‘There’s going to be payback’ against our political elites
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Summary
With inflation only going up and a standard of living that s being eroded, regular folks are not happy. Mainstream politics has increasingly become the domain of the elites, and the little guy is feeling more and more left behind and out of the conversation. Joel Kotkin joins us to talk about the frustrations of the working class, both in Canada and around the world, and how this may soon boil over into something of a political revolution.
Transcript
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Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comet.
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Please consider subscribing if you haven't already.
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And don't forget, if you're following the federal conservative leadership race,
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you can check out our recent episodes with candidates Pierre Polyev, Lesley-Lewis, and Roman Baber.
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And we look forward to Jean Charest and Patrick Brown joining us soon as well.
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Today's episode is about the frustrations of the working class, both in Canada and around the world,
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and how this may soon boil over into something of a political revolution.
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With inflation only going up and a standard of living that's being eroded, regular folks are not happy.
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Mainstream politics has increasingly become the domain of the elites,
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and the little guy is feeling more and more left behind and left out of the conversation.
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And this seems to hold true on both the right and the left.
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Joel Kotkin has been writing on these issues for years,
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both in his capacity as the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in California,
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and as Executive Director of the Urban Reform Institute.
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He also writes in his books on these topics and writings,
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including in a recent essay republished at the National Post headlined,
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The Working Classes Are a Volcano Waiting to Erupt.
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What's going on right now in terms of the frustrations?
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How, and I know we're going to get into the details of all this stuff going on in France
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and other parts of the world, but how urgent, how imminent is this phenomenon?
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You know, the reference to the volcano was from the Tocqueville,
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writing about a similar period of unrest in the early part of the 19th century in Europe.
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But what we're seeing is clearly an era in which we had sort of the end of an era of upward mobility.
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Now, whether it can come back or not is a different question.
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But, you know, from about 19, certainly since 1950s till arguably the 80s, even the 90s,
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that large parts of the middle and working class felt their lives would be getting better,
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that parents would do, would have children who would do better than they,
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who would be more likely to own a home, who might have a better education.
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Young people in particular are hit on the one level, certainly hit by the loss of good jobs,
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particularly, you know, for working class jobs, as these countries have de-industrialized,
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as we try to shut down, let's see, things like fossil fuels and other industrial activities.
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So that hits the working class. But what's really interesting, and I've written quite a bit about this,
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is the fact that a large part of the people who go to school, who are educated, are also not doing well.
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We basically, in the United States, we graduate twice as many BAs as we have jobs for.
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So you've got also a class of young, at least somewhat educated people,
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very often from middle class backgrounds, who are now working in the Amazon warehouses or
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at Starbucks as baristas or, you know, I guess in Canada, maybe Tim Hortons.
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But, you know, they're not doing remotely as well as their parents did.
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And certainly was reflected by what happened in France the last couple of weeks.
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Yeah, I know about 10 years ago, there used to be that joke about, oh, you're barista and
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their liberal arts degree. Guess you didn't pick a very good major. Ha ha. And we've heard those
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jokes for years. But I feel like they're not really jokes anymore. Because to your point,
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the number of people that applies to it, it's not just the fact that they chose the, you know,
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the poetry masters, which, you know, people thought, well, you're not going to get a
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professorship, you're not going to get tenure, and you're not going to get a high paying job. It's just so
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many other lines of work and avenues of education that, I think, are putting people
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into this situation where they're not optimistic about their future.
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Well, and also, you know, one of the key things that people don't talk about, I was
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having a conversation with one of the designers of the metaverse, somebody who's close to
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Musk and to Zuckerberg. And he said, you know, the people whose jobs are really going to be
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threatened, or a lot of the people who have degrees in college, but their functions are
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increasingly automated. In other words, artificial intelligence, we think of it as taking away
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factory jobs, which it might do. But you know what, you still need the plumber, you still need the
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carpenter, you still need the person at the hospital to take care of your aging parents.
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You still need people to do some of the basic tasks, as we found during the pandemic, you know,
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you needed somebody to pack up the trucks and send products along. Those functions may actually
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do better. So what you've got is you've got not just traditional blue collar working class
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displacement, but you also have the displacement of younger educated people, and then a generational
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crisis, in which a large number of young people are doing much worse, in many cases, and certainly
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generally worse than their parents. That is something clearly going to create a greater market on the
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right and the left for sort of more extreme activities. So Joel, when we talk about the phrase
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working classes, to give us a frame of reference here moving forward in our conversation, what do you
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mean when you say working class? What does that capture?
