The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
"Fiercely and unapologetically progressive, and definitely NSFW. 'The Professional Left' features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal as they skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media mealy-mouths with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. From mercilessly mocking partisan hacks to elevating stories the media ignores, it's the profane, unflinching political commentary you didn't know you needed. More at http://ProLeftPod.com."
The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
Ep 1007: Happy Birthday Blue Gal Retrospective, Part I
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Episode 1007 celebrates Blue Gal's birthday with a nostalgic trip through 16 years of podcast archives, revisiting what was happening in politics on or around her birthday each year since 2010. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace a remarkable through-line from the Tea Party's rise and the "Evil, Stupid, or Crazy" game, through Obama-era both-siderism, Trump's 2016 takeover, and the pandemic's collapse of conservative respectability. The episode reveals how the same cast of media enablers and Republican radicals keeps reappearing decade after decade, proving some patterns never change even as the crises get bigger. It's part one of a two-part birthday retrospective, with 2021 through 2026 still to come.
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SPEAKER_01This is the podcast for the week of July 17th, 2026. It's not safe for work.
SPEAKER_00Recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance, where it's the professional left with Blue Gal and Drift Glass.
SPEAKER_01I get to go first tonight because it's my birthday.
SPEAKER_00It's your birthday today. And we're recording this on your birthday. And as a special treat, Donald Trump is going to address the nation and lie for about an hour or so.
SPEAKER_01Well, apparently he's what he's trying to do is paint Democrats as domestic terrorists.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Because anyone who uh protests him taking over the election system of the United States of America is clearly a terrorist.
SPEAKER_00Well, here's the thing. Um, we're not going to talk about that tonight.
SPEAKER_01That's right. We're not.
SPEAKER_00And and here's why. Um, if if you're shocked that this decrepit monster that leads a party of uh fascists and scumbags and grifters uh is saying gonna do saying and doing things that are awful, you're about a decade late to the party.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And so if you would like, oh my god, can you believe he said dot dot dot reactions? You're gonna you there's a hundred people gonna do that for you. A hundred people. Every other podcast in America is gonna be doing that tonight.
SPEAKER_01But we're going to be doing the historical context part of this story. This is what for my birthday.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And so for your birthday, we're we're gonna spare my wife and myself, honestly, uh the drudgery and the emotional exhaustion of watching this lying sack of shit. Um lie however he's gonna lie tonight, because he's just a lying all the time now. And instead, we're gonna look back over the last 16 years we've been podcasting and take a look what was happening on or about Blue Gal's birthday during that year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this is something this is an idea I came up with. Yes, and uh, but I had no idea.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And Driftglass went back while I was at work. Yes, and uh went through our archives to see what we were talking about around the middle of July.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, every year.
SPEAKER_01Remember this every year, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And while we were talking about this back and forth, you you mentioned, aren't you going to mention thus and so, whatever it was. It's an important event. There's a lot of important events. I said, no, because it didn't take place in the middle of July.
SPEAKER_01So it it does sort of shrink down our focus, but at the same time, when you did this and showed me what you'd come up with, I was, and I'm using that word again, I was astonished. Yeah, I really was.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01This is an amazing result. And so I hope you guys are gonna enjoy it. Uh, do not feel sorry for me because I'm doing podcast work on my birthday. We podcasted it on our wedding day because it was a Friday, and we had to had to do it. We had to do a show. So uh this is what we do, and it's part of our marriage, and we love it, and we're just gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00And so listen, listen for recurring themes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, one more thing, Driftglass. Before we do recurring themes, thank you very much for taking me out to dinner on Tuesday. Oh, my God. And thank you to all of our listeners for tolerating an Tuesday night without a show. Yes. So that Driftglass could take me out to dinner. We went to a restaurant called Curate C-U-R-A-T-E in Springfield. If you want to Google that and see how fancy place lovely, yes, it's the fancy place in Springfield, Illinois, where uh we noticed a great many people uh sitting in that restaurant were celebrating an anniversary or a birthday or a special occasion.
SPEAKER_00I had to I had to wear my shoes. I had to put shoes on to go in.
SPEAKER_01He wore a necktie even.
SPEAKER_00Where's the drive-thru? Nope.
SPEAKER_01Nope. No, this is this is a restaurant where the drinks come with a ice cube that is the size of what? Oh, close to a tennis ball.
SPEAKER_00Certainly a golf ball. If this were hail, you would be hearing about it on max velocity.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. It was one of those big, huge ice cube drinks and delicious food. We have we had good onion soup and roasted Brussels. It's it's one of these sharing plate restaurants.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_01Uh charcuterie and bread pudding for dessert, which they comped because it was my birthday. That was very nice.
SPEAKER_00A lovely time.
SPEAKER_01It was a really good time and good food. And we had, and I thank everyone who has donated to us so throughout the years and given us the opportunity to go out to dinner every once in a while. Yeah. Along with uh paying for our internet and electric bill and things that we need in order to do the show.
