TRIGGERnometry - I’ve Got No Problem With Communism - Hasan Piker

00:00:01.000 Assange Paik, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:04.000 Nice to be here, guys.

00:00:06.000 Why the big side?

00:00:09.000 Italy's Mussolini and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany 0.52

00:00:13.000 were ruthless fascist forms of governance.

00:00:16.000 My fear is that that is where capitalism inevitably leads.

00:00:21.000 There's too much instability, there's too much chaos.

00:00:23.000 We need to restore order.

00:00:26.000 Is there a country that's done socialism the way that you like?

00:00:29.000 I would say China is probably the closest, I would say,

00:00:33.000 to an example that we should follow.

00:00:37.000 Like communism in America?

00:00:38.000 I think that communism would be most likely an international thing.

00:00:42.000 It'd be like the Star Trek universe.

00:00:44.000 You think the Reform Party is a fascist?

00:00:46.000 I think Reform Party as it stands currently

00:00:48.000 is a nascent fascist parliamentary group

00:00:51.000 that hasn't reached its full potential yet.

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00:02:17.000 Piker, welcome to Trigonometry. 1.00

00:02:19.000 Nice to be here, guys.

00:02:21.000 Why the big sigh?

00:02:23.000 We'll see. We'll see how this goes.

00:02:25.000 I'm getting cooked right now, for those of you at home watching.

00:02:30.000 And this has got to be extra weird for you guys, because you're British, 1.00

00:02:34.000 and this is what the sun looks like normally.

00:02:37.000 Yeah. No, it's nice to know.

00:02:38.000 We are enjoying it.

00:02:39.000 I'm sorry about the sun.

00:02:40.000 This is not deliberate.

00:02:41.000 We're not trying to cook you, literally.

00:02:43.000 But welcome to the show.

00:02:45.000 Tell us a little bit about you.

00:02:47.000 Like, you obviously have got a massive Twitch channel.

00:02:50.000 You're very successful streaming.

00:02:51.000 Twitch is a gaming platform, but you talk on there,

00:02:55.000 and that's what people follow you for.

00:02:57.000 How did you get there?

00:02:58.000 What's been your journey through life?

00:03:00.000 I started my professional media career, I guess,

00:03:06.000 as a nepotism recipient at my uncle's 26-person YouTube startup media network.

00:03:13.000 I feel like calling it a media network is interesting,

00:03:15.000 because at that time, at that point, it was smaller than a mid-tier podcast.

00:03:20.000 But I started there because I just wanted to not live in New Jersey.

00:03:26.000 I wanted to live in LA, and that's where the Young Turks headquarters were.

00:03:31.000 And I, much like virtually all of my peers, came out of college with a double major,

00:03:39.000 great marks, and no job prospects whatsoever.

00:03:43.000 Uh, so I was like, all right, I'll just, I'll just start off my journey here.

00:03:48.000 Uh, and it'll allow me to not be in, it'll allow me to be in LA where I want to be.

00:03:54.000 Right.

00:03:55.000 And, uh, slowly but surely I worked my way, uh, through the ranks there offering a lot of free work.

00:04:02.000 Uh, just as a fill in producer or filling guest hosts, whenever, you know, someone didn't show up,

00:04:08.000 they were sick or something, uh, while I was actually doing the advertisement stuff on the back end.

00:04:13.000 Uh, I was basically the, the singular advertisement operations person.

00:04:19.000 Not, not only was I creating client lists, but doing cold calls, trying to get, uh, DR campaigns going,

00:04:26.000 uh, for, for the Young Turks and like fill the inventory of the Young Turks with, uh, with some brand names

00:04:33.000 that I think everyone is now familiar with, like Squarespace and things of that nature.

00:04:37.000 That was a big client of mine initially.

00:04:40.000 Um, but I hated it.

00:04:42.000 And, uh, I thought, you know, I think I could do better if I were on an on camera position.

00:04:50.000 And so, but the problem was I was horrible on camera at first.

00:04:56.000 And I just kept going through it.

00:04:58.000 Uh, my girlfriend at the time was like, uh, a model trying to become an actress.

00:05:03.000 She was like, one of us has to actually work.

00:05:06.000 And she was like, you should keep doing the advertising stuff to make money so that I can

00:05:10.000 be, uh, you know, a model and actress, whatever.

00:05:13.000 And I was like, uh, okay.

00:05:15.000 Okay.

00:05:16.000 And, and even, uh, even a bunch of my friends were like, maybe you should stop doing this

00:05:20.000 on camera stuff.

00:05:21.000 You're not very good at it.

00:05:22.000 And I was like, no, I'm going to keep going.

00:05:24.000 I'm going to keep doing it because eventually I'll get better at it.

00:05:27.000 And I guess over the years I did get somewhat better at it.

00:05:32.000 But, um, while I was at the young Turks, I was doing all this stuff.

00:05:35.000 I set up the show called the breakdown.

00:05:37.000 It was very successful because it court, it aligned perfectly with the Facebook algorithm

00:05:44.000 turning on the faucet for video content.

00:05:48.000 This was when everyone was doing the pivot to video Buzzfeed and all these other places.

00:05:52.000 There's a, there's a company called Upworthy.

00:05:54.000 I don't know if you guys recall, um, way back in the day, they were getting like, you know,

00:05:58.000 tens of millions of views a week.

00:05:59.000 And my videos were getting like 30 million views a week.

00:06:02.000 I was contesting, uh, Tommy Lauren's, uh, right-wing commentary at the time.

00:06:07.000 And that was when I first made a name for myself, I guess, as a, as a leftist political commentator.

00:06:14.000 But I wanted something more.

00:06:17.000 I wanted something that I could call my own.

00:06:20.000 I wanted a sense of community for myself.

00:06:23.000 Uh, I didn't want to be under the umbrella of the young Turks as much as I was. 1.00

00:06:27.000 So, uh, I thought to myself, I play video games already when I'm not working.

00:06:33.000 Might as well go to this platform called Twitch.

00:06:36.000 Uh, it was a video gaming platform at the time, even though there was some commentary happening there as well.

00:06:42.000 And I decided I'm just going to strap on a PlayStation camera onto my PlayStation 4 at the time and start live broadcasting.

00:06:50.000 And, uh, while I play Fortnite and I have a bunch of other friends who are journalists, activists, organizers, and whatnot that I play Fortnite with anyway.

00:06:58.000 So we'll just talk about political issues while I do this.

00:07:01.000 Now there's a couple of different reasons why I did that.

00:07:03.000 Like I said, one, because I wanted to have something of my own, a media property of my own.

00:07:08.000 Uh, the other reason was because I recognized that the gaming side of things like the gaming culture side of that space was heavily dominated by right-wing commentary.

00:07:22.000 Whereas gamers were much more diverse in their opinion, myself included.

00:07:28.000 And I wanted to, to, to present an alternative.

00:07:32.000 I also wanted to go against the grain because at the time, this is, we're talking like 2016, 2017 at the peak of like woke SJW cartoonish depictions of what the left represented.

00:07:45.000 Uh, and there was some validity to the, uh, arguments that were being presented.

00:07:49.000 Obviously it was like the most maximalist, most ridiculous, uh, depiction of the left.

00:07:54.000 But, uh, some people would lean into that a little bit where they were like, no, we are like this. 0.94

00:07:58.000 We are joy killers.

00:07:59.000 We are woke skulls.

00:08:00.000 And I was like, I don't think you have to be that.

00:08:02.000 I think you can have fun and also still have progressive values.

00:08:07.000 Uh, and I wanted to basically show that, uh, to, uh, a, a, um, audience that had maybe never really encountered that.

00:08:16.000 And, uh, I wanted to be in an environment that I was comfortable in as a male who games.

00:08:23.000 Uh, and that was a very male, uh, focused gamer space, which was, and last but not least, I wanted to get better off the cuff.

00:08:31.000 Cause up until that moment, I had always scripted my content.

00:08:36.000 I was, I was writing it.

00:08:37.000 And then I would actually, uh, take the writing on my videos and turn it into, uh, a Huffington Post article.

00:08:44.000 So I would just like reformat my, my scripts into an actual article.

00:08:48.000 And that was fine, but I wasn't very good off the cuff.

00:08:52.000 So I thought to myself, if I can play a video game and talk about politics at the same time and be able to entertain people, maybe 30 at a time, maybe 300 at a time, if I'm lucky.

00:09:00.000 Then I can get a lot better, uh, at, at public speaking and speaking off the cuff. 0.96

00:09:06.000 And as you guys might've figured out by now, I never shut the fuck up. 0.96

00:09:10.000 So I guess it worked. 0.96

00:09:11.000 I guess it worked.

00:09:12.000 Uh, and you mentioned progressive values and that being something that's important to you.

00:09:16.000 What are progressive values?

00:09:17.000 Would you say?

00:09:18.000 I think progressive values for me, at least, uh, are, are, uh, founded around empathy first and foremost to try and uplift everyone's material conditions to the best of our ability.

00:09:29.000 Uh, and, uh, and focusing on, on protecting those who need protection and, uh, simultaneously, uh, advancing a cause of, of, uh, the way I think about it, advancing the cause of unlocking the potential of every single person, no matter where they are.

00:09:49.000 Because right now there are probably billions of brilliant people that never actually get the opportunity to, to unlock their true potential because of where they're born.

00:10:02.000 Like, am I born in Sudan, uh, in a village that is being overtaken by the RSF?

00:10:08.000 They might be, uh, born in India to an impoverished neighborhood and are not going to have the access to, uh, education and, uh, and therefore be able to truly, uh, revolutionize whatever sector they might be interested in revolutionizing.

00:10:24.000 And I, I think that's what I, uh, want to do with the world.

00:10:28.000 And what, what do you think is the way to, cause I think that's probably something the left and right actually agree on in my experience, you know, the center left, the center right, the kind of moderate.

00:10:35.000 But I, I suppose the disagreement probably is about what you think is the way by which that happens.

00:10:41.000 So the right might say, well, the answer to that is capitalism, right?

00:10:44.000 I imagine you don't agree.

00:10:46.000 So what, how do you think, how do you think those things get those people who don't currently have opportunity, both in this country, in other Western countries, but around the world, what's the mechanism by which they get those opportunities?

00:10:58.000 I think creating a robust base of support, like a, like a minimum, uh, a minimum social safety net for all is the way to do it.

00:11:10.000 And, um, there are many different ways of achieving that result.

00:11:14.000 I don't think capitalism has been able to do that.

