On today's show, we have a special guest on the show to talk about the Biden Debates, the Supreme Court, and much, much more. We also have a live call-in from Rolf Levenson, the founder of Exit.fm and the host of the show "The Real Game" on MSNBC.
00:01:07.960And of course, we've also had a bevy of different Supreme Court decisions, including key decisions on the Chevron deference and on Donald Trump's immunity during his time in office.
00:01:35.620He had one of the best takes, I thought, when it came to the process of Joe Biden, what the administration or rather the wider regime might be thinking.
00:01:44.120So I want to have him on to comment on that as well.
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00:03:21.080Let's start with, I guess, the biggest news, which was the debate.
00:03:24.800We'll get into all the will they, won't they stuff here in a second.
00:03:28.640But what was your immediate response to the debate?
00:03:31.680I mean, I knew it could be bad for Joe Biden, but this was a whole nother realm of bad, right?
00:03:37.760Well, I actually, I had seen him do similar comparable things so often in public and nobody cared that like, I mean, the real sort of the real message, the real show is the post game, which is when CNN and MSNBC and everybody tells you what to think about it.
00:04:02.880Because like, that's, that's the real government that like, that's the messaging that matters.
00:04:07.700And, um, so when I saw them be like uniformly, like responding to, you know, what's been obvious to everybody else for years, uh, I was like, oh, uh, there's some Kremlinology is happening here.
00:04:24.380There's something, some, some, some backroom decision has been made and we've all decided at once to acknowledge this situation.
00:04:31.240Um, and, and that got me thinking about, you know, uh, they, they, they planned this debate really early.
00:04:39.060And, um, I, I, I suspect that there's, that there was an element of like, we need to, uh, we need to bring this to the forefront quickly so that we can try to do a hot swap.
00:04:53.720And I don't think they're going to succeed at that.
00:04:56.220And I think, I think this is, you're seeing sort of signs of the wheels falling off some desperation, uh, and, and I, I think some bad decision-making, but yeah, like, I mean, you know, there's no possible way they were surprised.
00:05:10.840Like this was, this was like a below average performance, but it, it wasn't that different from any other time that he's just sort of like wandered off verbally in the middle of a, an address.
00:05:21.140Uh, so that was my, that was my initial take, uh, which led, led to the write-up on, on, you know, what's, what's actually going on here because like there's, there's sort of, um, an intermediate, uh, step in someone's political awakening where they go, oh, uh, voting is fake.
00:05:41.040And, and, and, and therefore, um, the government is this monolith that, uh, you know, has, has sort of long-term plans and a centralized structure and everybody's following orders.
00:05:55.060And what you saw at the debate was much closer to, well, well, I mean, it was the reality, but it's, it's, it gives you a sense of the reality, which is that, uh, they are continually testing things and putting things out there and probing, not just for like the public, but also to like coordinate one another.
00:06:20.440And, and, and they're all, they're all constantly looking around at each other.
00:06:33.320This is a very important thing for people to understand.
00:06:35.840Cause like you said, we get into this moment where people start talking and they're like, oh, elites rule and democracy is fake.
00:06:42.560And so therefore it's all this maniacal 5d chess game played by this grandmaster who's omnipotent, always perfect.
00:06:51.900It's this monolithic action that you cannot possibly understand or anticipate.
00:06:57.600And they're, and they're acting, they treat it as if they're suddenly there's this King who's a super genius, who's running the whole thing, but it's the revelation should be exactly the opposite.
00:07:10.840The, the whole thing in front of us is fake to legitimize their rule.
00:07:14.820But the fact that the ruling class is organized in a very specific way, which is this distributed oligarchical structure based entirely on information and prestige means that actually it can't specifically rule in the way that these people are thinking that it does not have this central node that, that then just, you know, sends out the orders to everyone.
00:07:37.480And actually everyone is buying, it's the, it's, it's more of a pack of demons snarling and fighting each other and screaming at each other on this constant basis.
00:07:46.160Because yeah, they're in charge there.
00:07:48.200They have the levers, but none of them are actually like the central one acting and then disseminating the take that everyone should go ahead and put into place.
00:07:58.200Right. And, and one of the things that's fascinating about this is you, you, you can see how people get the idea that it's coordinated because yeah, it was lockstep.
00:08:08.680Like it was like CNN had like 12 different commentators and every single one of them was like, he's got to step down.
00:08:15.960And they like, they had different, like the debate was very clearly bounded.