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Well, I think it's basically when I'm referring to working class, generally people without four-year
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degrees, working in jobs that require maybe six months training, and sometimes less. People who,
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generally speaking, are not in the top, you know, 20-30% of earners, but many of them in the past were part
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of a unionized workforce, probably more so in Canada than here, certainly much more so in Europe than here
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in the United States. But they were parts of a union. They had pension plans. They had medical coverage.
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Now, many of the working class, and this also includes some of these people with the college
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degrees, are part of what's referred to as the precarious, as in precarious. In other words,
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there are people, the Uber driver who maybe one week is working 80 hours and the next week isn't working
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at all, or the person who's working at the Amazon warehouse in the months before Christmas, but maybe
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doesn't have a job in January. This kind of irregular employment, which used to be referred to by people
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like Marx as the lumpen proletariat, are now part of a large part of the working class. And that's the
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main group in the working class. The middle class that is also understressed tend to be wealthier,
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a little bit better educated, and probably most importantly, probably own a home.
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I increasingly find it so remarkable that people are able to get by this day and age when I'm going
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about my daily experiences in terms of whether it's looking at real estate listings or one example
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that always comes to mind. I have three kids and I took them to the movies a few weeks ago. We had
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lockdowns for quite a long time here in Ontario and finally said, okay, back to the movies,
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hadn't been for a while. And I bought all the tickets, I bought the popcorn. I was like,
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this is a hundred dollars. And I was like, okay, well, you know, I haven't gone to the movies in
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a while. I have the money. I am not crying poor at all. But I was like, other folk, like people who
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are just getting by, it's one thing to say, oh, I can't afford the vacation to Paris or Tropical
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Island, but they can't afford to take the kids to the movies. How are people doing that stuff these
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days? Well, I think we're going to see the push come to shove very soon. Obviously, the very low
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interest rates and the money coming directly from the government helped forestall some of this. But
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I think most of all about gas prices. I mean, I live eight minute drive from my school. I sometimes
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I ride my bike. Most days I work at home. I use a tank of gas a month. Let's say I'm a construction
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worker living who has to drive a truck because I got my equipment. And I'm driving from Riverside,
00:11:06.860
California to Long Beach. And anyone who knows California knows that unless you go at three in
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the morning, it's going to take you at least an hour and a half. And you're going to fill up a tank
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for 90 to $100. Now you're talking about somebody who maybe they're making $30 an hour. So basically,
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three hours of their of their work is just gone just to get them to work and back. So same thing with
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food, you look at the food prices. And and by the way, I've you know, I've worked in this area as
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well. If you go on a global level, what's happening to developing countries to people where, let's say,
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in India or in Mexico, where the price of food and energy is really a problem? That situation is even
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worse. And certainly in Africa, for which I work with people in South Africa about this,
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is it's really quite frightening. Yeah, I was about to ask you because
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you're talking about the experience on the California coast. I'm talking about my experiences
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here in Toronto. To what degree are these just sort of bicoastal elite phenomenons where,
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unfortunately, persons who are of lower income really struggle in those cities? I was going to
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say, are things better in the Midwest, fly over country, rural parts of Canada? And this is just
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a sort of elitist phenomenon. But but then you bring up places like India. So you're saying,
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no, this is a problem pretty much for everybody everywhere right now.
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Definitely. I mean, and, you know, the problems of, you know, I mean, whatever idiot in the Biden
00:12:39.420
administration decided that, you know, inflation was an elite problem. No, inflation is a working
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and middle class problem. And yes, I think if you're in Saskatchewan or you're in in the Dakotas or you're in
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Kansas, it's not as bad as being in a place like New York or California in terms of prices, taxes,
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and opportunity. But one of the things that's happening is certainly happening in this country
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is that people are giving up on these coastal economies because they can't afford to live
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decently there. But then they're driving up the price in Arizona. Phoenix, for instance,
00:13:23.260
has had a phenomenal increase in in in prices. I would imagine that some of the
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areas in the outer ring around Toronto have seen a very significant price increases.
00:13:36.620
Oh, definitely. Cottage country, too, because people wanted to just move out of the city entirely,
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work from home. It is just spread so much into the rural neighborhoods within a two,
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And look, what a great way to live. I have friends in New York who,
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you know, they've moved to the Catskills. And yes, they go into the city, you know,
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once or twice a week or maybe once or twice a month. But they get to live in a beautiful area
00:14:02.300
with with with, you know, decent schools, low crime. And I think it's going to be very attractive,
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both for what we would call the downshifting boomer, you know, the person who is, you know,
00:14:16.380
not quite retiring, but wants to slow down. And also for the young family who, you know,
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can't afford a decent house any place near the central core of Toronto, but maybe can afford something
00:14:28.620
an hour, hour and a half away. The problem is, as more people do that, then the prices in those
00:14:34.540
areas go up. And of course, the increases in food and fuel affect everyone.
00:14:40.060
One of the really interesting parts of your essay, well, it's all very interesting,
00:14:43.900
but at the beginning, you break down the results of the French election. And I had a very,
00:14:48.380
from a far bird's eye view. And it was, okay, is Le Pen going to somehow prevail over Macron?
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Oh, no, Macron, he taught the win. Macron's still popular. Everybody loves Macron.
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You say, well, hold on a second. If you look at the results of the first round,
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you see much more diverse grievances going on, suggesting not that Macron is sort of
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well-loved by millennials and everybody in France.
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Actually, when you take a look at the vote in the first round, particularly, but also in the second
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round, Macron doesn't do well, certainly with people in their 30s and 40s, which would be the family
00:15:23.100
age. If you look at the under 30 vote, under 35 in the first round, the majority voted for Melanchol
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or for Le Pen. Now, you're talking about one person who's a Trotskyite, I mean, sort of an
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unreconstructed Marxist, basically, sort of, you know, kind of a Bernie Sanders, but much more,
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much more explicitly on the left, and Le Pen, who is the inheritor of French fascists. I mean,
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this is not a hopeful sign. And this is what happens when younger people give up hope. The only group
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who support Macron in large numbers are people over 60, because they don't want to rock the boat,
00:16:09.580
they want their pensions. And, and also probably people over 60, maybe some of them, either they
00:16:18.860
remember themselves, what it was like to live in a more repressive environment, and certainly their
00:16:25.740
parents were shaped, you know, someone like me, like, my, my parents generation were involved in
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the Second World War, they, you know, we had relatives left behind in Russia. You know, the, the,
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the experiences are very different. But this, this youth vote for Melanchol, and for Le Pen is really,
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really interesting. And by the way, parallels what we saw in 2016, and 2020, in the, in the Democratic
00:16:59.420
primaries, where Bernie Sanders just kicked butt with voters under 35. And by the way, Donald Trump did
00:17:07.660
much better than Hillary Clinton. Initially, now in the final vote, Hillary, I think, still did a little
00:17:16.060
bit better. But, but if you take a look now, even in the US, Biden, President Biden was elected,
00:17:23.180
in large part with youth votes, but now his popularity among young people is, has sunk to a
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very low level. People are unhappy, young people are particularly unhappy. And that's what causes
00:17:36.460
volcanoes. And how is that volcano going to erupt in a political sense? What are the demands that
00:17:43.180
young people and everyone will have of politicians and policymakers, because I often hear an easy
00:17:51.180
write off? And well, I guess it's also an accurate write off is all these inflationary pressures. And
00:17:55.340
it's, you know, it's a global thing. It's all interconnected. It's complex. So don't blame me as one
00:18:01.100
particular jurisdictional politician. Yeah. Well, first of all, we all know that voters vote pocketbook
00:18:07.660
issues and, you know, how much President Biden is responsible for the situation. I think he's
00:18:13.100
somewhat responsible. But even if he wasn't responsible, people are going to look at the
00:18:17.740
price of milk and the and how much their electric bill is, and they're going to the vote on it. Now,
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will there be one expression? I don't think so. I think we're going to see two different movements
00:18:30.140
that the traditional ruling parties are going to have to deal with. Now, in the case of France,
00:18:36.860
the traditional ruling parties have been eliminated. But
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one is going to be on the left, it's going to be these disgruntled, educated people,
00:18:48.460
some working class people, some minorities, who really, they're looking to government
00:18:56.860
to alleviate their problems with housing, incomes, jobs, some of them want a universal basic income.
