's not a marxist tradition at all as a matter of fact many theorists have uh regularly criticized adventurism which many americans don't even know what it is but that's like luigi mangioni is as adventurism like a person that decide allegedly thank you you're right a person that decided to take matters in their own hands right right the the propaganda of the deed is what anarchists believe uh i don't I want to be organized and I want to change society with diligent and disciplined organizing.

1:44:48Last thing I'll ask you, because it's interesting that we've had two guests sitting at this table who've shared a different opinion on it. And I think I know which way you're going to lean, but... Who are the two guests? Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. Oh, God. I asked Bernie Sanders. So I asked Pete Buttigieg, I was talking about like government, And I guess him and I had a bit of a disagreement. I was saying, and I do believe this, I said, people have been made to believe that government is inept, but that ineptitude was manufactured so that it could be privatized. Right? And we've seen this in South Africa.

1:45:22100 % correct. We've seen this in the UK. We see this in many countries. Wait, did he disagree with that? No, no. He was like, yeah, I guess to a certain degree. And then I was like, the government is supposed to do the thing. people forget the reason we made a government it's a brilliant idea is because we could not all individually go work on the roads so we said hey let's all put our money together pool together for the roads yeah yeah government is supposed to do things and then he was like ah no but i think there's many things that government is not that good at doing then i was like name one thing what did he say yeah he said a few and i disagreed honestly i was like i don't think the government's bad at that i think the government can run a great airline i think the government can run a great railway service they do i think the government can run a great health care service i think the government can run great education.

1:46:01You know why I say this? Because it did at some point. Yeah. And it still does. People forget that all - And it still does. In most other places, we just don't think about it. You know how many people who fight against public education now were publicly educated? Yeah. Yeah. They're going to say public education doesn't work, but the smarts that they're using to argue against us - Come from there. Come from public education. They're the people who will say, oh no, the government - Yeah, but the house that your parents bought came from a fund that the government made possible for you. The school that you went to was made possible by the government.

1:46:34So this was my, I am vehemently opposed to that argument because I think it's a trick. I think the trick is you first make a government inept so that people believe it cannot do anything. Then you make that government sell off its parts to private companies and billionaires. You're describing neoliberalism that took shape in America under Ronald Reagan and also Margaret Thatcher. And then when they have all of it, they then now decide how the thing works. They charge you as much as they want for electricity. And the tail wags the dog. What are you going to do? Who can live without electricity?

1:47:06The price has to go up. What are we supposed to do? The tail wags the dog. So that was that side of it. There's inelastic demand for healthcare. That's why it has to be run by the government in some way, shape, or form. It has to be controlled by the government at the very least if it's not entirely funded and facilitated by the government, like the nationalized healthcare system in the UK. And at which point you see this in the UK right now, they try to cripple the funding to the NHS over and over again. They implement austerity so it's worse off overall. And then people are silly enough to advocate for a privatized version of that.

1:47:43And that's what the Reform Party is doing right now. The Reform Party wants to implement austerity on NHS. They won't say it out loud and they want to privatize it. But why do people vote for the Reform Party? They vote for the Reform Party because they think that immigrants are responsible for all of the issues that they're experiencing in the UK. But it's easy. You know why it's easy to do that, though? I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who experiences that, and I'll tell you why. I see this in South Africa. I've seen it in the UK, places I've traveled to and places I've lived in. You're like, immigrants are bad.

1:48:19No, people forget this. People forget that your ability to see or not see an immigrant changes dramatically with your standard of living and how things are going. I think people really take that for granted. When you're doing well, when your economy is doing well, when things around you are doing well, you'll be shocked at how you don't notice immigrants. They're sort of silently existing in your world because things are going well because you don't see them. You don't notice the guy at the corner shop has an accent in that way when you've got enough money and the prices are affordable and your wages have kept up.

1:48:58You don't notice the immigrant in the hospital bed next to you when you're also getting care. You don't notice. But a system that is failing, its people, is inevitably going to have its people notice the people who are not, quote unquote, its people. Because they're like, wait, what is? I don't understand. You're saying we don't even have enough for us. Then why do we have enough for them? And I think of it genuinely through the most personal lens. When we had food in my house, and my mom was always, always like, please go give those street kids this food. Give that homeless guy this. She did that her whole life.