00:08:20.360Like they were discussing like, like, yes, he should step down, but, and then they went, no, no, he should really step down.
00:08:26.440But like everybody was on board with this really radical proposition that like the city.
00:08:31.960And now, now there's a couple of things they didn't say, which is fascinating.
00:08:34.080They didn't say he's not competent to be in office.
00:08:38.340They treated it like he had flubbed or gaffed, like they, they treated it like he had, he had like prepared badly and screwed up the debate in some moral sense, rather than being like literally a, a dying man who doesn't know where he is or what he's doing.
00:08:57.060Uh, that's, that's the first thing they didn't say was that he's not competent.
00:09:01.120And the second thing they didn't say was who should replace him, uh, not even speculating, not even like, you know, these, these following people are, are maybe sort of in line.
00:09:12.820Uh, it was radio silence on that, which is like, I mean, that's where everybody's mind goes as soon as you broach that topic, if he should step down.
00:09:20.420Um, and so like, there's evidence of, yeah, they've all, they've all received some talking points, right?
00:09:27.880Like, like they're not, uh, it's not total anarchy, right?
00:09:32.680Um, but like they were supposed to say, he's stepping down.
00:09:38.300They weren't supposed to preempt any 25th amendment conversation because that sort of puts Kamala Harris in the chair.
00:09:44.120Um, and they weren't supposed to suggest Gavin Newsom or suggest Michelle Obama or anything like it was very, very tightly controlled in that sense.
00:09:53.080Um, but the other element of this that is very clearly out of their control is like, there, there is a, not quite like brain dead, but like completely absent figurehead ruling, you know, the, the, the biggest and most powerful country in the world.
00:10:18.260And the, the sitting regime, which is supposed to be holding all the cards wants to dislodge him and can't, which that is like fascinating to me because he, he's, he's this feeble old man.
00:10:32.940You like, if you're, if you have this conspiratorial vision of how the state works, you would think that he would be like the easiest guy in the world to remove.
00:10:41.340Cause he's got all these scandals and he, he could just die.
00:10:45.080And like, nobody would ask a ton of questions, but because of the distributed nature of this state, they are unable to get rid of him because to get rid of him and, and specifically who they would replace him with undermines all of these institutional and reputational structures that their power depends on.
00:11:06.220Uh, and, and, and so I was, I was sort of using the debate as a way to say some things about like, you know, stop blackpilling, stop, stop talking about these people.
00:11:16.260Like they're unbeatable, like, like there's no getting around their, you know, their sinister plan.
00:11:20.760Like the, it, it's sort of, um, one of the things I've sort of started saying is, is the disease is in control.
00:11:28.860These people are not in control, but, but sort of the, the, the, the, the palsy or the sclerosis that has infested the system that is very much in control, but these people are not.
00:11:40.300And like, they're not even, they're not even in a sense, the enemy because their power is waning.
00:11:46.200Like they're just having trouble keeping the wheels on in a really basic sense.
00:11:50.440And so the thing to do is not to like butt up against them and fight them.
00:11:56.420The thing is to prepare for what comes after.
00:11:59.580One of Yarvin's best essays is the one where he talks about, uh, uh, kind of the, the narrative is in charge.
00:12:07.080Like it looks, looks like someone's at the helm, but they only get to stand at the wheel.
00:12:11.200They don't actually get to, to drive the, the boat.
00:12:14.360And it's a nice gig if you can get it, but it, you know, no individual person, why they may be able to affect things one direction or another actually gets to form the entire, uh, kind of ruling narrative.
00:12:25.660And because everybody's subject to the narrative, there's all these weird moments where people are jockeying for power inside, you know, that kind of, uh, network.
00:12:34.480Like you can see the moves, you can see the factions kind of strike at each other, you know, shifting under the skin of the entire organism.
00:12:41.520But never, none of them are actually, you know, driving the entire thing.
00:12:45.620I do want to ask you though, the way that this was set up, you said it was, you know, set up early because they're trying to dislodge him.
00:12:54.860But at the same time, they put him in this scenario where basically CNN creates the perfect debate.
00:13:03.220If Biden was going to be able to do it, right?
00:13:05.240Like if there was any debate in which Biden could have made it through, this would have been the one.
00:13:10.260And you're right, I think that ultimately there's nothing new on display on stage.
00:13:14.860It's just a concentrated version of all the things we've seen.
00:13:18.620It's, it's a lot of, you know, there's no revelations.
