Full Comment - ‘There’s going to be payback’ against our political elites

00:00:00.000 Did you lock the front door?

00:00:04.060 Check.

00:00:04.620 Closed the garage door?

00:00:05.780 Yep.

00:00:06.300 Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?

00:00:09.780 No.

00:00:10.620 And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,

00:00:14.060 and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?

00:00:17.080 Uh, I'm looking into it?

00:00:19.600 Stress less about security.

00:00:21.360 Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of mind at home and online.

00:00:25.220 Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more.

00:00:28.780 Conditions apply.

00:00:31.000 Wait, I didn't get charged for my donut.

00:00:34.400 It was free with this Tim's Rewards points.

00:00:36.600 I think I just stole it.

00:00:38.000 I'm a donut stealer!

00:00:39.920 Oof.

00:00:40.580 Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true.

00:00:43.600 Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or Timbits.

00:00:48.400 With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more.

00:00:51.960 See the Tim's app for details at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time.

00:00:55.400 Ontario, the wait is over.

00:01:00.420 The gold standard of online casinos has arrived.

00:01:03.560 Golden Nugget Online Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips.

00:01:10.680 Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple.

00:01:15.400 And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tiered table games.

00:01:21.900 Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment into a golden opportunity.

00:01:28.720 At Golden Nugget Online Casino.

00:01:31.360 Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action.

00:01:37.820 All from the comfort of your own devices.

00:01:40.040 Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino.

00:01:45.340 Gambling problem?

00:01:46.240 Call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600.

00:01:50.540 19 and over.

00:01:51.460 Physically present in Ontario.

00:01:52.840 Eligibility restrictions apply.

00:01:54.440 See GoldenNuggetCasino.com for details.

00:01:56.920 Please play responsibly.

00:01:58.720 Hi, I'm Anthony Fury.

00:02:06.020 Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comet.

00:02:08.760 Please consider subscribing if you haven't already.

00:02:11.260 And don't forget, if you're following the federal conservative leadership race,

00:02:14.260 you can check out our recent episodes with candidates Pierre Polyev, Lesley-Lewis, and Roman Baber.

00:02:18.440 And we look forward to Jean Charest and Patrick Brown joining us soon as well.

00:02:22.580 Today's episode is about the frustrations of the working class, both in Canada and around the world,

00:02:27.620 and how this may soon boil over into something of a political revolution.

00:02:32.540 With inflation only going up and a standard of living that's being eroded, regular folks are not happy.

00:02:38.820 Mainstream politics has increasingly become the domain of the elites,

00:02:41.940 and the little guy is feeling more and more left behind and left out of the conversation.

00:02:46.320 And this seems to hold true on both the right and the left.

00:02:49.540 How is this all going to play out?

00:02:51.660 What's really going on out there?

00:02:52.960 Joel Kotkin has been writing on these issues for years,

00:02:56.180 both in his capacity as the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in California,

00:03:00.800 and as Executive Director of the Urban Reform Institute.

00:03:05.000 He also writes in his books on these topics and writings,

00:03:07.500 including in a recent essay republished at the National Post headlined,

00:03:10.880 The Working Classes Are a Volcano Waiting to Erupt. 1.00

00:03:14.360 Joel Kotkin joins us now.

00:03:16.100 What's going on right now in terms of the frustrations?

00:03:19.040 How, and I know we're going to get into the details of all this stuff going on in France

00:03:22.000 and other parts of the world, but how urgent, how imminent is this phenomenon?

00:03:27.720 Well, I mean, it's certainly happening.

00:03:29.740 You know, the reference to the volcano was from the Tocqueville,

00:03:33.820 writing about a similar period of unrest in the early part of the 19th century in Europe.

00:03:39.400 But what we're seeing is clearly an era in which we had sort of the end of an era of upward mobility.

00:03:50.840 Now, whether it can come back or not is a different question.

00:03:53.600 But, you know, from about 19, certainly since 1950s till arguably the 80s, even the 90s,

00:04:04.340 that large parts of the middle and working class felt their lives would be getting better,

00:04:09.280 that parents would do, would have children who would do better than they,

00:04:14.780 who would be more likely to own a home, who might have a better education.

00:04:19.820 In reality, that's no longer the case.

00:04:23.240 Young people in particular are hit on the one level, certainly hit by the loss of good jobs,

00:04:32.940 particularly, you know, for working class jobs, as these countries have de-industrialized,

00:04:38.000 as we try to shut down, let's see, things like fossil fuels and other industrial activities.

00:04:46.040 So that hits the working class. But what's really interesting, and I've written quite a bit about this,

00:04:51.700 is the fact that a large part of the people who go to school, who are educated, are also not doing well.

00:05:00.880 We basically, in the United States, we graduate twice as many BAs as we have jobs for.

00:05:06.800 So you've got also a class of young, at least somewhat educated people,

00:05:13.000 very often from middle class backgrounds, who are now working in the Amazon warehouses or

00:05:18.580 at Starbucks as baristas or, you know, I guess in Canada, maybe Tim Hortons.

