00:09:53.280And then Mitt Romney came out yesterday.
00:09:55.860And there was a WSG, Wall Street Journal came out.
00:10:00.340But I don't understand. Why are they voting against Trump via Senate and Congress races?
00:10:11.600So Marcel is saying that's like part of the deep state, like, you know, this coordinated thing. But what but what would it be for to what just trash the country? You know, I don't I don't understand this whole deep state philosophy because it trashes the country for everybody involved.
00:10:32.200You mean why they're not, why these erstwhile Republicans aren't loyal Republicans in the case of Donald Trump's presidency?
00:12:22.260They've created such an expectation that they're going to do well, that if they don't do well, they'll probably cry fraud.
00:12:28.700In other words, the conventional wisdom that they're going to, you know, take the Senate and the House and so on is a great platform to then, if you don't perform well on Election Day, crime, manipulation, fraud, etc.
00:12:46.060But, you know, they've got committees, they've got organizational structures, they've got timelines, they've got tactics. And I have a source who used to work for USAID, you know, the sort of adjunct of the State Department, maybe of the intelligence services that, let's say, ran color revolutions, you know, shifted Eastern and Central Asian countries to democracy.
00:13:16.060by a kind of dramatic process of, you know, fomenting unrest and, you know, exacerbating
00:13:24.160divisions, calling elections unsound, and then starting protests that often drew a crackdown,
00:13:32.420which then became the basis for a kind of coup or a revolution as, you know, they call
00:13:40.340So those people who did that in other countries recognize very clearly what's being done here as what they used to do.
00:13:49.760As the source told me, these tools work.
00:13:54.780And I think what he meant by that is that we should take seriously the application of these techniques in the United States.
00:14:03.140We're a little naive, I think, about our immunity to the kind of manipulation we do abroad.
00:14:09.600Maybe because we've never brought it home in a concerted and open fashion, but now we are.
00:14:16.640And to me, it's breathtaking to see, really, to see people lining up and talking about changing the Constitution, getting rid of the Senate, shifting power to the states.
00:14:32.820Traditionally, it was sort of conservatives who liked states' rights.
00:14:35.960You know, it allowed Southern governors to maintain segregation longer than otherwise and so on.
00:14:43.120But it sounds like in this plan, it will be the left that's going to bang the drum for states' rights and use its governors, people like Newsom and so on, to create some kind of extra federal coalition, which they in these documents are very careful to point out doesn't equal secession.
00:15:04.080because they know it sure looks like it and they know it probably does equal it in the minds of
00:15:10.200non-enthusiasts. So, you know, looking at what's going on in France and Europe and
00:15:19.860I feel like perhaps these riots, this is not a protest. Why is France rioting on our election
00:15:30.560calendar. You know what I mean? I know, but I think it's going to help us.
00:15:34.900I think in a weird way it's going to help us because we don't want that shit happening here.0.97
00:15:39.280And I think that there are more quiet, normal Americans who do love our constitution and our0.97
00:15:46.160way of life that don't answer polls and don't speak out publicly that are like, if this is
00:15:51.740foreshadowing, I don't want any part of this. And I think a lot of Democrats personally are going to
00:15:57.460vote for Republicans because the Democrats aren't even Democrats anymore. They're just, they've
00:16:02.640lost, they've lost all credibility about anything. I just, I just feel like, I don't know. I just
00:16:10.280feel like there's too many normal people that are going to just quietly vote Republican.
00:16:16.500Now, I hope so personally, because I don't like this crew. I don't like the new democratic party
00:16:24.420And I don't like seeing these sort of, I don't know, NGO style, non-governmental, former governmental, you know, retired intelligence official, former admiral, and so on, organizations stepping in to create either confusion or some kind of extra legal alternative that their people will follow.
00:16:51.480of, you know, maybe the split in the armed forces as to loyalty is the last stage in a color
00:16:58.680revolution. When you start getting people, you know, confused about who they serve, who their
00:17:03.440commander in chief is, and when you, you know, basically get them to mutiny, it's over. I don't
00:17:09.400think we're at that point. But I also don't think that what's going on in France necessarily is
00:17:13.980going to help the Republicans only because doom, riots, fear hasn't motivated them sufficiently
00:17:26.320in the past, it seems to me. Sometimes it seems like whosoever craziest wins because they get
00:17:33.980the momentum on their hands. They get that crazy kind of manic expectation that the revolution is
00:17:42.320at hand. Whereas I think on the conservative and centrist side right now, it's like a choice
00:17:50.360between running and hiding and sticking your head in the sand or trying to do something.