00:13:21.440Anyone who's been paying attention over the last, you know, a couple of years recognizes all of these faces, all of these gaffes, all of the, you know, he, he can't shuffle off stage.
00:13:30.660Well, we've seen that a million times.
00:13:31.940He can't remember things about his son.
00:14:16.560Um, but, uh, one of the insights, uh, that you sort of glean from your various sources in that book is that the decision-making of, of the regime, quote unquote, is, uh, is so distributed that like there are multiple things happening simultaneously.
00:14:35.840And you're, and, and, and looking at the way they behave, uh, doesn't make sense according to any one person's sort of motive or, or objective.
00:14:47.820Like, I, I do think that it was set up early, uh, by certain constituencies so that there was this optionality.
00:14:55.660I also think that there were constituencies within CNN, within the Biden white house that demanded that the terms of the debate be set up such that he could perform well, if he was going to perform well, I'm sure they gave him the best cocktail they possibly could have.
00:15:10.920Like there's multiple actors and there's game theoretic things happening here.
00:15:16.160Um, and so, uh, like, yes, I, I think it's both.
00:15:22.080I, I think probably there are, uh, and, and I, and I don't necessarily even think that it's like Biden loyalists and like Obama people and Hillary people necessarily.
00:15:35.900I think if, if anything, there's probably been some chatter about like, is Biden a viable candidate?
00:15:48.020Like, I think, I think basically everybody in the regime, if, if, if Biden could just like keep the drool off his chin, almost all of them would say, let's line up behind him.
00:15:59.680Let, you know, let's just keep the administrative state running behind this figurehead.
00:16:05.180He does like, you know, he isn't Trump and that's a huge perk.
00:16:09.040And like, we've all decided this is the guy.
00:16:10.920And so let's not switch horses midstream.
00:16:13.260And I think the, the internal debate wasn't like, oh, we want to run a coup against Biden so that this other person can take control.
00:16:23.900It was more like, this is no longer workable.
00:16:27.640And the longer we wait, the worse it gets and the harder it is to do anything about it.
00:16:32.320So let's go ahead and, and, uh, you know, push him out.
00:16:37.480And I'm sure they've been trying, I mean, the word on the street, right, is, is that they've been trying to dislodge him politely, covertly through back channels for a while, maybe for like his entire administration.
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00:17:30.520Both, like, prepared in the sense that, like, yeah, they scheduled ahead of time, but also opportunistic in the sense that I am sure during the debate, a lot of people were making phone calls being like, now's the time.
00:17:45.000You know, everybody get your talking points ready.
00:17:47.560We're all going to say the same thing.
00:18:00.120Like, so, so there's clearly even now, you know, sort of some factionalism reasserting itself.
00:18:06.960But that, like, that's, it's hard to see how that goes anywhere.
00:18:12.600I'm interested, you know, of course, we have the phrase Byzantine, and you mentioned criminology.
00:18:19.060I wonder if we're eventually going to get some kind of American, you know, equivalent of this.
00:18:25.220Like, in a couple hundred years from now, whenever a government is completely geriatric and you can't figure out where power is located, you go ahead and call it an Americanism or something.
00:18:36.980It would be a terrible legacy for our beloved country.
00:18:40.280But anyway, yeah, I think you're right.
00:18:42.780You know, I said this at the end of my coverage with the blaze, but I think it bears repeating.
00:18:47.060You know, we assume, again, like you said, that a lot of this is well planned out in advance, that there's a high level of coordination, that really there's a top-down structure to this.
00:18:58.220But most of this is just processes coming to their eventual conclusion.
00:19:04.020And one of the processes that has been working itself out is that the managerial oligarchy wants a president that it can just operate like a puppet.
00:19:12.240You know, not in the sense that we normally think of a president as kind of the collection of their advisors, but literally just like the most inoffensive stand-in possible with no will of their own that can be completely driven by forces from behind the scenes but absorb all of the heat.
00:19:27.520Like, that's the ideal leader for the total state, even if they don't recognize it, even if they wouldn't actively pursue it.
00:19:34.860Kind of the selective pressures take you towards a Joe Biden.
00:19:40.040And so I think what we saw was the failure of an unintentional experiment in complete remote governance.
00:19:46.980What if we just put up this guy who's literally senile, could not answer a question.
00:19:52.640No one can – you can't even prosecute him for crimes because he would not be able to stand trial due to his cognitive impairment, according to prosecutors.
00:20:02.540Like, this is how out-to-lunch this guy is.
00:20:06.180Could we actually run the government through him for an extended amount of time?
