Russell Brand explains why the royal family should be on motorbikes, and why the police should not be on bikes. Plus, a look at the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and a look back at the coronation of Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cambridge. And a look ahead to the upcoming coronation, and Russell's thoughts on the lack of motorbiking in the modern world. This episode is brought to you by Pfizer and edited by Annie-Rose Strasser. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. Our ad-free version of the podcast is available on all good podcasting platforms, including Audible, iTunes, and Podcoin. See all the links below to our sponsorships and promo codes: Stay Free With Russell Brand Subscribe to Stay Free with Russell Brand on iTunes and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! or wherever else you get your favourite podcaster and why he should be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. If you like what he's doing, please tell a friend about it. And if you don't like it, tell us what you think about it and we'll make him/she can do it better next week on the next episode of Stay Free, and he'll get a shout out on the airwaves. Thanks for listening and tweet us your thoughts on it! if you're feeling generous! Timestamps: 4:00: 5:00 - Who's the best Prime Minister? 6:30 - What would you like it? 7: Who's there? 8:15 - What do you'd like to be a bike? 9:40 - What's the worst thing you're not getting a bike in the future? 11:00s 12:20 - What kind of bike you're the most intimidating? 13:00 14:00- What's a bike you'd be better than a bike that's faster than a horse? 15:30- Which bike is more intimidating than a car? 16: Is there a bike more intimidating you? 17:15- What are you're you're scared of a horse more than a bicycle? 18:30s - Is it a horse or a horse less intimidating than that? 19:40s - What makes a bike better than an elephant?
00:00:33.000Thanks for joining us on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:00:35.000We'll be talking to David Sirota later from the Lever.
00:00:38.000But we're going to start by talking about Rishi Sunak, who is somehow or another wound up as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that we live in right now.
00:00:49.000And you'll notice that the pageantry that surrounds our Prime Minister is not as impressive as the pageantry that surrounds our Royal Family.
00:00:57.000They're going to be making a big move next week when they put a different type of hat on a different type of person.
00:03:01.000I think it might be because they're on zero-hour contracts.
00:03:02.000Zero-hour contracts, they're working so hard, they're part of the press underclass that's been created, but has once again, the technological miracle, has turned human beings into a kind of fodder for a machine that will ultimately devour your soul.
00:04:55.000...don't look comfortable running, as well.
00:04:57.000Like, you know, when you see sort of, like, people running with Secret Service running by a campaign, like, they look like they don't fit in their suits.
00:08:23.000That's when we say football, we mean proper football, not that crazy thing you do over there, you loonies.
00:08:28.000Here are just five of the reasons that people are worried that the coronation is going to be chaotic.
00:08:34.000And when you see that cavalcade, you see why.
00:08:37.000The King's coronation has been plunged into chaos after rehearsals overran significantly, prompting fears the nation will switch off and hit more pressure on the stuttering start to the monarch's reign.
00:08:47.000Problem is, you don't need a monarchy anymore.
00:08:50.000There's no point taking slave ships, if indeed they are slave ships, off of the badges of the Manchester football clubs, and of course the Industrial Revolution and colonialism have connotations of slavery and certainly inequality and exploitation, but...
00:09:08.000If you're gonna address the symbols of inequality and corruption, here's one.
00:09:26.000The King's coronation has been plunged into chaos after rehearsals overran significantly, prompting fears the nation will switch off and heap more pressure on the stuttering stars of the monarch's reign.
00:09:35.000A catalogue of major issues have emerged at the heart of planning for the May the 6th event, with insiders revealing seating plans are still not arranged, owing to Prince Harry and Meghan, who have still not confirmed their attendance despite the April the 3rd cut-off point.
00:11:00.000You've got to respect the thing, haven't you?
00:11:02.000And that's the same as they, them, his, her, all that.
00:11:05.000I just call people what they want to be called.
00:11:07.000Like sometimes with a doctor, even though part of me is like, I'm not going to call you doctor, you think you're better than me, then I do call him doctor.
00:11:12.000Because normally if you're seeing a doctor, you want them to be good at that thing.
00:11:16.000You don't want to rub them up the wrong way.
00:12:11.000Uh, furthermore, with the coronation, Rose- Rouse over the coronation route with planners wanting a smaller procession to keep costs down to avoid scrutiny.
00:13:51.000Oh, surely, hasn't the decision been made on Pentangy right now, surely?
00:13:55.000Like, can you have a nice house somewhere and just stay there and dogs and things?
00:13:58.000Just look, let's just pretend you don't exist for a while after all that.
00:14:01.000Unlike many of the other people on the Epstein guest list, we're just simply going to ignore they're there because it's too difficult to think about.
00:14:08.000We're going to have to dismantle too many institutions.
00:14:10.000The whole system is going to be revealed as utterly corrupt.
00:14:14.000We've got a fantastic guest on now, whether it's Oscar-winning writing, or groundbreaking investigation, or bringing together high-profile figures to have necessary conversations about democracy and its shortcomings.
00:14:27.000I'm particularly impressed by his recent conversation with AOC, where he confronted I would say that she's an important congressperson, AOC, with the kind of questions I want to hear people ask.
00:14:40.000Like, why do you vote in line with stuff you don't agree with?
00:14:43.000What does that tell us about the system?
00:15:07.000But I think the British pronunciation, I think I'm not British, but I think the British pronunciation is lever.
00:15:12.000So whatever you want to do is good with me.
00:15:14.000Okay, well, perhaps we'll vacillate over the course of the conversation.
00:15:19.000Can we ask you about Nancy Pelosi's recent award for advancing healthcare?
00:15:25.000Has Nancy Pelosi done a great deal to advance healthcare over the years, David?
00:15:32.000Well, I mean, so the story is that Nancy Pelosi recently, this week, got an award from one of the big healthcare lobby groups, the Hospital Association, the hospital lobbyists.