00:05:25.720 But, you know, they're not doing remotely as well as their parents did.

00:05:30.740 And that is a very, very dangerous situation.

00:05:34.440 And certainly was reflected by what happened in France the last couple of weeks.

00:05:39.460 Yeah, I know about 10 years ago, there used to be that joke about, oh, you're barista and

00:05:43.540 their liberal arts degree. Guess you didn't pick a very good major. Ha ha. And we've heard those

00:05:47.380 jokes for years. But I feel like they're not really jokes anymore. Because to your point,

00:05:52.080 the number of people that applies to it, it's not just the fact that they chose the, you know,

00:05:56.940 the poetry masters, which, you know, people thought, well, you're not going to get a

00:06:00.140 professorship, you're not going to get tenure, and you're not going to get a high paying job. It's just so

00:06:04.000 many other lines of work and avenues of education that, I think, are putting people

00:06:09.480 into this situation where they're not optimistic about their future.

00:06:13.400 Well, and also, you know, one of the key things that people don't talk about, I was

00:06:17.640 having a conversation with one of the designers of the metaverse, somebody who's close to

00:06:25.000 Musk and to Zuckerberg. And he said, you know, the people whose jobs are really going to be

00:06:31.620 threatened, or a lot of the people who have degrees in college, but their functions are

00:06:37.440 increasingly automated. In other words, artificial intelligence, we think of it as taking away

00:06:42.980 factory jobs, which it might do. But you know what, you still need the plumber, you still need the

00:06:48.720 carpenter, you still need the person at the hospital to take care of your aging parents.

00:06:54.980 You still need people to do some of the basic tasks, as we found during the pandemic, you know,

00:07:03.300 you needed somebody to pack up the trucks and send products along. Those functions may actually

00:07:12.160 do better. So what you've got is you've got not just traditional blue collar working class

00:07:17.780 displacement, but you also have the displacement of younger educated people, and then a generational

00:07:24.420 crisis, in which a large number of young people are doing much worse, in many cases, and certainly

00:07:32.260 generally worse than their parents. That is something clearly going to create a greater market on the

00:07:41.380 right and the left for sort of more extreme activities. So Joel, when we talk about the phrase

00:07:47.180 working classes, to give us a frame of reference here moving forward in our conversation, what do you

00:07:51.720 mean when you say working class? What does that capture?

00:07:56.220 Well, I think it's basically when I'm referring to working class, generally people without four-year 1.00

00:08:03.000 degrees, working in jobs that require maybe six months training, and sometimes less. People who,

00:08:15.900 generally speaking, are not in the top, you know, 20-30% of earners, but many of them in the past were part

00:08:27.580 of a unionized workforce, probably more so in Canada than here, certainly much more so in Europe than here

00:08:33.660 in the United States. But they were parts of a union. They had pension plans. They had medical coverage.

00:08:44.540 Now, many of the working class, and this also includes some of these people with the college

00:08:50.020 degrees, are part of what's referred to as the precarious, as in precarious. In other words,

00:08:57.420 there are people, the Uber driver who maybe one week is working 80 hours and the next week isn't working

00:09:04.140 at all, or the person who's working at the Amazon warehouse in the months before Christmas, but maybe

00:09:13.420 doesn't have a job in January. This kind of irregular employment, which used to be referred to by people

00:09:23.340 like Marx as the lumpen proletariat, are now part of a large part of the working class. And that's the 0.56

00:09:32.140 main group in the working class. The middle class that is also understressed tend to be wealthier,

00:09:39.100 a little bit better educated, and probably most importantly, probably own a home.

00:09:45.100 I increasingly find it so remarkable that people are able to get by this day and age when I'm going

00:09:51.180 about my daily experiences in terms of whether it's looking at real estate listings or one example

00:09:55.820 that always comes to mind. I have three kids and I took them to the movies a few weeks ago. We had

00:10:01.580 lockdowns for quite a long time here in Ontario and finally said, okay, back to the movies,

00:10:04.940 hadn't been for a while. And I bought all the tickets, I bought the popcorn. I was like,

00:10:08.140 this is a hundred dollars. And I was like, okay, well, you know, I haven't gone to the movies in

00:10:12.460 a while. I have the money. I am not crying poor at all. But I was like, other folk, like people who

00:10:17.500 are just getting by, it's one thing to say, oh, I can't afford the vacation to Paris or Tropical

00:10:23.260 Island, but they can't afford to take the kids to the movies. How are people doing that stuff these

00:10:29.420 days? Well, I think we're going to see the push come to shove very soon. Obviously, the very low

00:10:36.540 interest rates and the money coming directly from the government helped forestall some of this. But

00:10:45.420 I think most of all about gas prices. I mean, I live eight minute drive from my school. I sometimes

00:10:53.260 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

00:11:00.060 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

00:11:12.460 the morning, it's going to take you at least an hour and a half. And you're going to fill up a tank

00:11:19.820 for 90 to $100. Now you're talking about somebody who maybe they're making $30 an hour. So basically,

00:11:27.900 three hours of their of their work is just gone just to get them to work and back. So same thing with