00:20:11.200I think what we kind of saw was the final collapse.
00:20:13.900Like, even the people who ultimately are running a government that kind of prefers that are nervous about the actual that being done in practice.
00:20:23.460So Weekend and Bernie's thing is a higher-wires act that they just were not able to tolerate anymore.
00:20:28.360And eventually, like you said, we just saw that preference cascade kick over the factions that were holding Biden up at that moment.
00:20:35.720Yeah, and it exposes, you know, again, one of the things you talk about in your book, I've got it on the brain, is that the Soviet system and the National Socialist system in Germany and liberalism were competing versions of managerialism.
00:20:55.720And basically, the sort of killer app of liberalism was this system of propaganda control and manufacturing consent that allowed people to still feel like they were in charge.
00:21:10.180And what you are seeing here is, because like Brezhnev and Andropov really could be Biden-esque.
00:21:20.900They really could be completely incapacitated, and it really didn't make a lot of difference.
00:21:25.600And we're also seeing it come out that like FDR and Woodrow Wilson were similarly incapacitated in a time when they could be more easily insulated from the public.
00:21:36.620And I think what we are seeing is sort of the wind down of, like that killer app of the propaganda system and these load-bearing lies that allowed the Western liberal managerial system to sustain itself.
00:21:55.900They're running aground because, yeah, there's those competing pressures.
00:22:02.020It's, you know, you want somebody who is as empty and anodyne as possible, but eventually you get to a point where that person can't maintain the sort of propaganda image that's required to maintain the illusion.
00:22:14.700And so, yeah, it's sort of those contradictions coming to a head this week.
00:22:21.800All right, well, I do want to get to the actual speculation on can they replace him, who would they replace him with.
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00:23:37.960All right, so you've already said that the regime is having a lot of difficulty dislodging Biden.
00:23:43.360Now, I think the most convenient thing about really the post-debate discussion, like you said, nobody on MSNBC or CNN was actually talking about who would take over,
00:23:56.460which is the very first thing everybody else, you know, we did on The Blaze, that Fox was doing.
00:24:01.240Anybody else doing this coverage immediately was like, well, speculate, who else would go in there?
00:24:07.320None of the liberals are doing this for a very particular reason.
00:24:10.800But the most useful thing about that speculation is it kind of distracts people.
00:24:15.840You know, who's going to get the rose during The Bachelor goes ahead and distracts people from the fact that actually we've had a fake president and then like he was installed in a fake election and like everything is fake.
00:24:28.740Like we just kind of skip right over like that.
00:24:31.400The fundamental governance of the United States has just been completely shattered and the illusion of it is destroyed.
00:24:36.980And we go directly to like who wins the reality TV contest after.
00:24:41.600So that's one function we can talk about.
00:24:44.980But also you, I think, made a good point that ultimately it's very difficult.
00:24:50.280There are still these realities about the Constitution and election law.
00:24:53.880Again, we often look at the regime and the ruling class and we think they're in power so they can just do everything they want.
00:24:59.400But actually, these phantoms that are still connected to the law do bind them in certain ways, like the difficulty of releasing the delegates, like Biden actually has to step down.
00:25:12.220They can't just push him out of the way.
00:25:43.020So there have been times in which people's rights have been respected sort of against the will of the powerful.
00:25:55.200But I think it's important to recognize that those were like the power of constitutional governance was always sort of a religious precept.
00:26:02.900It was sort of like something everybody believed in.
00:26:06.660And if you if you if you violated it nakedly in the way that it's being violated in the last, you know, well, I mean, just increasingly over time, but certainly in the last eight years or so.
00:26:20.000You would you would be ashamed and you would you would sort of lose status in some of these circles that that that you were that you were fraudulent, that you were treacherous.
00:26:31.000And and and I think a lot of what has evaporated about like simultaneously, a couple of things are happening.
00:26:40.020Number one, just our ability to communicate and therefore sort of see through some narrative is going way, way up.
00:26:50.280And so like I tweeted earlier about Woodrow Wilson and FDR and how like they were incapacitated for periods of their presidency.
00:26:59.060And it's like, to some extent, this this is actually getting better.
00:27:04.020Like you are actually you actually have more access to information than you did, you know, in 1944.
00:27:15.980You have to search, you know, through a sort of rising tide of of slop.
00:27:21.080But it is possible to know more about what's going on for the average person than it used to be.
00:27:27.360And then simultaneously, as those narrative tools that everybody depended on are are becoming less effective and failing in real time.