00:17:55.100And sometimes I think people get indecisive and aren't effective when they're operating just out
00:18:01.300of fear and reaction and defense. Well, somebody said in the chat that the Democrats they know are
00:18:07.860just not voting. And, you know, I do wonder what the voter turnout will be. And plus, we don't
00:18:15.440know what voter turnout actually is anyway, because there's so much fraud. But it's important
00:18:20.720for people to realize. And I mean, I say this as a former, you know, traditional journalist,
00:18:26.680Time Magazine, and on Harper's The Atlantic. Everything that happens before the election
00:18:36.760is a psychological operation. Everything that happens, the polling, the rumors, the word of
00:18:44.820mouth, the social media posts, the trends, the little anecdotes that get repeated and go viral,
00:18:52.860everything is subordinate to that election. And none of it is true in and of itself. It's all
00:19:00.940instrumental it's all meant to you know depress turnout encourage turnout scare the other side
00:19:07.020create high expectations uh so that if as i say there's a disappointment you can blame some kind
00:19:17.060of uh nefarious plot um but everything including the polls i mean not only don't i trust the polls
00:19:26.620i do trust the polls i trust them to be nudging people in all the ways that polls can
00:19:34.460for all the people who can pay for polls and there's just no way anybody wants to give you
00:19:41.340the truth at this point the truth is neutral the truth puts people on uh you know equal ground uh
00:19:49.980but tweaking it telling people things are worse looking better whatever uh prospects are higher
00:19:57.660that gets people to do stuff and the news now is all about behavior modification it's not about
00:20:04.140truth i mean truth did you hear today about that wedgwood polling company that just did whatever
00:20:13.340they wanted social experiment? Listen, I mean, let's go back to why we trust polls in the first
00:20:21.220place, right? When did we start trusting them? That's the weird thing that we need to examine.
00:20:27.300You know, when I was at Princeton University, Gallup polling was in Princeton, and it had this
00:20:34.920academic and high institutional reputation, the Gallup poll. There was really only one other
00:20:44.060big national poll. I think it was called the Harris poll. And they came on as scientific
00:20:51.020and, you know, the science and so on. But I don't know that their accuracy was ever tested
00:20:58.640sufficiently. You know, they did a lot of polling that was testing what's normal in America. How
00:21:07.160many steaks do you eat? And polling became a way of understanding what other people do.
00:21:13.340Because as social beings, we always want to know what everybody else is doing,
00:21:17.080because we're always afraid that we're out of step or a little weird or not representative or
00:21:21.680whatever. So we started trusting this thing called polls to tell us not what we were going to do,
00:21:27.780but what everybody else was going to do. And what everybody else was going to do affected us.
00:21:35.060We either, you know, wanted to be with the crowd or we felt we couldn't beat them and
00:21:40.560stayed out of it. Or we went, oh, no, the bad thing is going to happen. It motivated us.
00:21:48.440But trusting polls in the first place was the error. And like everything else, CBS News,
00:21:56.560polls, vaccines, whatever. There was a period for boomers when, you know, every one of them0.70
00:22:03.940was gold-plated. But it's weird now when I think about it to think that statistics
00:22:09.920and small samples could tell you what people are going to do, especially when a lot of those people
00:22:17.320have no intention of telling the truth to a stranger on the phone. So I think we should
00:22:24.740just throw those things out uh they shouldn't affect our behavior at all especially now uh
00:22:31.460when communication is so wide open we don't have to guess what people are thinking anymore everyone
00:22:36.100puts every freaking thought out there in the universe all day long yeah but we still do it's
00:22:41.060chatter it's chaff it's confusing it's a jungle um you know what people really think and which
00:22:48.420people are real people and which people are AI, which opinions are those of actual individuals
00:22:56.380and which are talking points. You know, yesterday, for example, there was a spate of calls for Elon
00:23:04.740Musk to perhaps be prosecuted, jailed, punished, or exiled or something should the Democrats win.