00:15:42.000And for those who don't know about the American healthcare system, the hospital lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in the entire country, private lobbies.
00:15:53.000And it's a lobby that doesn't want government sponsored health care because it fears that
00:15:59.000government sponsored health care will bring down the prices that hospitals can charge.
00:16:05.000Hospitals some of the most profitable pieces of the for-profit health care system.
00:16:09.000So Pelosi was given an award by the major lobbying groups for the hospitals after she
00:16:19.000After she blocked, used her position in the House to block all sorts of health care reforms.
00:16:24.000So in this sense, this story is a story of kind of honesty, right?
00:16:29.000Like, the lobbyists who don't want a reform of the healthcare system in any serious way, the lobbyists who want to preserve the for-profit healthcare system, We're giving an award to a lawmaker who has, I mean I think it's undeniable, who's played a pivotal role in protecting that industry and preserving the current healthcare status quo, which is basically a dystopia for millions and millions of people in this country, but is certainly a financial jackpot for the hospitals and for the other pieces of the for-profit healthcare system in the United States.
00:17:05.000David, do you think that there is some kind of unspoken consensus that we are not supposed to overtly criticize our, inverted commas, own side?
00:17:18.000I know that you are a Democrat, you're a A liberal that you've written for Bernie Sanders, but you're willing to ask difficult questions to the AOC.
00:17:30.000We find ourselves in our own particular media space challenged by the idea that we are willing to attack both sides, but you start to recognize how audiences are accrued to the kind of subjects that are appealing.
00:17:45.000Do you face similar challenges when criticizing the Democrat Party And we've discussed before whether or not you feel broadly disillusioned.
00:17:53.000Let's just take as a starting point for this question the current glee on the left around Fox News's out-of-court payout to Dominion when their attacks on the electoral system is certainly a bipartisan issue and even the criticism of the machines themselves has been undertaken and used by Democrats in elections that they've not won.
00:18:18.000In the next election, whoever wins, we're likely to have a period where the side that loses undermines the election result itself.
00:18:27.000What do we do, those of us that work in media space, when tackling issues that are sort of defined by partisanship rather than real principles and values?
00:18:36.000How does that play out with issues like the Fox payout and electoral politics more broadly?
00:18:44.000Well, look, I think there's a couple things going on.
00:18:47.000I certainly think there's always been partisan media in our country.
00:18:55.000But I do think that over the course of 20, 30, 40 years, That partisan media has become a bigger and bigger force in American politics.
00:19:05.000There was a study out that we reported on last week where I think it was one in seven Americans right now
00:19:11.000are consuming eight hours or more per month of partisan media.
00:19:17.000And that among this group of people, most of them are not exposing themselves
00:19:23.000to cross-cutting media, media that might offer a different perspective
00:19:28.000than the partisan bubble that they're in.
00:19:31.000And I think that the partisan bubble has been enhanced or really fortified by social media filter bubbles.
00:19:38.000The algorithms will serve you more of the kind of content that it thinks that you want.
00:19:44.000So if you're on the right, the algorithms are going to be serving you more of that content rather than exposing you to different kinds of content.
00:19:57.000So I think The problem is, and I think we've discussed a little bit of this before, the problem is there's truth and there's verifiable facts, and partisanship doesn't necessarily care about that.
00:20:10.000What we're living in is an information system in which facts are preferenced or suppressed based on whether they are perceived to serve or undermine a particular party.
00:20:26.000If there's a fact out there that doesn't serve a particular party, those party members are less likely to be exposed to that fact, even if that fact is incredibly important.
00:20:39.000So I think it's very difficult to get the facts out.
00:20:48.000I mean, you have seen mass layoffs across corporate media.
00:20:52.000I think that has a lot to do with corporate media's business model, but I also think it has a lot to do with the audiences sensing that they're not getting an honest picture of what's going on from corporate media.
00:21:04.000And I think there is a rise of independent media that some of which, not all of which, but some of which is trying to Hone to the facts, focus on inconvenient truths, even though it may offend one or the other side.
00:21:19.000But when you do that, There's going to be, there really is a lot of pushback.
00:21:24.000I mean, if you tell the, as an example, the story that we just discussed about Nancy Pelosi, if you tell that story to people who were ensconced inside an MSNBC media bubble, a kind of democratic aligned partisan media bubble, a lot of that audience will react in a hostile way to that because it's content, it's facts that they don't want to hear, that they've been conditioned To be hostile to because in the narrative, it potentially helps the other side.
00:22:02.000My view is that we need to adhere to facts, not only for the public good and having a discourse that's actually rooted in verifiable facts, but that if you want your party to be better, Then what you should want is your party to be informed by those facts so it can speak to lived realities.
00:22:21.000Again, using the Pelosi example, the healthcare system is completely a dystopia in the United States.
00:22:30.000That's an issue that is a political issue whether the Democrats or the Republicans like it or not.
00:22:35.000Pretending that the Democrats haven't had anything to do with the healthcare dystopia.
00:22:40.000Not looking at the record of the party leadership that we've talked about as it relates to somebody like Nancy Pelosi doesn't help the party connect with voters on those issues in elections.
00:22:54.000When journalists like Taibi, Greenwald, Schellenberger, who I intuitively feel are probably left of centre and anti-establishment figures, start to be smeared, to use a sort of, I mean, there's a point where I would have to say being right-wing is just one of the options within a rather limited rubric of potential things you can be and it shouldn't be even regarded as a smear, it's just a type of political identity, And then public figures like, say, me or Joe Rogan get called right-wing or far-right even by association.
00:23:26.000Do you begin to become concerned about the nature of your reporting?
00:23:33.000And even the fact that, you know, as you outlined, you said you have a different purview and perspective, that you think that it would be an opportunity to grow the party, including critiques of Nancy Pelosi as an opportunity for the Democrat Party to improve.
00:23:45.000But that's obviously not institutionally the direction that politics is heading in, and it seems pretty clear to me that the reason is is because it can't handle those critiques, because ultimately to take them on board, you'd have to change the direction, you wouldn't be so beholden to your donors, to dark money, which you've done great work on reporting on, of course.
00:24:00.000So ultimately, doesn't it reveal that they don't want an open, independent conversation about political systems that are pretty turgid and corrupt when it comes to it?
00:24:16.000I think that's what's really going on here is that the donor class of both parties wants to have a particular conversation that isn't about how the donor class fleeces the country.
00:24:26.000So the donor class wants a media conversation mostly about the culture war.
00:24:33.000Billionaires are happy for people to be arguing about culture and not about billionaires ripping people off.
00:24:41.000So I think the hostility to a fact-based discourse and dialogue that doesn't hone to partisan parameters, I think that's a threat To the donor class of both parties, which is why it's hard to have that discourse.
00:25:02.000And you bring up the tactic of labels.
00:25:04.000Look, labeling people right-wing, you know, right-wing demagogue, you know, Bernie Sanders socialist.
00:25:13.000I mean, socialism has an actual meaning, but you see the use of labels and the use of them as epithets to try to shut down the conversation.
00:25:24.000Now, I want to be very clear about this.
00:25:26.000I think that if somebody brings an unverified, unsubstantiated, untrue allegation into the discourse, that should be interrogated and debunked with other verified facts.
00:25:43.000And you can do that without resorting to kind of name-calling that seeks to shut down the conversation, right?
00:25:51.000That's what a lot of these labels end up doing.
00:25:54.000They're an attempt to shut down the conversation, shut down the debate, because the debate is inconvenient.
00:26:02.000But that's different from you bring up an allegation into the debate and somebody counters it with facts.
00:26:09.000I mean, I think we need more of that and less of the former.
00:26:12.000Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:26:14.000A recent conversation I enjoyed was Jon Stewart's with Kathleen Hicks, where he brought up the failed audits of the Pentagon.
00:26:20.000And it was, for me, interesting to see someone genuinely interrogate a figure with a degree of power.
00:26:26.000And also her hubris and disdain for even the line of questioning was pretty revealing.
00:26:33.000I want to ask you, How does an anti-establishment voice like Jon Stewart's compare, in your view, to what I would regard as an also anti-establishment voice like Tucker Carlson's?
00:26:46.000You know, although obviously Tucker Carlson is associated, certainly due to his tenure at Fox, with right-wing conservatism and it's pretty plain that his cultural values are somewhat in line with traditional conservatism.
00:26:58.000Do you feel that as the political space shifts and the argument becomes more about centre versus periphery rather than left versus right, that new alliances between figures like even Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders and RFK, Marianne Williamson and other sort of firebrands of the libertarian right...
00:27:18.000Would be a valuable new alliance if we're going to actually shift politics away from the intentions and agenda of the donor class that you have identified as being the sort of real power behind the teleology of American politics.
00:27:33.000So to me the difference between somebody like Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson is about verified facts and lying.
00:27:40.000Tucker Carlson, I believe, has lied about the, for instance, the election.
00:27:45.000He has sown things that are not verified, allegations that are not verified, and frankly, not true about elections.
00:27:55.000I don't think Jon Stewart has done that.
00:27:58.000And I'm not talking about, you know, individual issues here.
00:28:01.000I'm saying there is fact-based questions on things that we can, after verification, stipulate our facts.
00:28:10.000And then there is kind of knowing, deliberate sowing of information that isn't true.
00:28:17.000So I think that's less a question of people's political ideology, because you can be on the right and be making your arguments based on facts that are actual facts.
00:28:28.000You can be on the left and do the same.
00:28:29.000I think that's a question of, well, do you agree with the person's ideology if we can stipulate facts?
00:28:37.000When people go knowingly into pushing out things that they know to be untrue or at minimum they know to be unsubstantiated, I think that's when we get into a different kind of conversation.
00:29:25.000The obligation of people in the media space, in my view, especially as a journalist, is that what you're saying is accurate, is as true as you can tell, as you can verify.
00:29:38.000And if it's not fully verified, you can acknowledge that.
00:29:44.000That should be the metric by which we judge, in my view, media.
00:29:49.000It's not whether you're conservative or liberal or anything else.
00:29:52.000It's whether you are acknowledging your viewpoint, being honest about that, being honest that there's no such thing as objectivity, And then being true to a pursuit of truth and actual facts and not throwing out there things that you know to be untrue just because they serve your particular ideology or your party.
00:30:14.000Isn't that just one of the sort of potential flaws and tendencies of subjectivity itself?
00:30:19.000Because whilst I imagine that when you talk about Tucker Carlson, you're saying that there's
00:30:26.000something cynical around his reporting on the election result, and that's sort of, you
00:30:30.000know, I'm sure you would argue demonstrable if those text messages are valid and stuff,
00:30:34.000and with regard to that issue, you know, I take your point.
00:30:37.000But more broadly, Tucker Carlson has said that he regrets toeing the line for the mainstream
00:30:52.000He's actually gotten to the point now of saying that he don't trust either political party.
00:30:57.000So like, when you take all that in, are you still saying you're cynicism?
00:31:01.000Are you still cynical about Tucker Carlson's agenda?
00:31:05.000So we're just using him as an example, because I'm sort of reaching the point where I think,
00:31:08.000hang on a minute, I feel like it's probably easier to form an affinity with Tucker Carlson
00:31:14.000rather than a kind of CNN style stuffed shirt reporter that's ultimately going to parrot
00:31:20.000the talking points of their funders or their sort of overlords, for want of a better term.
00:31:27.000Yeah, I mean, look, I have trouble at large trusting people who have put out or who have propped up things that aren't true and done so in a way that doesn't seem to be, you know, an accidental error.
00:31:44.000There's kind of a deliberate calculation there, which goes back to calculations based on what serves a particular party or particular ideology.