00:11:17.000 Uh, what I mean by that is capitalism still revolves around, uh, the, the, the inherent contradiction of, of, at, uh,

00:11:28.000 at its most reductive way to put it, uh, someone's got to clean the toilet and in an effort to make sure that there is, uh, always going to be people that are wage laborers.

00:11:39.000 Um, there is this, um, there is this dynamic where, uh, we can't, we can't advance, uh, humanity too much.

00:11:49.000 This plays itself out in the international scale and unequal exchange, where if we were to allow a lot of the third world to develop to a certain degree, then things would be far too costly. 0.99

00:12:03.000 We wouldn't get the cheap materials and the cheap, uh, natural resources that we need to extract so that we can have an iPhone for the reasonable price of $500.

00:12:11.000 Or, I mean, even that's increasing now.

00:12:14.000 Um, I personally think that, uh, if we were to do that, uh, if we were to do that by, by, uh, stopping our endless, uh, and, and needless and cruel militarism in the global south and, and allow these places to develop, uh, extend an open hand to them.

00:12:34.000 Uh, that, uh, we would, uh, allow society to flourish in ways that we previously have not foreseen.

00:12:41.000 Hmm. Uh, I guess your point about cleaning toilets is interesting because something we've addressed a lot on this trip with guests, right, left, center, et cetera, is the incredible wealth inequality and the speed at which the gap is, you know, that growing.

00:12:55.000 There's a big problem. People on the right don't want to admit it. And it's true.

00:12:58.000 But on the other hand, someone is always going to have to clean the toilets, right?

00:13:02.000 Like we have a pretty big safety net in the UK and what that's mainly done is trapped a lot of people in a place where they don't have to work and they therefore don't.

00:13:15.000 And also you talk about, you know, important people from other countries to work for less kind of the consequence of that is it suppresses wages for, for the people in the country as well.

00:13:23.000 So who would clean the toilets if we...

00:13:26.000 So great question. Let me address the, the wage depression aspect of this, because this is the one area where, uh, sometimes I hear Tucker Carlson talk about it and there's like some nuggets of truth in there.

00:13:38.000 Because yes, um, importing labor into the country will always depress wages in the absence of good regulation and good regulation in that format would be, uh, demanding wage parity and also, uh, not creating any other external factors that actually cause you to have a, a, uh, more servile labor force.

00:14:03.000 What I mean by this is I want to use the example of H-1B visas.

00:14:08.000 The reason why H-1B visa system exists on paper is because there are certain, uh, highly skilled positions that, uh, as it stands, our American companies are unable to fulfill.

00:14:21.000 They're not able to fill those roles with the domestic labor force, right? That's the, on paper. In practice, of course, it creates a more pliable labor force that you're bringing in, oftentimes from highly skilled countries that are still desperate, even if there is higher wages on average on the H-1B visa program.

00:14:40.000 Because if you lose your job, you get deported. Nobody wants to get deported. So they will do everything in their power to stay and, and work as hard as they physically possibly can.

00:14:51.000 So this creates an environment where I think our bosses, our capital owners in America are like, why would I get an American worker who is, uh, in comparison to an Indian worker that's coming into the country that is desperate to keep this job? 0.78

00:15:07.000 Why would I hire the American worker? I can pay the same fee to the Indian worker or even a higher fee as a matter of fact, the Indian worker, because I know that he is going to work harder than the American labor force. 0.97

00:15:20.000 So there is this, this competition. The way to solve that competition is through regulation.

00:15:26.000 If the, uh, workers that were coming in from poorer countries were coming in, uh, with the knowledge that they are not going to be immediately deported, for example, and they have wage parity with the domestic labor force, this would actually make American companies think twice before hiring someone just as a replacement for the American worker, because they wouldn't get any additional benefits as a boss.

00:15:52.700 Uh, they wouldn't get the additional benefit of like, I'm going to work you to the bone. Right. Um, because I know if you, if I fire, you're, you're gone, you're gone out of the country and you want to be here. Um, so that is a, that is a regulatory mechanism that we never implement in this country because we are, our capital owners actually enjoy the two tiered labor structure that we have here.

00:16:16.200 And come back to the, who cleans the toilets, even when there's a social welfare system. 1.00

00:16:20.300 I think that, um, ultimately there's going to be people that fulfill these roles no matter what.

00:16:24.860 And, uh, increasingly with automation and with AI, we're getting to a point where the route tasks are already being delegated to robots to begin with.

00:16:34.340 Um, so the way I see it is, uh, the person, there's always going to be someone that is tasked with this, tasked with either overseeing it, if it's a robot doing it, or directly doing it.

00:16:45.300 Um, but since it's an important factor in the, the, uh, commodity production, uh, because someone has to, uh, someone has to engage in sanitation.

00:16:56.640 I think it's much more valuable to ensure that they have a sense of autonomy and that those positions are hired, uh, and, and have enough, uh, they have enough, uh, replacement labor force.

00:17:10.740 So that they do less hours in general and still get a decent amount of pay and so that they can still feel human, uh, and, and have some sense of autonomy in the labor force where they can do that job and still make an honest living and be able to feed their family.

00:17:28.600 And also have some free time on the side to do, to pursue whatever hobbies they want to pursue.

00:17:34.120 So the way to achieve that would be like, what a really high minimum wage or like what, what's the, what's the way to get there?

00:17:40.280 Like, cause I agree with the, with the idea that people who are working every kind of job should have free time and make a good living.

00:17:46.300 The question is, how do you do that?

00:17:48.760 Because in a market economy, what you are paid is a function of what you produce, right?

00:17:53.800 Yeah. Well, I think in a market economy, what you are paid should be what you produce. Um, I don't think that that's how it works in the market economy.

00:18:02.540 I think in the market economy, uh, your replaceability is what determines your wages, especially if you are replaceable by, uh, uh, a, a non-domestic labor force.

00:18:12.800 For example, that depresses your wages even further on the domestic front for the, the, uh, citizen labor force.

00:18:19.720 So I think you're right though. In the market economy, your output should be the determining factor.

00:18:26.460 That's actually a socialist position. Ironically enough. Um, not all socialists are against the market.

00:18:33.740 Uh, and, uh, I would say that, uh, the output is the most consequential factor in that regard. I agree.

00:18:40.460 Uh, what that means, however, is that if the companies, uh, if the company is actually, for example, uh, increasing its output,

00:18:49.100 and therefore generating more revenue overall, then everyone down to the, the, uh, down to the most replaceable aspect of labor,

00:19:00.860 which would be sanitation in this regard, should still get paid a, a just wage, like fair compensation.

00:19:07.260 Um, minimum wages is one way of doing as a bandaid solution. I mean, but there are Nordic countries, for example,

00:19:12.860 where there is no minimum wage, because the minimum wage would ironically be a depressing factor on the overall average wages that people get.

00:19:19.780 How have they achieved this though? They've achieved this through sectoral bargaining.

00:19:23.880 They've achieved this through robust unions, uh, and, and, uh, labor participation in these, uh, in these wage negotiations.

00:19:30.640 And that is the reason why they don't need to have a minimum wage.

00:19:34.300 The minimum wage in and of itself is a big point of contention in the United States of America and a lot of other Western countries,

00:19:38.980 only because our labor union participation, uh, in the United States is at, uh, less than 10% right now,

00:19:45.720 which is unimaginably low. It's lower than countries that we have dominated, like Chile, uh,

00:19:52.300 where we rewrote their constitution basically and wanted to, to unleash a wave of neoliberalism,

00:19:58.680 um, sometimes in the hands of a dictator like Pinochet, uh, even in that country,

00:20:03.320 there's still 15% labor union participation. So it's still higher than the United States of America,

00:20:07.580 which is crazy to me. If you've been following the immigration debate,

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00:22:05.360 Hasan, I've got a lot of empathy for some of your positions, particularly when you talk about low-skilled

00:22:10.840 labor. So for context, my mother is a Venezuelan immigrant to the UK. When she was in the UK, she was a

00:22:17.160 childminder. There was no minimum wage. My mom, roughly, I remember earning £2.20 an hour. There

00:22:22.000 were no pension rights. So thankfully, I helped my parents out. My dad helps my mom out, so she's not

00:22:28.640 destitute. But that's what my mom's position would be if she didn't have me or my father. 1.00

00:22:33.460 As somebody who is from Venezuela, I worry when people mention socialism because I've seen what's

00:22:39.960 happened to my country. How would you assuage the fears of people like me or people who come from a

00:22:45.660 Cuban background who've seen the socialist dream, as it were, descend into authoritarianism?

00:22:52.420 Well, first and foremost, I would say that all countries, to varying degrees, engage in

00:22:58.720 authoritarianism in general. It's just something that it's a function of the government. It obviously

00:23:06.060 has the capacity to get out of hand due to external factors in many instances, like combating

00:23:12.740 much more powerful forces that want to cause instability in your country. It's not a justification

00:23:19.900 for it, but it is analysis in terms of like why these guys engage in the actions that they do in

00:23:26.280 terms of suppression of all dissent or even censorship and sometimes even jail time. And the example I

00:23:34.820 always uses is the United States of America, not only in the Cold War, but even preceding the Cold

00:23:41.100 War during World War I and World War II, actually had a practice of jailing all conscientious objectors,

00:23:47.480 for example, who said, I don't want to fight in this war. They were like, all right, well, this is a

00:23:50.600 world war. Sucks to suck. You're going to jail. One of the famous examples is Eugene Debs, 1.00

00:23:54.720 a socialist who actually ran from prison and I think achieved like 1.3 million votes at the time,

00:24:01.620 which was probably the most electoral success socialists had ever achieved. He was a conscientious

00:24:06.780 objector of World War I, which was the international Marxist position at the time. There was some

00:24:11.500 deviation there. So I see it in a similar vein when these countries also engage in authoritarian actions,

00:24:19.800 suppressing dissent, censorship, or trying to manage this dynamic of trying to continue doing

00:24:26.980 governance while at the same time they have to make sure that they're avoiding American intervention

00:24:32.540 or Western intervention in general. As far as the fears that people have, assuaging the fears that

00:24:39.640 people have in terms of what they've seen in their countries, whether it be Venezuela or Cuba,

00:24:44.040 I think each country is different. Each successful and unsuccessful revolution is different. And I think

00:24:51.880 it's important to understand the lessons and the failures as well as some of the areas of success

00:24:58.360 that these countries have been able to implement. Avoid the failures and try to focus on the successes

00:25:05.760 and hopefully you'll be able to have a long-standing and relatively happy form of governance.