00:19:05.100
So there will be that protest on the left side. On the right side, you're going to get people who are
00:19:13.340
going to say, No, we want to have less regulation. So there's more opportunity.
00:19:18.380
There also, I think, on on on the on the right side, there's going to be a pushback about why are we
00:19:25.260
why do we have to have all these immigrants, particularly the undocumented who are going
00:19:29.820
to compete for me for jobs in an already difficult situation. So essentially, you're going to have two
00:19:36.700
different expressions. But by the way, voters are not, you know, they're they don't follow the logic of
00:19:43.580
political scientists, you know, they, you know, we know that there were people who voted for for Bernie
00:19:51.500
Sanders, and then voted for Donald Trump. So they were basically both they were going from the left
00:19:57.580
populace to the right populace. What's going to clearly happen is there's going to be a struggle
00:20:03.660
between the establishmentarians in both parties, and the populace in both parties in this country.
00:20:10.140
And we're going to see similar pressures elsewhere. And of course, in France, we got to see it really
00:20:16.380
in a pure form, because we didn't have the residual Gaullist and socialist parties that basically
00:20:24.380
disappeared. Up here in Canada, a few months ago, we had the trucker freedom convoy, which became
00:20:30.380
very contentious and controversial widespread support. When a fundraiser document was doxed,
00:20:36.700
you got to see it geo located across Google, all the people who had donated. And it was like
00:20:41.180
every street in Canada, it was so geographically diverse, and clearly, demographically and income
00:20:47.260
wise, as well. But there is a major information war as to how to frame it, what actually happened,
00:20:52.540
who these people were, there's been backtracking on on allegations that all this was AstroTurf foreign
00:20:57.580
funding, and that they were all a bunch of white supremacists. And there's been a lot of toning back of
00:21:01.660
all that realizing, no, there was just a lot of authentic, diverse folks from all walks of life
00:21:06.540
who had these grievances to air. But it's still a hot topic to talk about at the water cooler here
00:21:12.540
in Canada. From your vantage point, what did you make of that event that unfolded here?
00:21:18.780
Well, I think there are several things. I mean, obviously, we know that those Sikh
00:21:25.500
truck drivers are devoted white supremacists. So, I mean, I thought that-
00:21:32.780
And that was the problem. I don't know if you saw this clip, but someone was on a stage saying,
00:21:35.820
they're calling us white supremacists. Is there anyone there? And a person raised his hand and
00:21:39.100
said, I'm a white supremacist. And everyone cheered. And that was taken on social media to mean,
00:21:43.420
look, there's an outright white supremacist there, and they love the guy. But it was actually a
00:21:47.580
Sikh gentleman who was obviously laughing at the idea and saying, look at how ridiculous this was.
00:21:52.700
But you could see what you wanted to see in that clip.
00:21:55.660
Well, I mean, Trudeau, I have to say, I don't know where, I guess the US and Canada are in the
00:22:02.060
battle for who can have more imbecilic leaders. But it's a good contest. But fundamentally, I thought
00:22:11.580
the truckers thing, and by the way, I'm a pro-vax person. I think that people should vaccinate,
00:22:20.700
particularly older people. But the reality is, this is part of a growing sort of, in some senses,
00:22:28.460
unplanned rebellion of working class people. You think about who these truck drivers are. They're
00:22:36.060
very often their owner operators. They basically save society during the pandemic.
00:22:45.020
And then they get treated like crap by the national leadership. And it doesn't mean just
00:22:52.940
the vaccination. It also, you look at the energy prices. Why should there be sky high energy prices
00:22:59.580
in places like Canada, or frankly, here in California, where we have lots of oil,
00:23:03.980
we have a gigantic amount of oil and gas in the state. But the state won't let us drill it and
00:23:10.380
keep putting taxes on it. So I see the truckers situation in Canada, very parallel to the Gilles
00:23:18.380
Joie movement in France. I think there have been similar movements in Norway, which is really this
00:23:27.820
sort of disconnect between the corporate and political leadership who have adopted policies
00:23:35.180
that are completely injurious to working and middle class interests. And now there's going to be payback.
00:23:42.940
And there's going to and there's going to be an attempt at least to have some payback. I don't,
00:23:47.900
you know, as a from a historical point of view, I still think the establishment has the edge.