00:27:40.860The regime is losing because, frankly, like a lot of these people, if you were to sort of talk to them in the 90s, would have been essentially sincere liberals.
00:27:51.080They would have been sincere believers that that America is a free country and that we do have these these basic rights that are that are guaranteed by the by the Constitution.
00:28:03.060And they wouldn't they'd have sort of a fuzzy notion of what that meant, but they would really believe in it, even even the bad guys.
00:28:09.180A lot of. And I think what is happening is.
00:28:15.240As that system is increasingly incapable of sort of maintaining their power, they're saying, well, I'm not going to give up power.
00:28:24.480So so I guess I don't believe in that.
00:28:26.920And and so there's this collapse on both sides of the argument in in faith in that system.
00:28:33.580And so it's like, you know, it's massively important that Elon Musk is in charge of Twitter right now because Elon Musk is basically a free speech, classical liberal ideologue.
00:28:46.100And he's powerful enough to just instantiate that as like the rules of the road in this really important narrative space.
00:28:52.760So so so like what is happening now is it is increasingly becoming a question of who what do you want to do and who wants to stop you?
00:29:06.680Like that's that's what freedom means right now.
00:29:09.100There's no the law means less and less, although it's been fascinating to see the Supreme Court decisions.
00:29:17.300Yeah. And and like, you know, our guys, I think, are like treating that as if it were real, like that the Supreme Court has power.
00:29:27.100And I think they're right. Like like it's it's fascinating the extent to which these.
00:29:34.220It's not an all or nothing proposition. It's not binary.
00:29:37.160It's it's it's not like the fact that power is distributed doesn't mean that nobody has power and nobody's will means anything like Clarence Thomas is a massively.
00:29:47.300Important person. And just his personal opinion about things matters tremendously to to the functioning of the state because he occupies this important narrative position that they can't afford to undermine.
00:30:00.820I think the best example you saw of this was Sotomayor talk in her in her dissent against the prosecution.
00:30:10.280She said, I dissent in in fear for our democracy. Right.
00:30:14.580But the fact is, like that in a like, you know, you can say, oh, yeah, the rules protect everybody.
00:30:21.180But like in this sense, it's very clear, like.
00:30:25.120The president needs to be immune from prosecution so that when Trump gets into office, he can't just nail, you know, Biden and everybody associates with to the wall.
00:30:33.760And like so like these people and their determination to like say, hey, no, we're going to follow the rules like it actually ramifies to some real world situations.
00:30:44.980Now, you know, obviously, Trump, if he decides to disregard that, here's what it is.
00:30:48.660If Trump decides to disregard that, he's going to have to do it with guns.
00:30:53.200Right. And that's what everybody's trying to avoid.
00:30:56.760And that's the source of the the the narrative infrastructure and the sort of the sort of moralizing, like, you know, we're all classical liberals here.
00:31:08.320The source of that power is these are people who don't actually want violence because it wouldn't be good for them financially.
00:31:15.120And they're not necessarily very good at it.
00:31:17.780And we don't want it like nobody wants violence.
00:31:20.400And that's that's sort of why all of these sort of threadbare liberal narratives still have the power that they have.
00:31:29.460There's this mistake that a lot of people make, you know, just like we talked about the well, once they realize that so much of this governance is fake, they just attribute everything to this monolithic power.
00:31:39.880One of the mistakes that people make is when they discover a political theology, when they recognize that the shared narrative is what creates these things and that, you know, in many ways, like the mythos of the country is the only thing that holds these beliefs together.
00:31:56.280What they immediately assume is that means you could just throw them in the trash and do whatever you want.
00:32:00.620But actually, what you should conclude is the exact opposite, that these things are actually much more important than anything else.
00:32:07.320Just like just the fact that they are a shared collective kind of myth of what the government means doesn't mean they're useless.
00:32:13.460It actually means that they're hyper useful.
00:32:15.760They are actually the most powerful things that exist in your society.
00:32:20.220And so just recognizing them for what they are doesn't mean that you should suddenly just become like this postmodern.
00:32:28.440No, you should come exactly the opposite direction.
00:32:30.440I recognize that these most sacred truths are actually the binding of your of your of your community, of your society, and that you can still call on their power.
00:32:41.600You can still kind of summon them from the dead at moments.
00:32:44.520They still create these as long as people are still living living under these illusions.
00:32:51.720But you mentioned a couple of those Supreme Court rulings, and we definitely need to dive in those with the time that we have left.