00:25:14.000 I mean, I take your point as to the conscientious objective, but you look at Venezuela, for example,

00:25:19.760 and the reason I'm using it is because that's the example I know best. You've got rigged elections,

00:25:24.700 you've got politicians who go up against Maduro, they're either thrown in jail, as in the case of

00:25:31.200 Leopoldo Lopez, solitary confinement for two years, or you have, I think it's Corina Machado,

00:25:36.240 who got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but she is currently in hiding in her own country because

00:25:41.880 she knows the moment that her whereabouts are known, she's going to get thrown into jail,

00:25:45.920 may not be seen again. Yeah. I'm not going to defend Maduro, but I would say that the logical

00:25:55.020 through line, and it's important to understand the opposition's logical through line in this instance,

00:26:01.620 is that these are forces that are very directly working with the United States of America that

00:26:09.280 have tried to facilitate coups, even had an unsuccessful one all the way back in 2002,

00:26:14.760 with Chavez and numerous other instances, openly talked about implementing coups under the first

00:26:22.200 Trump administration, and is openly now waging war, or at least threatening to wage war with Venezuela

00:26:27.240 right now, encircling the entire coastline of Venezuela with some of the most sophisticated

00:26:34.040 weaponry known to man. In that regard, I think they see it as treason. I would go so far as say

00:26:42.980 in a similar scenario in the United States of America, I think, and this is not even a one-to-one

00:26:48.040 dynamic because America is the most powerful nation on the planet, but China is getting up there, 0.94

00:26:52.420 right? Let's see if China had, in a hypothetical, if China had encircled the United States of America,

00:26:57.940 America, and let's say in this hypothetical, I'm like very clearly someone who is going to China

00:27:05.240 and talking to the CPC and saying like, we want Chinese intervention in this country because I

00:27:13.600 hate Donald Trump, please. I think in that regard, America would probably treat me in the exact same

00:27:19.900 way, if not in a worse way, ironically enough. But would they throw you in jail for trying to run

00:27:25.500 democratically? I don't think personally that they would. Oh, they absolutely would, I think.

00:27:30.480 You think the American government would not throw me in jail if I was in a comparable scenario where

00:27:36.160 China had encircled the United States of America and I was saying, I want to run democratically,

00:27:41.520 I want to be, and I'm demanding that China intervene, I think they would do the same,

00:27:46.980 if not worse, for sure. Because like I said, it's all a matter of the conditions on the ground.

00:27:53.720 With respect to Eugene Debs, as I was talking about before, America felt threatened even at that

00:28:01.460 time. You're talking about wartime. This is not a fair comparison, in my opinion, because wartime is

00:28:07.040 wartime. It's about survival. Britain suspended elections during wartime, right? America didn't

00:28:12.600 actually, even during the Civil War. But Britain did. America wasn't in war in the same way that

00:28:17.500 Britain was. That's why is it during the Civil War? Yeah. Well, yeah, that's fair. But again, 0.99

00:28:22.620 it's different. I guess you said something interesting because, you know, I was born in

00:28:26.820 the Soviet Union, so we both have direct experience of socialism in various shapes and forms. You

00:28:31.940 talked about, well, there's positives and there's negatives. So is there a country that's done

00:28:37.720 socialism the way that you like? I would say that I am hypercritical of all forms of governance,

00:28:46.800 including the American one. I think that's not a surprise to you guys, right? And in that same

00:28:54.860 vein, I think, like, there is critiques to apply to all forms of governance, even socialist ones.

00:29:00.720 Yeah. And as far as, like, getting closer to what I think has been relatively successful, because if

00:29:07.440 ultimately the point of government is to improve the material conditions of all people to the best of

00:29:13.760 your ability, it's not always going to be perfect. But when you are getting, I don't know, the poorest

00:29:19.120 people, the poorest of the dispossessed masses out of a situation where they were servile, the landed 0.91

00:29:27.620 gentry, or they were peasants from an agrarian society, or they were, you know, dominated by the 0.76

00:29:34.420 landlords. But then ultimately they were able to come into modernity and become like a powerhouse,

00:29:40.160 an industrial powerhouse that is competitive with the largest superpower on the planet.

00:29:44.020 I would say if that's the point of good governance, and I think you guys might agree with me on that,

00:29:49.140 I would say China is probably the closest. And there are still plenty of failures within

00:29:53.580 the Chinese system as well, plenty of issues within the Chinese system as well. But that's probably the

00:29:58.860 closest, I would say, to an example that we should follow and lessons that we should learn from.

00:30:06.440 This is something that I talk about quite a bit. Ironically enough, we only utilize some of the

00:30:11.420 most repressive elements of Chinese governance here in the United States of America, especially in the

00:30:15.540 second Trump administration, and none of the good stuff. We don't have any high-speed rail. We don't

00:30:20.480 have any even development. There is seemingly nothing to look forward to in America in terms of economic

00:30:27.900 prosperity, in terms of overall health of society, in terms of scientific achievements. And I think a lot

00:30:36.740 of younger people also feel the same way, where they feel like there's nothing to look forward to

00:30:42.300 here. And I'll give you guys an example from the UK. I remember seeing this TikTok of this guy that goes

00:30:48.180 around and is like asking young British people, would they serve in the British military? And I am not even

00:30:56.540 remotely nationalistic by any measure. I don't care about those sorts of things. But I think it's

00:31:02.740 important to understand, like, it's a good way to see the temperature of society. And a lot of the

00:31:08.580 British people were like, no, why would I fight for England? Why would I fight for the UK, when it seems

00:31:15.400 like my government's not even fighting for me at all? And...

00:31:18.540 See, the reason a lot of them will say that, though, is it's not so much about that we're not

00:31:24.580 like China in terms of building high-speed rail, although that is a big issue in the UK. I agree

00:31:29.880 with you. The main reason is they feel like they've been let down by mass immigration that's eroding the

00:31:35.540 values of their country. And of course, you know, this is where I think people on the right are very

00:31:41.360 blind to this issue that we already raised, which is wealth inequality and opportunity.

00:31:46.120 I'm sure there are some people who feel that way, of course. But...

00:31:49.260 Well, think about this first hand. Hold on. Let me just finish the point. Like,

00:31:52.360 stereotypically speaking, is it left-of-center people or right-of-center people that are going

00:31:56.780 to go and fight for their country? Typically, it's going to be right-of-center people because of the

00:32:00.780 mindset that they have, right?

00:32:02.220 I think when push comes to shove, everybody fights for their country because that's why you have to

00:32:05.460 have a draft.

00:32:06.040 In a war. But what we're talking about in this situation is will you go and serve in armed forces?

00:32:10.920 That is going to be a more right-leaning perspective. And those people, you know,

00:32:15.120 we probably, fair to say, know the UK pretty well. Those people are concerned about the national

00:32:20.960 identity of their country. It's like, why would I fight for a country that doesn't feel like my 0.99

00:32:25.460 country is the issue for them?

00:32:27.280 This is where the big point of division comes for someone like myself.

00:32:31.020 Um, you're Venezuelan originally, like you, your family came from Venezuela. Your family came from

00:32:37.340 the USSR. You guys are the most British people I've ever encountered. 0.69

00:32:41.200 I have a very British face. You're correct.

00:32:43.320 Yeah, exactly. You're, you're British to the bone. 1.00

00:32:46.900 Yeah.

00:32:47.100 And yet your families also came from countries that were somewhat far away from England. Right. And I'm

00:32:57.900 Turkish. I grew up in Turkey. My whole family lives in Turkey still with some exceptions. And I would say

00:33:04.800 I'm pretty assimilated to American culture. Uh, I grew up being fascinated by American culture. I grew up

00:33:10.360 consuming American, uh, pop culture as do many people all around the world. And, and what I always

00:33:16.840 find interesting is when people, uh, focus on the, the, uh, the newcomers to say that this is actually

00:33:25.240 destroying the social fabric or social cohesion, not realizing that, uh, there are a ton of polls

00:33:33.000 conducted on this stuff. I can just speak for America, especially, uh, where by the second

00:33:40.640 generation, assimilation is almost complete. And by the third one, it's like virtually impossible to

00:33:45.060 distinguish in terms of performance, educational output, uh, and, and job performance in general.

00:33:49.500 It's just like everyone becomes American. 0.70

00:33:51.840 That's not true in the UK though, unfortunately. So if you look at, for example, Islamist radicalization,

00:33:57.340 second and third generation Muslims are much more radical than first generation.

00:34:01.360 Yeah. So we're not, we, we, that's the issue that a lot of people in Britain are concerned

00:34:05.280 about is not everyone's assimilating the way that the three of us have done.

00:34:08.720 So here's the interesting point about that. Um, well, two things I want to address first,

00:34:14.880 uh, like I said, people assimilate it's, uh, and they become a part of the, the, uh, normal

00:34:21.160 forces of society. They become a part of the culture or they bring some aspect of their culture

00:34:25.640 into, uh, British culture. You know, they, they change the cuisine and people seemingly 0.99

00:34:30.640 enjoy it even if they also simultaneously go attend an EDL rally and then, you know, get

00:34:35.400 a little quick curry, uh, afterwards or, or a little kebab on the side. But, um, beyond

00:34:42.320 that, the reason why people are angry is always going to be because the trains are not running

00:34:50.440 on time because the, the NHS is, uh, improperly managed due to underfunding. That's what I believe.

00:34:58.080 I think it's a, it's always an issue of underfunding, um, where they're not getting the same services

00:35:03.840 that they once used to. And also things are becoming more and more costly. So in that anger,

00:35:09.420 uh, it's much easier for them to, to be guided by a right wing, guided by the right wing forces

00:35:17.920 to turn around and say, you're angry and you're right to be angry. And the reason why you're angry

00:35:22.260 or the reason why all of these things are happening is because you're, we are importing

00:35:28.040 all of these random strangers into the country who don't speak your language, who you aren't scared

00:35:32.960 by. And, and that I think causes division and it causes friction that makes it harder for people

00:35:39.500 to integrate. And that is part of the reason why I think, especially in a place like the UK,

00:35:45.720 you see a little bit more of this, um, this, this, uh, resilience towards full blown integration

00:35:53.860 into society. I also think as well, Hassan, if we're being honest, it's also because we have had

00:35:59.600 such huge amounts of immigration come into the country. The people understandably go, 1.00

00:36:05.840 this pace of change is too much. And you have to think, let's go back to 2016, which was the

00:36:10.820 Brexit referendum. Now, Brexit was about many things, but really it was about people wanting

00:36:15.520 to immigration to be lowered. And that was nine on 10 years ago. Immigration hasn't been lowered.