00:23:11.460And it propagated yesterday across media. You know, you saw a news clip about it and then an outraged tweet about it and et cetera, a podcast excerpt.
00:23:25.500All of that, none of that was organic. Yesterday was Get Elon Musk Day. That was the theme.
00:23:31.700Um, maybe that motivates people, uh, who are moved by class conflict, the notion of seeing
00:23:38.500the world's richest man who just flew a car upside down, you know, at a trade show, uh,
00:23:45.120what in, uh, in the dock, uh, eating from plastic plate in the cafeteria.
00:23:57.840So that was yesterday and today it will be something else.
00:24:00.760You know, I don't know. But what people really think may be a bigger mystery than ever, frankly.
00:24:09.900We're all looking around to see what else, you know, what the person next to us thinks.
00:24:15.680We're all looking to see what celebrities think. You know, we're looking to see what podcasters, I guess, and influencers, the sort of pillars of social media think.
00:24:27.460But they've become very unreliable. I mean, here, you know, you had Tucker Carlson do as big a swing as as you can do in sort of political commentary from sitting next to Trump at the convention to saying, you know, he should be pulled out of office or something.
00:24:46.700um so uh but i don't use i don't use social media as a guide i don't use polls as a guide
00:24:54.740i don't use you know uh the cafe or the uber driver uber drivers are always super conservative
00:25:02.500okay they come from other countries they are they don't have opportunity they become an op
00:25:07.980you know an uber driver here it's basically a small business person they're a little anti-corporate
00:25:14.060because Uber keeps taking their cut, you know, slowly eroding it.
00:25:19.320But basically they're entrepreneurial individuals who get up and work
00:25:24.720and don't like passing people who aren't working as they, you know, go about their rounds.
00:25:30.540And here in Las Vegas, at least, they are a kind of conservative force.
00:25:35.180But I don't know what, you know, I don't know what people think
00:25:38.260if they don't put signs in their windows,
00:25:40.100which a lot of people do now to tell you what they think, you know.
00:25:44.060But I think the important thing is that we all think for ourselves and it's hard to cut the noise out, but you have to, you know, I always say Scott taught us how to think.
00:25:56.240But Scott also believed that your opinions were assigned to you, that until you became conscious of how they were installed in you and how the system works, you might mistake other people's opinions for your own.
00:26:11.220And, you know, and but once you are sort of alienated from them or able to see them from the side or don't identify, you then have a little bit of control.
00:26:21.220God bless Scott for that, because it's true.
00:26:26.320How many of us have someone in their family or maybe their whole family?
00:26:31.560And it feels like Rachel Maddow somehow got into their dreams and programmed them completely and her sponsors, too.
00:26:39.920and you find people, one day they're against something that they didn't even know existed
00:26:47.120the day before. So how did that happen? Where did they find that passion? Where did they even
00:26:52.800find that knowledge? Well, that's how I see the Democrat Party because for my friends that
00:26:57.600are lifelong Democrats, I say this all the time on this show, that if you were a Democrat 35 years
00:27:04.020ago and you're still a Democrat today, you had to twist yourself into a whole different person
00:27:09.480to fall in line with what the Democrats are doing today.
00:27:12.160Like that person can't exist 35 years ago that exists today.0.83
00:27:16.380So it's like you're like a fraud of yourself
00:27:19.040because the Democrats have changed so much
00:27:21.680with their beliefs and how far they would push something.
00:27:25.040Abortion up to nine months and, you know,
00:27:27.420let's pack the Supreme Court and this and that.
00:27:29.700And it's like, wow, you would never have co-signed on that,
00:27:35.220When your metaphor for history is progress,
00:27:39.480the arc of history bends toward justice, you know, things get more fair, just, equal every year.