00:11:37.420 food, you look at the food prices. And and by the way, I've you know, I've worked in this area as

00:11:42.620 well. If you go on a global level, what's happening to developing countries to people where, let's say,

00:11:49.260 in India or in Mexico, where the price of food and energy is really a problem? That situation is even

00:11:58.460 worse. And certainly in Africa, for which I work with people in South Africa about this,

00:12:04.780 is it's really quite frightening. Yeah, I was about to ask you because

00:12:08.060 you're talking about the experience on the California coast. I'm talking about my experiences

00:12:11.420 here in Toronto. To what degree are these just sort of bicoastal elite phenomenons where,

00:12:16.300 unfortunately, persons who are of lower income really struggle in those cities? I was going to

00:12:20.140 say, are things better in the Midwest, fly over country, rural parts of Canada? And this is just

00:12:24.460 a sort of elitist phenomenon. But but then you bring up places like India. So you're saying,

00:12:29.100 no, this is a problem pretty much for everybody everywhere right now.

00:12:32.780 Definitely. I mean, and, you know, the problems of, you know, I mean, whatever idiot in the Biden 1.00

00:12:39.420 administration decided that, you know, inflation was an elite problem. No, inflation is a working 0.94

00:12:45.420 and middle class problem. And yes, I think if you're in Saskatchewan or you're in in the Dakotas or you're in 0.69

00:12:53.980 Kansas, it's not as bad as being in a place like New York or California in terms of prices, taxes,

00:13:04.140 and opportunity. But one of the things that's happening is certainly happening in this country

00:13:11.100 is that people are giving up on these coastal economies because they can't afford to live

00:13:16.860 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

00:13:30.860 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,

00:13:40.460 work from home. It is just spread so much into the rural neighborhoods within a two,

00:13:45.260 two and a half hour drive from Toronto.

00:13:47.420 And look, what a great way to live. I have friends in New York who,

00:13:51.900 you know, they've moved to the Catskills. And yes, they go into the city, you know,

00:13:56.780 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,

00:14:10.700 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,

00:14:22.380 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?

00:14:53.820 Oh, no, Macron, he taught the win. Macron's still popular. Everybody loves Macron.

00:14:57.100 You say, well, hold on a second. If you look at the results of the first round,

00:15:00.380 you see much more diverse grievances going on, suggesting not that Macron is sort of

00:15:06.060 well-loved by millennials and everybody in France.

00:15:09.900 Actually, when you take a look at the vote in the first round, particularly, but also in the second

00:15:15.660 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

00:15:32.940 or for Le Pen. Now, you're talking about one person who's a Trotskyite, I mean, sort of an

00:15:39.580 unreconstructed Marxist, basically, sort of, you know, kind of a Bernie Sanders, but much more,

00:15:49.420 much more explicitly on the left, and Le Pen, who is the inheritor of French fascists. I mean,

00:15:56.060 this is not a hopeful sign. And this is what happens when younger people give up hope. The only group 0.96

00:16:02.780 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

00:16:32.300 the Second World War, they, you know, we had relatives left behind in Russia. You know, the, the,

00:16:39.260 the experiences are very different. But this, this youth vote for Melanchol, and for Le Pen is really,

00:16:49.020 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 0.99

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

00:17:29.340 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,

00:18:23.260 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

00:18:42.860 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 1.00

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 1.00

00:21:25.500 truck drivers are devoted white supremacists. So, I mean, I thought that- 0.92

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. 0.98

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 0.99

00:22:02.060 battle for who can have more imbecilic leaders. But it's a good contest. But fundamentally, I thought 0.99

00:22:11.580 the truckers thing, and by the way, I'm a pro-vax person. I think that people should vaccinate, 1.00

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 0.66

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 0.96

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 0.97

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.

00:25:29.020 Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package.

00:25:33.500 Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply.

00:25:37.660 Scotiabank. You're richer than you think.

00:25:40.540 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering,

00:25:46.540 is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

00:25:52.300 Are those from Winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather

00:25:58.220 tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress? That jacket? Those shoes? Is anyone

00:26:04.780 paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners. Find fabulous for less.

00:26:11.980 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 1.00

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? 0.99

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 0.98

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 0.99

00:30:30.940 talking about it. I mean, it's, you know, this, this, you know, and I think this is something 0.98

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, 0.99

00:30:59.260 but, you know, Canadians don't tend to be lunatics, at least not the ones I've known. 0.86

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 0.99

00:31:43.420 house. But he's going to invest billions of dollars in China, which is building coal plants, 0.94

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.98

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, 0.79

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,

00:36:47.100 you were in big trouble.

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

00:37:07.100 have the conversation.

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

00:37:31.100 larger than Hawaii floating around right now.

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 0.95

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.99

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, 0.97

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 1.00

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 Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, and Amazon Music. You can listen through the app or your

00:43:35.740 Alexa-enabled devices. You can help us by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends

00:43:40.380 about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - May 09, 2022

‘There’s going to be payback’ against our political elites

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript