A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
Paradigm Shifts: Taking Stock in the Eye of the Storm
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Last year, Dr. Jay Weixelbaum and EJ Russo closed the first season of the A Nazi on Wall Street podcast talking about what it’s like to live in a paradigm shift: when fundamental changes in the world lead to a “new normal.” Back in 1940, the world was in cataclysmic change -— and many would say we are today, too. In fact, things are changing so rapidly that EJ and Jay decided to record another episode taking stock of just how much has happened since the last time they talked about paradigm shifts in November. There’s a lot at stake and the two don’t mince words (CW: For any salty language). You won’t want to miss this one!
Hi, everyone EJ here. Just so you know, we recorded this episode the day before the raid at Merlago and instead of rerecording anything, we are releasing this episode as it was originally intended because we feel at a Nazi on wall street podcast that this only adds to our sense that we are in a major transformational period, which is the subject of today's episode. We truly are in uncharted waters and Jay and I will be here with you for the entire ride. So we hope you like this episode. It was a lot of fun to record welcome
Speaker 2To a Nazi on wall street podcast because every time history repeats, the price goes up.
Speaker 3I'm Dr . Jay Weisbaum , I'm a historian and filmmaker and creator of the, a Nazi on wall street project.
Speaker 2And I'm EJ Russo . I'm just a regular guy who has grown concerned by the recent rise of anti-democratic sentiment growing around the world and is just trying to figure out what is really happening, Jay and I created this podcast in part to help promote his project, a Nazi on wall street, but to also discuss troubling current events and give them historical context, Jay, my friend, how are you doing? Because I'll be honest. I kind of feel like Jack discovering the hatch because I don't really know what to expect today. And I'm cautiously curious about what we're about to discuss. So, you know, just , just please don't tell me, I need to punch in a random collection of numbers on the keyboard in order to mitigate a global extinction event, because I have errands to run later
Speaker 3Today. Oh my gosh, are we dating ourselves here? That was a while ago now a lost reference friends and neighbors, fear person of a certain age. You'll get that reference and it will feel feelings about it. <laugh> Uh , how am I doing? I'm doing well, been very, very busy when I am not working with scientists on a pandemic and tech porn disease, and many, many other things working on the Nazi wall street project. And , um, it's really great to be in our fourth episode and our second season , uh, here of the Nazi wall street podcast, kudos to EJ for all his excellent work, editing us together, making it coherent and to all the amazing guests we've had so far, just that as an update for folks tuning in many of our fans, we had a successful Kickstarter that just concluded fairly recently. The Kickstarter was to make a proof of concept short film, which is gonna be part of our pitch package. We are gonna make the , a Nazi and wall street show a reality, the story of a Jewish FBI agent that tracks down a Nazi spy in New York in 1940. All true, all based on my, my historical research , uh, we wanna make a miniseries out of it to show people what it was like to actually be on the ground in 1940 when people didn't really know what was really going to happen. My desk is covered in boxes for perks t-shirts and stickers and buttons that we're gonna be mailing out to people very soon. We're gonna open up our, our store so people can buy all sorts of cool merch, really, really excited about that and what we're finding our scripts and all that. So , uh, it's a , it's an exciting time EJ. How are you, how are , how are you, how you holding
Speaker 2Man ? Well, I , uh, that sounds amazing first off, I'm super excited to hear all of that, but , uh, I don't know if you can hear it from my voice, but , uh, I am recovering after pretty gnarly case of COVID 19. I finally got it. I finally got it, went through our entire family about three weeks ago and it's no joke, man was not
Speaker 3Stay safe out there.
Speaker 2Yeah, no stuff is still going around right now as we're recording this in August of 2022. Uh , yeah, I mean, we're all vaccinated out the yin yang , both my kids are vaccinated and we, we still caught a breakthrough case and it was not fun. I had, I think 103 degree temperature for three days straight. Yeah, no, it was not fun, but you know, I got to take a week off of work. So that was nice. <laugh>
Speaker 3I'm glad you're on the man , man.
Speaker 2I don't know how cases, I mean, you would know more than I would, as far as trends are concerned. I know that there are still variants going around, but I was under the impression that we were done with COVID , I'll be quite honest with you. My mind was worrying about many other different things and it was starting to get back to normal and I just did not even think about it. And I was kind of grateful in a way, because we've gotten to the point where I believed that. And I still believe to an extent that as this pandemic is going through time, it's becoming more endemic. I felt like it was something that I didn't have to worry about anymore, but Nope, that is not the case.
Speaker 3I mean, we are in a transitional period with a pandemic with our politics, with our economics. In fact, that's why we're here today. Today is , um, is a revisit of , um, paradigm shifts. We talked about this as the final episode of our last season. And , um, I realized that so much has happened since our season finale on paradigm shifts ended last November, that we really needed to come back and talk about it. And of course the pandemic is a huge part of this kind of period of upheaval that we're in right now. Is it over? Is it not? And just like many other, the threat of fascism, all these major things affecting our lives. As we try to just live and work and play and take care of our families and all that, it's , it's all swirling around us on the pandemic. You know , uh, I think we are going towards end endemicity that really remains to be seen. There are a new vaccine as we record this in August, there are gonna be some new OCN specific , uh, more robust vaccines that everybody's gonna be able to get in the fall. That's really exciting. The data looks really good. There's a lot happening. And in overlapping, all of it is like this difficult COVID situation.
Speaker 2Yeah. I feel like mentally right now, it's, it's kind of just been a whirlwind. I don't know what to think. Like there's so many amazing things that have happened over the last few months and I feel like there's really, really horrific things that have happened over the last few months. I don't know what direction we're going to up is down down is up. I know there's an election coming in November and I feel optimistic and I feel just a big doom cloud over my head at the same time. Yeah . I, I don't know where we're going through. I feel like, know we've used this analogy in the past when talking about paradigm shifts, I feel like we are in that the eye of a storm right now
Speaker 3For everybody just tuning in who, who may need a refresher may not even heard that episode may not even heard the term or may not may have heard it may have heard paradigm shift, but not really know what it means. The definition is that it's a fundamental change and the underlying assumptions leading to basically a new status quo, a new normal in history, a paradigm shift often means new political, economic, cultural, and technological status quo. And that period of upheaval can go on for a long time, you know, in, in our human terms, especially in like kind of our 24 hour news cycle, disposable news kind of thing. Like you need some perspective cuz these periods of change can last years, decades even. And it's hard for us as humans going day to day to wrap our heads around that.
Speaker 2Yeah. I think that , uh, Thomas Laak said it on our last episode where he was saying, well, you know, the world is always ending right. The world. It depends on what context you're talking about. You know, when nine 11 happened, the world ended when Katrina happened, the world ended and when the internet started, the world ended like, like so, so it's because the world that you're used to the world that you would existed in no longer exists. And so as we move forward through time, the world is always ending , but it's always creating a new beginning and that's kind of how we ended the entire podcast with every ending comes a new beginning.
Speaker 3Yeah. I mean, I just wanna leave some signposts for you, which we can take in , in any order a war in Ukraine started, we had a, a giant Omicron wave COVID basically transformed completely Omicron is the only game in town now that like engulfed the globe. We had a massive earthquake of , uh, legal shifts in our, in the us legal system with a spate of , uh, us Supreme court decisions, including the fall of Roe V . Wade. We have a January 6th committee it's, it's bigger than Watergate and it's hard for us to have perspective on just how huge that is. And then , uh, we have a department of justice who's now announced an ex-president is, is being investigating a criminal grand jury investigation. The leader Al Alqaeda was killed and that was barely a blip. Recently we had some huge legislative achievements. There was a massive infrastructure bill that I think we've completely forgotten about that in itself would be a giant story for months. If we weren't in a paradigm shift, we also basically reordered our economy to be much more oriented towards high tech stuff, which we're doing right now as, as we speak very tired geriatric centers and our debating , uh, in Congress with the inflation reduction act, but also the chips act, which just got passed, which , um, relocates, semiconductor production and R and D I into the United States. Uh , these are all huge things. The packed act, which we can talk about this is just happened, which was , um, kind a major fireworks , uh, politically , um, helping , uh, veterans who, who , um, been exposed to burn pits, been sick . And of course we also had the first black women confirmed to the Supreme court too. Remember that there's just so much. And then of course other things in the background, I mean, we've had some of the largest GDP growth and job growth in us history occurring right now. It kind of makes recession talk a little bit silly. Um, you know, I know that people want to adhere to specific rules about like GDP growth. It's like, that's the only thing that defines whether or not there's a result .
Speaker 2I'll hail the mighty number. The
Speaker 3Number must go up. But I mean, yeah, so the backdrop for all this, it's just gas prices, spiking, and then immediately a historic drop the longest period of time. If I understand it correctly, that gas prices have gone down , uh, in the last 60 plus days, just a whole, whole lot of stuff all happening at the same time. And then with the backdrop of a , can't be understated, extraordinarily consequential midterm election, where one party is basically announcing that they want to use their gains from that election to , uh, create , uh, systems in which they can throw out the popular vote for president and the following election. Just a lot.
Speaker 2It's crazy that that was, that's been the, the last like eight months. And on top of that, you have all of this record setting inflation as well on top of yeah . Yes. God's prices came up and they came down, but inflation has still been increasing , uh, at record rates. And what's funny is that you, you brought up disposable news. You forget most of that, the way that we've been programmed on how to digest the modern news cycle is essentially to focus on whatever story is being fed to us and then throw it away and focus on the next one. It's disposable news. And I remember seeing a , um, I don't know who it was. I don't know if it was the onion, but it was a funny satirical tweet that I saw that stated 586,000 jobs created in July, the death of ALZA Huri leader of Al Qaeda and the passing of the chips act, how is this bad for Biden? You know, like I just thought that that was hilarious because that is what's going on mainstream media. How can all of this amazing, you know, positivity can be bad towards the sitting president right now. And I think it's because I believe anyway, the media got used to how to treat a president during the Trump, the Trump presidency, right during the Trump administration where it is just, just , just hop on pop , man, just, just go after it any way , shape or form doesn't matter what positivity is , is happening. Just go after it . It's , it's frustrating because all people are talking about is inflation and that's pretty much it,
Speaker 3Right? I mean, we don't even talk about the causes of inflation so that we even understand like the whole role of media in a democracy is to create inform citizen street . That sounds lofty, but that's basically the idea so that people are informed about their political reality and thus can make informed choices about it. We had a pandemic where production dropped historically a create a global supply chain, crisis, many , many countries all around the world used economic stimulation as a lever to help keep people afloat, keep economies from collapsing , uh, contain economic damage, putting that much money out into the system, combined with a supply chain crisis combined. Then after that with a really kind of nasty price gouging all over the place in many sectors led to inflation all over the place. I mean, even the argument that like somehow it's Biden's fault about inflation means you have to completely ignore inflation numbers, basically in every other country, you'd be like, yes, inflation is terrible in Canada. How is that Biden's fault? You know, like it's kind of ridiculous when you say the same with gas prices really, which is related. So we're not even being explained what is actually going into, what is part of the problem? What is creating the problem that we're so upset about? I mean, we have all this emotional energy we're so we use all this emotional resource to be really upset about problem. We know nothing about, we've never considered just the basic structure. Why is this happening? Well, it's happening because of supply chains because of historic drops because of stimulus and because of price gouging, we don't talk about that much at all. Or maybe we are, it's just not coming through as far as like , that's very frustrating.
Speaker 2That's populism in a nutshell, just keep you angry about things. Don't come up with any of the solutions, you know, and it's, it is it's frustrating. It's disappointing. I went through a huge diatribe against right wing Christian nationalists the last time. And I , I get it like fascists are gonna do what fascists are gonna do it . It is trying to teach a Wolf, not to be a Wolf anymore. I am afraid of them and I don't want them to do what they're doing, but that's what they're going to do. And they're making illusions as to what they're trying to accomplish. And so that makes me much more disappointed and frustrated with actually mainstream media. And I'm getting in more disagreements and arguments and , and fights with my left wing , progressive friends who I didn't realize are much more populist than I thought. Right. And I , and so I kind of want to just talk to them right now. I kind of want to just go on a little bit of a tangent because I really just need to get this off my chest. Like I , I get it folks like, believe me, I get it. Things have really sucked for a long time. Things suck right now. Things are good and things are bad, but right now it , it , I can understand why you're angry. Okay. But blaming Democrats for a hostile takeover by Christian nationalists, it's not a logical stance. It's the stance that Christian nationalists want you to take. Mm-hmm <affirmative> they want you to distrust the institutions that make up our country. They want you to blame Democrats. These are the tactics they use and how we got to this point in the first place. Okay. Democrats are not perfect. They're not perfect. I'm the first one to admit that. But they have proposed a bill to mandate federal legislation to protect the right to abortion access to Congress for years. But the G O P is quietly solidified power. In order to rule through the minority, I'm angry and be angry, be angry at this, but to allow our frustrations with liberal Democrats and their weakness against this onslaught is like sheep opening the gates to the wolves, like folks. My , my , my anti are friends. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative> , you know, those with Nazi flags, you fought against on the streets. You know, those Christian fascists that are making the Turner diaries into real life, they're coming for you and they're coming for me and they will not stop because they are relentless and they are patient blame them. We need to do what we can here . And I'm specifically speaking as a Pennsylvania resident. I need to do what I can here in this state. I need to draw the line. I need to solidify support to Shapiro. I need to solidify support to Federman. And we need to hold this line here because once Riano is sworn in, Pennsylvania's gone. A lot of people that I speak to around the country like, oh, you're in a blue state. You're in a no, no, no, no , no , no , no , no . We are in a purple state. And Mori , if you think DeSantis is bad, if you think that Trump is bad, holy crap Riano is Moline . And if he gets in the office that not only spells doom for Pennsylvania, but probably for the rest of the country and how elections are even handled here. So, so be angry. I'm I am angry, but this is a real crisis we're facing. And, and only one party seems to not want to kill me and take away my rights. And so at the moment I am investing my support into those people. I'm a centrist. I make no apologies to that. I am a former Republican mm-hmm <affirmative> Biden for all his faults can only adhere to the power he was given by the voting public and as dictated by the constitution to say that Biden. And I hear this a lot. Biden is a liar. The Democrats aren't playing clever enough. They're not adapting. That is to grossly misunderstand what they have been elected to do and what power that they actually have adapting a strategy to act on the same level with fascists. That is the ultimate destruction of liberal democracy. That's the moment where democracy ends, right. Biden is not a dictator. And with a go P solidifying power to rule from the minority Democrats need a , a super majority just to govern actually, Jay , I'm curious, do you know how many years Democrats have had a super majority since 1980? I don't know . Is it 4, 4, 4 years? I , I , I have no idea.
Speaker 3Oh gosh. You're putting me on the spot. Um, usually people , um, populous making angry arguments about why Democrats should have done more , um, point to the super majority , um, Obama had for , um, a very short period of time after he was elected in 2008, two years. Right? Yeah , I, yeah. And of course , uh, we're working on the affordable care act at that point, which is still , um, with some perspective, a landmark piece of legislation. Yeah. It's very rare for Democrats to have a super majority. And also we , the whole point of why we have this podcast is perspective. Uh , the discourse, the direction, the viewpoints of the parties were in a much different place. 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30, 40 years ago. I mean, Democrats have had large majorities up until the nineties. I mean, started in the eighties. They started getting collabo . Democrats control had a good amount of control throughout the , uh, second half of the 20th century, but things were a lot different. And once the civil rights acts were passed, there was this kind of concerted fascist let's use that word effort , uh, in the Republican party to say, you know what? That was a Southern strategy, right? Yeah. We're gonna take over the government, right ? We're gonna take, we're gonna take it over because we do not want to share America with people that we feel are below us. And once they realized by the nineties through demographic change and increasing amounts of losses at the presidential level, that they weren't going to be , be able to control the democracy forever. So then their answer was, well, if we can't dominate it, we will destroy it. And , uh, we're now at that point, and now we're in the finding out period and a lot of populists are finding out to kind of bring this back around, finding out means ignoring the warning signs for last 20 years and should on Democrats relentlessly when they are the only bull war against this fascist onslaught for better or worse. That's what you have. There is no third party and there is no populous leader that is coming to save you because populous leaders, aren't good at building coalitions to win. They are good at destroying coalitions. That is what they do. That is what populists do, populous fine enemies to punish that's it, right? Wing populace, left wing populace. We only use those definitions based on the justifications rhetoric, window dressing and lies that they use to justify their main intent, find enemies to punish. They are , uh, scared. And the way they deal with their fear is to make an enemy and punish them and find leaders who personify that grievance, who they think are effective at punishing their enemies. And, and if the enemy is just the democratic party, it doesn't matter what the democratic party is actually doing. In reality, we an incredible infrastructure bill that I just wanna talk about. It was a joke on Twitter for years during the trip administration, that was gonna be infrastructure infrastructure. Remember that <laugh> remember that, you know, we have crumbling bridges and roads dams. Climate change is real. It is , uh, something we need to harden our infrastructure against. Uh , we need to build clean energy. We need to have reliable internet service, which is now essential utility, all that stuff. And it was debated for years. I Republicans were blocking it even during the Obama years , if I'm not mistaken, finally Biden passes it right around the time. Our last paradigm shift episode went live. It had 110 billion to fix roads, 73 billion for clean energy projects, 73 billion, 66 billion for rail and mass transit. Talk about how important that is. Uh , just about the same amount for broadband populous screaming, yell about lead in Flint, 62 billion for water infrastructure and, and lead safety. 47 billion just for climate resiliency, 39 billion. Again, just specifically for public transportation. He got 21 billion for Remedi environmental remediation and 15 billion for electric vehicles. Also some airport, some other stuff that is huge. We have memory hold that completely. It doesn't even exist. Nobody's talking about it. I , I know I'm making a generalization here, but that's, that's, what's happened here and it's because to get back to your point, EJ, and in this paradigm shift , that's why populism is so dangerous. There's a lot happening and we need to have some perspective and that's why stepping off my soapbox. That's why history is important. We need to be able to kind of look back and say, wow, a lot of stuff happened here. And maybe this kind of toxic combination of disposable news and populous outrage is really doing us a disservice.
Speaker 2I mean, yeah. I , I just, I just don't, I don't get it. I feel like if Democrats had actual power, you would, you would see things like universal healthcare , uh, affordable college equal pay for, for women, Roe as federal law, equal rights to LGBTQ , uh, more diplomacy, less emphasis and funding toward the military. Uh , less decriminalization of drug use more funding for education, which is to me is that's the big one community building poverty reduction, community policing. You know what Christian nationalists want the hanging of their enemies. Mm-hmm <affirmative> , that's it. They don't care about policy. They want to see us die and die. Painfully rhetoric that blames Democrats for being weak because they try to act within the confines of a liberal democracy is counterproductive to the causes. We non-conservatives all want established. If, if this is weakness, then I don't know what more than I can say to convince anyone that disagrees with me. No one is saying that there is no corruption, right? A lot of the numbers that you just spouted in the infrastructure bill , a lot of the cynical people that I hear as a response say, well, what good is that gonna do? It's just gonna go into the pockets of all of the corrupt politicians, right? The system doesn't work. We have to destroy the system. You can throw all the money that you want into it. It's just gonna , you know, more government is , has never solved any problems. It's more of a right wing talking point, but a populist talking point, nonetheless. Right?
Speaker 3Interesting. How the talking points get recycled for left and right wing audiences. Isn't it, it populists,
Speaker 2Aren't very creative. There is a lot of the same rhetoric over and over throughout the years, but regardless, it's like, I get it. The Democrats are not that Knight and shining armor here. Okay. No one is saying that there's no corruption, right? No one is saying that everyone is perfect and that politicians should be trusted on all , all that stuff. Right. I understand. I , I still live in the real world folks. All I am saying, all I am saying is that one party recognizes the importance of maintaining a liberal democracy. And one wants the Republic of Gilead. I literally mean that like, that's what they want. And we no longer today, we no longer have the luxury of assuming that there are sane people on the right. We , we no longer have that luxury. If Christian nationalists get the power that they are pushing for, there, won't be state level elections nor Democrats to be disappointed in. Right. It'll
Speaker 3All be gone, right ? I mean, I know this is a , a niche interest because we only represent a small amount of the population, but populism really scares me EJ because I'm Jewish and on a long enough timeline left or right. Whatever flavor of populism, it always gets back to antisemitism and don't take it for me. Study historians of populism. It's my political interests. And it touches upon some of my, my own expertise , um, on fascists and such, but spending a homegrown , uh, varieties. We had also amongst the laundry list of major, major things that have happened since , uh, November, we had some really horrible , uh, mass shooting events, including we memory hold this as well, a synagogue hostage situation. So now we've had one horrible mass shooting, the tree of life. And now we had another one where not only was there people killed, but also , uh, being held hostage for hours and hours and hours, Jews being targeted in their places of worship. And what was the response from the Supreme court to knock down even the weak gun regulations that we already have and make it legal in blue states now for people to conceal carry , because as they put it, citizens should be allowed to feel safe, quote , unquote , wherever they are, which is ridiculous, more guns, mean more shootings equals less safe. There's a reason why there aren't mass shootings every few days in other countries that regulate guns more. It is the guns. It worries me as a Jewish person that in , in all this populous outrage stuff, we are on the target list. We are near the upper part of that target list and it frightens me. And, and when you get populists that are able to codify their grievances into law, it is extraordinarily dangerous. We spent, we meaning people who were not populous, which pretty much rules out Republicans and everyone who was voting for , uh, the left wing populace screamed and yelled that the Supreme court was on the line in 2016, Roe was on the line. We, we had three justices appointed enter Trump, and they are the ones that brought enormous, enormous changes. I mean, again, since, since our last episode of season one, we had row fall. We had the New York state rifle association versus Bruin, which is concealed carry everywhere. Knock down the special need rules to carry guns. West Virginia versus EPA reduced the EPAs authority to reduce emissions in the middle of a climate change emergency. We had the national Federation of independence versus department of labor, which knocked down vaccine mandates for business in the middle of a pandemic, even Oklahoma versus Castro. Cueta where it's now state agencies can implement more authority over sovereign native lands. You had Carson versus Macon where the state can't borrow religious schools from getting state money, eroding the bedrock principles of the separation between church and state. I know that's important to you . EJA school, prayer, Katie , uh, versus Bremerton that all happened within like a month. All of those rulings came out, everyone. Thankfully, we had a couple victories. It's not totally go doom . Iden was able to overrule Trump's horrific , uh, immigration policy where people seeking asylum have to remain in Mexico Biden. Uh , one in Missouri Biden versus Missouri, where at least Medicare and , and Medicaid money receiving institutions have to mandate vaccines. Thank you very much. But overall populists are already dangerous. When populists have the labors of state power, they're lethal and can make long lasting horrible changes to our say , that's the paradigm shift we're in . We are in a paradigm shift where the forces of populism and progressivism are fighting it out and people have around for a while . And now we're finding out the finding out period is much as it sucks. And as much as infuriating as it is for anybody who's actually paying attention and watching this unfold also means that people are waking up the numbers coming out of Kansas against the abortion ban were real people are people Kansas in Kansas people , Kansas . Yeah. People, the finding out means, oh, we need to do
Speaker 2Something. I mean, that's the, the optimist in me, right. I , I always want to , but I've been feeling this since 2016 , you know like, oh, well the , the , the rational people are gonna come by and they're gonna start voting and they're gonna get these crazies outta here. Uh , that has not happened yet up until this new vote in Kansas to keep the pro-choice , uh, legislation on the books. To me , that was , that's the first glimmer of hope in this long slew of crap that we've gone through. I mean, dude, Kansas, like, we're not talking about Virginia. We're not talking about Maine. We're talking about Kansas, Kansas .
Speaker 3Yeah . And we're
Speaker 2Talking about Kansas, man.
Speaker 3We're talking
Speaker 2About Kansas,
Speaker 3Right,
Speaker 2Kansas.
Speaker 3I love , I love we're
Speaker 2Talking about Kansas man.
Speaker 3<laugh>
Speaker 2We're not talking about a game. We're talking about Kansas.
Speaker 3I mean, the , the registration numbers are similar in a lot of other states, so I don't see why they would be different. I think, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised in Pennsylvania too. Yes. Trump country is scar as , but also a lot of people live in the collar counties and in Philadelphia a lot.
Speaker 2I see a lot of Moos, but I'm seeing nowhere near as many Moo signs. As I saw Trump signs two years ago. I am not seeing any Oz signs. I haven't seen one Oz sign. I think Oz is Ft . And to flip it to Georgia, honestly, if Georgia elects, Herschel Walker.
Speaker 3Yeah. I don't think
Speaker 2That's happening then this , this country deserves what happens to it is all I'm saying, like, if you elect Herschel Walker, then we have just made Mike judges Idiocracy into reality.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, we're, we're getting there. Well, and then don't sleep on the Tim Ryan JD. VA's race here too. That's just been kind of blowing my mind. It's it ? People aren't really talking about it . Tim Ryan is been leading the polls for a while
Speaker 2Now. That's why seeing , yeah .
Speaker 3If we're talking about similar dynamics to Kansas, as far as voter registration and, and turnout , that's real bad for Vance.
Speaker 2Hey Jay , I'm curious. Why do we call this podcast a Nazi on wall street?
Speaker 3I'm glad you asked EJ . You know, I study history. The Nazi on wall street podcast is part of elusive films, a Nazi on wall street project, which tells the true story of how the Nazi sent a pair of spies, a German lawyer, and a beautiful diabolical bareness to recruit American corporations for the fascist cause. And only a Jewish FBI agent stood in their way.
Speaker 2<laugh> wow. How are you going to make this story? Come to life?
Speaker 3We are raising funds to produce a short film highlighting, just one part of the Nazi wall street, pilot script, which showcases our team's talents and writing and production.
Speaker 2Awesome. Where can someone go to learn more and help contribute to the
Speaker 3Cause? Chances are we're running a fundraiser right now, but regardless of when you hear this episode, you can go to a elusive hyphen film slash donate to contribute to putting this highly relevant history on screen .
Speaker 2Great. I hear there's some cool donation incentives too, like mugs totes shirts and more for yourself, or to give us a gift
Speaker 3That's right. Go to elusive hyphen film slash donate to learn more now on today's show.
Speaker 2When do we actually start seeing the results from things like infrastructure and inflation reduction act and chips. So when do we actually start seeing the results from that? Like when does that get enacted?
Speaker 3Yeah . Yeah. I mean, some of this is gonna be more long term . I mean, there's gonna be lots of long term stuff. I think that blockbuster jobs report part of that's definitely the infrastructure bill. I mean, there's just projects up the Wazo everywhere, you know, from like rebuilding airports, climate resilience stuff . It's so huge that some of that stuff's just getting off the ground. It probably take a year just to even get stuff organized. I would like to hear more about what happened with the infrastructure bill next year. I think these are like seeds Biden can plant , so that they're actually bearing fruit. By the time we get to the 20, 24 election. Um , same with the , the semiconductor stuff is another thing that , you know, it takes a while to like plan and build factories and get whoever the big industry players on board and do stuff. That's that's another one that's gonna take a while the , um, we didn't even, I don't know if we even talked about it, this thing on the democratic wishlist, I wrote so many campaigns for Pennsylvania, specifically, a very focused on Pennsylvania is a very important Keystone in our democracy about negotiating prescription drug prices. That's in this infrastructure bill that that's being passed right now , literally right now, as we speak, that's a huge, huge, huge, huge, also a major economic effects . I think the reason our GDP is doing better, the reason our economy is doing a lot better since, since the affordable care acts would pass is just , you put a floor under kind of capitalist accesses. We have the lowest uninsured rate, I think only 8% uninsured right now. Um , which is crazy . Yes, our medical system is still for profit system and a lot of our experiences are horrible, but the trend line is into a much better place than previously. So that stuff in the bill . So all of that bearing fruit, I think unfortunately for our, you know, the way we see and talk about politics in the media, it's like, it's gonna take a while for these things to really be like, oh wow. These things really have changed. So yeah. What's it gonna be like when we, there's a news story about like, oh shoot, there are like thousands and thousands of electric car charging stations now. And here's a whole new fleet of , uh, electric charging vehicles , uh, that are using them. I feel like we're still a couple years away from that story. These are big, big, big, big structural things. I just wanna get past the 20, 24 election with democracy held. I think we're okay. Because I think a lot of this really good stuff is really gonna be bearing fruit after 20, 24 . And as long as we're not in some civil war, which is the next part. And then maybe that civil war ends really rapidly because, oh wait, now we really decide that's not what we want. No. So I feel like even if the worst case scenarios happen, there're still turning points there for us. I hope we don't even get there. Cause people wanna live their lives. People don't wanna be in a civil war. A lot of people talk. How many of them actually want a civil war and know what that really is gonna look like? Like those Russian soldiers, people talk so much. And then now they're watching their friends die in the bud bullies are cowards, all of this populism bullying. It's all fear. You've said it yourself to me many times. Yeah . Uh , and Yoda's voice fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate anger , anger, Lisa hate. Yep . But it's all fear underneath it . That's the foundation. Why are we scared of people who, where fear governs their lives, let's move forward and let's get it. Let's help people and get it done because there's a lot of 'em and they have a lot of money. Here's something that really frustrates me. And I think it's so much part of our lexicon. We have to caveat everything because everybody will take the thing you said and say, well, whatever you said means you don't care about X, Y, and Z things that you did not mention. Right. Right, right. Right. I feel like that type of discourse is we get so relentlessly attacked and be like, Biden did something good. Oh, well these four things you didn't mention are horrible. And it's like, that's not what we're talking about here. Right . And that's, it's not an honest way to have a conversation. Everything's a straw man with these people. I'm tired of it. You know,
Speaker 2Like straw ban and projections.
Speaker 3Yep . Every accusation's a confessions.
Speaker 2So really the paradigm shift moment that we're in is the around and find out moment like we are in around and find out period of the paradigm shift.
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 2We're gonna find out how much to find out portion can really alter the next few years.
Speaker 3This does confirm some of my priors. And I know I'm biased too . You know, that like fascist always destroy themselves. And the danger they pose is just how many people they hurt before they do. And in this case you could replace a populace. You know, how many people are gonna get polio because people didn't vaccinate, how many people are gonna get monkeypox we're ramping up vaccinations for that. We now have a game plan.
Speaker 2Okay. In just a little while, guess what the Supreme court has agreed to review. Yeah. More versus Harper. This is the kingpin death now of liberal democracy. And this is something that the Federalist society has been secretly discussing over the last 15 years. Wait ,
Speaker 3Can you explain this
Speaker 2What they want to become ? Okay . So Moore versus Harper is a pending United States , uh, Supreme court case related to the independent state legislature theory, which is a theory arising from the redistricting of north Carolina's district. Following the 2020 census. Essentially, what it does is states can have, if approved, have complete authority of how elections are ran, the federal government will no longer basically say, we want these electoral votes. Okay. We want these electoral votes. We're gonna add them all up. And this is the president. The states can basically throw out any type of electoral result with impunity. That means that any states that have Maga secretaries of state governors, what have you, they can decide how the president is going to be elected. That is that's dangerous. That is it. Yeah . That's the , the soon as that goes, that's bye-bye for everything that's Christian nationalism arisen,
Speaker 3Or some sort of civil conflict , uh, let's not get too dark cuz there's, there's some activity in , in Congress to stop that from happening the electoral count act. I know there's problems with it too, but it's at least , uh, somewhat of a bull work in order to codify into law. The fact that , uh, popular votes as , uh, Nazi in the constitution, the state level turned into electors lawfully so that that's still , uh, in the works people . As we speak, speaking of civil conflict, we've been very us centric here and that's fine. This is a show more about us history and Nazi wall street story takes place in the United States and , and you know , what's going on now, but we can't ignore the world and it's impact. We also had a war in Ukraine kind of an earthquake level event in geopolitics as we speak Sweden. Yeah . And Norway are joining NATO as if you, if you have the perspective of the cold war, that is ridiculous. That is , uh, ridiculous. It's huge. Europe is, is transforming the way it consumes energy, actually accelerating. If I may be so bold , uh, accelerating , um, the growth of clean energy, which is good because Putin who many , I think a lot of the populous roads lead to him has, has finally also had his own around and find out moment. So there's kind of the we're right in the middle of these pitch battles, literally on Ukrainian soil in between, when we had this episode air, we , we hadn't even anticipated or even thought that put , would launch an invasion . He's been, he saver rattles all the time. He had already taken CIA . Uh , we figured that was it . We kind of memory hold that, but then launched this huge war. He was basically kind of blitz Creek the capital . Yeah .
Speaker 2That he said it was only gonna take like a month. If not like he they're gonna roll over in a
Speaker 3Month. And then a lot of the rest of the world came together to support Ukraine and Trump . Jesus.
Speaker 2Imagine if Trump was still president,
Speaker 3Right. I know. I know. See ,
Speaker 2That's imagine holy crap, dude,
Speaker 3This is why populous hitting on Democrats is, is so dangerous.
Speaker 2We , we would've pulled out a NATO.
Speaker 3I mean , you had crap. I saw left-wing populous friends of mine, some of which I am not friends with anymore. Repeating Putin's propaganda, that Ukraine was full of Nazis. Yeah . But the Jewish leaders of Ukraine in , in a country that has some of the largest Jewish populations in Europe were full of Nazis and needed to be destroyed because they, they were Nazis. And just to repeat how crazy that is, it doesn't matter. There's no reality, but their emotional reality and their emotional reality, the populist is like, oh, well obviously this is an enemy that needs to be punished. And it looked like Russia was gonna win. We had this snake island moment, Russian warships off huge. The battle for Keith and this major again, paradigm shift where even like Switzerland abandoned neutrality, that's again, mind boggling and Russia starts losing. Russia, starts losing and they lose the bid for Keve . They pull back and then horrible work crimes in BCHA mass rapes, mass killings slaughter. We had AZA fighters hold up at Marol in this , uh, industrial complex of fighting in an overwhelming force. Just these harrowing dramatic , uh, moments. And then not long after that, Ukraine sinks the Russian flagship of the black sea fleet named Moskva named after the Russian capital . They retake snake island. They push the Russians back and
Speaker 2Now it's starting to create offenses in Russia right
Speaker 3Now. Yeah . So now, now they're preparing for a counter attack in Kirson , which is the road to retaking Crimea , all pushing, pushing Putin all the way back before 2014, all this is happening as we're speaking, this is what a paradigm shift looks like. Folks, this is what it looks like to be in one. This is , these are pitched battles right now. And I think there's no neutrality on a moving train. You , you need to pick a side here and on Democrats is one of the most dangerous things you could be doing right now. Because if, if we had Trump in there, this war in Ukraine in a very real way, in a very like violence and death way would be totally different.
Speaker 2I, I don't even want to go there. I don't. But the thing is that we're not done. We are not
Speaker 3Done right in the middle of it.
Speaker 2Just look what's happening with the secret service and yeah . Department of defense and all that stuff like, like the coup is still happening. Folks it's happening right now. As we speak, it did not end. It is still going on. And the people that are not facing repercussions, who a lot of 'em are elected officials have taken notes and they're getting ready for the next one.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> . And then again, right on top of this horrible news, this , this massive coverup, this secret service is corrupted they've <laugh> they're destroying text messages. I mean, again, be weighty on the scope of Watergate. Meanwhile, we had this incredibly dramatic , uh, moment in the Alex Jones defamation lawsuit case. Uh , this past week, Alex is being sued for defamation from some of the families from the Sandy hook shooting, another mass shooting where lots of little kids were , were killed. He was, he as many times before he called it a false flag or fake attack, they're
Speaker 2All actors, they were all active . These kids didn't actually exist
Speaker 3Making these parents' lives, a living hell, which already a living hell because their , their children were murdered. And Alex Jones' Bullhorn this giant platform , uh, with Infowars making hundreds of millions of dollars every
Speaker 2Year.
Speaker 3Yeah . To sell lies, finally getting his around and find out moment. And then on top of it, his lawyer screwed up and sent the plaintiff's lawyer for the sand hook families, his entire home's contents for the last two years now for the sports fans at home , uh, Alice Jones was deeply involved with January 6th . The January 6th committee contacted the lawyer like right after that moment, I think they got the contents by like the next day because Jones and , and Roger Stone and a few other people are these connector pieces between the people who ransacked our capital and Trump in his inner circle. And they , and they have all that. So we got the secret service deleting contents, and we have all of <laugh> , all of Jones's texts and emails going to the committee. And then in the midst of all the January 6th stuff we heard again , landmark historic never happened before the department of justice Ander Garland announced that they are in fact in investigating Trump for the crimes for not , not a civil suit criminal criminal that has not happened before. And lots of populists online and , uh, were very upset that like, it didn't seem like the department of justice was doing anything. Now we know they were doing stuff and working on this before January 6th committee at even started,
Speaker 2But inflation and let's go Brandon , 32% approval rating.