SPEAKER_00Other things. Um, no, no, I would like everyone to listen carefully. Well, you don't have to listen that carefully. Um, but if you've listened for years, you probably already know uh a lot of what we're gonna talk about because there's recurring themes of Republican radicalization, media malpractice, democratic anxiety, and our continuing search for intelligent life in American politics. So without further ado, here is a year-by-year tour through the episodes that bracketed Blue Gal's birthday. Take it away.
SPEAKER_01And so, starting off with our very first year of podcasting, we started in January of 2010. Yep. And on July 9th of 2010, we were not numbering episodes yet.
SPEAKER_00No, because who knew who knew?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we were just gonna do this for who knows who knows how long.
SPEAKER_00Also, there were only like nine podcasts in the whole universe at this point. So, you know.
SPEAKER_01So we didn't have to number them.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01I I don't even know if I had in my mind that you and I were gonna get married. I don't think so. I think we were just kind of goofing and doing a podcast, and you know, we were we were podcasting in sin.
SPEAKER_00We were podcasting in sin is what we were. We were podcasting without without uh benefit of marriage.
SPEAKER_01Our relationship was on the down low for a little while there. It was we were you were lit still living in Chicago, yeah, yeah, and most of the time we were podcasting from separate locations, you know, 300 miles apart, and uh it was just something we were trying, right? Yeah, uh so that that day, July 9th, we talked about sex club zoning, hanging laundry, and why progressives can't take the summer off. Yeah. Uh Driftglass got some kind of special link. Uh Blue Gal appeared on a kinky radio program that was uh Kink on Tap.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember that show. That was and it was mostly just talking about politics, but I think the hosts were into kink or something. I don't remember exactly, but nice folks. They were very nice, and they just liked my blog. And so I guess because of the panties, I think I was still doing panties back then. Um, if you know, you know. Uh and we both discussed why progressives can't take themselves for granted during the 2010 election cycle.
SPEAKER_00Yes, 2010. July July 16th, your actual birthday, uh 2010. The podcast went out on my blog because I sometimes include a quote with my stuff on my blog. But my my uh when I posted on my blog, my quote was from Kurt Vonnegut, who you know, who we both love. Quote, the chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe until it was too late how heartless and greedy they were, unquote. So, you know, real appropriate stuff. Then we did, um, we've done this a few times, Republicans and Pundits. Let's play the evil, stupid, or crazy game. Which which is what and the game, as as we mentioned at the very end, it gets really interesting when it's the trifecta. So in this extended podcast, mind you, our original podcast was like 30 minutes. 30 minutes, 25 minutes, something like that. So this extended special podcast was now our regular podcast, a little over an hour long. Uh Birthday Girl, Blue Gallon Drift Glass run down the following list of conservatives, GOP politicians, and a few pundits, and discuss whether they are evil, stupid, or crazy. And some of these who remember, and some of these you might not. Sharon Angle, oh my god, Josh Lindlaw, who was still alive at the time. Uh, Sarah Palin, Haley Barber, Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Mike Pence, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Dick Army, John Kyle, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Blanche Lincoln, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace, Bill Crystal, Charles Craphammer, Fox Friends, Tom Friedman, Michael Steele, Bill O'Reilly, Rudy Giuliani, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachman, Virginia Fox, George Will, and David Effing Brooks. Yes, we were talking about David Effing Brooks all the way back then. And and think about how many of these people have just vanished from memory, how many have died, and how many of them are still out there fucking this country up.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So then on July 15th, 2011, uh, episode 84. We weren't we started numbering them, and we did count the ones we hadn't numbered. And we were at episode 84, Tea Party Crazy and the Default Crisis. The crazy didn't start with the Tea Party. We talked about the default crisis, and uh apparently we were about to default on the debt under Republican threat obstruction of everything Obama was doing.
SPEAKER_00Holding holding the economy hostage for uh for what they wanted.
SPEAKER_01Uh and how do progressives channel their anger?
SPEAKER_00Interesting that the crazy didn't start with the Tea Party was in 2011. And now we have to say the crazy didn't start with MAGA because there was the Tea Party before that, which still people on our friends, our allies still refuse to acknowledge it existed at all. Um, in July 23rd, same year, episode 85, we asked who the hell is actually in charge of the GOP. And I argued that the mob was now in charge of the of the Republican Party, which they were and are. And this is how early we were talking about this stuff. We talked about film noir, we talked about Alan West teaching us all how to be ladies.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, because he was an expert on who who was a lady and who wasn't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Who got to be a lady, who wasn't. We talked, believe it or not, we talked smack about centrists. Oh my god, we talked a lot of shit about centrists and the the stimulus deniers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Uh 2012, election year, we talked about this was July 6th, episode 135. We talked about Democrats' purity politics and Mitt Romney's Olympic face plant. And we said, don't each eat each other alive, Democrats. This was the summer of 2012, which found liberals arguing with each other, which in retrospect may have been the last relatively normal political argument we've had. We would have for a while.
SPEAKER_00This might have been the uh uh progressives and the left need to get on board and join the party and do things through the party. And now this year it's like we hate you people, get the hell out of our party, we're in charge. Why don't you shut your holes now you now that you're winning elections by doing exactly what we told you to do back in 2012?
SPEAKER_01And and you and I had a conversation in the car this week, Drift Glass, about Lindsey Graham dying and Mitch McConnell, you know, dying and Donald Trump dying. And I said, this isn't normal that we have all these 80-year-olds, 77 to 85 year old people in charge of just about everything at the federal government level.
SPEAKER_00It was this is a Soviet Union.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is Soviet Union 1974, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. All these dying old men cling to power um who won't get out of the way and left and are corrupt.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. Uh we discussed how Democrats can disagree without becoming disagreeable, which is adorable. Uh, and we read a remarkable letter from Joe, a former Reagan Republican, who described his long journey through therapy, self-education, and political awakening to become a progressive. His conclusion was that empathy and self-reflection were the gateway drugs to liberalism. We also talked about the importance of power over virtue in politics, what we came to call the Chicago Way, which is very prescient. Uh wish lists don't win elections. Power wins elections. It was so long ago that Glenn Greenwald was appearing on the Chris Hayes show, and the Democratic Coalition was already wrestling with the tension between ideological purity and governing reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So some issues are just evergreen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00July 13th, 2012, we did a letters show, which we do sometimes. A listener described trying to persuade a centrist friend to vote for Obama. I don't think that actually worked. And he accidentally wound up in a discussion about whether Gordon Gecko was real, which is weird. Another listener from Delaware argued that because Obama was guaranteed to win his state, why should he vote for a Democratic president who had disappointed him on single-payer health care and civil liberties and foreign policy? Well, now you have your answer. We also received what we believe was our very first letter from our dear friend Andy in Northern England, who explained that British conservatives, atheists, and socialists somehow managed to coexist without turning every political disagreement into an existential blood feud. Well, that used to be true. No, not so much anymore. And he found the American right-wing ecosystem both fascinating and alarming.
SPEAKER_01I want everyone to know that we are a pro Count Binface in Clacton podcast. Yeah. Uh, you're gonna want to. If you don't know about Count Ben Face, Google that, look for it on Blue Sky.
SPEAKER_00What's wrong with you? I mean, really, what's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_01He's running against uh Nel Farage. Nigel Farage. Yeah that who's corrupt, by the way.
SPEAKER_00He's corrupt. He's very corrupt, yes.
SPEAKER_01He's very corrupt. Um all right. We also uh discussed this was uh episode 138 on July 27th, 2012. Mitt flakes in London. Mitt Romney was running for president this year, and his awkward trip to London. Actually, pretty much everything about Mitt Romney was awkward, but yeah, his awkward trip to London reinforced my Blue Gal's personal theory that he actually didn't want to become president. That was a step down for him. Uh, we also examined Tom Friedman's bizarre angry reaction. This was on an Australian podcast. Yes, it was uh radio program, I think, when the host confronted him about his own wealth and privilege, and he spent some time despairing over the future of the planet.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Uh this is now 2013, we're entering, which is Sequestration, Snap, and the Persistence of Centrism. Yes. 13 years ago. Episode 118, July 12th.
SPEAKER_01Episode 188.
SPEAKER_00I'm sorry, I apologize. I've been reading this uh through my fog of nostalgia. It is actually episode 188. Texas was still Texas, but North Carolina was making a determined bid to become the laboratory of right-wing governance. A listener working in the federal public defender's office described the devastating impact of sequestration, layoffs, furloughs, lost benefits, and shrinking services. You know, this is the pre-doge doge. Republicans attempted to pass a farm bill stripped of food assistance provisions, which enraged Democrats and provoked a threatened Obama veto. We also asked one of our recurring questions: what do you do about a public that has been systematically misinformed and or lied to? And then, as always, centrism returned from the dead. In this case, Andrew Sullivan. Believe it or not, Andrew Sullivan finally seemed capable of identifying Republican extremism. Gerrymandering, see if it sounds familiar, gerrymandering, climate denial, attacks on reproductive rights, and sabotaging the government itself, but he still insisted that both sides, both sides, were somehow driving the crisis in 2013.
SPEAKER_01Uh, episode 189, the next episode on July 19th, 2013. Oh, the irony. Rand Paul on the filibuster, covered by Wonket. Quote, as far as it goes, Paul's explanation of why the filibuster is loved by whatever party is in the minority is accurate enough. It allows them to dig their heels in and stop a majority from passing stuff they don't like. But the conversation drives straight into nutsoland when the two get to examples. For instance, Eric Bowling, Eric Bowling, says, were it not for the filibuster, Senate Republicans would have no way of preventing a wholesale takeover of the government by MSNBC. Now just sit with that for a second.
SPEAKER_00How many Fox former Fox assholes are sitting in the world?
SPEAKER_01On air talent, not just Fox employees, on-air talent Fox employees currently work at the White at the Trump White House or within the administration.
SPEAKER_00Weekend Fox third tier host is now the Secretary of Defense.
SPEAKER_01Defense. And it is 40. There are at least 40 on former on-air talent, quote unquote, members of the staff at Fox who are now completely unqualified members of the administration. Because Trump watched them.
SPEAKER_00Because back in 2013, the problem was going to be MSNBC staff would take over the government.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And this was Eric Bowling. Frankly, if you didn't have a filibuster, what would stop President Obama from appointing, say, Al Sharpton as attorney general? Geez, who's up for attorney general now? Trump's fixer? Who Trump stood up in the Oval Office and said, Yeah, yeah, he kept me out of jail.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01What would stop President Obama from putting Rachel Matto on the Supreme Court? To which Paul agreed that an extremist like that could easily be confirmed without the filibuster, because somehow there are no hearings or other mechanisms to keep TV people off the Supreme Court. This entire conversation, this is still won't get the this entire conversation is stupid anyway. Any fool knows that Rachel Maddow would head the Department of Education or something nerdy like energy. The Supreme Court is more of a Chris Hayes place. Unquote.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, every accusation is a confession.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everyone. Right down the line. Episode 240, July 11th, 2014. We talked about imaginary independence, reformicons, and Bible bitch. The mythical independent voter returned to Beltway journalism, now endowed with entirely different characteristics than the last time pundits invented him. Dinesh de Sousa, remember Dinesh de Sousa, complained that Google wasn't directing enough traffic to his movie. So it's rigged, Blue Gal. It's all rigged. The movie I believe he was sued over. Would that be the one?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Republicans unveiled the latest version of conservatism's perpetual reboot project, the Reformicons. Remember the Reformicons that were going to come in.
SPEAKER_01Were they like a yellow VW Beetle that unfolded and became a car?
SPEAKER_00Reformicons. Now available for Mattel. No, these were the people that people like uh, well, David Brooks and Arthur Brooks and and other people of that ilk kept insisting we're we're just coming right around the corner and they're gonna reform the conservative movement, and then everything is gonna be awesome again. So don't worry. Just keep, don't get your panties in a bunch. They're gonna fix everything. It's gonna be great. Meanwhile, the party that constantly praises tort reform was suing President Obama for allegedly being too powerful while simultaneously complaining that he refused to use his magic tyrant powers to do what Congress wouldn't do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The why won't Obama lead Horace. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Every other day, then of course he's a tyrant who is uh taking Congress has not he's a tyrant because he's he's using power that Congress didn't give him. Right.
SPEAKER_01And they're mad about that in 2013, 2014.
SPEAKER_00Very mad. And he's using that power because they're blocking everything he's trying to do on purpose, yes, on purpose, just to sabotage him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, to the point where Mitch McConnell filibustered a Republican bill. Yeah. On the floor of the house. July 18th, which by the way, Saturday is July 18th. That would have been my parents' 64th wedding anniversary. Yeah. Well, and it's gone now.
SPEAKER_00Let's say, let's say uh happy birthday to your mom.
SPEAKER_01Today's my mom's yeah, I was born on my mom's birthday, just like how Sparks was born on his mom's birthday. Uh and so it is a wonderful day to remember mom. And uh my sisters and I texted each other today to say, yeah, she's up at the rainbow bridge because she was quite the pet hoarder. And so, you know, the the divine powers that be put her where all the animals are, so she is surrounded by animals all day. And she does intake, you know, and helps the nervous ones cross the rainbow bridge. Don't worry about it. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. It's just it's a thing we do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh anyway, July 18th, 2014, Republican Representative Renee Elmers explained that complex policy issues had to be translated, quote, down to a woman's level, unquote.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01David Gregory's ratings continued their long slide toward oblivion. Michael Steele revived old myths about the mistreatment of black Republicans.
SPEAKER_00Back when he was a lying black Republican. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Bible Bitch, that's me, uh, took on Louis Gohmert's version of Christianity as consumer product and contrasted it with the actual teachings of Jesus as taught in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00No fair, no fair blue gal, no fair numbering scripture.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it's not like, you know, I see scripture as infallible, but uh a lot of people who believed in Louis Gomert do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, and if you're gonna fight. If you're gonna fight on that battlefield, then then get get your ass to that battlefield.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. This was also the summer when science fiction university began leaking into the main show and finally flooded the main show. Uh discussions included Planet of the Apes, Farscape, The X-Files, Young Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Stein, uh, Stein, Frankenstein, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Monty Python, Starman, and many other artifacts from our shared geek culture. At some point, we also did Minecraft is awesome from Metal Child. We did. And this remains one of our favorite lines from any movie.
SPEAKER_04You see, you see, your stupid minds. Stupid, stupid.
SPEAKER_00Which takes us to episode 292. July 10th, 2015. Trump arrives and Science Fiction University expands because you are not watching news. Donald Trump had entered the race, but our focus is on a larger problem. What Americans were consuming wasn't news. It was a product designed to resemble news. And Science Fiction University featured contributions from our friend Dogface Herman and discussions of a Clockwork Orange, Fringe, The War Game, Last Man on Earth, The Quiet Earth, Panic in Year Zero, and Connell Radd Era Civil Defense Culture.
SPEAKER_01Moving on, uh, the next week, episode, or actually, this is a couple weeks later, I guess, because this is episode 295. Uh July 17th, 2015, Science Fiction University tackled one of science fiction's most important recurring characters, the president of the United States, who appears in a lot of science fiction movies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that came from a listener who said, I liked what Dogface Herman did in the last episode. And here's a list of like the top 10 presidents in science fiction, everything from Independence Day to Fail-Safe. And what a key character a a president plays in lots of science fiction plots.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Uh, meanwhile, Donald Trump was rapidly taking over the Republican Party in July of 2015. Rhein Sprebus tried to figure out how to manage him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Bible, they should have paid him off. They should have paid him $10 million to leave.
SPEAKER_00I I thought they were going to do that. I mean, I was writing that he is the grifter and the monster they're waiting for, that they'd build a perfect feeding route for someone like him. But I really thought they would cut him a check for $120 million or $200 million.
SPEAKER_01Give him a show on Fox.
SPEAKER_00Give him a show on Fox, and he'd go away. I never thought they'd be dumb enough to let him know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yep. Uh Bible Bitch discussed the moral reckoning surrounding the Confederate flag after Charleston, you may remember. Charleston. Uh we highlighted voices like Jenny Horn and Josh Clark, Southerners, confronting the symbols they had once defended. And in the meantime, for comic relief, David Brooks tried to explain race to America.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's he's just never changes, Blue Cow. He just never changes.
SPEAKER_01Uh Morning Joe continued being Morning Joe. I believe this was about the time they started doing monthly call-ins with Donald Trump.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And uh it was clearly a quid pro quo in retrospect. Uh, we recommended that you stop watching Morning Joe. If only Kamala Harris had listened to us Driftglass.
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01Uh and bonus, in the next episode 294, we did hat tip Jake Tapper, of all people, for being the only person on any Sunday show to mention the Swift voters. Everyone else skipped over it. But the both cider brigade was out in force. Also, no one bitching about the Iran deal is mentioning how many nukes BB Netanyahu has or how many mid-range missiles Israel sent to Iran during Iran Contra. Guess what? BB Netanyahu, John Bolton, and Joe Lieberman, we said, don't run U.S. foreign policy. We said that in 2015.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When the Iran deal, when the Iran, the good Iran deal, the Obama Iran deal, was being opposed by all these people when the Republicans invited Netanyahu without telling Obama to come and address the Congress and sabotage and attack the elected president of the United States.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Because that's just how deep into it they all are. Episode 345, that's from July 15th, 2016. We're up to 2016, Blue Gal. Conventions. Oh, who doesn't love a convention? Trumpism and the death of both ciderism. Oh, if only it were true. Science Fiction University, we offered a writing prompt to our listeners. Tell us a robot story. Make it about four paragraphs long, send it in, and read it aloud before you send it to make sure it sounds correct. We compared major speeches from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Conyers versus Donald Trump. We remembered Steve Gilliard, and we remembered the year 2004 and all that happened that year that was feeding into this year. We asked whether anyone still cared about Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac, the meeting.
SPEAKER_01The tarmac. Yeah. Three syllables, Fox News repeated endlessly, just like Benghazi and so Lindra. It is a brainwashing operation.
SPEAKER_00The notorious RBG finally was out of fucks. All out of fucks. This is from our friend Mr. Charlie Pierce at that time. Quote, this is one of those days on which I'm glad I was raised Catholic and therefore was schooled in the difference between venial and mortal sin. Because anyone who thinks that RBG's honest assessment of the vulgar talking yam is on a par with A, Antonin Scalia's hunting trips with Dick Cheney, or B, the majority in Bush v. Gore, including one justice, Scalia, whose son got a job with the administration that Papa helped install, and another, Thomas, whose wife did too, needs to seriously examine their consciences more than they did. Unquote.
SPEAKER_01The tarmac, Driftglass.
SPEAKER_00The tarmac. The tarmac. What about the tarmac? And then he eventually says, yeah, two wrongs, et cetera. But that's not the point. The point is every government official, every media personality, everyone with a microphone, here comes that word that we have stopped using, should be saying what Ginsburg is saying. And once again, both ciderism returned with a vengeance. This time on Meet the Press and in Surprise, Surprise, David Brooks's New York Times column.
SPEAKER_01It's going to be Rubio. You know, that was he had already said that by this time. It's going to be Rubio. Don't worry, it's going to be Rubio.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Uh, episode 356 in on July 22nd, 2016, we covered the Republican National Convention, Driftglass.
SPEAKER_00You sure as hell did.
SPEAKER_01Ted Cruz's speech, where he was booed off the stage after telling the crowd to vote their conscience.
SPEAKER_00Boo. Boo. Boo.
SPEAKER_01And he refused to endorse Trump on this on the stage of the uh convention. Also, AP fact check became a hotbed of conservative, here's that word again, controversy.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot of very controversial.
SPEAKER_01And then there was Melania Trump's outright plagiarism of Michelle Obama's 2008 speech, followed by the mad scramble by Manafort, Katrina Pearson, and her uh bullet necklace. Remember her?
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01To explain it because, you know, the reason it happened is English is not Melania's first language.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what happened.
SPEAKER_01That was their explanation. Also, it's all part of a Hillary plot.