00:36:21.120 In fact, it's been ratcheted up. So people are, you know, people voted to lower immigration and I'm

00:36:28.200 for instance, I voted remain people voted Brexit. I'm like, well, that's democracy. We get on,

00:36:32.980 we're going to make the best of it. I do believe that when you ignore people's wishes at the ballot box

00:36:38.080 and people explicitly vote for something and you ignore them for the best part of a decade,

00:36:43.500 that does generate a lot of anger and understandably so.

00:36:46.700 Yeah. I think in that same timeframe, if, uh, if there was enough appetite by the government

00:36:55.700 to address the financial, uh, harm that people were experiencing, the economic struggles that

00:37:02.300 people were experiencing, there would still be a lot of people who say, I don't want a brown person.

00:37:06.560 I don't want a black person around in my neighborhood, but ultimately those numbers would be far 1.00

00:37:11.400 smaller. And that's what I always go back to. I'm a, I'm, I'm a leftist. I believe in, 0.99

00:37:17.880 in, uh, economic improvements. And I believe that a lot of the reactionary forces actually take

00:37:24.280 advantage of that instability, the economic volatility that exists in an effort to shift

00:37:29.400 the attention away to people who have the same exact interests as, uh, you and I do.

00:37:34.520 Because ultimately, um, I don't believe that anyone is coming into the United States of America or the

00:37:39.380 UK as a matter of fact, because they want to bring about, uh, a, a, uh, Salafist style Islamic caliphate

00:37:46.360 in London. I know you won't agree with me on this.

00:37:49.520 It's not about whether I agree. It's about whether the facts agree with you.

00:37:51.900 I don't, I don't think that's the case. Hold on. I think ultimately, let me just give you some facts

00:37:55.320 then. If, if, if that, we have a terrorist attack on a monthly basis by an Islamist effectively, 0.57

00:38:00.060 we just had two in the space of the last month as we're recording this, uh, 33%, I think of British

00:38:05.920 Muslims want Sharia law in Britain, like according to polls, uh, more than half want to ban.

00:38:12.140 I haven't seen these polls. Well, we can put them in for people to see more than half want to ban

00:38:16.580 homosexuality, right? So when you say people aren't coming in to introduce an Islamist stuff, 0.95

00:38:22.620 well, some of them want to, if they're in a position to do so, we have, um, five MPs who are

00:38:28.140 effectively elected on a sectarian ticket, like as in, we are Muslims vote for us because you're a

00:38:33.300 Muslim. Uh, who would you say those MPs are? Uh, the five independent MPs. They're called the Gaza 1.00

00:38:38.560 MPs or whatever way you want to call them. Are you talking about like Zahra Sultana?

00:38:42.140 Uh, I don't know if she's one of them. There's, I think one of them is called Adnan Hussein. 0.93

00:38:45.480 There's five of them. You can, we can look them up. We can put them in for people to see.

00:38:48.800 Right. So, um, I, I think it should be said that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims

00:38:54.200 don't want Sharia law, but if 33% of them do, you can see why a lot of people who don't want 0.86

00:38:59.680 Sharia law might be concerned about that. Right. Um, sure. I, I don't, I don't know what,

00:39:08.060 uh, I haven't seen these polls and I also don't know what, uh, British Muslims or the 33% that are

00:39:14.000 saying they want Sharia law, like what they're talking about. If you want smart, fearless

00:39:19.400 commentary on the craziest things happening in media, politics and online culture, you'll love

00:39:25.280 the Brad versus everyone podcast hosted by Brad Palumbo, an independent journalist who calls it

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00:40:25.120 online.

00:40:29.160 The, the, the counter example always is, I mean, there's plenty of right-wing forces in the country

00:40:33.940 that also want to ban homosexuality and no, I mean, or trans people in general, right? Like there 1.00

00:40:41.640 is no one wants to ban trans people in Britain. No. Okay. Well, that's not what I have seen so far,

00:40:47.520 but maybe I'm wrong on this. What do you mean? But, um, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of, uh, this is a,

00:40:53.620 this is a point of contention for, uh, for, for you guys as well, but it's like when you want to ban

00:40:58.560 trans people altogether, when you want to, uh, uh, remove access to medication for trans people, uh, to, to

00:41:07.340 transition, uh, and, and, uh, conform their own gender identity, you don't start off by saying we

00:41:13.960 want to altogether ban trans people. You start off by, by trying to find the most successful approach 1.00

00:41:20.540 that the broadest majority of the masses would be in tune with, would be in agreement with,

00:41:25.320 and then you slowly but surely expand on it. Wouldn't that be like me saying, wouldn't that

00:41:30.460 be like me saying, well, you say you want socialism, but actually you're a communist because you, you

00:41:34.380 just want to edge your way towards communism step-by-step. I mean, that seems like an unfair

00:41:38.540 way of looking at it. No, my retort to that would be that while I don't call myself a communist,

00:41:42.760 I don't have an issue with an end goal of communism. I don't think it's like a, I think, I just think that

00:41:48.560 it's probably not likely to happen, a stateless, moneyless, borderless society. Um, but, uh, moving

00:41:55.280 towards that end goal, I don't have any real- You'd like communism in America. I think that

00:41:59.580 communism would be most likely an international thing. It'd be like the Star Trek universe.

00:42:04.400 And it feels, especially at this point, it feels far too utopian to achieve. So while I think that the,

00:42:11.900 the concept in and of itself is not one that I, I disagree with, and I don't think you would either.

00:42:17.420 Don't you think it would be nicer? I grew up in a communist country. I very strongly disagree

00:42:21.200 with the concept of communism. Well, the USSR was, as you know, as well, uh, trying to implement

00:42:27.680 communism. They never actually were able to successfully implement communism. Um, how do

00:42:32.000 you mean? Well, it wasn't a, a borderless, moneyless, classless, uh, society, right? It would

00:42:39.980 be like all of communism. It was never to be a borderless moneyless society. No, that is what

00:42:44.980 communism is. Well, that's not how the communists in Russia defined it. Well, there was a big debate

00:42:49.560 within communism, uh, quite early on. It was, which was about, are we pursuing a global state

00:42:55.620 of communism versus Stalin? Oh, I'm very familiar. Right. But for our audience, this might be worth

00:43:00.840 explaining. Yeah. Some of them wanted to, they basically recognize the only way you might ever

00:43:06.440 get to a communist society is if everyone in the world gets it. Otherwise there will always be a

00:43:11.920 capitalist system to which people would be keen to defect. Or this is the Stalin option that they

00:43:16.840 ended up going for is you pursue communism within the realm of one country. And in order to do that,

00:43:22.240 they took the wealth away from people who had it. They tried to distribute it to everybody else.

00:43:27.520 They tried to create a state of equality, uh, uplift the poor as you were talking about. And actually,

00:43:32.460 if you take those measures alone, they were very successful at it. The only problem is they ended up

00:43:38.040 putting, you know, millions of people in camps in order to do that, uh, creating a tyrannical regime

00:43:43.740 with a secret police that murdered people. Um, and that is the reason communism, in my opinion,

00:43:50.380 doesn't work is because in order to achieve that goal of equality, and basically you're making

00:43:56.100 everybody equally poor as the end result, you actually have to use a lot of force, right? So that

00:44:01.440 was communism, what we had in the USSR? Well, that the, the end goal was never successfully

00:44:07.540 achieved in the USSR in terms of establishing, uh, what I'm talking about though. And that's why I'm 0.82

00:44:12.880 saying it's important to understand and recognize the failures of this implementation, uh, in the

00:44:17.880 aftermath of a socialist revolution and, and, uh, choose not to repeat those mistakes. So how would

00:44:24.220 you do it differently? Well, that's the reason why I'm pointed to China. China is run by the, 0.98

00:44:30.140 the, uh, communist party of China. It builds itself as it builds itself as communist. China is not a

00:44:36.520 communist country. Would you say China is a communist country? It's a mixed country. It has

00:44:40.520 some elements of communism, but it's also got a lot of capitalism going on. Yeah. So it's a,

00:44:44.260 it's a mixed market economy is what you're saying. Right. Um, but so is the United States of America,

00:44:48.980 if you look at it from that perspective, because America also has some semblance of social safety

00:44:53.440 nets. The UK also has some social, uh, social safety nets, some state run enterprises,

00:44:57.800 uh, you know, especially pre Margaret Thatcher, I would say versus, uh, private, uh, enterprises as

00:45:05.640 well. Venezuela at its peak, I think had more privatization and more private enterprise in

00:45:11.240 its economy than, than, uh, France did. As a matter of fact, I believe there was like a report,

00:45:17.020 uh, uh, at, uh, around 2012, maybe, where they were talking about how like Venezuela is not socialist.

00:45:24.360 It's a, when these sorts of countries and you're not wrong, it's a mixture of both, right? It, it

00:45:29.100 exists. Social safety nets exist. Some, uh, extrapolation initiatives, uh, exist. Like when

00:45:35.920 you think about Norway, for example, the entirety of the extraction industry in Norway is actually

00:45:40.340 nationalized from the forestry all the way down to, uh, the, the oil and gas industry. Um, but then

00:45:46.680 there's also, uh, the, the private market as well, private enterprise as well. So, um, as far as that

00:45:55.620 goes, I wouldn't say that China is a communist and neither would you, but it's run by a communist 0.58

00:45:59.600 party. And, and so far they have seen, uh, a, a pretty successful, pretty robust, uh, level of growth

00:46:07.740 and development overall. So they have analyzed the, the failures of previous communist and socialist

00:46:15.360 formations and they have, uh, responded to it in their own way. The, the, the challenge is Hassan,

00:46:21.720 when you centralize power and you give into exactly practically all the power to the government,

00:46:27.260 what happens with that is you're far more likely to have corruption. You're far more likely to have

00:46:32.440 abuse of power. And inevitably what happens is that the government can't do everything. There are

00:46:38.880 things that are far better done by private practice than done by state control. Um, so if you agree

00:46:45.200 with that, would you, would you also agree that there are things that are far better, uh, done in the

00:46:50.120 hands of the government, or at least with like heavy market regulation and intervention? I completely

00:46:53.940 agree. Cause like healthcare, I think is a, is a great example of this where like, it's, it's an

00:46:58.720 inelastic demand, good and service, right? If you don't have healthcare, you die. So you will pay

00:47:04.160 whatever price you have to pay for healthcare. And therefore I think the American system that is

00:47:09.420 the most maximalist, most capitalist, most like free enterprise system has been an abject failure

00:47:14.480 in terms of delivering good results. And what I mean by that is healthcare as a whole is supposed to,

00:47:22.260 uh, improve people's living standards and, and also make sure that everyone is getting the best

00:47:27.660 quality care possible. Right. And, and in the United States of America, we don't have that. We do have

00:47:33.580 uh, nicer hospitals that, uh, resemble hotels as opposed to like, it'd be difficult not to have

00:47:40.060 a nicer hospital than the UK, mate. Yeah, no, but that's, but I understand that I'm, I'm Turkey.