00:27:48.660In other words, when you are linked as the Democratic Party is to a sense of climbing,
00:27:55.460constantly climbing a mountain to gain greater rights, greater fairness, greater, you know,
00:28:03.220uh, benefits, uh, for people. You're on a one way street. You're never allowed to say,
00:28:10.600you know what? I think we can pause now. I think everybody's got enough, uh,
00:28:16.980food, help, medical payments, uh, we've got enough bathrooms. I don't think we need to
00:28:23.740complicate that any further. Uh, we've achieved three quarters of our goals. Um, and, uh,
00:28:31.580we're going to slow down. No, you've got to keep going. It's a runaway train. It doesn't have
00:28:36.880brakes. Unless you keep showing progress, unless the world is still the unjust opponent led by the
00:28:45.160fascists and the reactionaries and the capitalists, that you must be constantly sort of
00:28:51.160battling back to keep in its place. Unless you run that narrative, you don't have a party.
00:29:00.200So now we're off into the we we're off into like fairyland in terms of finding people and situations to apply the injustice framework to finding new rights, finding new problems that need to be solved, new opportunities for benefits and so on.
00:29:20.880I mean, luckily, we've been broke for a while. So Democrats haven't been quite so loud about, you know, benefits packages, though they do seem to be making a lot of noise about Medicare, Medicaid for all.
00:29:36.120um after having wrecked the i mean absolutely wrecked the health insurance market uh they take
00:29:46.080the chaos that they created as the uh basis for medicare for all yeah and and we were told back
00:29:55.380when that was the plan and people were like oh you know that's paranoid that that's a little
00:30:02.040i'm still pissed i didn't get to keep my uh insurance and i liked my doctors at my plan and
00:30:09.040it was like bye that's all gone and um we don't qualify as a small business anymore we we are a
00:30:16.540small business but they say a small business is like 50 people or more i'm like no that's a pretty
00:30:21.560big business 50 people um and my insurance has i mean it went from like let's say when i liked it
00:30:29.480maybe 800 a month and now it's like close to four thousand dollars for two people yeah and i don't
00:30:36.600and i get nothing like i i you know i have a 60 copay and blah blah blah but i'm like what and
00:30:44.040and then if i don't take the insurance you know god forbid um so it was it's a mandated thing and
00:30:51.480insurance should be you know if i want it or i don't want it um so yeah nothing ever gets fixed
00:30:58.520It always goes the wrong direction, and they can never say we were wrong.
00:31:02.320In my personal political awakening and readjustment and course correction,
00:31:18.600And I was in tune with the magazine largely.
00:31:22.180I mean, I lived out in Montana, so I was a little bit more libertarian,
00:31:25.900I guess, than somebody who lived in Washington, D.C.
00:31:28.520but i was striding along with them when obamacare happened and i saw instantly that not only were
00:31:36.760all the promises um vanishing but the market was such that it was only going to go down i mean
00:31:46.760there was no there was no doubt about what was going to happen it was going to get more and
00:31:51.480more expensive care was going to get less and less generous my doctor immediately said you
00:31:58.280you know, I don't want to be any part of this. I'm going to go concierge. I'm going to just charge.
00:32:05.360And it has run down like that. And that was the premier social program of the Obama presidency
00:32:15.320and not just his presidency for a long time. Kind of like the New Deal or the Great Society,
00:32:22.700obamacare was right up there and it is a total freaking disaster yes i i'm paying three thousand
00:32:29.180dollars because my my uh union the writers guild of america hollywood union uh keeps raising uh
00:32:38.380the amount that you have to earn to qualify for the union health insurance in other words the union
00:32:43.740can't afford to insure its people anymore and it's keeping more and more of them out of the
00:32:48.940the insurance pool by raising the earnings standards for participation. When a Writers Guild
00:32:57.240of America union, one of the most sort of traditionally left-wing unions in the world
00:33:03.940or the United States, can't afford its own health plan, somebody's really screwed things up.
00:33:12.280Oh, yeah. Yeah. So then you just you just compound that with all the other things that your everyday Americans facing. I mean, health insurance, you know, and, you know, and now we're talking about fuel and groceries and, you know, travel. And God forbid you have to fix something on your house or your water heater breaks like, you know, everything's just so out of real.
00:33:34.200Yeah, but we're still we're still clinging to the middle class promises here. You know, the middle class is paying for everything, though.
00:33:40.920Yeah, they're paying for everything, but they're also being fleeced like nobody's business because what the middle class really wants in America is to be left alone at some point, maybe to retire or semi-retire, pay off the house and have some security.