00:31:55.000So on that level, I I have trouble trusting, whether it's Tucker Carlson or anyone else, people on that score.
00:32:02.000Now, ideologically, I will also acknowledge that I have a set of ideologies and beliefs and values that are fundamentally in many ways at odds with what Fox News and what Tucker Carlson has put out there, right, on all sorts of issues, whether it comes to immigration, race, whatever issue you want to go into.
00:32:27.000They are fundamentally divergent from my views.
00:32:30.000I find some of the stuff they put out to be deplorable.
00:32:35.000So that's less a trust issue and more a, listen, I just disagree with where you want to take this country.
00:32:44.000Now, I can acknowledge here and there, in the way a stop clock is right twice a day, that once in a while somebody on Fox News will say something where I'm like, well, you know, that's a good point.
00:32:59.000Or, you know, I can agree with a point there.
00:33:02.000It's pretty occasional, but I can acknowledge that.
00:33:05.000And I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that.
00:33:07.000But I will say this to go back to the media information system that we live in.
00:33:12.000Even me just saying that right now on this show, there's like a decent chance that somebody's gonna go on
00:33:18.000social media, clip this clip and use it to say that I am a shill for Fox
00:33:25.000In saying that once in a while, somebody on Fox News says something I agree with.
00:33:29.000That can be clipped to say, look at Sirota, an anti-establishment journalist.
00:33:33.000He's actually a shill for Fox News because he said once in a while, occasionally, someone on Fox News will say something about an issue that he doesn't completely disagree with, right?
00:33:44.000That's the information dystopia we live in.
00:33:47.000And the trouble with it is, is that it's used to shut down the discourse.
00:33:54.000It's used to try to classify people as on one side or the other for the purposes of muzzling them.
00:34:02.000Yes and with the regard to the matter of vulnerable people broadly you know that can be sort of almost a derogatory term but it says the subject of immigration and in particular homelessness.
00:34:17.000Before I went on Tucker Carlson's show I spoke to Bunch of my mates that are, what you might say, traditionally Democrat, liberals, like, you know, mates with Shepard Fairey or Tim Robbins or whatever.
00:34:27.000And I go, I'm going on Fox News, I'm going to be, like, having these kind of conversations, da-da-da, what sort of points would you have me bring up?
00:34:32.000So, when I talk, you know, although obviously I have my own values and opinions as well, but like, I spoke about the subject of homelessness and one report that I'd personally seen where Tucker had been really sort of quite incendiary, and I brought that up and he was actually, I would say, apologetic.
00:34:50.000So, while I agree that we would have different values, how does your, like, if you say that someone's propping up ideas that they don't believe are true with regard to the sort of well-documented issues that are going on with Fox News, how do you relate that to AOC, who's voted for stuff that she said she would never vote for?
00:35:11.000And this is a person that's in Congress, and there's sort of a Like a figurehead for a movement, should we say, you know, rather than a pundit.
00:35:18.000Now you could say, you know, you could argue about who has the most influence, but when it comes to actual democratic authority, AOC has more.
00:35:24.000So, like, do you think, do you evaluate these figures in the same way, or do you think one's own biases, and in this case your own biases, make you more broadly sympathetic to AOC?
00:35:36.000Even if, in the end, David, the sympathy towards immigrants becomes a kind of aesthetic Because nothing's bloody well getting done, because when it comes to voting time, we're going to vote with a machine.
00:35:46.000Yeah, I mean, let me first address the point about Tucker Carlson, because I just want to make an important point here, which I think people miss a lot.
00:35:52.000I mean, you mentioned homelessness crime as a great example.
00:35:56.000Fox News' focus on a particular story about crime.
00:36:00.000You'll notice that Fox News does not focus very much, if at all, on white-collar crime.
00:36:06.000on rich people's crimes against everybody else.
00:36:10.000There's a particular kind of story that is told on Fox News, by the way, broadly throughout the American corporate media, that is a crime, you know, the sort of law and order story that is aimed at, as you said, vulnerable people, poor people, lower income people.
00:36:26.000And you don't get nearly as much coverage about the white collar crime that is creating all sorts of damage in our society.
00:36:34.000Point being here is that There's a way to dishonestly skew the narrative through story selection.
00:36:45.000That one of the most powerful ways to create or to push an ideology is to choose stories carefully to tell one set of stories and ignore the other set of stories.
00:37:00.000It's a really profound way to manipulate the discourse In a way where you can say, well, the stories that were airing, they're not untrue.
00:37:08.000That's true, but you're not telling this other huge part of the crime story.
00:37:12.000So I only bring that up to say, when I watch Fox News, I don't trust That the story selection decisions are being made with any eye towards telling an accurate and honest holistic story about the topic at hand.
00:37:31.000Now as it relates to AOC, look, you're right, she's different than a pundit.
00:37:53.000I think that AOC in the interview that I did with her, she made, I asked her the question, if you say you're on a different wing of the Democratic Party, why are you voting 91% of the time with Joe Biden?
00:38:05.000In some cases on things that you've said you won't support.
00:38:08.000And what I gleaned from her answer is that Inside of an institution like Congress, you're ultimately forced to deal with binary choices.
00:38:20.000And if you can get good things into something that you don't like, there's a case to be made you should vote for half the loaf, even if you're voting to eat.
00:38:28.000You know, something attached to that half a loaf is something that you don't like.
00:38:32.000Those choices are difficult and I'm not absolving them.
00:38:35.000That people should be held accountable for those votes.
00:38:39.000But her argument was that it's a more nuanced situation.
00:38:43.000Now, I would say this, it's my responsibility to ask the questions.
00:38:46.000It's her responsibility as the politician to offer up answers, and it's the responsibility of the viewers to decide whether those answers hold water, whether those answers are convincing enough.
00:38:57.000I would say this, I do have a Because of my own political values,
00:39:04.000I guess I don't believe that the vision that somebody like AOC says they wanna see for the country,
00:39:11.000I am not necessarily opposed to pieces of that.
00:39:16.000I think there's a different values proposition than with somebody like Tucker Carlson,
00:39:30.000I think I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC on the facts of the matter.
00:39:35.000I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC by saying,
00:39:38.000well, listen, I may agree with some of your values, so I'm not gonna ask you tough questions.
00:39:42.000But it is to say, I'm more open to the idea that she's not necessarily, she, and by the way,
00:39:49.000members of Congress from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party writ large,
00:39:53.000that they're not making necessarily, They don't have necessarily horrible intentions.
00:40:00.000That their vision for the country is not, in my view, a bad vision.
00:40:05.000I can say that I think that their tactics in many cases have been weak, that they've capitulated, that they haven't stood their ground.
00:40:13.000And arguably, you can say in not standing their ground, they are making a values decision.
00:40:19.000This is a really interesting part of that discussion, which is what is the difference between a tactical dispute and a values dispute?
00:40:27.000Am I having a dispute with you over the way you're pursuing the values that we agree on, or is the way that you're allegedly pursuing the values that we supposedly agree on, are the tactics that you're using, do they exude that you actually don't have those values?
00:40:45.000And that is the hardest thing to discern in journalism.
00:40:49.000That is the hardest thing to figure out.
00:40:51.000When you outlined the first part of your point saying that what Fox News presents is a kind of a mural that discounts ideas and issues that will be antithetical to their ideology, I would say that the way that they differ from CNN or MSNBC is so small as to be negligible and not worthy, ultimately, of conversation.
00:41:15.000When you point out the restrictions that AOC offers within, it Identifies the fundamental systemic problem.
00:41:24.000Even if she has values that are in alignment with what you believe in, it's irrelevant systemically.
00:41:46.000I don't think republicanism is the answer.
00:41:48.000There are aspects of libertarianism that I'm becoming sympathetic towards, because if you truly believe in individual freedom, then that means across the scale, across the spectrum, whether it's sexuality, identity, gun ownership, you know, there's all sorts of ways I can see that that could be an interface for coalition.
00:42:06.000But when it comes to, when we start to identify that even if someone has values that you broadly agree with, cannot get across without considerable compromise, notions, ideas, intentions or policies that would be in alignment with your beliefs, what it shows me is that systemic change is required and in order to bring about that systemic change, new coalitions have to be formed that transcend the current framing of the discourse.
00:42:33.000That's why my, speaking about us You know, there's two people operating in the space in varying ways.
00:42:38.000But that's why I'm interested in having conversations with people that I would plainly disagree with, because I feel that those kind of alliances will disrupt and alter the trajectory.
00:42:49.000I'm actually beginning to think that the taxonomies themselves are becoming redundant, because particularly if you agree with democracy genuinely, and I think that means the maximum amount of democracy, not some atavistic throwback democracy from bloody 300 years ago, Where we pretend we couldn't all be voting on many, many more issues.
00:43:37.000It's something that I think about and I worry about a lot.
00:43:41.000That if you look back on some of the worst and most dangerous right-wing authoritarian fascist movements in history, Many of them have couched themselves in the language of helping the little guy, helping the working class.
00:43:59.000And the ultimate question that really comes up on this is, if you make common cause, With right-wing fascists, people who are not interested in democracy, true authoritarians.
00:44:16.000And you make common cause with them on this or that issue where rhetorically there seems to be agreement.
00:44:24.000Are you ultimately emboldening that right-wing authoritarian movement to do horrible things that transcend the specific issues that you agree with them on?
00:44:42.000I haven't gone on Fox News, and part of the reason is because I'm uncomfortable with participating in something that an endeavor that emboldens a not just a political party but but an authoritarian movement that that that that.
00:45:03.000Broadly speaking, doesn't have the overarching values or goals that I support and that does have overarching values and goals that I think are quite dangerous.
00:45:15.000Now, some could say, well, if you don't go on Fox News, you're forsaking your ability to talk to its viewers.
00:45:20.000And I think there's an argument there.
00:45:23.000And so I'm kind of conflicted about this.
00:45:25.000And I should say, I think that politicians, which is a different role than you or I, I think they have a responsibility To be in as many forums as possible.
00:45:34.000So, you know, Bernie Sanders did a debate on Fox News.
00:45:37.000I think that, I mean, if you're trying to run for president and speak to as many voters as you can, forums that you go and you have to try to reach voters where they are.
00:45:46.000But I will say, This question of, in trying to find common ground on specific issues, are you actually emboldening a larger and more dangerous movement that will operate in a bigger way beyond those issues to imperil everything?
00:46:13.000I understand your concern but I noticed that you had to recourse to the term right-wing fascist sort of like early on in your response and I think to that I would say yeah right-wing fascism that's out full stop and with regard to authoritarianism the rise of authoritarianism on the liberal left is being Terrifying whenever it's surveillance, censorship, the legitimization of new methodologies for authoritarianism.
00:46:40.000And my concern is that beyond Republican and Democrat, we're living in a time of perpetual crisis and the function of this perpetual crisis is the legitimization of authoritarianism.
00:46:49.000I think it began perhaps, as far as I can tell, around 9-11 and every subsequent disaster, whether economic or medical or military has been used to underwrite authoritarianism.
00:47:01.000And I think that this is a response to something that you alluded to earlier,
00:47:05.000the real legitimate potential for actual democracy now that technology provides us with,
00:47:12.000immediate ability to communicate, the opportunity for counter narratives
00:47:37.000In order to prevent the burgeoning changes that are presenting themselves, that something is trying to be born and authoritarianism is the de facto response of both parties.
00:47:47.000I would say that when it comes to the media and both political parties, that by...
00:47:52.000coming out to bat for our particular side, which I think for me not long ago would have been the,
00:47:58.000you know, the sort of centre-left or liberalism, even socialism actually, although I no longer
00:48:03.000trust the state to represent ordinary people against corporate power. I no longer think
00:48:08.000the state does that, so I would not advocate for empowering the state further. I feel that,
00:48:14.000I feel that in coming out to bat for either side, we are contributing to the problem. That's my
00:48:52.000I think your concerns about authoritarianism on the other side, I think about surveillance, the normalization of the war on terror, I mean, and all of that, I think that is hugely important and hugely important to criticize.
00:49:09.000I just worry about, you know, as an example, If I go, and I'm not that important, but like if somebody like me goes on Fox News to make my points, and Fox News, and again I'm just using Fox News as an example, it could be any of the corporate media outlets.
00:49:28.000And I am used as a way for them to go out and say, look, we're honest, we're fair, we're accurate.
00:49:35.000You know, somebody like Sirota is on there, on here.
00:49:38.000And then the next segment is them demagoguing something on crime in order to scare people about racial minorities or the like.
00:49:47.000Have I participated in helping them make a set of arguments and create a set of narratives that I don't think are good for democracy?
00:50:02.000I don't really know what the answer is.
00:50:05.000I'm not sure there's one answer, but it is something that's on my mind.
00:50:08.000It's sort of the opportunism I guess is what we're circling around.
00:50:12.000The kind of dishonest opportunism of all of many of these corporate media structures in which the viewpoints are only there to serve their deeper goals and values, most of which are not the goals and values that I share, most of which I think are goals and values that are bad for small d democracy and bad for the future, bad for the world.
00:50:35.000What I did when I went on there is I went with prepared facts about inequality and political economic corruption on both parties and read them out while I was on Fox News.
00:50:47.000That was the only way that I combated.
00:50:49.000Gareth Faheer, who I work with, who loves the lever, prepped us a whole bunch of stuff.
00:50:56.000And so I was like, while I'm on it, I'm going to say this stuff.
00:50:58.000Now, the idea that we might be contributing to a sort of a kind of a cultural mandate of
00:51:06.000the veracity of Fox News reporting, I think potentially, David, plays into the paternalism
00:51:11.000that is leading to the distrust in the political class and the media more generally.
00:51:17.000I think that we're the right, and again, I don't feel that being right-wing is in itself a problem,
00:51:23.000whilst I would consider myself to be transcendent of these political labels,
00:51:26.000because I don't think there's an answer to be found within them.
00:51:30.000Uh, that one of the things I don't like is the idea that they're being spoken down to and that there's a sort of a technocratic intellectual class that think that they're idiots.
00:51:40.000And when you can use those flashpoints like basket of deplorables and the kind of criticisms that are often levelled at, you know, literally 50% of the voting population, there or thereabouts, depending on which voting machine you use or decry, like that that's going to create more
00:51:57.000antagonism. So again, like you say, I agree, there isn't one answer. It has to be
00:52:01.000ultimately a question of your personal values and almost your intuition. It becomes in a sense,
00:53:44.000You know, let's get on with it because as long as we're mired in this, the centralized billionaire class are going to continue to exploit those differences because we can't form any of the necessary alliances to confront This true tyranny?
00:53:57.000No, look, I agree with that foundational point.
00:54:03.000And I want to go back to something you said, because I've been thinking about it since you said it on this broadcast.
00:54:09.000As an example, you don't trust the state to be a defense against corporate power.
00:54:16.000I would guess that part of the reason, if maybe even most of the reason you don't trust the state, is because the state has shown that it is not really controlled by the people writ large.
00:54:29.000In other words, democracy has been so limited, it barely even exists, that the state is not acting
00:54:37.000at the will of the people in whose name it is governing.
00:54:43.000So I do think that the democracy crisis, and that term bothers me because I think it's been limited
00:54:49.000to January 6th and the like, because the democracy crisis really is a crisis
00:54:55.000of a government that governs in the people's name and doesn't really care about the people writ large,
00:55:03.000a government that is essentially owned by a handful of oligarchs and corporations.
00:55:08.000That is, to my mind, the fundamental problem with so much of this, is that whether it's corporate media as the fourth estate check on government or government itself, these institutions are not built to represent or to respond to What the public really wants.
00:55:29.000It's it's and I think ultimately that is really the problem.
00:55:35.000I mean we have look we can go through issues where it's like you know polls show people are 90 percent in support of an issue and there's just absolutely no chance of that happening.
00:55:46.000Passing through Congress, getting okayed by the Supreme Court.
00:55:50.000So we have clearly a highly undemocratic system.
00:55:55.000And I think the ultimate question then becomes, well, not only how do we fix that, but how do we even have a media system that's able to address that?
00:56:04.000A media system in which much of the media, certainly most of the corporate media, exists to prop up that system.
00:56:13.000The thing that kills me in media, and I know I'm kind of all over the place here, but the thing that kills me in media is so many of these corporate media organizations present the defense of the current status quo and the system as objective reporting.
00:56:31.000You notice when you read these newspapers and the like, it's kind of the tone of the voice of God, that what they're presenting, these are the facts, this is what's going on, and there is no alternative, right?
00:56:47.000There are no other inconvenient facts.
00:56:53.000Now, obviously, they do have an ideology.
00:56:56.000But one of the most, I think, powerful ways that these organizations create the discourse and split us apart is by pretending That their information that oftentimes props up the status quo, an unacceptable status quo, it presents it as apolitical, as completely impartial.
00:57:19.000That's why I don't trust so much of corporate media.
00:57:22.000I would rather you tell me and be transparent about what your values are, what your views are, so that I know, and that you then have an ethos that at least honors being accurate about things, but I can at least know where you're coming from.
00:57:39.000I'm more likely to trust that than somebody presenting me their story that has an ideology, but presenting it and pretending they have no viewpoint or ideology at all.
00:57:51.000And I think that that's a kind of a message that people that conventionally watch Fox News would benefit from hearing.
00:57:59.000As a matter of fact, although I completely understand and appreciate your position, when you sort of present it in terms of oligarchical corruption, then I think that that's That is the appetite.
00:58:12.000And when there is no representation from anyone other that's rhetorically exploiting that anger, then that is literally the only game in town.
00:58:22.000I think people sense that Joe Biden is a career politician who's...
00:58:27.000Corporately backed, who's precisely in position to ensure there is no meaningful change, that the capping of Big Pharma, of drug prices for ordinary Americans, becomes a kind of mealy-mouthed, mitigating, yeah but not really kind of deal, because of the power of the lobbyists, the power of the donors, the power of the media class.
00:58:51.000I think people are exhausted And I think that, as you have pointed out several times in our conversation, that the systems themselves are unable to deliver change.
00:59:00.000And if there are, and I know that you're right, issues where 90% of Americans would vote for it, democracy means that you have to deliver that.
00:59:09.000You can't say, oh, no, that's not in the interests of the elites, or we don't think that's right.
00:59:16.000We're supposed to be able to go, look, I personally think that we should allow some immigration, and this is how I would handle it, and this is how I would ensure that it's beneficial, and that people that advocate for it don't advocate for it over here, and then when it's affecting them directly, they're like, ah!
00:59:32.000aghast about it. You have to, it's, but as you say, the information is so tailored and I literally,
00:59:39.000I don't want to spend any time quibbling about who's worse because I think that's just a
00:59:43.000representation of my own prejudices because they're both so bad and I think it prevents us
00:59:48.000from moving forward because we, we literally are accepting their framing.
00:59:56.000It's like we're a little bit better party in these ways and we've learned the correct terms that you say right now and we're doubling down on crushing communities of people that I think We actually have a great deal in common and that what we should be creating is new alliances.
01:00:13.000Like that whoever you are, you might have someone who's a conservative or, you know, right-wing traditional person who slips up in their language.
01:00:21.000Or you might have a son that identifies differently.
01:00:26.000Like, you know, that we have to find some new humanity and spirituality and there is no good faith in these arguments.
01:00:32.000I don't think on, really, on either side.
01:00:34.000I think that both of them are trying to mire us.
01:00:44.000There was a moment in that campaign where he actually spoke the truth in a way that was like a story for one second and then it kind of went away.
01:00:54.000And I think it was such a telling moment.
01:00:57.000It was when he had that fundraiser with big donors and he was talking, I think it was specifically about sort of tax policy and economic policy, and he reassured them That if he wins, nothing would fundamentally change.
01:01:13.000I mean, that's a direct quote from Joe Biden.
01:01:17.000And I think we don't get that many admissions from people in power.
01:01:23.000And it was considered sort of a gaffe, right?
01:01:26.000In the United States, when a politician slips up and actually admits the truth, it's called a gaffe.
01:01:33.000But I think that was such a revealing moment because the guy actually admitted what he thinks his role is.
01:01:40.000He thinks his role is to prevent too much change from happening.
01:01:47.000And I think, frankly, that was somewhat comforting to a lot of people in the era of Trump.
01:01:53.000Where they saw Trump's behavior on TV and the idea of somebody who was just going to come in and calm things down.
01:02:00.000I think there was at a surface level among some people that was comforting.
01:02:05.000But I go back to the idea that if you look at something, let's talk about climate change.
01:02:10.000If nothing fundamentally changes on our energy policy, Then everything on our planet, all that we care about, is going to change, almost certainly for the worse.
01:02:21.000So the ideology of it's our job as politicians, people in power, to prevent change, That ideology is quite literally not biologically or ecosystem wise.
01:02:37.000That is not a sustainable ideology, but it is the ideology.
01:02:42.000And that's what's so terrifying to me about both political parties, which is that fundamentally at the very top, They are not really about systemic, fundamental, and I would argue constructive change based on the verifiable facts of the kinds of changes we know we need to make.
01:03:15.000I don't think there's really any serious, honest debate about whether the climate is changing and whether we should probably try to do things about it to prevent bad things from happening.
01:03:25.000And yet the ideology of those on top is to prevent change or to at least slow a pace of change.
01:03:35.000Joe Biden admitted in that moment that his function and role is to steward the interests of those elite institutions to ongoing success and to be unimpeachable, which will necessarily require the management and control of the ordinary population whose interests they are directly against.
01:03:56.000They have to control the information they have access to, the wealth that they have access to, And with regard to your climate change argument, which I know is something that you are passionate and very well educated around, I think that people will be, like, because I know some people that watch this channel will be saying, oh no, it's stuff that happens over centuries and it's hypocal and there are counter arguments and all that stuff.
01:04:16.000There will be those kind of arguments here.
01:04:18.000And what I would say is that the kind of measures that tend to emerge out of the kind of globalised response, shall we say, Usually focuses on measures, changes, sacrifices and taxation that will be borne by ordinary people around the world rather than significant change made by powerful elites.
01:04:39.000An organization like the WAF, which we've discussed before, seems to fundamentally be about how can we keep this the same and appear like we're doing something.
01:04:48.000And also once Joe Biden has made that omission to his powerful donors, Then what the hell is the point, if anything else, that he says, we're going to do something about climate change, we're going to do something about inequality, we're going to change the prison population, we're going to build... No, you've just told us you're not going to do anything.
01:05:03.000So stop trying to galvanise support, just admit that you're part of a managerial class for the elite.
01:05:11.000And also, David, it's probably a good time to acknowledge that on an emotional, visceral level, the kind of berserker, Gargoyle version of the strongman that Trump represents through his casual disdain for institutions and establishment, his willingness to say it's the system that I myself exploit.
01:05:31.000That has an emotional timbre that resonates.
01:05:35.000With people that have spent their whole life knowing that they're being lied to.
01:06:53.000Right, and I think democracy is supposed to be the safety belt.