SPEAKER_00Isn't everything?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Hugh Hewitt blabbing about how he would make the pivot from plagiarism, you know, Melania's absolute plagiarism, to perjury because Hillary Benghazi emails.
SPEAKER_00Whatever happened to Hugh Hewitt?
SPEAKER_01He's still he interviewed Trump two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00That's right. He's still alive and doing his Hugh Hewitt thing.
SPEAKER_01Doing the Toadie thing. Later, Hugh Hewitt and Mark Halprin opine ghastly about how heads need to roll because this kind of incompetence can't be tolerated. Let me just in the campaign. They need to fire somebody to make a point. Of course, the person they should have fired was the first lady.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, or the future first lady, right? Uh, the rest we summed up this way: Looney racist party tells everyone to be afraid. We have had a Muslim president for the last seven years. They said. Also, uh, there was a raving invocation by a wingnut pastor proclaiming Obama slash Democrats the enemy of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this didn't happen yesterday.
SPEAKER_01Also, uh, Rudy Giuliani had the longest two minutes hate ever, where he did from the left to the right, from the top to the bottom, and east to the west, and was just screaming the whole time.
SPEAKER_00And the audience loved it.
SPEAKER_01Every Republican said these were unqualified successes, and every normal person was horrified. It was also disgraced former GOP speechwriter day on MSNBC, David Frum and Michael Gerson asked to talk about what we're seeing here.
SPEAKER_00We uh we now must leave the last Blue Gal birthday during the Obama administration and pick up with episode 397, her first during the Trump regime. Shall I, Blue Gal?
SPEAKER_01Go right ahead.
SPEAKER_00Episode 397, July 14th, 2017. Russia and Obamacare were the themes. It's presented for your convenience in bullet form. Illinois finally had a budget, which was a rare and wonderful thing, and Governor Hedgefund responded by leaning hard right. Uh President Stupid swears that he didn't know a thing about Donnie, Manafort, and Jared meeting with a Russian attorney who promised dirt on Hillary, but said it don't mean a thing because anyone would take that meeting. Why don't you take it from there, Blue Gal?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Remember when Jack Welsh, the former General Motors CEO, was all over the internet in 2012 screaming that Obama cooked the unemployment numbers? Rich old plutocrats believe just as much crazy shit as the average GOP voter, because they're watching Fox. That's why. We're back to the GOP trying to kill health care for tens of millions of Americans. The Cruz Amendment was added, which would allow insurance companies to go back to selling junk policies.
SPEAKER_00I'll take it from here, Blue Gal. All right. Trump's attorney general Jefferson Beauregard redacted sessions thinks he doesn't have to answer your damn questions about Russia, especially questions from Democrats. So far, how many times has President Jared Kushner had to amend that scary federal disclosure form that you can get five years for lying on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Also, the White House won't even say whether Jared Kushner has security clearance to be working in the White House. By the way, Mike Pence has never met Donald Trump.
SPEAKER_00No, never heard of the man.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead, Driftglass. Tell us some more.
SPEAKER_00Well, Sarah Huckabee Sanders uh claimed the White House is, quote, as transparent as humanly possible, unquote, in an off-camera briefing. Yeah. This is astonishing that he would say this, but Trump claimed he's done more in five months than practically any president in history. I'm sure he'll calm down and stop exaggerating once he gets it under, you know, he figures this shit out.
SPEAKER_01Uh U.S. intelligence says they overheard Russian officials discussing Trump associates back in 2015. Oh my goodness. And Iowa Congressman Steve calves the size of Cantaloupe's king, wants to use funding from food stamps and Planned Parenthood to pay for President Stupa's border wall. Doing he knows nothing about math, by the way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Twitter users that were blocked by Trump are suing him and two of his aides. Jared Kushner asked for a half a billion dollar investment from Cutter's former prime minister. He didn't get it. And you know what? A few months later, Trump encouraged a blockade of Qatar, which now includes Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain, which Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in shifting the U.S. posture towards Qatar.
SPEAKER_01Finally, because they wouldn't give him a half a billion dollar injury money.
SPEAKER_00So I want my father-in-law to go over and punish them because that's how mob families work. By the way, 58% of Republicans and Republican-leading independents think colleges hurt the country.
SPEAKER_01Colleges hurt the country. Okay. Episode 398, July 21st, 2017, also in bullet form. After failing to destroy Illinois government and also, you know, destroy the public sector unions in Illinois that make it work, Governor Hedgefund is coping with his failure the same way a lot of CEOs cope with fuck-ups by firing staff, which has led to some hilarious results. One of Governor Bruce Rouner's new communications aides has argued that abortion is being used to rid the world of disabled and other unwanted persons, comparing it to Nazi Germany.
SPEAKER_00There we go.
SPEAKER_01Carl, a $45,000 a year communications specialist, was hired this week as part of sweeping changes within Bruce Rouner's administration. Carl, who goes by Brittany Klingon, Carl or Brittany Klingon in online articles, is listed as the editor and publisher of Reclaiming Feminism, a conservative blog. Don't worry, merely written by a guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, conservative guy about how women should be. But I don't think Governor Hedgefund has anything to worry about. I'm sure he'll be re-elected. You know, he'll be fine. He's got this in the back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Spicer out.
SPEAKER_00Sean. Bye bye, Sean. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_01Sean had to go. But you know, he's he inspired some great Saturday Night Live skits. We got to make sure that he sure did. And now Trump's lawyer blames the Secret Service for vetting and allowing Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer.
SPEAKER_00It never happened.
SPEAKER_01You know, never happened, but if it did, anybody would have taken that meeting. Sure. Uh Putin stooge, Dana Rohrbacher. Where is he now, I wonder. Uh tried to set up a virtual show trial last June to undermine a set of sanctions placed on Russia.
SPEAKER_00I'm sensing a theme here, Bluegall.
SPEAKER_01I am too. Jeff Sessions, who lied repeatedly under oath, failed to read the fine print on his employment contract. Sessions also rolled back an Obama directive that prevented police from seizing cash and property from people suspected of crimes but not charged. Or convicted, obviously. Uh, Trump gave a nut so exclusive interview, exclusive drift glass.
SPEAKER_00That's the important thing.
SPEAKER_01To Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker of the New York fucking times, in which he repeated that anybody would have agreed to meet with a Russian attorney who promised to have dirt on their political opponent. So Don Jr. did nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_00Nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_01Except break the law.
SPEAKER_00My son. My son is sinless.
SPEAKER_01Uh, it is very possible that Trump does not understand the difference between life insurance and health insurance. Hat tip Anna Marie Cox. Now that repeal and slow death had has died, it did. It couldn't pass the Senate thanks to John McCain's thumb. The GOP is back to repeal and fuck you. CBO says the Republican bill would leave 32 million more uninsured and double premiums over a decade.
SPEAKER_00Hey.
SPEAKER_01I wish.
SPEAKER_00Hey, that was it. That was almost it. That was almost a decade ago, Blue Gal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I wish that our premiums had only doubled when we lost our subsidies. They quadrupled.
SPEAKER_00Quadrupled, which is why.
SPEAKER_01More than quadrupled.
SPEAKER_00Which is why you're home from work and we're doing this late at night.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Trump has threatened to hold health care for tens of millions of poor and working class Americans hostage to force Democrats to capitulate. Where have I heard that recently?
SPEAKER_00Shocking. Still more shocking.
SPEAKER_01Tom Price and his Health and Human Services Department are using Affordable Care Act funds to undermine the Affordable Care Act. And as predicted, Mitch McConnell, ever heard of him? Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have begun lowering the blame the Democrats lifeboats into the water. A voter suppression freak show began this week. Their charter is to gin up some scenario in which President Stupid didn't lose the popular vote by 3 million in 2016.
SPEAKER_00Which the timing is, I mean, come on. He just never ever gives this up. And he just he can just live. And now the whole Republican Party's gone gone along with his lies.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Oh yeah. They have to, or they'll never have a job in the White House and they'll be drummed out of the party.
SPEAKER_00Well, what and when you hear them under questioning, very simple questioning. I think John Ossoff was asking, you know, who won the 2020 election? I'm not going to get into that. Well, you're you're obliged to be truthful. I understand that. Well, who won? I'm not going to talk about that. And they won't say out loud because then the wrath of the almighty monster.
SPEAKER_01They can't say it under oath. They can't they can't lie under oath. Right. And they can't say it out loud because Trump will hear it on the TV and just fire them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A growing incredulity in the Beltway media at exactly how completely brain dead the average Republican voter is. They cite some recent statistics. For example, 32% of Trump voters don't believe Trump Jr. had a meeting with the Russian lawyer at all about information that might be harmful to Hillary Clinton. 45% believe the meeting happened. And 24% say they're not sure, despite Trump Jr. confirming that the meeting took place.
SPEAKER_00And this is when this is when the Ohio diners started showing up all over. Yeah. All over because they couldn't believe that out here where we live, they are that fucking stupid. And they really are that fucking stupid.
SPEAKER_01The grifting continues, the military at that time was paying $130,000 a month to lease space in Trump Tower in New York City, despite Trump not spending a night there since becoming president. The military's lease in Trump Tower is far above market rate for similarly sized apartments in the luxury high-rise market. And at this time, 20 what year did we say this was Drift's class?
SPEAKER_002017.
SPEAKER_01This is 2017. Donald Trump demanded that the Senate rewrite its rules to permit him to govern by decree. Which is why. And you know, it was only like uh two years earlier that the entire right wing media ecosystem was calling Barack Obama a czar.
SPEAKER_00Oh, no, no, he employed czars. He was a tyrant.
SPEAKER_01Oh, he was a tyrant who employed Tsars. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He employed czars, but he was a tyrant and a usurper who. Wasn't even born here.
SPEAKER_01And signing one executive order was tyranny.