Speaker 3<laugh> well, dark Brandon is rising. I hear,
Speaker 2Yes. I hate social media. I hate the internet. I'm addicted to both. And the one shining light is the fact that liberals co-opted the Brandon meme into dark. Brandon . I just, I love that so much. It's, it's just one of the things that make me hopeful.
Speaker 3The historian means like, okay, of course, it's only a matter of time. Like, you know , so many progressive movements have repurpose have reclaimed the barbs and insults and things thrown at them. The reason we say, Hey, man, what's going on, man? Well, that comes from black culture where white people were always infantilizing them. Sun boy, sunny , boy. Talk about the connotations there. And then how do black people respond? Well, Hey man, Hey man. And , and now it's just part of our Lexi, but also like gay culture. Think about it terms using gay culture, people reclaiming all sorts of stuff, raging feminists, whatever you pick your cause. And so it was only a matter of time before it's kind of nasty meme culture that like came out of, I feel like there are historians writing about how gamer gate goes to
Speaker 2Trump . I was about to say gamer gate , right there is
Speaker 3Chan a and all that. But see, that's the thing it's like, it's gonna eventually be repurposed to fight back. It may take a while <laugh> but it's gonna happen . And now it , and now it has cuz it's just the tool and the way fascists use the tools of liberal democracy in our rhetoric and populous do to attack it. It can also be repurposed to defend and counter attack . And so that's what's happening now. And I think it's actually a good thing
Speaker 2<laugh> we are right now, right in the middle of it. Like we are in the eye of the storm at this moment, would it be fair to suggest that the midterm elections of 2022 would be the moment we will be able to find out what actual direction the next phase of this will be?
Speaker 3You know, there's signposts along the way, we've had a bunch, we had 2016, we had 2020, you know, historians can always draw it out. You can go well, nine 11 Obama. These huge structural changes that lead to a climax and then kind of recede slowly and lead to the new status quo. That's paradigm shift. That's what we're talking about here. That's what it is. Obviously the midterms are a, a huge signpost. The Republicans again are not quiet about what they want to do. They want to use, use their gains in the midterms. They know that historically the president's party loses in the midterms, but then now we're, it's a paradigm shift. All bets are off who knows what's gonna happen? Nobody knows what a midterm looks like when Roe versus Wade falls, we had some evidence in Kansas, which is why we're talking about it. And uh , turnout levels could be huge. And when turnout levels are huge, Democrats win because Democrats outnumber Republicans just pound for pound vote for vote.
Speaker 2And they wanted to find out how this is going look like from the state level. Yeah . They wanted the states to control it. Well, guess what? Kansas had their opportunity to vote on it F around and find out
Speaker 3The pundits are still acting as if we're in the world. We used to be in and we're not in that world. So they want to give us the horse race updates all the time, you know, where their priors as they like to call 'em their , their , their prior kind of assumptions are that Republicans take the house and make gains and maybe that's happens . But I mean, the polling has shifted dramatically. It's probably not great. I feel for some of the people in the predictions business to make any major , uh, blanket assumptions, they're still months ahead. We still don't know what's happen . Trump could be indicted literally. Yeah . And the possibility is now I think greater than 50% that he could be indicted before. What does that look like? What
Speaker 2Happens? I mean, I know a lot of people online are saying like, once he gets indicted, I'm grabbing my gun and I'm shooting people. Like I know that that's, that's a thing that people are going to do. Like that is the straw on the camel's back for a lot of people out there that they're going to start activating some war
Speaker 3As a historian. I have to be like, all right , well, I have to go all the way back to like what bleeding, Kansas, you know, these like kind of low scale , like wars in Kansas to kind get so in the 1850s, you know, in the lead up to the civil war, there was this competition over wi you know, what states will be free and what states will be new slave states as Western expansion United States happen . And basically there was already kind of low scale armed conflict between these groups in Kansas bleeding. Kansas is real. People were dying, being killed. That was in the 1850s as a long time ago. We are very, very different country now. Um, what does that mean? Especially with loosen gun laws? I don't know, but at the same time people wanna go to the mall. We have a lot of police and a lot of military. And how does that look if people just start going off? I don't know. It's a big country and I don't think it looks the same everywhere. I'm mu I'm much more worried about my fellow citizens in red and purple states where it seems like it's a little less safe where you're not gonna have the basic institutional levers, maybe being like, Hey, don't just start killing people. Don't start civil war.
Speaker 2I don't think a lot of people in liberal cities realize how divided we are. So I live, I live and work in central Pennsylvania. Again, I , I kind of referred to this earlier. It is not a blue state at all. Right. You have Pittsburgh on one end, you have Philadelphia and another, and it is Kentucky in the center. That's why we have a joke. It's called Penn , Kentucky , uh, right . Uhhuh . I work in the death care industry. I work with families on a daily basis around here who never went to get a COVID vaccination. Uh, they don't believe in abortion. Some of them ask me outright if I was a Christian and I'm gonna tell them no. And , and I think three families of mine went to their church and asked the congregation to pray for my soul. I remember that most used to believe gay marriage shouldn't be legal. And they typically preface that with, well, I have, you know, he's gay friends and you know, so I'm not the bad guy, but you know , I think it's a sin. I love that.
Speaker 3I love that . That's interesting unto itself.
Speaker 2Yeah. I honestly hear mild to moderate racial remarks. Uh , in fact, one of my coworkers was complaining about people these days, yada , yada , yada, and accidentally slipped out the Edward . That was nice. He no longer works at my job anymore. I commute 90 minutes each way. So as a three hour commute along the Susquehanna river and every other house has either a Trump flag or a pro-life sign pro-family sign Confederate flag.
Speaker 3That's a tough one for Pennsylvania. For me. I just don't get it. I don't , there's one
Speaker 2House . There's this one house that it's an American flag, but then there is a, it's a, a hand in the flag and it's a white hand when you , oh, I've seen this pulling up the American flag to reveal the Confederate flag underneath. I love that one. That's a good , oh God.
Speaker 3One thing that I haven't seen that
Speaker 2Have you seen the all black American flags, everything is black, but you can kind of see that it's, it's the American flag they've been, that's fun. That is people admitting that they are fascists. Like it's no bones about it. They are fascists. That's great. Uh , I see that every day , uh, I've seen local police wear Punisher skulls on their, on their uniforms, a local high school in a rural area, about half hour from me removed three courses from the curriculum this year. One of them being a history class, citing critical race theory. Right ? And a lot of these people don't even believe that climate change is real or that that trans people exist. Like I had a huge thing with a coworker of mine at another location that I worked at in another city who used the same, like slippery slope jargon about trans people when it came to bathrooms and , and all that stuff leads to bestiality . And like, I've worked in major cities. I've worked in New York city. I've worked in Miami. Uh , I've worked in San Francisco and Oakland, Denver, Colorado. I understand that. But I've also worked in rural towns with populations of 2000. So I, I , I see the difference between I've I've lived it. I think this is what the majority of rural folks think. I think the majority of people are just they're okay with not making a fuss about when they hear that part .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2These extremist views start being talked about at work or talked about, you know, at the , the , the water cooler or at the church or things like that. The country is much more divided than people think. And I'm worried that people have become too complacent than they don't believe that we are that's divided. And I'm, I'm worried that, you know, it's November, we're gonna receive a very rude wake up call that we won't be able to come back from.