00:34:01.800What the middle class fears is having its tiny stake that it's worked all its life for, taken away in a disaster.
00:34:09.160So they'll pay anything for health insurance.
00:34:11.700They'll pay a lot for homeowner's insurance, which itself is going crazy out where I live, just to preserve that little toehold.
00:34:21.920But there are a lot of people who either formerly qualified as middle class or would have at least in another world tried to be middle class who aren't playing the game anymore.
00:34:35.760I mean, to be honest with you, I know a lot of people just don't buy health insurance.
00:34:40.340And it would be shocking to you how upright and sort of proper they are in other ways.
00:34:50.520They think it's a con and they're not doing it.
00:34:53.080And slowly but surely, the middle class, which, you know, is always hedging its bets and always trying to put a fence around its, you know, modest wealth, is giving up.
00:37:57.580You know, you're expected to do more, give more, whatever it is.
00:38:02.360So, you know, the election matters for me because I'll tell you why for me personally, I am, people will say I'm phobic. No, I am petrified of Islam. I'm not an Islamophobe. I am petrified of Islam taking over our country. This is what I see. I see it happening.0.99
00:38:23.020I see them like instilled and their values and the constitution have nothing to do with each other and they want to change all of it and have their own way.
00:38:32.920And so that's one of my huge fears. And my other fear is socialism, communism.
00:38:40.340Just to interrupt. Yeah. Where does that fear come from?
00:38:45.020I'm not saying it's erroneous. I'm not saying it's implanted. But where did it come from?
00:38:52.320It started literally with 9-11 when I became aware of Islam, nothing to do, I'm not even
00:38:59.840saying anything to do with the attack itself, but that's when you started to hear about
00:39:03.380like other cultures and, you know, other places.
00:39:05.520And then you started to learn about, um, God, it was like, right.
00:45:39.360I think they're doing more present damage.
00:45:42.940I have a kind of faith that America is a stronger chemical than others think.
00:45:53.680I think it can break down a lot of lumpy things into a broth.
00:46:00.840And I think traditionally, though there are separatist groups and maybe, you know, at the extreme, the Amish or something, that doesn't necessarily harm the country at large when people decide to go have their separate peace.
00:46:16.400It's when they gather together in these coalitions that look proto-revolutionary that I worry.0.59
00:46:26.880And frankly, it's not Islam that's leading the DSA. It's good old. It's good old New Englanders, people at Harvard, people, you know, from the thinking elite classes that we call white. And, you know, they scare me more.1.00
00:46:50.060well i mean listen you know i am a pretty loving person and i am kind to all people
00:46:57.080but if you know if you say to me like what what are my concerns that's that's my concern that's
00:47:03.120that's a big one for me and of course there's others and i don't lose sleep over it but i am
00:47:08.680very much worried about it just because i anyway but that's okay um so listen walter if i don't
00:47:15.580if I don't say the word UFO to you before our time runs out,
00:47:44.520Okay, so Walter, UFOs, a lot of talk about the UFOs. There was like a moment where we kept seeing all these images out of like Iran and whatever, who knows what that was. What is happening? Is something going to be disclosed after the midterms? What are we thinking? And that man who's been going around saying that he's seen the ships and the aliens, is he still alive five days later?
00:48:12.840Jay Stratton, the author, yeah, he's very alive.
00:48:17.280He's on every TV show and every Twitter thread, and he's being welcomed.
00:48:24.500Now, every time I come on, you ask me about UFOs, and every time I basically give you the answer that right around the corner, there may be news.
00:48:41.380And it's been that way for like 70 years or something.
00:48:46.720You know, ever since we knew there was a UFO problem or a UFO phenomena, we were waiting for it to be explained and for disclosure and for the truth to be told.
00:48:58.060And I think that started in about 1948 and it's still happening.
00:49:02.320But I will still play the game, even though I know it, you know, is a low odds game for any.
00:49:10.020I forget what you said, Walter. Have you ever seen one?
00:49:54.000We have unexplained craft that have crashed in America.