01:06:58.000When somebody like Joe Biden says nothing will fundamentally change, well, in a democracy, we're supposed to have the opportunity to force change through pressure, through democratic institutions.
01:07:11.000Now, that hasn't Happened as much as I would like but that's what it's because our democracy I think is so tattered right now But that's what's that's sort of what the release valve is supposed to be Look, we did an eight-part podcast series called meltdown, which was how to which to ask the question How do you go from Obama to Trump?
01:07:30.000You can't just say it's only racism because 220 counties that voted twice for Obama went to Trump.
01:07:36.000And I think the answer at its core is what you just said.
01:07:39.000That you had an election in 2008 in which there was a financial crisis where millions of people were getting thrown out of their homes and the candidate of alleged change promised fundamental change and then made a series of decisions to turn hope and change into more of the same, to side with
01:07:58.000the big banks that were causing and creating the problem. And I think what that did was shred
01:08:06.000the last tatters of the social contract and people's faith in government to do things.
01:08:13.000And the demagogue, Donald Trump, came in and said, listen, they've all been lying to you.
01:08:24.000Now, what's interesting here is that there was a period of time in American history where this kind of thing, this potential kind of thing, Almost happened before.
01:08:35.000And there was a different thing that came out of that.
01:08:37.000Back in the 1930s during the Great Depression, FDR gave a speech in which he said essentially
01:08:44.000that democracies in other parts of the world have fallen because people got so frustrated,
01:08:51.000I'm paraphrasing here, but people got so frustrated with their political leaders lying to them
01:08:55.000that they were willing to discard democracy and vote for authoritarians
01:09:00.000in the name of getting something to eat.
01:09:03.000And the reason FDR cited that was to say that his New Deal program,
01:09:07.000which really did focus resources on the lower end of the economic spectrum,
01:09:14.000he understood that that was not only a macroeconomic priority, a moral priority,
01:09:19.000but also a political priority to stop the rise of authoritarianism.
01:09:24.000He understood that the only way to stop the population from embracing authoritarianism
01:09:31.000and that kind of destructive demagoguery is to show that the government is actually delivering
01:10:05.000He wasn't perfect, but he focused on an economic program that delivered for regular people.
01:10:10.000I think when Obama and the Democrats didn't do that, they shredded an already tattered social contract, created a deep disillusionment to allow for the growth of an authoritarian conservative movement in response to that.
01:10:25.000And I think we're still living through that.
01:10:27.000And I think that Joe Biden Being a candidate and a president who has not truly embraced the kind of change and focus that FDR, as an example, emulated, I think that imperils, that further imperils the tattered democracy that we have and further emboldens the authoritarians who are seeking power right now.
01:10:53.000I would agree with you but I would also add, David, that if you have a president that bails out the banks when most people wouldn't want that and certainly democratically wouldn't vote for that, you already have authoritarianism because stuff is happening that you don't want to happen.
01:11:09.000And then post-Trump you get Joe Biden, nothing's going to fundamentally change, so where was the bit where it went more authoritarian?
01:11:16.000What it went was rhetorically out of tune with the profound I have no problem with wokeness.
01:11:29.000I think people should be who they want to be.
01:11:33.000What right-minded person doesn't think that?
01:11:34.000What I have a problem with is the exploitation of those ideas to mask economic and political corruption.
01:11:41.000And yeah, David, I could talk to you for hours and hours until one of us started saying crazy stuff just to see which one of us would do it first.
01:11:47.000It'd probably be me, because it's an affliction that I have.
01:12:41.000I was actually looking up facts the whole way through to try and, if you needed me, to go, have we got a fact on that in the way that you mentioned about going on Fox News?
01:12:50.000So I was actually... You're ready to actually hit him with some facts.
01:12:53.000I mean, the fact is, the A fact is, that We seem like that's the sort of conversation I'm interested in where this is a person that's a democrat that like explicitly doesn't like Fox News and seemingly doesn't like Tucker Carlson but that we're coming to talk about this and it's gonna land I think actually he actual human beings are capable of it
01:13:13.000I think that what we've, what polarisation suggests but doesn't explicitly state is they are sort of two verticals that are taking all of the attention and energy.
01:13:25.000Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for respectfully disagreeing with people, you know, and I think that's what, I think one of the things you both alluded to is that's what we've lost through mainstream media and social media itself also is that we've lost that ability to respectfully disagree and then come to new conclusions together Um, and that's what hopefully the rise of independent media and things like Substack.
01:13:47.000I mean, I think it's really fascinating with Substack that a few years ago, you can get something like Twitter where everything's reduced to 150 characters or whatever it is.
01:13:56.000And now you get people writing huge long form essays.
01:14:06.000People want conversations like that because that's the only way that we're going to improve as a society.
01:14:11.000I also think in that, like, obviously, like, Joe Rogan is the, I guess, ultimate example of how long-form conversational content rose to the forefront, creating sort of intellectuals, like, not creating intellectuals, but popularizing intellectuals, like, um, Julian Peterson, that just, that just wouldn't have happened, like, you know, like, 20 years ago.
01:14:28.000I think that's a really, that's a source of hope that we should take.
01:14:31.000I think so much of what we talk about, so much of the news that we see is, you can, It's become so despondent about it.
01:14:37.000It can feel like we've got no power whatsoever.
01:14:39.000But the rise of something like Joe Rogan, the rise of long-form content, in the face of all the ways in which manufactured news, manufactured media is bombarding us and trying to say, look, everything should be reduced, reduce, reduce, reduce.
01:14:53.000People have said, no, I don't want that.
01:14:58.000I think that's something we can really take hope from.
01:15:01.000Well, tomorrow's show certainly is an extemporization of some of the themes that we've discussed.
01:15:05.000We're joined by psychiatrist, author and philosopher Ian McGilchrist.
01:15:10.000We'll be looking at the relationship between the two hemispheres, how the media and political class exploit consciousness in its most rudimentary neurological form.