Speaker 3That will have consequences regardless, too , to wherever the next sign post is . And it's the election of 20, 24, if something happens between now and then, regardless of what happens in Congress and midterms, the department of justice is still the Biden department of justice, which is going to do justice according to our laws, rather than populism, we'll still have that going for us, regardless of what happens. Populism is a background radiation. It's always gonna be there. In my opinion, it's definitely a big part of American political DNA, which sucks, but that's just the reality. So it inflams at various periods change, surprise, surprise. We talked about this a lot on other episodes and then the lead up to 1940 and the time where the Nazi wall street story occurs, you know , uh, rightwing pop in 20 is thirties , the clan, all that stuff. And so it's always gonna be there, but the structure, the structure of how we live our legal structures, our political structures, our economic structures, I think that still dictates the bounds in which change occurs. And right now we have structures. We have institutions they're in under attack , but we have them. And so, so we still live in a society that has these structures. People still want to go to the mall, right? But they can't, if there's a similar war occurring, it's gonna be a problem. People wanna complain about inflation and supply chains. Imagine if you know , a low scale , you know, war in, in an area where they're a couple red states, you know, like that's a problem.
Speaker 2I'm just worried that people are just gonna blame the Democrats, regardless the Democrats cause the civil war
Speaker 3Maybe. But I mean, it's gonna be, it's gonna be localized. It's gonna be whatever whoever's doing the problems right then and there in front of them are gonna be, people are gonna get , get blamed at least to some extent , yes, people are deep in this ideology. Maybe I'm naive, maybe you're right. But I mean, because we still have these structures in place that that dictates the BA . And, but now we're in this paradigm shift where that's changing. So I think we need to look at how the structures themselves are being changed. I think that gives us a better idea of where these things are gonna go. I think there's probably gonna be more pushback than the right wing populous anticipate in this whole idea of trying to turn state legislatures into , uh, a rubber stamp for V em , burs return. I also think that cutting the head off an authoritarian movement by the department of justice, you may have some, some whackadoodles wanna run out and shoot . The really frustrating thing is that there's a two sides of this , uh, Midwestern. Nice. I don't wanna rock the boat. I will tolerate fascism. Also the analog to the good German who stands by while the Jews get run out of town and then eventually hung. It's the same BS, but there's two sides to that. There's one side that's like, yeah, I'm gonna let fascism creep in and have for decades. And , and they voted for Reagan in 80 and said a lot of this BS in motion. But then on the other side of it, there'd be a lot of people are like, oh, I'm really mad that , you know, they , they arrested Trump. That sucks. Uh , let's go to the mall. I'm gonna be mad. I'll buy a t-shirt that says I'm mad about it. And, and they may even have some guns at home. Are they gonna go to their job the next day? Because they wanna they'll
Speaker 2Put a , they'll put a second. Let's go branding bumper sticker on their food
Speaker 3F150. Yeah . They , they wanna , they wanna play call of duty . Okay. Like the people we have to worry about are that's small, you know, 10% or whatever it is, who are, are gonna go. And that's, that is a very clear danger.
Speaker 2What's cool about that is that the majority of people that you're referring to that 10%, they were there for January 6th. We have their photographs.
Speaker 3Yeah . <laugh> right, right. In this case, I'm gonna bet on Americans to , to yell loud and be lazy. Sorry, friends. A lot of people talking crap about civil wars, aren't gonna do anything. And
Speaker 2I really hope the only time that I've ever rooted for cynicism, I hope that that cynical or perspective is
Speaker 3The true one. I mean, sorry, I'm gonna pull the mask away. The , the hope Jay , you know, there's a very deeply cynical side of me. It's like that. He thinks about a , you know, we're , we're only as good as the slowest, most ignorant member of society. It sucks. It's frustrating. It's infuriating. And I I've seen it throughout my study of us history. And , and we, we tend to get drags kicking and screaming into new era. Part of that drag kicking and screaming into new era is gonna be like, lots of people are gonna make mad internet comments when Trump is indicted. Okay. Yeah . And when his friends are indicted, cuz you know what's happening right now. Now also as we speak, a bunch of his pals are flipping on him. We got , uh, this , this week also totally under the radars is a billion things. Uh , we got pat sip. These are the people that were part of the , I mean I didn't even get to laying out , uh, the January 6th hearings, which is also part of this, this enormous paradigm shift moment. This kind of big thing that happened between now since our last November paradigm,
Speaker 2When they episode, when did they start again? Cause right now they're on recess
Speaker 3And that wasn't even supposed to be a thing until a few weeks ago they were just gonna do a few hearings. And now , uh, what was the comment? There's so many people talking to us now there's so much new evidence we need to do more. I believe they jumped back in, in September, October. I had no, I think
Speaker 2It's September. I think you're right. I
Speaker 3Think it's September. But yeah, they announced they were gonna do this back at June last year, they started late in June. This year. They had eight major hearings. We had that six hearing with Cassidy Hutchinson where we heard about the story of Trump trying to grab the steering wheel. Yeah . We heard the story about the catch up on the wall. Those aren't going away. I think that's
Speaker 2How he said that . No , they all have guns, sir. And he was like, well, they're not going to hurt me. They're here for me. Right.
Speaker 3Right. All of that's happening. And I firmly believe that like authoritarian movements fail when you eliminate the authority <laugh> and Trump is still the head of this movement. Cut it off. And that's where heading he and his family are in a world of paint. Uh , his son and daughter just had to this also again, a blip because there are billion things going on, just had to , uh, they were deposed as part of the civil proceedings that are in investigation that may lead to more criminal proceedings in New York state on the financial fraud, which is a whole other huge fall of wax. They still have a , uh, grand jury investigation, Georgia, which is a huge deal. There's still, and no matter what happens with an election, this midterm or a presidential election , uh, Trump has some serious legal exposure there
Speaker 2Isn't there, isn't there like a rape charge happening as well. Like
Speaker 3What's going on with that ? Yeah. Yeah. There's also EG and Carol's uh , defamation case, which has to do with her claim that Trump raped her that is going forward and there's discovery. That's, that's a whole other , uh, kind of Pandora's box that opens up. We never even mentioned GLA Maxwell went to jail between the , when we require our last paradigm shift episode. And now there's a lot of people who could see a lot of people who
Speaker 2Could talk. A lot of people are off about that because she's the only one that went to jail for all the celebrities and important and rich people that went to this island and basically performed rape against all of these poor people down there. I'm sure that there was a little black book with everybody's name on it and that was just swept under the rug.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. So you got that whole layer of this populous fascist leaders are finding out, meanwhile, there are these other like structural major changes happening, you know, with again, the Kansas results. We also had the first Starbucks in the nation unionize. They started with one and now I think what there's, isn't there like over 200 now, am I wrong about that? I
Speaker 2Have not followed that story at
Speaker 3All. Um, we're we're seeing , uh, unprecedented union unionization efforts also the , the first , um, Amazon fulfillment center unionized too . Correct. These are, these are huge, huge things that are also happening in the backdrop. Kyle hit written house found not guilty in November. So, you know, it's like the good and the bad. And then Elon Musk trying to buy Twitter and then him finding out.
Speaker 2And now he
Speaker 3Now in a world, he's in a world of economic pain. Bitcoin crashed El lost a ton of money. He's laying off a lot of people at Tesla currently, as we speak, Twitter is counter suing and he's on the hook for a billion dollars. It's not looking good for him there. And you know, to return to Alex Jones, Alex Jones is gonna lose everything. Infowars is going to be , uh, taken apart by plaintiffs . This is the end of the beginning as , uh, the lawyer for the plaintiff's banks and said, you know , um, maybe, maybe pressure on him, maybe, you know, maybe he starts singing like a Canary to save his own neck. Who knows we are right in the middle of this. And that is why the idea of a paradigm shift is so important and why perspective is so important and why I'm so happy we're having this conversation.