00:49:59.380that kind of speech, maybe with very crisp photos for once that don't look like a potato
00:50:06.680sinking through a swamp water. And yet he didn't. It's probably too late to do anything like that
00:50:19.640before the election. It would look weird. There would be no time to process it. We'd have to set
00:50:25.880side. It might seem like it was some kind of interference to bring the cosmos into the last
00:50:35.040week of an election. But among the people who hope that there is going to be news and are trying,
00:50:41.240how can I put it, among the whistleblower types who really would like, who believe there is more
00:50:46.980to know, who tell us that there, in fact, are bodies, craft, a long history, a thing called
00:50:54.600the legacy program that is an open secret. Among those people, there is a hope that maybe before
00:51:01.300January, he will give a speech after the election, but before, you know, the new Congress is seated
00:51:08.360and so on. And that it might be something like a bipartisan speech of such a thing, you know,
00:51:14.700is possible in America. Not a bipartisan speech, but a bipartisan movement for candor and openness.
00:51:21.900And, you know, impossible. Walter will never have that again. Well, strangely, you're probably right, because the Democrats used to be just as interested in UFOs as anybody.
00:51:33.500It was equal opportunity obsession. But they've been very quiet about it suddenly since it appears that Trump is in control of it.
00:54:15.200I mean, if you had the job, and I'm sure someone does, you know, to get in and out of limos and so on, you really would have to act quickly and not let anybody get along and look at you.
00:54:36.900For some reason, it seems plausible that there was more than one Biden.
00:54:40.500It doesn't seem plausible that there's more than one Trump.
00:54:42.860I know he's got that posture and like his movements, man, I'm sure somebody could get it down, but they'd have to give him like a prosthetic like back and everything and the whole, I don't know.
00:54:53.260But I always wanted to ask everybody that, you know, like, what are you thinking?
00:54:57.320Like when we're home, like, that's not Joe Biden and this guy's two feet taller and da-da-da-da-da.
00:55:01.980And it's just like, what does Walter Kern think?
00:55:06.120He had so much plastic surgery, you know, for one thing, that he didn't look like anyone in a way.
00:55:12.540And, you know, in 2020, when he was running, I went to an off-the-record dinner with one of these secret tech billionaire types who get the biggest experts to sit at the dinner table and give everybody inside dope.
00:55:29.220And there was a neurosurgeon at this dinner. And I tell you, it was one of the titans that threw it, who said, who explained that Joe Biden had twice had his skull, the top of his skull taken off for brain surgery.
00:55:45.320This is true. You know, I think it happened back when, maybe even in the 90s. And he said anybody who's had their skull opened twice has lost and will lose faculties just as an almost mechanical function of the surgery and the trauma and so on.
00:56:05.440And that it was kind of a scandal that someone who had had this procedure more than once was even being run for president in the first place.
00:56:17.740I remember because, oh my God, he had a brain aneurysm. Didn't he have like some kind of an aneurysm, you guys? And I was like, how does that not disqualify him? Like they're so picky about everything with their medical and their background. And he was already slipping a few steps before he was president.
00:56:33.220You know, sometimes I adopt what I might call notional paranoia. I don't really believe it, but I imagine a conspiracy where I don't think there is one, just to sort of clarify what I think is going on.
00:56:51.780with Biden, you had a feeling that the presidency was not that of a person. It was a committee.
00:57:00.640It was not just his wife, but top advisors. The public didn't really know their names, in fact.
00:57:07.880But at various points, there were announcements that, you know, the people around the president
00:57:14.180have decided. And the paranoid side of me thinks Biden presidency was a stage in getting us used
00:57:25.180to the notion that we're ruled by a group, that we're ruled by the party, that we're ruled by
00:57:31.380the deep state. And to stop, how can I put it? Stop this metaphorical presidency as kingship
00:57:43.520myth, much better when a bunch of experts do things. And I think it got us used to the
00:57:52.940president not being the president. I agree. Such that, and it, you know, it contrasted so
00:58:01.300harshly with Trump because sometimes you get the idea that Trump doesn't have any advisors
00:58:06.740that are any that he listens to, you know, that it's the opposite case from Biden.
00:58:12.780The guy, the guy's doing it all himself until two in the morning and then starting at six.