00:47:44.480 I've seen the Turkish public hospitals, but I would rather have, uh, I would rather try to focus

00:47:48.980 on the diminished quality of service and try to improve that in a socialized system than to

00:47:54.880 altogether, uh, altogether limit healthcare at the point of being able to pay for it in the way that

00:48:01.380 we have in the United States of America. And I think this is, uh, a, a major issue with America

00:48:08.440 in general is that we are so invested in improving our GDP. We're so invested in, in, um, in, in leaning

00:48:15.380 into the forces of capital that, uh, in this sector and in many others, uh, corruption still thrives.

00:48:22.120 We have it in the form of corporate consolidation here in the United States of America,

00:48:26.060 because in the absence of any sort of government intervention, trust busting, uh, and, and, uh,

00:48:31.440 heavy, uh, regulatory, uh, intervention, all corporations end up trying to seize one another

00:48:38.700 and become a force, a monopolistic force. Um, and if not an oligopoly, right? And many sectors

00:48:45.000 have seen this. And when you become a, uh, an oligopoly, you can diminish the quality of service that

00:48:51.140 you're offering slowly, but surely, because there's no market competition that exists any longer.

00:48:55.620 So, um, I guess the way I look at it is in terms of corruption, you're right. Um, there is a tendency

00:49:02.480 if the government is all powerful, even though the governments are always all powerful,

00:49:06.340 there is a tendency in more centralized governance that, uh, if someone wants to be a ruthless autocrat,

00:49:13.000 they can do so. Uh, and, and, um, the people don't always have the capacity to rise up against that.

00:49:20.340 But I would say that in the United States of America, for example,

00:49:23.920 we also experience a similar dynamic. We just don't see it in the same way because it's not the

00:49:30.080 most direct form of authoritarianism where a lot of people think, well, as long as I can eat a Big Mac,

00:49:35.360 you know, as long as I can watch, uh, TV, as long as I can consume porn and, and, you know, gamble

00:49:40.580 on the unregulated crypto, uh, currency market or gamble, uh, my, my modest income away,

00:49:48.020 what remains after I give the rest of my landlord, um, then, you know, things are,

00:49:52.600 things are probably fine. And I think we dull our sensibilities in that regard. And I think it's a,

00:49:57.340 it's a different form. It's a different mechanism of control that makes you think that you are

00:50:00.900 actually an active participant.

00:50:02.320 Well, I mean, I think that's quite a stretch, Hasan, with all respect, because the difference

00:50:06.860 between, I mean, you talk about, we talked about some societies that have attempted to pursue

00:50:11.200 communism, China, the Soviet Union, Venezuela, et cetera, right?

00:50:15.580 The difference between those countries is not that they can't eat a Big Mac. The difference is

00:50:19.680 that if they criticize the government in Russia today, even, but of course, in the Soviet Union

00:50:24.720 previously, you're going to get killed, right? In America, that's not what happens, right? In

00:50:30.360 America, you don't get, we don't know yet. We don't know where we're going to go yet. I mean,

00:50:34.220 Hasan, to be fair, you've got a, you're a very successful, you in China or in the Soviet Union

00:50:39.280 would be killed if you were critical of that regime. I would definitely, I would definitely be

00:50:43.080 jailed. You'd definitely be jailed. So that's the difference between these countries and America.

00:50:47.220 It's not a Big Mac, it's freedom.

00:50:48.540 No. So I love that you brought that up because I agree with that. I'm from Turkey, a country that

00:50:54.940 has never had the First Amendment or freedom of speech. And ironically enough, the current regime,

00:51:01.440 the person in charge of the current regime, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was jailed in the past for a poem

00:51:05.920 that he wrote for incitement, right? He read a poem about Altatürk, I believe, if I'm not mistaken,

00:51:10.820 and he was jailed. And now he's one of the most ruthless jailers of the press in the country.

00:51:19.300 Now, so I come from that background. I can't go back to Turkey, for example, for these reasons.

00:51:25.500 I've written about Turkey extensively. And, you know, let's just say the administration is not

00:51:30.940 super fond of me and my perspective. Having said that, that is the reason why I want the First

00:51:38.580 Amendment to remain in the United States of America, even though, as I brought up earlier,

00:51:44.280 there have been instances throughout American history where the First Amendment has been

00:51:48.520 actively violated or threatened. There are still contemporary examples of violations of the

00:51:52.760 First Amendment. One example I will use is the anti-boycott divestment and sanctions laws that

00:51:57.620 exist in the United States of America. Famously was Bernie Sanders and Dianne Feinstein,

00:52:01.960 rest in peace, who actively called it out to prominent Jewish politicians in the country.

00:52:08.920 It's a, these are laws directly written by AIPAC that, that dictate that if you want to become

00:52:15.160 a school teacher in the state of Texas, for example, you have to sign a loyalty pledge to ensure that

00:52:18.920 you never protest against the state of Israel. It's ridiculous, right? And it's a direct violation 0.86

00:52:22.880 of the First Amendment. So there are encroachment, there is encroachment towards the First Amendment.

00:52:27.860 That will always happen because people will always contest it. But the point I'm making to you is

00:52:31.800 when you compare China and the Soviet Union and Venezuela to America, you are not, that is not an

00:52:38.060 accurate comparison. It's not an accurate comparison. But if you recall earlier, I just said, I'm worried

00:52:44.300 that we here in the United States of America are now moving in that direction in terms of social

00:52:50.860 repression in terms of political repression. And this is something that I very much fear. And I think

00:52:58.500 the entry point to this is usually around Israel and what people decry as anti-Semitism. But that's

00:53:06.500 not where it's going to end. If you look at the Trump administration's active, the active initiatives

00:53:13.960 that the administration is taking. Yesterday, my friend Kat Aboukzale, who used to be a reporter

00:53:20.880 who is now running in Illinois for Congress, was indicted. She was indicted because she participated 0.94

00:53:28.460 in the protests against ICE outside of an ICE facility. And there are videos of her getting slammed

00:53:34.440 to the ground in the concrete with this militarized, masked federal police force, right? Not only they beat

00:53:40.940 Europe, which was already ridiculous to begin with, but then they also chose to indict her. 0.99

00:53:46.180 There are examples of students writing for their student newspaper and getting kidnapped and thrown

00:53:55.820 into an immigrant detention facility, whether it be Mahmoud Khalil, who still has an ongoing legal case

00:54:03.860 for being a student activist, a student protester, and having a green card while doing it.

00:54:09.500 We have the same thing in our country in different ways. I hear you. Sorry, the reason I'm

00:54:13.720 interrupting you is we've moved sideways from the topic. So remember where we started this

00:54:17.620 conversation, right? So just to address your point.

00:54:19.840 Well, the repression didn't start in China by everybody being like, all right, it's over,

00:54:23.780 we're throwing you in jail. It builds up to it, is what I mean. And it's entirely dependent on

00:54:28.540 the starting point. Because if you were looking at China, if you're looking at the Chinese Civil War,

00:54:32.540 post-World War II, 30 million Chinese people have been slaughtered ruthlessly by the Japanese

00:54:39.340 imperialists, like, that's a very different material, that's a very different set of material

00:54:45.780 circumstances for the end of that civil war and to develop governance.

00:54:51.760 I'm just trying to bring you back to the central argument, central discussion we're having.

00:54:55.840 France has made the point that when the government is in a position to be authoritarian, where it seems

00:55:00.440 to inevitably end up in every communist country in the history of the world, right, that is a

00:55:05.240 situation which inevitably then leads to levels of repression of the kind that you will not see

00:55:09.920 in America for 100 years. I take, hold on, I take your point about individual protesters or individual

00:55:16.000 people who've made statements about a highly controversial issue today. We have the same thing

00:55:20.780 in our country, where people are being sent to prison for tweets that they've done, right? Left and

00:55:25.280 right. We've got Palestine action on the left. We've got right-wing people criticizing

00:55:30.000 immigration. So I agree with you, the direction of travel in the West in terms of freedom of

00:55:34.560 expression is not good. And I've made that point in my book and elsewhere. But that is not the same

00:55:39.360 as what the point we're trying to make, which is the system of government you are open to,

00:55:44.940 based on our discussion today at least, inevitably leads to authoritarian or to authoritarianism,

00:55:50.400 which inevitably leads to repression on a scale that a Western country won't imagine.

00:55:54.960 That's the reason that a lot of people are very worried about people like you who say they're

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00:56:29.400 the box. I got one of these myself because I want to know my phone is serving me, not Google,

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00:56:51.140 Here, I'll try to put a nice button on it, okay? The reason why the United States of America

00:56:58.980 and countries that are under the security apparatus, the global security umbrella of the United States

00:57:05.340 of America have had much more success with liberal democracy as opposed to all these other countries

00:57:14.060 that are not under the immediate security umbrella is because it's been the domineering force around

00:57:20.700 the globe, especially after the end of the Cold War. But even during the Cold War, it was a dominant

00:57:26.200 force on the planet. When you are the dominant force, you get to have these freedoms. Your people get to

00:57:32.460 have these freedoms. Your people get to say whatever they want because they're not a threat, right?

00:57:37.780 I would be more of a threat in the respective nation that I'm in if they don't have that same

00:57:44.260 level of security. And that is the reason why I'm very fearful because as America's power on the global

00:57:49.420 stage is waning, we are going to see more direct authoritarianism coming from Western nations as

00:57:56.180 as liberalism decays, as it did in the 20s and the 30s. And what came after that was a wave of

00:58:03.100 fascism. Now, fascism at that time was seen as a revolutionary thing. It was seen as a new thing.

00:58:08.720 In many instances, fascists were actually fashioning themselves as though they were like a different

00:58:12.000 kind of socialist, even though they were mostly killing socialists and had their beef with socialists.

00:58:16.720 And then they were able to align with liberals eventually and become the domineering authoritarian

00:58:23.100 forces. And I think you guys wouldn't disagree with me that like, you know, Italy's Mussolini

00:58:28.400 and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany were ruthless fascist forms of governance where there was

00:58:37.480 unimaginable repression. My fear is that that is where capitalism inevitably leads.