00:32:59.700So before we get to the Supreme Court rulings, guys, let me tell you a little bit about ISI.
00:33:04.320Universities today aren't just neglecting real education.
00:33:07.080They're actively undermining it, and we can't let them get away with it.
00:33:10.260America was made for an educated and engaged citizenry.
00:33:13.800The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is here to help.
00:33:16.600ISI offers programs and opportunities for conservative students across the country.
00:33:21.240ISI understands that conservatives and right-of-center students feel isolated on college campuses and that you're often fighting for your own reputation, dignity, and future.
00:33:31.760Through ISI, you can learn about what Russell Kirk called the permanent things, the philosophical and political teachings that shaped and made Western civilization great.
00:33:40.880ISI offers many opportunities to jumpstart your career.
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00:34:11.040If you're a college student, ISI can help you start a student organization or a student newspaper or meet other like-minded students at their various conferences and events.
00:34:20.940ISI is here to educate the next generation of great Americans.
00:34:39.020You already mentioned the immunity one, but let's start with the administrative state.
00:34:45.480So there's the Chevron deference case as in decided 1984 and basically, ironically, and basically what it does is it gives the executive agencies a large degree of latitude, almost complete control once the Congress has given the power over something.
00:35:08.360So normally how the Constitution is supposed to work is that the Congress makes laws and all of these things are ruled or rather are enforced by the executive agencies.
00:35:20.600But it's the Congress itself that actually decides what the law is going to be, how it's going to get applied.
00:35:25.980What has happened with the Chevron deference is basically once the EPA or one of these committees is created, they can make very large amounts of rulings and there's really nothing you can do.
00:35:37.460You can't really take it to the judges.
00:35:40.220The Congress doesn't have a lot of input.
00:35:41.660Once it's been placed in the hands of the experts, that's kind of over.
00:35:45.140And, of course, this gives the administrative state an incredible amount of power because they are the experts.
00:35:50.780They stay in charge after the presidents leave.
00:35:59.500They're creating a large amount of rulings and laws and regulations outside of the judicial system.
00:36:04.460The case that shattered this was that I believe it was like a phishing charter.
00:36:10.300There was some kind of phishing business and the governmental regulatory agency that was overseeing them was charging them like $700 a day for them to pay for their own regulation.
00:36:22.520So it's not just that they had to adhere to the regulation.
00:36:25.760They had to pay a constant fee for their own oversight every day.
00:36:29.820They're funding the very agency that is crippling their business.
00:36:33.420And this is kind of what struck down the Chevron deference here.
00:36:54.560The regulatory apparatus of the executive branch as just as long as as at least as long as I've been alive, that's that's been sort of standing law.
00:37:05.600And, you know, the lion's share of things that actually impact your day to day life are governed by these regulatory bodies that are completely unaccountable.
00:37:17.300And it's it's it's it's essentially from what I understand, it's like almost any regulation right now that hasn't been sort of written down as standing law or like positively determined in a court case is now completely up for grabs.
00:37:37.960Which is super cool for crypto guys, it's it's it's it's fascinating for, you know, like the effort to reindustrialize and and and bring manufacturing back to the States.
00:37:52.340Um, I think it's maybe, you know, and I've said this in a couple of contexts, but like there are elements of having some rules that I think people are going to miss or that like there's going to be some some slippage while we reorient and figure out, you know, who makes the rules on this stuff.
00:38:16.780Uh, because what has what has what has happened essentially is that power, power can't be created or destroyed, right?
00:38:27.520And so power to to make these determinations has gone from the executive bureaucracy to the legislature and the judiciary.
00:38:36.060And, you know, in terms of like Congress people, you know, accepting money to like dump, you know, phthalates in the water or whatever, like that's a real thing, like, like, you know, sort of your your your environmental lefty liberal is like not entirely wrong about the role of money in sort of forming environmental policy, you know, prior to all this.
00:39:04.260And of course, you know, the money goes to the regulators, too.
00:39:05.960It's it's what I'm saying is we're not out of the woods like it's not going to be a perfect solution, but it does open up a lot of possibilities, which is exciting.
00:39:15.280Yeah. And that's really key because a lot of people also acted like this just decimated the administrative state, like the deep state is dead.
00:39:21.060This is, you know, of course, the left was like, oh, this is the end of the republic.
00:39:24.980You know, this this this is well, they want to call it the republic, our democracy.
00:39:29.040Yes, this is the end of our democracy.