00:58:20.620So. Yeah, it does appear that way. So, Walter, what is what is something that's been floating
00:58:29.620around in your head that is maybe a hoax or a distraction or something that would be kind of
00:58:39.540spicy that you think the rest of the public isn't hip to right now? What are we missing that you
00:58:46.380feel like you're seeing? Oh, man. Well, I mean, if you see it on social media, you're probably
00:58:52.460meant to see it at this point. I don't think anybody discovers anything innocently there.
00:58:59.100And I think most dot connecting is nudged or prodded these days.
00:59:06.500But out on the street of Las Vegas and out on the byways and back roads of America, what I see is people concerned about their kids more than anything.
00:59:20.780people concerned that whether their kids are seven or 17 or 27 they may not have the road to a home
00:59:29.120they may not have the road to any kind of stake in society you know um and we were talking about
00:59:37.340the middle class earlier what i see happening it's not a hoax it's not a conspiracy it's not a
00:59:44.300trend it's just a you know a phenomena or a situation that's developing more commonly is
00:59:53.380people trying to decide do they push for this kind of middle-class security do they spend all their
01:00:02.240money on insurance do they sacrifice do they work harder do they um you know invest more in the
01:00:10.820system that appears to be failing? Or do they pull back and just, you know, just as there are
01:00:18.280Democrats who may be Republicans now, there are some Republicans who are becoming Democrats0.86
01:00:22.520because they're like, damn it, the state better take care of everything because I can't afford0.95
01:00:27.400it. I gave up. You know, I used to be one of those rugged individualists. I used to never0.99
01:00:31.900want to take relief for whatever they called it, the depression, welfare, they called it,
01:00:37.020whatever i don't do that now they're starting to say hey man uh if i want to have a roof over my
01:00:44.640head and uh you know i'm gonna have to get something from the government i'm gonna have
01:00:51.220to break down that uh prejudice or resolve and so especially in the case of children i think
01:00:59.760people are like hey can somebody help my kids buy a house like what's going on here uh
01:01:04.480are they going to have a home any time soon? And that's my concern for my kids too, frankly.
01:01:15.420Sure. No, I see a lot of my friends of all ages who are really working hard,
01:01:21.980I believe, to make sure they can leave enough money to their kids so they can have a full life
01:01:28.640because I don't think they have the confidence that the future will be enough for the kids to
01:01:34.380you know like you said have a home and make it on their own because it's just become but you know
01:01:39.580we keep being told by people like elon musk or some of these um heads of the big ai companies
01:01:46.060that we're two years away from money becoming meaningless you know um you won't remember elon
01:01:52.740saying you won't have to save uh you might not have to work if you have an optimist robot and
01:01:58.440you know, a little UBI, everything will take care of itself. So it seems like we're poised on these
01:02:04.720two different scenarios. One, technology and artificial intelligence and robotics and so on
01:02:12.060are going to kind of land us all on easy street. The future of saving, scrimping, working hard,
01:02:22.420sacrificing may be over, and here comes abundance. And on the other side, you have this complete
01:02:27.820oh my God, you know, we're never going to climb into, you know, even the kind of respectability
01:02:34.260that our great grandparents who immigrated here had. Right. Yeah, it's scary. Okay. So in closing,
01:02:43.220two quick things, they don't have to be quick. It's up to you. But so I see that you and Matt
01:02:49.540Taibbi are joining together for election night coverage. Is that what it is?
01:02:54.840Yeah. Tell us. Election night, maybe election afternoon. I have no idea how long that will go, but we're going to do a live, you know, double cast podcast and cover, you know, the Senate and Congress races.
01:03:11.920uh we haven't been together since last february we had a very mysterious ending to our podcast
01:03:18.860very sudden uh lots of people uh speculating it really wasn't that interesting a story
01:03:24.980i guess we'll have to tell it but it's you know going to be a treat to be back with him
01:03:30.740yeah i miss doing the show um and we have it we have a sense of humor that doesn't work with
01:03:39.320other people. It only works when we're together. You know, it's a lock and key situation. And to
01:03:44.740make jokes at the expense of all these candidates that night, I mean, I think I'd pay money for
01:03:51.220the privilege. So where, where will that be? Like what, what podcast?
01:03:58.000Well, America This Week, which was the name of our podcast, always ran through Matt's sub stack.