00:58:44.400 Why?

00:58:45.080 If left unaddressed, because capitalism is always going to deteriorate. It's slowly going to improve

00:58:51.500 material conditions as opposed to feudalism. It's a far better system for sure. It's far better than

00:58:55.900 monarchies, right? I agree. But there will come a point where it outlives its usefulness.

00:59:02.960 And those who own the capital, the owners of capital will have to make a decision. There's too much

00:59:08.340 instability. There's too much chaos. We need to restore order. And if they can't do that through

00:59:14.780 liberal democracy, at least historically, especially when there is a counterbalance,

00:59:19.800 revolutionary socialism out there that they are genuinely fearful of, work stoppages happening

00:59:24.200 all around, and the flows of capital being disrupted, and profit margins are threatened,

00:59:31.500 they end up finding fascism to be that domineering force that restores the law and order so that people

00:59:39.360 are still working in the factories and any kind of dissent is directly and indirectly suppressed.

00:59:47.760 And I fear that that is where we're moving in the United States of America, as America's global

00:59:53.180 superpower status is threatened by the rise of China.

00:59:57.540 So your thesis is that as a country, if a different country was dominant, it was a global hegemon,

01:00:03.760 they would have more freedom for their citizens. So you think the Chinese Communist Party would

01:00:08.760 allow criticism of them if they were the dominant country in the world?

01:00:12.880 I think with respect to where they were in terms of like, I mean, the most maximalist position is the

01:00:19.720 Cultural Revolution, right? Like if you look at the Cultural Revolution versus where China is now in

01:00:24.180 terms of dissent, it's in comparison to the United States of America, yes, there's still heavy control

01:00:30.340 over that sort of stuff. There's a lot of surveillance. Having said that, it has become far more tolerant as

01:00:35.580 material conditions have improved. And that's my main thesis is that countries, regardless of their

01:00:42.280 individual forms of governance, as long as they are advancing the material needs of the broadest

01:00:47.580 subsect of the masses will and become like a domineering force on their own and have full sovereignty

01:00:54.480 and full autonomy, they will inevitably become more tolerant to this kind of freedom. Because

01:01:01.240 this is the most successful way, I think, of making sure that the masses feel satisfied.

01:01:11.240 Civil liberties is the most successful way that I think neoliberalism has become a hegemonic power

01:01:18.000 beyond the endless militarism and whatnot. I think that that is the reason why people feel

01:01:23.340 the way that they do in the United States of America, in spite of all of the alarm bells that are

01:01:28.440 ringing about how, you know, economic devastation is imminent, seemingly, or there's so much poverty

01:01:33.680 and so much instability, and people still go, well, at least I got some freedoms, right, as opposed to

01:01:39.820 not having those freedoms elsewhere. So that's, that's my main thesis, is that if they improve material

01:01:47.860 conditions, they have to inevitably allow more civil liberties, more social liberties.

01:01:53.320 So it's interesting what you've been saying about America, and that, you know, it's losing its power

01:01:59.300 on the global stage, that is then reflected in more and more, more and more, shall we say,

01:02:05.480 imbalanced chaos in the actual society itself. And we've kind of seen that in a way with the

01:02:11.300 assassination of Charlie Kirk, with, uh, with Luigi Mangione. Uh, I found some of your comments

01:02:18.600 really interesting about Luigi, and I'd love to talk to you about them. So you've said,

01:02:22.200 and correct me if I'm wrong, push back on me if I'm wrong, that you think that he's innocent and

01:02:27.300 unfairly maligned. How did you come to that position, if I'm correct?

01:02:31.460 Well, I mean, that's a meme for the most part.

01:02:33.460 Oh, okay.

01:02:34.000 But what does that, what, what does that mean it's a meme?

01:02:36.180 Um, the, we're like, we're not rumors, but we're like elderly millennials.

01:02:39.620 The notion that someone is innocent until proven guilty, or that he wasn't there,

01:02:42.960 it's like a common, uh, a common thing that people do on, uh, TikTok and elsewhere as well.

01:02:48.480 But, um.

01:02:48.980 You don't think he's innocent?

01:02:50.320 Well, I don't know. I don't know if he's, uh, the one that actually did or not. We'll see

01:02:54.100 once the, once the court case, uh, uh, finalizes.

01:02:58.160 But what, but is he, sorry, I may not understand what meme means in this context. Like,

01:03:03.160 I guess what I'm asking is when you say he's unfairly maligned, do you believe that or not?

01:03:09.620 That's what I'm asking.

01:03:10.440 Well, as far as unfairly maligned, um, it depends on where the quote is coming from.

01:03:15.580 Cause I could be talking about like being perp walked, uh, or getting hit with a terrorism

01:03:19.340 charge, which was actually, uh, taken off, uh, recently because the, the New York courts

01:03:25.260 also found that it was, uh, overextended, uh, to this case. I think there was a lot of panic

01:03:30.480 around, uh, his actions, um, allegedly. And that is, uh, probably what I was talking about

01:03:37.860 if you're talking about that. But as far as like, uh, oh, Luigi's in it.

01:03:40.440 And it's just like a thing that people say as far as, um, and as soon as, why do they say it?

01:03:45.960 I think that is actually the more interesting conversation.

01:03:49.860 Okay.

01:03:50.140 The reason, uh, that, and I had a conversation with Ross Douthat about this on the New York

01:03:54.660 Times, um, where he brought this up on numerous occasions. Um, I think that people are experiencing

01:04:02.780 tremendous anger and discontent. And one of the most visible aspects of that, one of the visible

01:04:08.540 aspects of, of, of, uh, uh, a, a system of healthcare that should not be privatized or

01:04:14.900 should at the very least, even if it's privatized work to make sure that every single person is

01:04:19.660 getting the adequate care that they need. Otherwise they die. Uh, it has, has created this environment

01:04:25.060 of tremendous anger. It is almost virtually universalized the pain. Every single American

01:04:31.340 knows at least one immediate or distant relative that has suffered, uh, through chemotherapy as

01:04:36.860 they, uh, have to hunt down their, their, uh, insurance provider to make sure that the

01:04:42.240 thing that they were paying for, for years and years, the premiums, the costly premiums that

01:04:46.620 they were paying into actually end up helping them cover the cost of this, uh, life saving,

01:04:53.760 uh, quality care that they desperately need to survive. And, and I think, uh, uh, a lot of

01:05:01.240 Americans have so much discontent for that experience that they have seen personally, that their immediate

01:05:07.080 reaction once before they even found out who had done the shooting, but their immediate reaction to,

01:05:13.840 to who the victim was, was, uh, met with a response that shocked me, uh, as well as I think many other

01:05:22.800 people. Um, what I mean by that is America is very draconian. They're very black and white. It's like 1.00

01:05:27.580 you do a crime, you get punished and a lot worse than you would get punished elsewhere. Right. Uh,

01:05:32.100 we, we, we talk about, you know, how Norway is much more understanding and much more rehabilitative 1.00

01:05:36.500 in their prison structure because they're pussies. We throw you in jail and we torture you. 1.00

01:05:41.260 You have the death penalty. 1.00

01:05:42.040 Yeah. We have the death penalty. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So in America's broadly like American culture is

01:05:47.580 broadly, very, uh, receptive to that. We're, we're, we're fairly rugged in our approach to

01:05:52.840 crime and punishment. And in spite of that, because of, of how much harm the private healthcare sector

01:06:01.080 has, has done to so many different people in this country, I think they saw it as like, okay, well,

01:06:06.360 this guy is the, now the, the, the faceless, uh, uh, placeholder for the person, for the, for the

01:06:15.820 system that actually, uh, you know, killed my grandparents. You know, like that's the way they

01:06:20.320 saw it. I get the anger, which I don't think is healthy for the record. Okay. Uh, well, this is

01:06:25.640 what I'm getting to is like, I, I understand anger. And by the way, you know, I don't want to wade into

01:06:30.680 the debate about American healthcare. I don't know a lot about it. I understand there's some really

01:06:34.680 bad situations for people. People should also know that in the UK, there's also lots of people who

01:06:39.660 are dying without care because they're waiting for an operation for a year and a half, or they're

01:06:43.440 waiting two months for a scan. But let's, let's not get into that. No, but the NHS is, you're right.

01:06:47.820 The NHS has had, uh, uh, significant austerity measures implemented to it. The NHS budget keeps

01:06:53.040 growing every year, but it doesn't matter because the populations grow. Let's not get into it.

01:06:56.380 Uh, what I'm saying is I understand people's anger. What I don't understand is why that

01:07:01.920 would make Luigi Mangione who allegedly killed this guy innocent. Why? Cause that's where we

01:07:07.100 started, right? Why do people say he's innocent? The way people see it. And I'm not, uh, I'm not

01:07:12.220 subscribing to this notion, but the way that I think people see it is, um, are you familiar

01:07:17.660 with the concept of social murder? No. Engels wrote about this. He said that like the systematized

01:07:22.900 death and destruction of the masses is oftentimes hidden. It's oftentimes invisible. Um, I think

01:07:28.560 private healthcare is a great example of this where it's to the recipient, to the victim or the

01:07:34.220 victim's families. They see that as murder, right? They see that as an unnecessary death that took place

01:07:39.760 and, and they feel that pain all the same in the same way that, uh, that Brian Thompson's family,

01:07:45.600 I'm sure, uh, was, was, and it still is mourning the death of Brian Thompson. There are millions of

01:07:52.380 Americans out there that have, uh, individuals in their lives that they loved loved ones, immediate

01:07:58.960 loved ones, distant relatives that they've seen suffer in their last, in their final moments as

01:08:03.500 they, you know, go through the process of trying to figure out the paperwork in a system that is

01:08:07.280 designed to let's be real, take as much money as possible from you in the form of premiums,

01:08:13.420 and then, uh, create a profit incentive by refusing to pay for the healthcare. 0.98

01:08:19.380 Hassan, I get all that. And I empathize with, with, with that pain that those people feel.

01:08:24.460 But what I'm getting at is you, you said he's innocent. Then you said it's a meme. You say,

01:08:29.480 it's just a thing that people say. What I'm trying to understand is the reason why people say that is

01:08:32.760 because I think that doesn't make him innocent, right? If he shot a man who runs a healthcare,

01:08:40.260 healthcare company, healthcare insurance company. Yeah. And they are angry with healthcare in

01:08:46.040 America, that doesn't make him innocent, right? It doesn't. So isn't you and them saying that just

01:08:52.200 flat out wrong? Well, my reason for saying it is because you're innocent until proven guilty.