1:49:38She still does that, right? I remember in my life, when we were doing well in the house, like when we had a full fridge, I never noticed it. I would run over giddy to that guy and I'd give him bread and stew and some money. I didn't notice it. It's when my mom opened her purse when it was empty, took out her last 10 rand notes and said, go give it to that guy. And I was like, this woman has lost her goddamn mind. Genuinely. Yeah. I mean, I still think she's amazing for like doing that, but I won't lie to you as a kid. I was like, nah, lady. I was like, that guy there, he should not be getting our money in any way, shape, but we have nothing.

1:50:16Yeah. And then she was like, no, no, you think we have nothing. We don't have nothing yet. He has nothing. We're just doing badly right now. But the feeling I had towards that person, I can directly correlate to the purse situation in my house. And so I go, it is inevitable that these people will. I don't even think they're silly, to be honest. I think they're human. I'll be honest with you. I don't see how you could not hate immigrants when someone is crippling a system around you. But I think you described it very well. Depending on which side of the spectrum socially you are, you describe an immigrant differently.

1:50:56If you're doing well, you have a foreign friend. If you are not doing too good and it feels like a system is failing and benefiting them, then you see foreigners. Completely. Right? Yeah. Completely. But here's, I mean, there's also like wealthy racists out there who are, I think, advancing this propaganda and specifically directing the attention back to immigrants, either because naturally people start being more tribalistic in times of economic struggle, or because they're being propagandized. They also don't want to look at them. Yeah, exactly. Because no one wants the attention to be directed at them.

1:51:32So they go, oh, it's the woke feminism, or it's the transgenders, or it's the immigrants that are responsible for it. It's the black people that are responsible for it in America during uh you know reconstruction um because any kind of solidarity that that uh focuses on people's class interests remind people that exactly 99 of the public is a part of one class and only one percent of the public is a part of another class and most people are just working for that one percent the overwhelming majority are and that's a terrifying prospect for the capitalist uh because uh as i as i like to say at these rallies i go to you know they got the money but we got the people and and that is something that they want to squash before it becomes a big problem and uh that's how i uh found myself the recipient of allegedly a subpoena that i haven't received yet that fox news says i have and now there's like this additional cycle of misinformation coming out where they're like he's terrified he's actually shook like the new york post and fox news is writing articles about how i'm like terrified uh how much attention do you pay to that stuff by the way i mean i have to pay attention to it it's it's uh mainstream media especially if there's no opposition yeah from like the liberal side if associated press is not writing about this situation so no one's correcting it is yeah if no one's correcting it the only thing that's coming out is new york post fox news and whatnot and i think that's a very strange uh situation to be in because then most people are looking at that and the conversation is being dominated by this negative framing.

1:53:06The other thing was what Bernie Sanders said. I asked him, I said, do you think, I'm paraphrasing and, you know, because I don't want to misstate what he said, but I basically asked him if the Democratic Party was one party. And he was like, his answer was essentially no. He was like, the thing that I'm doing is not, I can't do Bernie. I can't do Bernie well I'll try I wish I I'll keep practicing I'll try he doesn't talk to Bernie on the phone he only talks to Donald Trump that's why he's so good at Donald Trump that's how he said he said no no that's how he said he was like no no no trouble and I'll tell you why no not bad but Bernie's like he's got a very specific thing no and I'll tell you why let me tell you why yeah he always does let me tell you why right no but he was like no from your from your position i assume you'd have the same point of view but i wonder what you think the remedy to that is right because the democratic party for a long time in america was it was a coalition of people and it feels like that coalition is slowly coming unraveled yeah all right so what do you see as a remedy if there is a remedy there's different schools of thought on this um a lot of people on the on the socialist side i want yours recognize yeah i'm gonna give be mine as well um a lot of people on the socialist side believe that entryism is a failure and it's understandable to think that because the democratic party is a bourgeois liberal uh capitalist party they will represent the interests of corporations that's what they're designed to do um and that's why their output is you know reflected that reality over and over again where if you're wondering why they're not doing certain things it's like well it's because they're not supposed to be doing it they're supposed to be defending corporations right um there's certain uh groups like the Democratic Socialists of America that have differing opinions on this.