00:23:54.780
They have control of the media. And as we saw, to me, terrifyingly, in Canada, control of banks.
00:24:03.500
I mean, why am I going to dissent against government policy, if a I'm going to be put in in into the
00:24:10.540
digital gulag by Google, and they're going to shut my bank account. I thought that was beyond
00:24:17.420
comprehension how if how you could do that. And yet, the question is, will the tide of repression
00:24:25.420
and and and the constant sort of propagandizing overwhelm the the anger in the middle and working
00:24:35.180
class. And I think we're going to see this again, express itself on the right, express itself on the
00:24:41.020
left. But fundamentally, the truckers are a part of what's happening in Europe. I think things are
00:24:49.180
are happening here on the grassroots in the United States. And frankly, I'm I'm not
00:24:55.580
sanguine about all of it. I mean, there are some ugly aspects of both the right and the left populism,
00:25:03.260
you know, and and and it tends to be contentious. But if our ruling classes cannot get it through their
00:25:09.340
heads, that you have to have the prospect of upward mobility and some chance of getting your
00:25:15.180
aspirations met, you're going to have a fundamentally sullen and eventually rebellious population.
00:25:23.340
We'll be back with more full comment in just a moment.
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You write about elite concerns. We hear about it a lot from politicians and establishment voices in
00:26:16.860
the US. We certainly hear a lot about it here in Canada. Going on and on about the climate catastrophe,
00:26:21.900
and every now and then I hear someone say, we're not talking about it enough. It's the only thing you
00:26:25.420
talk about. I don't know how to not talk about it anymore. You write about gender fluidity as being
00:26:30.060
a big issue there. The notion that everything everyone's doing is racist. And do these issues all
00:26:37.500
matter to some degree? Sure. But I guess this omnipresent idea that these are the only things
00:26:42.540
we're going to talk about. And that seems like it's getting increasingly alienating to so many people,
00:26:47.740
including, I think, maybe people who would be otherwise involved in those groups.
00:26:52.380
Like I think LGBT persons, many gay and lesbian persons are tired of not having their pocketbook
00:26:58.380
issues addressed as well. What is going on with these elite concerns? Well, I think, first of all,
00:27:03.580
you have this sort of the whole ESG, the Davos, Great Reset. And if you look at what they're talking
00:27:12.780
about, first of all, it's not just a threat to working class people. And I have to say that
00:27:18.220
fellow Deutsche Bank said, if we adopt this program, the quality of life for most people
00:27:23.980
will go down. That's that. And I don't see any way around it. So the question is, let's say,
00:27:31.260
take climate change. If you're concerned about climate change, but you're against nuclear power,
00:27:38.060
do you think that the entire Great Plains should be have massive solar and wind plants that you don't
00:27:44.620
want to put next to your nice neighborhood in Toronto? You know, then then on the LGBTQ kind of
00:27:53.020
issues? What about women competing in sports? Is that something worth talking about? By the way,
00:27:58.940
if I'm a gay couple with with a young child, do I want that five year old to learn about anal intercourse?
00:28:04.380
I kind of don't. I think most gay parents I know are are just as responsible as as straight parents
00:28:12.620
are. And they then they know that exposing a young child to these things is not a good thing.
00:28:19.180
And at very least, they're going to say, look, that's a decision that should be made by the
00:28:23.180
school board. It shouldn't be made by the governor. And it shouldn't and it shouldn't be made by some
00:28:28.060
in personal bureaucracy. So what you're going to see is is this this attempt by a group of people
00:28:34.700
who basically believe that by dint of education and values, they should tell everybody how to live.
00:28:42.780
And frankly, we shouldn't ask them. This is why so many of the things that get passed these days
00:28:49.340
on energy or or on on on some of the gender issues or on race are done by executive order.
00:28:58.140
They're done by by fiat by corporations, because if they actually had to have a vote,
00:29:04.220
they might not do so well. Interesting little sidebar and anecdote here.