01:08:57.660 But as far as what everyone else is saying, or if I'm to analyze it, which I do as a part of my job,

01:09:04.360 what I'm trying to explain to you guys is that from their perspective, it's revenge. And this is

01:09:11.160 a very, very unhealthy feeling to have. This is why I talked about with Ross Dow that, uh, the concept

01:09:16.760 of adventurism, um, this is something that, uh, traditional Marxists, uh, actually are, are very,

01:09:23.580 uh, critical of. Adventurism does not lead to, uh, any sort of serious, uh, changes, any sort of

01:09:32.040 serious revolutionary changes, especially. And yet, and all it does is create an environment of

01:09:37.280 instability. Um, I, I think that the perfect solution, uh, to ensure that this never happens,

01:09:43.840 to ensure that there's no level of discontent that, that bubbles up to this degree, that would

01:09:49.460 require a mechanism of enforcement, uh, by the government to, to enact stability, of course,

01:09:55.040 uh, which would also be just as violent, if not, uh, even more brutal to a larger percentage of the

01:10:00.900 population to ensure that there isn't another, you know, Luigi Mangione style situation is good

01:10:07.140 legislation is, is, is, uh, fixing the systemic problems. Luigi Mangione is the breaking point.

01:10:14.040 Luigi Mangione is the perfect demonstration of the system failing people. And I think that,

01:10:19.400 uh, Luigi Mangione and the response to him has been one of the clearest examples that I have seen,

01:10:27.040 uh, in a country like the United States of America, where people are normally supposed to be,

01:10:30.800 like, uh, uh, uh, horrified by, uh, cold-blooded murder in the middle of the day. Um, their

01:10:36.900 response being much more receptive, uh, to the action shows me that there is so much pain in

01:10:43.560 people's, uh, immediate experiences that they, they, they recognize this instability. They don't

01:10:49.880 have a vehicle to communicate it. They don't have a vehicle to communicate this discontent.

01:10:53.420 And they're simply moving into the least productive way to do politics, which is revenge,

01:11:00.280 violent revenge. I think that, um, that, that is something that we have to solve

01:11:05.880 immediately because it can't go on. I mean, you can't have more people just like

01:11:09.940 randomly gunning people in the streets. That's not what a civilized society is supposed to work

01:11:14.140 towards. That's instability. That's chaos. I don't want that.

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01:12:44.660 So one of the things that I found shocking with the assassination of Charlie Kirk is obviously

01:12:50.440 the incident itself, but it's also the reaction and the rhetoric that went around it.

01:12:57.060 The people on the left who were celebrating it, which to me is, and to most right-thinking people,

01:13:04.000 is absolutely abhorrent. And also the reaction on the left, and there were some people,

01:13:08.880 particularly large influencers, who's what they said was unforgivable. Where did you stand on it,

01:13:14.840 and what were your opinions on the whole incident?

01:13:16.800 I mean, I was shocked. It was horrifying, but mainly horrifying because it's impossible for me

01:13:25.840 not to have a personal stake in this. Because I was about to debate Charlie in two weeks,

01:13:34.260 like two weeks prior to his assassination, or two weeks after his assassination, we were supposed to

01:13:39.200 be debating at Dartmouth College. And this was a person that I had basically developed a political

01:13:49.560 career in competition with, if that makes sense. Like, I was on the left side, he was on the right

01:13:55.560 side. We debated plenty of times. We debated a politicon. We were very familiar with one another.

01:14:00.000 And seeing that the number one fear that every person that does what I do become reality in real

01:14:09.540 time was shocking. It was devastating. As far as my opinions on it, I mean, I had the misfortune of

01:14:19.820 seeing it in real time happen as I was trying to figure out what had taken place. And we were one of

01:14:26.000 the first media outlets that actually broke the story. And my first thought was that this is going

01:14:36.420 to lead to even more violence, even more violence in the form of revenge, decentralized violence,

01:14:45.520 and also that this is going to lead to state repression as well, in an effort to stamp out

01:14:53.280 any kind of political discontent or any kind of political dissent, which hasn't fully come to

01:14:59.720 fruition yet, thankfully. But the administration certainly tried to use this as an opportunity to

01:15:06.980 to build new guidelines around surveillance and build new surveillance targets in general.

01:15:15.300 The Trump administration has this, they released a memorandum, national security memorandum,

01:15:21.420 that declared the intelligence communities to shift their priorities and attention of surveillance

01:15:28.840 to Antifa, which they had previously declared a domestic terrorist organization, which is not a

01:15:34.560 designation that exists in the United States of America, because it is at direct odds with the

01:15:39.420 First Amendment. This is the reason why the KKK is not considered a domestic terror organization.

01:15:43.800 This is the reason why the Proud Boys and the Atomwaffen, which is like a neo-Nazi formation that

01:15:48.540 tries to recruit from the military, none of these guys are, none of these organizations,

01:15:53.200 even if you would normally consider them domestic terror organizations, are actually considered that.

01:15:58.420 So it was, it was a severe violation of the First Amendment. And then the follow-up to

01:16:07.620 the surveillance targets and the surveillance priorities made me even more fearful about where

01:16:13.200 this administration was going, where they declared any sort of anti-Christian, anti-capitalist,

01:16:19.200 anti-American sentiment to be an indication of someone being an extreme, an extremist, violent

01:16:26.360 terrorist, potentially. But then on top of that, there was even more vague things that they brought

01:16:32.760 up. Like, I think it was like American, being critical of the American moral family unit or something

01:16:39.320 like that. Basically, it was just the, what the Republicans consider what the entirety of the

01:16:43.900 liberal and all the way to, you know, extreme leftists or whatever think about the Republicans

01:16:49.960 was now up for grabs in terms of priority targets for the surveillance apparatus. And like I said,

01:16:59.160 we don't know where this is going to go for the time being. It is directly at odds with the First

01:17:04.560 Amendment. But there have been some instances where people have been indicted. Kat Aboukazali,

01:17:10.140 like I said, who's running for office, is like one of the first high-profile politicians that have

01:17:17.300 been targeted in this way. And I worry that once free speech goes away and once due process goes away

01:17:27.260 in this country, we are full tilt fascist. But do you, I think that's a very valid point.

01:17:34.520 My concern is as well, and it's the rhetoric that is getting ratcheted up on both sides,

01:17:40.980 both on the right, but both on the left. So for instance, I'll give you an example. In my own

01:17:44.700 country, we have Zara Sultana, who's a very prominent left-wing politician. She said the words, 0.96

01:17:50.260 we need to fight the fascists in parliament. I'm like, okay, we need to fight them in the ballot box

01:17:54.740 and we need to fight them in the streets. Now, the problem is, if you ask most people what

01:17:59.880 fascism is, I don't think they would be able to give you a clearer, coherent explanation or an

01:18:04.820 analysis of the political ideology. Well, let's be honest. By fascist, she means people like

01:18:09.240 Reform, who are not fascist. They are a center-right party. They're not fascist.

01:18:13.900 I don't know if I would agree with that. Right. But the point- Hold on a second.

01:18:18.640 You think the Reform Party is fascist? I think the Reform Party, as it stands currently,

01:18:22.160 is a nascent fascist parliamentary group that hasn't reached its full potential yet.

01:18:29.120 Could you define fascism in this instance? In the same way that I would say the modern

01:18:34.740 Republican Party is, or was, throughout most of its history, a liberal party, a far-right,

01:18:41.360 but liberal party nonetheless, and it is becoming an illiberal or post-liberal party that is

01:18:46.540 moving in the direction of fascism. Fascism is, what's the best definition for it?

01:18:55.240 Paleo-genetic ultranationalism, an in-group, out-group dynamic that is constantly seeking to

01:19:03.060 destroy the out-group and dominate the out-group, even if the out-group is actually a part of

01:19:07.500 civilized society, and surrounding itself with this mythologized understanding of this national or

01:19:15.280 ethnic or religious mythology of the higher group.

01:19:22.320 But it would also include authoritarianism, the end of a one-party state, like all of these- 0.98

01:19:28.080 Not always, but yeah, usually. Usually, yeah.

01:19:30.800 So by which of those standards would you say reform is a fascist or neo-

01:19:35.240 I can't remember how you said a nascent fascist party.

01:19:38.580 Well, the reason why I say that is because, I mean, Mussolini's fascist party was not a party

01:19:45.780 that, I mean, Mussolini's fascist party was an active fascist party within the parliament

01:19:52.820 before it became the centralized form of governance.

01:19:56.940 But they said we are fascists, right?

01:19:58.800 No, but that was because the word fascism was just being invented at that point, and therefore

01:20:03.920 it was still packaged as, like, a revolutionary, new, illiberal way.

01:20:09.280 Okay, that's fair.

01:20:10.160 They didn't come into power. We now live in the post-World War II universe where, like,

01:20:13.600 you can't say that you're fascist.

01:20:14.840 So you think that if Nigel Farage, which is currently there leading the polls, you think

01:20:19.240 that if he is elected, eventually he will suspend democracy, he will start pogroms against Muslims, 0.51

01:20:28.120 using the state, he will, you know, have a one-party state. You think that's where this

01:20:32.780 is heading?

01:20:33.340 Bearing in mind that the chairman of a reform party, Zia Yusuf, is a Muslim.

01:20:37.220 Yeah, still. Doesn't matter. I mean, there was Jews that worked within the Nazi government

01:20:42.280 command structure as well. It's just, like, there are always going to be people that

01:20:45.760 that, uh, come from, uh, this, uh, they come from the background of the targeted out group

01:20:52.300 in general. And it doesn't even end with Muslims is what I mean. It's going to, it, it always 1.00

01:20:56.800 has to, it always has to excise, uh, what it considers, uh, aberrations. And, uh, there

01:21:04.980 is always, like with Nazi Germany, for example, the next stage, if they hadn't, uh, uh, failed 0.68

01:21:10.900 so dramatically in its endless militarism would have most likely been to, to, uh, to, to create

01:21:18.300 the ubermensch structure, like the, uh, start going after people who were maybe brown haired 0.70

01:21:25.300 and, and, and didn't have blue eyes. Like it was, there's an endless expansion of that

01:21:29.200 sort.

01:21:29.500 And you think that's what reform will do? They'll suspend democracy. They'll start a

01:21:32.900 one-party state.

01:21:33.000 I mean, this is super, super in the future if they actually get to that point, but I don't

01:21:37.020 think that it is a far-fetched to assume that yes, reform through a process of, uh, initially

01:21:43.020 reforms, uh, I could totally see them getting to that, uh, getting to that position. Yes.