00:39:31.260You know, if if if if unelected bureaucrats can't tell us how all of the laws work, then that means democracy is over.
00:40:50.320And basically, he would be covered in those actions because he would be speaking to the vice president in his capacity as the commander in chief.
00:40:58.720And so therefore, he would have immunity.
00:41:00.880Now, they said that he does not have immunity in non-constitutional actions or those that don't go ahead and comport with his official duties.
00:41:08.540That also means that a lot of this needs to get kicked down to lower courts.
00:41:13.740Basically, all this decision really did.
00:41:16.600It was there was no final ruling on any of the things that happened.
00:41:19.460All of this got kicked down to lower courts and they all have to spin this back up.
00:41:22.980And on each one of these issues that's being brought to them, say, is this an official duty?
00:41:28.380Does it qualify for immunity now that we understand what immunity means in this scenario?
00:41:35.320And then they all have to go back up probably to the Supreme Court again, which means really the only thing this did was kick the court, kick the can past the presidential election.
00:41:44.540But that's really all it needed to do in terms of Trump, because it means he's going to be able to run.
00:41:51.320That's really what we found out at the end of the day.
00:41:53.420Yeah. And you sort of get into this this postmodern situation where it's like what constitutes an official duty and like how how is that decided?
00:42:03.680Like these are these are it's sort of.
00:42:08.700A specific case of the broader intuition that like law does not protect you, the words on the page do not defend themselves.
00:42:17.400They don't tell you how to interpret themselves.
00:42:19.780And so it does amount to the decisions of the decisions of of individual human beings in the aggregate.
00:42:30.860It's sort of it's it's it's it's simultaneously individual human beings matter, but sort of as a as a as an aggregate, as a bureaucracy.
00:42:44.260You know, it's all the judges in all the court cases that have to make these decisions.
00:42:48.380And one of the things that I think is is really exciting about both of these rulings is just that it opens the aperture for not just legal challenges,
00:43:02.100but also for people to just sort of stop complying in a way that makes these that makes these bureaucracies unable to sustain the level of enforcement they've been doing.
00:43:15.560And the idea that because, you know, there's a lot of little fish.
00:43:20.900I mean, if you're if you're a normal person, you ever been in a situation where like you've been the victim of like a civil like an opportunity where you might sue somebody and you ever talk to a lawyer and they've said, oh, yeah,
00:43:39.120it's going to be like one hundred thousand dollars minimum, it's like, well, OK, well, then that law just doesn't protect me like I don't I you know, it doesn't matter at all.
00:43:49.620And that's the case for like most Americans, like if everything has to be challenged in court, then like most Americans basically just whatever happens to you is what happens to you.
00:43:58.500You just got to live with it. But the idea that there are some big fish and this is a fishing something that's funny, but if there's a big fish who can say like, no,
00:44:10.400I'm just not going to do that and I'm not going to comply and we could take it all the way up the top.
00:44:14.900But the idea that it's creating more opportunities for that kind of action just to gum up the gears, just to slow them down and make them think and make that because they got to they got to spend money to show up in court, too.
00:44:27.020And they don't always win. That that to me is really exciting.
00:44:31.980And I think I think I think even Trump, if he's the guy or whoever the guy is, that's that's supposed to I don't know about save America, but but but but make things better meaningfully.
00:44:51.660And whoever that guy is, is going to have to act both inside and outside the acceptable framework of sort of the the liberal world view and our system of laws and things like this.
00:45:12.060They just create a lot more wiggle in the system for both types of action.
00:45:17.400And so I think it's it's it's not a panacea like, again, the law, the law does not save you from the feds in any sense.
00:45:26.860But by creating by by throwing some things up in the air, creating a little bit of chaos, it introduces opportunities for powerful actors to really to really shake things up.
00:45:39.020Absolutely. All right. Well, we have a ton of questions from the audience, so let's switch over to that real quick.
00:45:43.960But before we do, Kevin, where should people be looking for all of your great work?
00:45:48.380Maybe tell them about exit before we switch over.
00:45:50.800Yeah. So so exit is essentially a fraternity built around a lot of these ideas around getting out from under these bureaucracies,
00:46:00.720getting your own income streams, getting your own education systems, basically your own social networks,
00:46:07.960being able to connect with like minded people outside of some of these these oppressive systems and to become robust to the kinds of coercion,
00:46:18.600because like one of the things that we talked about, they're not all powerful.
00:46:22.600They don't they don't see all they can't stop you from doing anything you want to do.