00:29:08.860
You mentioned the great reset and it's it's such a contentious conversation in Canada. It's not as
00:29:13.180
mainstream of a conversation. You're not supposed to mention it because it's entirely fake. It's
00:29:17.260
entirely conspiracy theory. You'll be shamed for mentioning it. And it's funny, Justin Trudeau
00:29:21.580
was was frustrated. One politician had mentioned it and he was going on about how it's a conspiracy
00:29:25.260
theory. And then you go to his website, June 2020, and it's on his official website. And it's
00:29:31.660
a readout of a conversation that Trudeau had with Prince Charles, where he pledged his allegiance to
00:29:37.180
the great reset initiative in the presence of Prince Charles. Like, I can't make this stuff up. It's
00:29:41.980
it's hilarious. I mean, I'm not saying it's as far reaching and particular as some people make
00:29:48.140
their conspiracies about it. But, you know, here he is doing this, pledging it to Prince Charles. And
00:29:53.420
then the next day, turn around saying, it doesn't exist. It's fake. How dare you mention it? You
00:29:57.420
should be deplatformed for saying the phrase great reset.
00:30:00.060
Well, which is absurd, because they've written books about it. They've written reports about it. I
00:30:05.740
mean, it's not like they're hiding anything. But, you know, I mean, what, what the new tactic that's
00:30:12.220
used by what I would call illiberal progressives, because I consider myself basically a liberal, but
00:30:19.900
the illiberal progressive says, if something's an embarrassing thing to do, we just don't talk about
00:30:25.500
it. And if you insist on talking about it, you're a right wing lunatic and should be banned from
00:30:30.940
talking about it. I mean, it's, you know, this, this, you know, and I think this is something
00:30:37.260
that is really of great concern, because, look, I'm perfectly happy to discuss the great reset and
00:30:46.700
what are the good parts? What are the bad parts? But to act like it doesn't exist. And, you know,
00:30:52.620
look, let's face it, we have lunatics, we probably are lead you in the lunatic department. But,
00:30:59.260
but, you know, Canadians don't tend to be lunatics, at least not the ones I've known.
00:31:03.580
We got a few, we got a few, you got a few, but, you know, we're, we're a much, you know,
00:31:08.380
more populous country. And, you know, you know, we don't have the rules of good behavior quite as
00:31:14.860
much as Canada, at least historically has. But, but the, but the reality is, that large numbers of
00:31:22.380
people in, in, in, in this country, in this country, and around the world, have to ask the question,
00:31:29.740
if we're going to tackle climate change, how are we going to do it? Who's going to pay for it? And by
00:31:35.900
the way, I don't want to be told by some jerk on Wall Street, that I can't have natural gas in my
00:31:43.420
house. But he's going to invest billions of dollars in China, which is building coal plants,
00:31:49.580
like they're going out of style. I mean, the, the hypocrisy is what is so evident. And I think that's
00:31:55.660
one of the reasons they don't want to discuss it. I mean, my feeling is, if we're going to have an
00:32:00.300
authoritarian socialist regime, I just as soon have it be a, a, a real socialist regime, and not have
00:32:07.340
it a bunch of elite corporate types, who they themselves live in incredible luxury, but tell
00:32:14.060
everybody else to live like crap. That's, and you want to know what makes people mad? I'll tell you
00:32:20.220
what makes them mad, and including some of my friends on the left. I don't like the fact these
00:32:25.340
Davos people are saying, well, we have to stop flying so much, while they're taking their
00:32:29.980
private jets. You know, or we don't want Elon Musk to have too much power in the media,
00:32:37.580
and write about it in the Washington Post that's owned by Jeff Bezos. I mean, the hypocrisy is so
00:32:43.260
overwhelming. And so I think even among fairly affluent middle class people, there's a growing
00:32:51.100
distaste with the, with the establishmentarian politics. And by the way, the base of that
00:32:57.980
establishmentarian politics of the progressive politics is about 8% of the US population. And it
00:33:04.300
tends to be affluent, well-educated and white. Actually on race issues, the white progressives
00:33:10.540
are far more extreme than the Hispanics, Asians or blacks are. Wow. 8% and yet managing to keep it all
00:33:18.380
together to keep in their positions of influence. Well, and what they've been able to do is,
00:33:23.820
is, is somehow subsume enough of the morons who run the major corporations, who I think were just
00:33:30.300
scared that they had to give in. I mean, you think about it, what, what is Disney lost now about $40
00:33:36.860
billion? Wow. I mean, because of, of, of the dispute with, with Florida, you know, in reality,
00:33:45.100
how many people, including people who are gay, born sex being taught to five-year-olds? I don't,
00:33:53.660
I don't get it. I mean, I'm a parent too. I mean, my kids are now old enough to know about sex, but,
00:33:59.660
you know, but you know, that, that, that kind of policy is not very popular. And so in a funny way,
00:34:06.460
because it's not popular, it has to be imposed in an autocratic way. And it has to be imposed by
00:34:12.540
creating incredible hysteria. You know, you take a look at what the projections were on climate
00:34:18.220
change, and I'm not denying that, that it's taking place or a problem that we shouldn't deal with.