01:21:48.280 What's your basis for saying that?

01:21:49.780 It's entirely dependent on how, uh, how, how material conditions unwind. If it gets to a

01:21:54.960 point where there's tremendous economic stability, um, then, uh, instead of solving those issues

01:22:00.520 in the same way that the American, uh, movement, the, the Trump movement is not solving these

01:22:05.380 issues, um, they will continue to, uh, to, to be a force of political repression.

01:22:12.960 But what's your evidence for this? This is a thing I don't understand.

01:22:15.760 The evidence is the historical patterns that I'm looking at. The historical patterns of,

01:22:20.180 of why fascism has been implemented in the past. And now, like I said, we live in a post-fascist

01:22:25.800 world. We live in a nuclear world. The dynamic is different. Okay. So, um, the fascism will not

01:22:32.580 come as a, a third way, as a, as an outsider any longer. Uh, I think instead you will see far-right

01:22:41.940 elements within liberal society, within the parliamentary structure, move in that direction.

01:22:47.500 But my worry with this is, and this is why I, I'm not trying to like debate bro you or anything.

01:22:52.360 I'm genuinely engaging with what you're saying. I hope you feel that, right? Yeah.

01:22:55.800 The issue I have in the context of the discussion we're having with, about Charlie Kirk is

01:23:00.040 you've got a situation where people, you are calling reform fascists. I know some people

01:23:06.620 in reform, they're not fascists. They don't believe in a one party state. They don't want

01:23:11.060 to end democracy, right? We've had Nigel Farage on our show. It's very clear where he's, he's

01:23:16.780 an old school Thatcherite kind of guy, right? But you're saying he's a fascist. And my worry

01:23:22.980 is, I think he will get there. Okay. You're saying he will get to fashion. Fair.

01:23:26.160 Yeah. If, if material conditions get to a point where people, there's mass instability

01:23:32.000 in an effort to restore. It's an Eastern fascist party that in the right context will become 0.70

01:23:35.980 fascist. I get it, right? In the same, not as similar to the AFD, uh, the nationalists in France.

01:23:41.840 Reform is very different from the AFD, but it doesn't matter. My point is this. If I thought

01:23:46.940 the fascists were coming, I would feel it's my duty to participate in armed resistance against

01:23:54.760 that. And my worry is part of where the political violence is coming from is people like you who

01:24:00.780 are using this term, in my opinion, far too loosely and projecting historical analogies

01:24:06.820 onto people that you're not that familiar with actually. And then you're really putting

01:24:11.040 a target on their back. And my worry is the reason Charlie Kirk was killed is there were

01:24:15.240 far too many people calling him a fascist, which he wasn't right. And that's my concern

01:24:21.220 with all of this irresponsible language, which I think it is. 1.00

01:24:24.240 Mm-hmm. So what's interesting about, uh, the utilization of language here is the fact

01:24:31.300 that you can't really point to a single democratic party politician that has, uh, celebrated Charlie

01:24:38.860 Kirk's death or, but you can actually in many instances point to Republican politicians

01:24:45.220 politicians that have made a mockery of the democratic legislators.

01:24:49.300 Absolutely. And we've had people make that point on the show. You don't need to make it

01:24:51.440 because we've had, but you're on the left and I'm asking you about the left wing of

01:24:54.060 the program. The reason why I'm saying that is because like, there are always going to be

01:24:57.100 people on the right and on the left that engage in this kind of commentary as a reflection

01:25:02.800 of how much discontent that they experience. But ultimately, if we're talking about-

01:25:07.220 That's one of them. You are calling reform fascist.

01:25:10.620 No, no, no, no, no. That's, that's a totally, first of all, my analysis on the way, like

01:25:16.960 calling someone a fascist, if they're exhibiting fascist, historic fascist tendencies is perfectly 0.97

01:25:23.280 valid. The, the consideration that this actually is like turning up the temperature as opposed to

01:25:28.220 like directly calling for violence against a, a nascent fascist party, as opposed to trying to deal 0.98

01:25:36.280 with it through the existing means within the democratic structure is, is ridiculous. There's 0.91

01:25:43.040 no comparison here. Fascist movements, when they initially, uh, when they were initially forming,

01:25:47.760 albeit in a much more violent time, engaged in, uh, street protests and there were counter-protests

01:25:52.820 against it. Like I am, I am in favor of always exhausting all available options within the confines

01:25:58.440 of liberal democracy. And I think what the problem is, is that a lot of people point to the end

01:26:04.300 point of fascism and what they know is the end point of fascism and say, well, they have to be

01:26:08.440 dealt with militarily. And, and the time for that is now I'm saying the time for that is not here.

01:26:14.520 And I hope that it never gets there so that we can successfully resist against growing fascist

01:26:20.080 movements that are born out of, uh, initially distractions or red herrings that, that, uh, put the

01:26:26.420 crosshairs on some of the more vulnerable, uh, populations and, and try to deal with it within the

01:26:32.780 confines, within the existing confines of liberal democracy, and then try to get our politicians to

01:26:38.260 address some of these material problems so that we don't have to exhibit, uh, the, the instability

01:26:44.740 and even potentially the, a, a fascist form of governance that comes out of that instability

01:26:49.360 that then at that point will be resisted against militarily through sabotage or through direct acts of,

01:26:55.300 of, of, of war.

01:26:57.140 The issue that I have with your argument, Hassan, is this, is you're saying they're exhibiting,

01:27:01.920 so, you know, on the way to fascism. You can make that argument about Keir Starmer and go,

01:27:08.000 we're on the way to communism. No, no, but you laugh, but there are people on the right who say that.

01:27:13.460 Do you feel like they're also, um,

01:27:16.220 But, but that's not my point.

01:27:17.200 They're putting a crosshair on Keir Starmer when they say that?

01:27:19.320 Yeah, we don't have the same issues with communism, but I think if you describe people as communists in this country,

01:27:25.340 I think you were putting the crosshairs on people. I really do, because there are people.

01:27:29.000 I mean, I get called a terrorist every day.

01:27:31.060 I know, I think that's disgusting. 0.95

01:27:32.780 That's putting crosshairs on you. 0.87

01:27:34.420 Yes, it is.

01:27:35.000 And I absolutely, vehemently would say that is unacceptable.

01:27:40.700 But my point is, when you use that language of fascism or communists,

01:27:45.420 these are labels that have a very, very real emotional trigger to people.

01:27:50.220 Understandably so.

01:27:51.080 And what you have in this country is, unfortunately, there is a decent swathe of the population who have severe mental illnesses,

01:27:58.740 plus access to guns.

01:28:00.920 And what inevitably happens is it leads to a Charlie Kirk situation.

01:28:05.100 Or it leads to somebody on the left like you, you know, God forbid, happening.

01:28:10.100 Oh, I get a lot of death threats. Don't worry.

01:28:12.160 No, but I do worry, because it's a sign that a society is in crisis.

01:28:17.400 And I think that it's our responsibility, both people on this side, both people on your side,

01:28:23.160 that we ratchet it down, Hassan.

01:28:25.280 I think that if we're talking about increasing the tension,

01:28:30.040 people in positions of power have a lot more responsibility than random citizens that are,

01:28:37.720 in many instances, reacting to that.

01:28:39.640 In all due respect, we're not random citizens.

01:28:41.920 We've both successful. We've both got huge platforms.

01:28:44.200 But no, no, no, I was just talking about, like, the broader left that you were talking about,

01:28:48.380 that said, like, oh, they're celebrating Charlie Kirk or whatever.

01:28:51.660 But beyond that, in terms of applying analysis to the actions of any person,

01:28:59.160 Charlie Kirk or Nick Fuentes or whoever,

01:29:01.860 and say that these are people who are implementing a lot of bigoted tendencies,

01:29:11.280 a lot of racist opinions,

01:29:13.040 and moving the American political direction towards fascist governance,

01:29:20.900 I don't think that saying that you shouldn't be able to say that

01:29:24.740 because you're invoking violent sentiment against your political opposition is crazy.

01:29:29.660 I don't mind if people call me a communist. 0.50

01:29:31.180 I don't mind if they call me a terrorist.

01:29:32.540 It's not true.

01:29:33.540 And it certainly makes a lot of people very angry.

01:29:35.960 And they want to talk to me all the time about how they want to kill me 0.69

01:29:38.860 and come to my house and murder me and my family. 0.79

01:29:40.880 But it is unfortunately a part of the political discourse.

01:29:44.440 I wish it didn't exist.

01:29:46.140 But having said that,

01:29:47.680 I am never going to stop myself from making accurate assessments

01:29:53.700 and warning people that at this stage,

01:29:58.100 we are at the precipice of something far more dangerous,

01:30:01.260 especially in Western liberal democracy,

01:30:03.040 as liberalism is genuinely failing.

01:30:05.860 And that collapse is most likely going to bring about

01:30:10.040 a lot of fascist governance

01:30:12.760 that will try to restore order in the most militant ways.

01:30:17.080 And it will resemble historic fascist patterns.

01:30:20.440 Hassan, look, firstly, thank you for coming on the show.

01:30:23.020 Thank you for entering into the spirit of debate

01:30:24.960 in the way it's intended.

01:30:26.820 Really appreciate it.

01:30:28.040 Final question is always the same.

01:30:29.480 What's the one thing we're not talking about

01:30:31.020 that we really should be?

01:30:33.600 I mean, we did talk quite a bit

01:30:35.980 about the collapse of liberalism around the globe.

01:30:39.940 I guess in this instance,

01:30:42.160 and I can't speak to all the other conversations

01:30:44.660 that you guys have had,

01:30:45.900 we didn't get to talk about Israel too much.

01:30:47.680 And that's something that I wanted to talk about,

01:30:49.140 which has also exhibited historical patterns

01:30:51.320 of fascism in and of itself.

01:30:53.200 In a vein that is not dissimilar

01:30:55.940 to what we're seeing

01:30:56.660 in Western liberal democracies as well.

01:30:59.700 All right, well, I wish we had more time.

01:31:01.520 Maybe next time we can pick up some other topic.

01:31:03.600 All right.

01:31:03.980 Appreciate your time.

01:31:04.740 Thanks, man.

01:31:05.180 Thank you.

01:31:05.520 Thanks for having me.

01:31:06.180 All right, well, thanks.

01:31:11.860 All right.

01:31:14.640 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - November 23, 2025

I’ve Got No Problem With Communism - Hasan Piker

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