1:55:01Some people believe that they can just like enter the Democratic Party and do entryism and run socialists until the party is a Democratic Socialists of America party, right? Sort of what the Tea Party did with the Republican Party. Yes, but the Tea Party didn't like entirely take it over until Donald Trump took over and then made it the MAGA party, right? But again, directionally, Trump and the rest of the Republicans are actually aligned, right? Trump might be more aggressive on, you know, overt white supremacy, and maybe even a little bit more reluctant to destroy social security, for example, as opposed to the average Republican.

1:55:37But directionally, they're on the side of deregulation and tax breaks. Whereas what we're talking about here, the DSA, is directionally on the diametrical opposite side of the political spectrum in comparison to the liberal capitalist Democratic Party. And they recognize that. So there's a real friction there that doesn't exist with the white supremacists and the rest of the Republican Party. They actually lean heavily into that. That's why Republicans can lean into their base. Whereas Democrats run away from their base, right? They have like disdain for their base. They're like, oh, why do you want us to do these things?

1:56:11Don't you understand? Change is impossible. So entryism is difficult. My opinion on this is I'm a harm reduction voter. I'm a harm reduction believer, I guess, to a certain degree. I recognize that class consciousness is the number one problem. in this country. We do not have class consciousness and we do not have political education. And without class consciousness and political education, you can't have organizing on the basis of class. So in order to foment class consciousness and to engage in agitative propaganda as is the Marxist tradition, I believe that elections are one of the most viable routes to reach the masses.

1:56:51Because I think a lot of people, no matter how radical they present themselves as or no matter how critical they are of bernie sanders a lot of people self-identified as socialists in that insurgent campaign in 2016 when bernie ran against hillary rodham clinton that juxtaposition of a left populist force an anti-establishment force who uh was unbowed and said that they were a socialist and weren't afraid of the moniker uh going up against an establishment uh like an establishment figurehead like uh hillary rodham clinton made a lot of people self-identify as socialists that made it it made a lot of people go wait a minute i agree with that guy yeah yeah right i agree with that guy i didn't know that this designation existed yeah or uh i i was so negatively propagandized against what i thought socialism was but it turns out it's this you know old curmudgeon right and and who is fighting for me who has been fighting for me for 800 years at this point so that's that's why i believe that and i've seen this uh in the data as well like whenever you got an aoc style figure or zara momdani um the dsa rises uh the dsa's ranks explode right there's so many new paid members uh or paying members sorry that that joined the organization and the dsa is very good at uh instigating class consciousness and also doing political education it's a massive institution with many different caucuses and they're constantly fighting one another you go to the national conference and you're like i like them all i have no uh you know i don't have it's like picking uh it's like picking favorite children you can't do it right um but they're constantly warring there there's a democratic process it's complex it's uh it's very diverse uh but you have every different tendency from liberals social democrats uh all the way to marxist leninist maoist third worldists uh you know people who uh do not participate in democracy at all uh because they think it's it's ridiculous and and counter-revolutionary you have all of that right and and that is political education and that is an absolute necessity to make the changes in this country and i see electoralism as a route to foment class consciousness through uh proving that alternative modes of governance are viable and that's why i look to people like zoran as movement leaders in that regard because every day that he's a good mayor of new york is a day where we are able to tackle this stigma associated with socialism uh every day that he's a handsome charismatic fellow that gets to improve people's lives is a day where more new yorkers go you know what maybe i'm a socialist after all um i'm not i i understand that uh you know you have to organize with the masses that you have not the masses that you believe should exist.