00:34:22.620
But the projections, if you read what they wrote in, in 20, 2005, about where the world would be in
00:34:30.220
2020, it doesn't even look the same. I mean, so what you have to do is create constant levels of
00:34:39.020
extreme hysteria, which then require emergency solutions. So my belief is at the end of the
00:34:46.300
pandemic authority, you're going to have climate change authority, which will never pass in the
00:34:54.540
legislature. And you know, we had that. I was looking back, Joel, on an essay that I wrote in
00:34:59.340
April, 2020, because crazy stuff was going on in our lives. Lockdowns had not been normalized by that
00:35:04.140
point. Like they later were for us here in Ontario. It was the first one. I thought, wow, this could have
00:35:08.140
like long-standing repercussions. And the Green Party of Canada actually flirted with the idea,
00:35:14.220
said, this lockdown thing we're doing right now, it's kind of cool. We should talk about doing this
00:35:17.740
in the name of climate change. And I wrote, looking back, it was just two years ago, such a naive essay
00:35:21.740
where I'm like, well, maybe one or two people might think about trying to sort of find a way to push
00:35:30.620
forward their own agendas with this COVID thing. Maybe that'll happen. And obviously two years later,
00:35:35.580
of course, everybody's rushed to fill the vacuum to do just that, as you're saying.
00:35:40.460
And unfortunately, people have been sort of dragooned into accepting authority, whether it's on
00:35:49.580
climate, like, you know, you have Google saying, if you disagree with the assessment of IPCC,
00:35:56.060
you can't be in Google. What do you mean? You're saying that Steve Coonan, the former advisor to
00:36:02.620
President Obama, because he thinks differently than IPCC, even though he does believe climate
00:36:09.420
change is an issue. We're going to eliminate him. We're going to eliminate Bjorn Lundborg. We're
00:36:14.940
going to eliminate Judith Curry. We're going to eliminate people who have Roger Pilkey, who have
00:36:21.580
great expertise in this area. We're not even going to have a debate. We're going to be told to do what we
00:36:27.660
want to do. That's why I wrote a book about the rise of neo-feudalism, because that's what happened
00:36:33.340
in feudal times. You didn't have debates on the open debates about the existence of God or the
00:36:40.140
nature of God. There was a party line that the church adopted. And if you didn't follow it,
00:36:48.140
We didn't have it on COVID here. The whole idea that you would say, maybe my kid doesn't need to
00:36:53.420
wear a mask. Ontario, it's established we were one of the worst jurisdictions in the Western world by
00:36:58.380
many indicators for our lockdowns. You just couldn't have those conversations here. It's not have the
00:37:02.860
conversation and then, okay, there's the debate and, oh, we disagree with you. It was, you can't
00:37:08.060
That, and that's the same thing on climate issues. Like for instance, Lomborg makes a very
00:37:14.700
good point. He says, yes, we have a problem with climate, but you know what? The pollution of the
00:37:21.740
oceans is a more pressing and more immediate problem.