Speaker 2Cause I love historians giving predictions. It's my favorite question. I've reminded every episode, whenever I'm asked a guest , oh no, <laugh> that, you know, historians are horrible progs . We , however we , we said this last episode, but we're like the next six months are just gonna be crazy. Right?
Speaker 3Yeah . And they were ,
Speaker 2But it's only been a month or two since then, instead of just asking you how's the rest of 20, 22 going, I'm just going to say a current event and you just gimme like a one phrase free analysis opinion of what's gonna happen. Okay. Okay. Little war in Ukraine,
Speaker 3Turning point by the fall. Uh , Russia
Speaker 2Loses.
Speaker 3I think when, when Kirson falls, it's really gonna come apart. It's been on the edge of coming apart for him for a while and Ukraine's ready to, to lay the hammer down there. Wow. Okay . And I think, and I think maybe even Putin's fate because Putin's fate is now tied to this war.
Speaker 2I'm just, I was worried that there was gonna be like this very long drawn out war attrition. That was gonna last another couple of years.
Speaker 3I don't think so.
Speaker 2January 6th commission,
Speaker 3The January 6th commission is gonna be kind of in our minds. I think it's gonna , it's start , gonna start to meld with the department of justice efforts as those things, the parts that are public get revealed to us, people are making deals. There are indictments coming. I mean, Steve, Bannon's already gonna go to jail, going to jail over this just cuz he wouldn't agree with subpoena. I don't know what the timeline is on this . These things take a long time. I could see in major indictments of like some of the leaders, maybe not, I don't think Trump himself, but perhaps within the next six months. But uh , I'm giving that timeline all the way to the end of Biden's first term . So I don't
Speaker 2Know. And that leads me to my last one. Biden declaring his candidacy for 2024.
Speaker 3Oh absolutely . Well , I mean this is where we really need to separate the overheated Twitter rhetoric from reality. Uh , he's not going anywhere. He's going to announce his is he's the leader of the democratic party. Uh , he is going to announce his candidacy. There are gonna be no meaningful challenges to it. Can I just tell a really side story? It's gonna a lot of people off, but whatever Bernie Sanders <laugh> And his populous shenanigans, it was a really huge blow for bill backed to fail last fall. And I'm really glad. I'm kind of glad we memory hold that one. People really mad at Joe mansion. And when the dust cleared , I think we got a better idea that like you need to include mansion in the beginning and they didn't do that. And this time I think Democrats were smarter cinemas, even slipperier, you know, you have two Democrats that take a lot of corporate money. And with cinema's case, I think take a lot of G O P money. So like yeah , matter if the other 48 are solid and have the whole wishlist of the left in their minds for passing legislation at this point, without them in a 50 50 Senate, you're not gonna do it. But like , uh, mansion cinema got on board for build back better two right before an election. It's a big deal. I , the largest investment in to kind of return where we're beginning, these geriatric centers are , are debating right now. As we, as we speak in this time capsule of an episode and Bernie Sanders comes out and he's like, this isn't progressive enough. So I'm gonna put an amendment on this. I think he's he tears it down the so-called bill. He puts the amendment on left, right and center 99 against two , his one vote, everybody slams it down. All he did was everybody off. And it's like, well, yeah, it's just a show. That's all populism is, it's just a show. He didn't do. Nobody wants to work with him. He didn't do any coalition building. He had no plan. He just wanted to get up there and complain about problems and punish his enemies. Yeah . That cuz that's what this is about. And you know what? It didn't work. There's a structure structure. One , the structure is Democrats are United. Even the ones that are most compromised, it's gonna pass the , the machinery is moving. That gives me a little bit of hope about populism. I know there are a lot of Bernie Sanders fans out there, sorry. I know people want a more progressive America. We are only as good as the slowest among us. You know, the people who, who want change the least. And that's the reality. And we have to build coalition progressive,
Speaker 2But progressive America doesn't mean a populist America.
Speaker 3Right? Right .
Speaker 2They're two completely separate things.
Speaker 3They are. I , you know, populists don't want coalitions. They separate the world into good people and bad people and heroes and enemies. That's the opposite of how you build coalitions. It bothers me deeply that we even call populous progressives because we're basically spreading their lives for them. They have no plans because it's not about plans. It's about the emotions of their leaders and their followers and being scared and covering that fear with punishing enemies. That's why the sunrise movement only does sit-ins in Democrat offices. They are not an environmental movement. They're a populous movement. It's all about. I found an enemy. My enemy in this case is a democratic party. I'm gonna punish them. I'm gonna make them look bad. I'm gonna call them all sorts of names. I'm gonna gonna sit in. And , and there's no plan like Joe, mansion's the one who signed off on one of the largest investments in , in climate change for this inflation reduction act, Joe mansion did that. The sunrise movement. Wasn't part of that at all. So, you know, it's
Speaker 2It's and with the end of this episode, we make Joe mansion a hero. Well done everyone.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah, no, but I mean, progressivism is about moving the needle anyway , you can and doing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. And it requires coalitions. It requires working together. And that is not at the betray of leftwing ideals because it's not about my emotions and what I feel today. And nothing else matters. It's about, okay, well we did this now let's start work on the next thing. And we have 20 other things on our list or a hun , a million other things on our list. And we keep going, you know, registering one voter at a time, Twitter comments, don't register voters going and registering voters, registers voters, friends, go do that. Now yesterday, I
Speaker 2Don't think a , I don't think a lot of populists on either side of the spectrum realize that their perspectives are not the majority opinions of everyone else that exist in the world. Like, and this goes again for left to right wing, the populists just want to attack, attack, attack, and accuse all the other people that are getting in their way of being the other, being the enemy. Whereas the proponents of liberal democracy understand, at least they're honest about the fact that like, look, you know, this is a large country and there are a lot of people and a lot of opinions and a lot of people just have a lot of disagreements. How do we take this spaceship America and move forward? How do we get this ship to go that way? And it's just like you said, you need to speak to as many people as possible with differing opinions, come to the table and try to find compromise. And I know that that is a four letter word to a lot of people, but that's what a , a functioning society demands in order for us to move into a direction. You can't go from zero to a hundred in six months, it's incremental change. It's changing the institution from within and moving forward that way and it's slow. And it is a pain in the and it's messy and it's complicated, but that's the way that this ship moves forward. And I don't think a lot of people on the left or right populist side of things realize how in the minority they are. I think that they, and this could be wrong. I could be, I could be mistaken. I think that they think that everybody thinks the same beliefs that they do. And it's just a matter of just, okay, well we need just to force this thing in that direction as quickly as possible because this solution that we have that we believe is the right answer,
Speaker 3Right? A lot of people just wanna live their lives and not be harmed while doing so, and, you know, have opportunities to take care of their families in these moments of change. Things are so inflamed and, and we're battling for the influence of everybody's mind as a historian to kind of underline your point. EJ. It's all about the trends. Not necessarily a moment in time, like this episode, it's ephemeral things could change completely by the time you hear this, by the time we record our next episode , but we do know one thing. Every time history repeats, the price goes up. So friends, there's only a few weeks left until a very consequential election. What did you do when democracy called for your aid? Hopefully you have a good answer to that question.
Speaker 1Amen . A Nazi on wall street is brought to you by elusive films maker of the, a Nazi on wall Street's film and television series. It was recorded and edited by EJ Russo. Original music was written and performed by Joseph Maholin . We can't bring these stories to life on screen without your support. So please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign@elusive-films.com . That's elusive hyphen films.com for Jason Wexel Baum I'm EJ Russo. Thank you. And we will see you next episode.