00:47:35.240But man, watching it all put together like that was it was a sight to behold.
00:47:38.900I really feel like that was a Nixon Kennedy style debate in the way that it just watching it on screen completely changes the way that you understand the dynamics of that debate.
00:47:50.920Tiny Stupid Demon says, some of you have never tried to talk to an elderly person into moving out of their home and it shows.
00:48:35.260By the way, if you didn't get to see the the stream on Black Sabbath over on Simiagog's channel, that was great fun on there with a lot of great guys.
00:48:43.600Many people who knew a lot more about Black Sabbath than I do.
00:48:45.980But if you want to enjoy me and some other guys talking about heavy metal, that's a great place to check it out.
00:48:51.120Robert Weinsfeld says, pretend GOP cannot win and you have to choose in rank order the following Biden, Hillary, Kamala, Michelle Obama, Newsom or Whitmer.
00:49:02.700All right, Kevin, if you had to pick one of these horrible people, who would it be?
00:49:10.700Like, yeah, just in the scenario, Trump cannot win or whoever they're going to put up can't win.
00:49:14.700Who would who would you have to pick out of these people?
00:49:17.200Well, so there's sort of a Jarvan-esque case that, like, if the GOP can't win, which he believes the GOP can't win, then you just want like you want someone to be as in charge as they possibly can be.
00:50:13.300Cooper Rito says the idea that you guys would cover this debate so close to the fourth is offensive to me and the vast majority of Americans do better.
00:50:21.120I mean, I already got the the grill plans.
00:50:23.100We already got the hot dogs and the hamburgers.
00:51:00.520Like like maybe maybe if we were in a different time or things have been pushed further along the route, then perhaps there would be a guy.
00:51:35.660You know, I think I think Trump could have changed quite a lot in between those four years.
00:51:45.320I think he I think he probably takes it much more seriously.
00:51:49.220And I do think that his incentives are aligned with taking it seriously and with taking command of the state because the state is so hostile to him.
00:51:59.020And so, you know, a lot depends on who his friends are these days.
00:52:05.680Obviously, that's I'm not saying anything new.
00:52:14.460And I think there are ways that could go well and there are ways that could go poorly.
00:52:19.680But he would be advised by a class of of maybe not more loyal, but just sort of higher IQ, just sort of brighter and more dynamic people so that he would not be sort of the sole source of of of juice in the whole political system, which could potentially be a good thing.
00:52:43.060So that would be my answer that boss says horns up metal heads shred till dead.
00:53:11.840Latrina Bennett, IRS enforcer, says to quote Lomas on Twitter, everyone realizes now we don't have a president, but nobody has any clue who's making decisions.
00:53:26.060I think that's pretty much exactly where we're at.
00:53:28.680There's a lot of momentum, as you mentioned in your essay, a lot of procedure, a lot of momentum.
00:53:34.320You know, that that is what's driving the vast majority of things right now.
00:53:38.140Most people are too too scared to ask anything outside of those that kind of procedural question.
00:53:45.660Jacob Zindel says like watching a senile corrupt old union leader in his hospital bed slowly being trust and safety by an aging recently convicted mob boss.
00:54:18.200And yeah, the nice thing about those books back to back is AA is giving you a primer on elite theory, why democracy doesn't exactly work and all these things.
00:54:27.900And then hopefully the total state then is taking you into more of the managerial structure, understanding, you know, why that has arisen and how that impacts the government.
00:54:39.520So, yeah, hopefully that's a good one to punch for you.
00:54:43.080Again, the idea that our democracy being threatened isn't scary is insanely nonsensical.
00:54:55.200Isn't it crazy that all these Democrat big shots have direct lines to the cartel media in real time?
00:55:02.240Well, and that's really the interesting thing, man, is how much the media feeds back into the party structure and the party structure feeds back into the media.
00:55:10.840Which one is driving which at any given time is always the question.
00:55:15.020And that's why it's so important, again, to view these different factions as not being a monolith.
00:55:20.000They're all working with and against each other simultaneously.
00:55:24.060Everyone is checking each other's narratives.
00:55:26.240They're being influenced by the incentive structure and the way that things are being shaped each time.
00:55:33.340And so it's really important to remember that it's not just one thing.
00:55:36.700It's all feeding back into itself, which is why the whole system seems so muddled.
00:55:41.680And then finally, Creeper Weirder here says,
00:55:46.140The idea that you don't get the joke I'm making is embarrassing, Oren.