00:37:25.900
Masks in the oceans. Have you seen those reports? There's like flotillas of masks that are like
00:37:33.100
But, but I mean, I think that the, the, the, the need of the ruling class in, in conjunction with
00:37:41.980
what I call the clarity, this 8%, a lot of them college professors or journalists. I mean, my poor
00:37:50.140
wife, you know, I used to work at the big newspapers in the US, three of the big ones. And I'd read an
00:37:57.260
article about climate change and they never, they say the climate catastrophe, like, okay, now
00:38:06.700
is that, is that really accurate? Is there any debate? Is there any idea that maybe there are some
00:38:13.100
negatives for going all solar? I mean, there was an excellent article in Quillette by Robert Bryce,
00:38:20.460
where he shows how NPR and New York Times reporters called him to talk about resistance against massive
00:38:28.620
solar and wind projects in rural areas and how they, they didn't feel like they should ruin their
00:38:36.300
environment in order to make people in Manhattan feel good about themselves. Um, and
00:38:43.180
they never reported any of it. I mean, it's like whole parts of the, like the whole parts of it,
00:38:53.500
of, of what's going on, just don't get reported. I mean, I, I, I teach a class on propaganda Chapman,
00:39:01.100
and I always say, it's not fake news that idiot like Trump, you know, will talk about fake news,
00:39:05.500
it's not fake news. It's the news that doesn't get reported. It's not sins of commission as much as
00:39:12.060
sins of omission. And so we can't have a debate about real things. So part of this working class
00:39:18.380
anger is the, the mainstream media and the, and the established institutions will say,
00:39:27.420
here's what's going on. But the, but in your real life, you don't see it. Like, you know, when, when
00:39:32.940
they said, well, inflation's temporary and it only affects the rich and, and, and, and the person's
00:39:38.780
filling up their tank and saying, well, you know what, I'm not going to take the kids out to the
00:39:43.820
movies like you just did, because I just spent it all on gasoline. The, I mean, the, the bottom line
00:39:50.060
is we have gotten to a state where the, the, um, the, the willingness of the media to be the handmaiden
00:40:01.740
of a particular political ideology and political and political parties has undermined their own
00:40:08.860
authority. I mean, in this country, we've had the Russia gate things. Obviously I got to believe in
00:40:14.460
Canada that, you know, somehow people found out that, that the, the truck drivers were not a bunch
00:40:21.980
of white national. To your point, it depends on where you get your news from. It's, it's very divided.
00:40:28.140
I mean, people live in, in different realities right now here in Canada, when it comes to those
00:40:31.900
topics. Well, but I, I mean, some things, you know, have to be somewhat evident. I mean, when you go,
00:40:37.660
when you go fill up the tank of gas, you know, how much it costs, you know, when you see that, that,
00:40:43.740
that, you know, uh, that food is going to be more expensive and obviously rents, those affect people.
00:40:52.300
So, you know, the thing is that, you know, the average person may not be well-educated and may
00:40:58.460
not have a lot of sophisticated knowledge, may not be able to, uh, articulate something, um,
00:41:05.980
the way a PhD professor, uh, at Harvard might, but you know what? They're not stupid. They, they,
00:41:13.100
they can see what's happening around them. They can see like here in California, how many of the people I
00:41:18.700
know middle and working class in particular, but also even affluent people know that their children
00:41:24.220
have no chance of ever buying a house in California. Wow. Um, and that they're going to,
00:41:29.020
you know, and, and, and they, they understand the, those things. So even if the media wants to keep
00:41:36.620
repeating certain things, they know that they're not true. I mean, look, the mainstream media in this
00:41:42.620
country is overwhelmingly for president Biden and president Biden is, um, in a, in a tough race
00:41:50.460
of unpopularity with Donald Trump. Joel, before we go one question, I always like to ask people
00:41:56.540
whenever we're talking about these sort of bigger thematic issues that can kind of go either way,
00:42:01.180
like there's maybe good news on the horizon, but there's still problems for regular people's lives.
00:42:06.380
Are you optimistic about the immediate future? Uh, uh, wait for this way. I think the immediate
00:42:13.020
future is going to be very difficult where my optimism is, is that I, I think the middle and
00:42:19.500
working class people are going to, um, I'm not going to take this line down as long as we don't allow
00:42:26.940
administrative dictatorships to be put in place so that Trudeau or Biden, or, you know, it doesn't
00:42:33.260
matter or Trump are able to essentially rule by decree. I, I have hope. I have hope that, that the,
00:42:40.940
that the, the great, um, Anglo-Saxon, if you will, political tradition that we have, that, that, that
00:42:48.300
the Canadians have, that, that the Australians and the New Zealanders, and of course the Brits have,
00:42:53.740
that eventually the, the need to, uh, appeal to the population will lead to good results. My biggest
00:43:03.660
worry is that if we, um, if we institutionalize rule by decree, then I have very little optimism.
00:43:14.300
Joel Cocken, it's been a real fun conversation. Thanks so much for joining us today.
00:43:17.900
Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Proulx with
00:43:25.340
theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full
00:43:30.380
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