1:59:46And many people in the United States of America are self-identifying as liberals. That's mass politics. That's where the social base is at. They self-identify as liberals because they don't really understand what that means. If you were to pick apart their worldview and offer them a little bit of political education, you might find that they're actually not liberals at all. Maybe they're socialists. Maybe they're Marxists. Maybe they're, you know, they have a different ideological tendency than liberalism, which is basically just the monoculture that we've taken for granted. So at a time when liberalism is failing and the Democratic Party, as the liberal Democratic Party, is failing to keep up with the reactionary forces on the Republican side, I believe that it's important to try to push for as many radical candidates as possible and change the makeup, the political makeup of this unbelievably weak party that is not a real political party in the sense that they exist in Europe and in parliamentary systems.

2:00:44there's no paid membership structure like paying membership structure but a party that simply is a holdover for a litany of different corporate interests and maybe some advocacy groups on the side if you want to throw them a bone every now and then because you need door knockers that's a weak party that's a party that you can seize that's a party that you can take advantage of because at the end of the day i have no loyalty to the brand that is the democratic party right And I don't think anyone should have any loyalty to any party. I think you should see politicians as an agent for change because that's what they are.

2:01:21Are they making those changes for their corporate benefactors or are they making those changes for you? Are they promising to you that they are going to change your lives for the better? Or are they telling you better things are not possible, which is what a lot of Democrats do, unfortunately. um so you know even if i know a politician personally zaron is a great example of this aoc is another example of this if they do things that i don't like i'll say it i'll be like no this was wrong i i disagree with you on this um and i will hold them to account because at the end of the day they're public servants they work for us for all of us right uh there there shouldn't be any loyalty to a party or a brand, especially if that party hasn't done enough to deserve your loyalty.

2:02:10You can have an ideological commitment to a movement. I certainly do. And I have my moral convictions and I demand that the elected representatives that I push for also have similar shared moral convictions. But outside of that, I don't really care how we get there. You know, another Deng Xiaoping quote I'll use. I don't know why I keep using Deng Xiaoping quotes on this conversation. Also because it's Tuesday. Yeah. You know what they say about Tuesday and Deng Xiaoping? What? Nothing. Carry on. I was very excited. I know. This guy caught us. He said when market reforms were taking place in China, he said famously, a black cat or a white cat, it doesn't matter as long as it catches the rat.

2:02:56and that's the way I see it as well where it's like I don't really care about what these brands are or what like how people identify themselves People focus too much on the labels and not on the outcome that comes from Yeah, I care about I care about changes I care about necessary changes and getting those necessary changes across Damn Well this was great man This was really really dope Good luck with your subpoena if it's there when you get home Oh speaking of which can you just open the cabinet That would be so amazing if we served him right now That would be so amazing If we serve you the subpoena It's like We have been asked to deliver this to you This is from the treasury Now that we've confirmed to you Yo Hassan man Thanks for taking the time This was really great This was great This was a fun conversation Appreciate it Thank you What Now with Trevor Noah Is produced by DayZero Productions In partnership with SiriusXM The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah Sanaz Yamin And Jess Hackl Rebecca Chain is our producer.

2:03:56Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

2:04:24Thank you.

2:04:30How do you want to split it? Actually, dinner's on me. Okay, big money. Well, I got a Venmo balance that I can spend with my Venmo debit MasterCard, so. Well, I Venmo'd you three times last week, so it's kind of on me, actually. Yeah, you send it, I spend it. Did my money get, like, reincarnated? Yeah, it was chicken shawarma. Want it back? I can't believe you, like, ate my Venmo. Spend your balance instantly with the Venmo debit card. No monthly fee or minimum balance. Venmo balance account required to get a card and use a balance. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA. What's up, sports fans?

2:05:02I'm Rachel Demita, here to tell you about my show, Courtside Club. If you love hoops and hot takes, then you're in the right place. Want to hear about Caitlin Clark's unstoppable rise in the WNBA? How stars like Wemby and Luka Doncic are dominating the NBA? Or maybe you just want the tea on this week's most viral sports moments. Don't worry, we'll keep you updated on all of it. So grab your popcorn and come hang with us. Courtside. You can listen to Courtside Club wherever you get your podcasts. Uwee and ah.