01:04:05.560okay but but i think it also appeared on youtube and other places i don't in other words i don't
01:04:12.600think you have to subscribe to matt substack to see our i'll grab it from you and promote it
01:04:18.920you know so everybody can watch you guys so we'll make sure we put that out there so people want to
01:04:23.160watch you and matt it will be it will be the best election coverage going i mean i promise you and
01:04:29.240and you know we have the ability to put up c-span without fair use problems so we can follow all
01:04:35.160the returns you're not you're not going to be out of the loop if you watch matt and walter
01:04:40.200uh but you will be free blessedly of the all you know carl rove on fox uh you know
01:04:48.920rachel maddow and all those people with uh lighted red and blue maps pointing to them
01:04:55.880and running around and you know a big sour puss on their face and yeah and i'm sure it'll be more
01:05:03.320entertaining than andy cohen and anderson cooper on new year's eve also right because you'll be
01:05:07.720doing shots and all that so that's going to be fine well i don't do shots matt did once and he
01:05:14.120actually became intoxicated on the air and it was a bit of a problem um oh my gosh so you guys
01:05:21.800you never know you never know we could uh sponsor shots over there for matt um and the other thing
01:05:27.800i wanted to ask you about for you to tell all of our listeners about a lot of people jumped onto
01:05:33.080your page now for county road can you tell us all about that and what that is county county highway
01:05:38.280highway highway highway yes okay so i i'm a partner in a newspaper which is really a magazine
01:05:44.520it comes out six times a year uh it's called county highway it exists as a physical newspaper
01:05:51.000it's mailed to your house it doesn't exist on the internet there is an archive where you can
01:05:55.560see old stories but they can't be shared or you know go viral or anything this is a old-fashioned
01:06:01.880newspaper but it's really a literary newspaper in that our stories aren't newsy they're i guess what
01:06:09.640you'd call uh general interest or you know we'll write about all kinds of things but our bias is
01:06:16.680to not write about new york city washington dc and los angeles so we call it county highway because
01:06:22.360there there is a country connecting those three cities and things do happen there and the people
01:06:28.920are interesting and in fact much more interesting because they're not you know monolithic like the
01:06:36.060residents of you know the leading metropolises so please subscribe you can get to it from twitter
01:06:44.480countyhighway.com but as I say it comes in the mail and it's got some of the best writers in
01:06:51.460America you know there's a lot of unemployed writing talent in America easy to pick up and
01:06:57.700we've got the very finest writers and I think the most interesting stories and we don't have
01:07:04.140this polar political agenda at all um we did actually a study of our readers and there is
01:07:11.680absolutely split in the exact same way as the country in general I love that so it's a county
01:07:19.620highway and my subtitle for it is a breath of fresh air so it and also you get that that you
01:07:27.280hold the tangible thing in front of you. You open the page, you read it. It's like a thing
01:07:32.680that you have. I love that. Yeah. Highest quality paper, highest quality ink. It comes in a special
01:07:38.640wrapper. So if it lands on your doorstep and the neighbor turns on the sprinkler, it won't be
01:07:43.800ruined. And it's really a good deal. And it's a kind of sideways look at America that I think
01:07:53.380refresh you and hearten you it doesn't mean to be encouraging it's not a
01:07:57.760nostalgia magazine it's not a sentimental magazine but when you start
01:08:01.300reading stories that you didn't expect from places you aren't familiar with you
01:08:05.860start to go you know we're a stabler society society than they're reporting
01:08:12.500all right I need to get myself a subscription because I could use some
01:08:16.940stability. Are you the editor? Holsey wants to know. No, I'm what's called the editor at large.
01:08:25.360That means it's my job to go out and publicize things and talk about the magazine and sort of
01:08:31.940be the front man. The editor in chief is David Samuels, my partner. So he sort of puts the
01:08:40.360headlines on things and gets everything to fit and does a lot of the assigning of stories and so on.
01:08:46.000And I'm, you know, I'm out there on the road singing the praises.
01:12:14.260Who you are, that's who you are, that's who you are, what you think about the most, that's who you are, who you are, who you are, who you are.
01:12:26.600And you can change what you think about the most.