SPEAKER_00Tyranny. It was, it was, uh, it was a short hop to fascism or communism or somethingism. And here Trump is like saying, Yeah, I just want to rule by decree. Make it make it so. And you know what? He finally got the Senate he wanted. He sure did. Um, that brings us to episode 449, July 13th, 2018, which is about Putin, NATO, and the RubeTube. The title was The Tribe That Rub Shit in Their Hair, which is I stole from my own blog from a decade before this podcast. Uh, we welcomed a new fake sponsor who has since passed into memory. The RubeTube. Do you have a sudden, urgent need to filter out every other Donald Trump walk back? Are tariffs killing your family farm? And you need someone to help you find the Democrat to blame? Well, the RubeTube, your worries are over. The RubeTube will automatically decontextualize the Republican fiasco of the day and reassemble it as a heroic saga of MAGAs saving America from the international crime bosses at the FBI. Just type in the offer code TrumpNew and begin to enjoy soothing 100% fact-filtered news today. The RubeTube. It's Fox News without Chef Smith. And now Fox News is without Chef Smith. That's true. Trump said he won't rule out ceasing NATO military exercises in the Baltic states if Putin requests it. Well, also, hey, those crime sanctions look a little tight. How about we loosen them for you? Huh? Trump picked to be the number two official at NASA is James Moorhart, who is currently the Senate's deputy sergeant at arms and has no experience whatsoever in space operations or technology. But I'm sure he looks the part. Thousands of asylum seekers will be turned away before they have an opportunity to plead their case in court under a new Trump administration immigration policy. Surprise, surprise. In a recent speech, Brett Kavanaugh ever heard of him, described Roe v. Wade as part of the quote, tide of freewheeling judicial creation of unenumerated rights. Unquote. Couldn't have seen that coming. Robert Mueller asked a federal court in Virginia for 100 blank subpoenas in the case against Paul Manafort, and Manafort is gonna go to big boy jail. But he won't be there long.
SPEAKER_02Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_00Tariffs, sure, they sound like fun until the Trump-loving soybean farmer suddenly has no market for his produce and wants to know what the evil government's gonna do about it. Mind you, this is still 2017.
SPEAKER_01This is the first term.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. U.S. government officials told four immigrant women they would have to pay for DNA tests in order to be reunited with their children who were separated from them by the Trump administration's policies.
SPEAKER_01It's a crime against humanity, folks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one after another.
SPEAKER_01Episode 450, July 20th, 2018. Republicans strip funding from election security. There we go. The GOP killed a motion to subpoena the interpreter from Trump Putin private meeting in Helsinki, for which there is no written record. Kids are still in cages. Sean Spicer has written a book and he's ready for love. D.H Secretary Kirsten Nielsen doubled down on Trump's both sides' defense of Charlottesville Nazis. It's not that one side is right, one side is wrong. 79% of Republicans approve of the way Trump handled his Helsinki knife his own intelligence agencies in the back press conference with Putin, while only 7% of Democrats approve. I want to meet those 7% of Democrats.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_01I don't think they're Democrats, Driftclaw. Devin Nunez, remember Devin Nunez?
SPEAKER_00I do.
SPEAKER_01He spent nearly $15,000 in political donations on Boston Celtics tickets, winery tours, and trips to Las Vegas. All charges were listed as fundraising expenses.
SPEAKER_00That's so quaint. That is so you know today we learned that the uh the Trump teleprompter guy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I heard about this.
SPEAKER_00Made $100K, $100,000 on uh because he had access to speeches before they before the events. Yeah, and and he made $100,000 on this, and that's that's a that's a rounding error in this administration. But back in the day, Devin Nunia's spending $15K on this shit was a headline, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_01Uh Trump trashed the uh European Union, trashed England, and left the NATO alliance in shambles. 28% of young adults age 18 to 34 say they are absolutely certain that they'll vote in the midterms compared to 74% of senior citizens. Eric and Trump Jr. cost taxpayers nearly $250,000 in Secret Service protection for two business trips. In February 2017, the two traveled together to Dubai Driftglass. Was it on state business? Well, yeah, it was. They had to open a golf club under the Trump brand. Trump's military parade through DC will cost nearly as much as the tremendously expensive canceled military exercises with South Korea that Trump once said cost a fortune. This uh Trump parade is expected to cost approximately $12 million. Uh the daily White House press briefing at this point had only been held three times in the past 30 days.
SPEAKER_00Most transparent administration ever in the history of Blue Gal.
SPEAKER_01Trump tweeted that his meeting with Putin was even better than his great meeting with NATO allies while blaming the media for being rude and going crazy. Both Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi unloaded on Trump, and almost no one covered it. Trump said he never considered asking Putin to extradite the 12 Russian intelligence agents charged with hacking Democratic emails. Instead, he blamed Democrats for bad defenses. Trump called Robert Mueller's probe ridiculous and a disaster for our country during his press conference with Putin. And these days, of course, he's calling Vlodomir Zelensky Putin. Yeah, he's while he's sitting right next to him because his brain is cottage to cheese. Okay. The IRS will no longer force Koch and other groups to disclose their donors.
SPEAKER_00Most transparent. Most transparent administration.
SPEAKER_01Most transparent administration in history. Mitch McConnell finally admitted he knew Russians hacked. He knew they were hacking American politicians.
SPEAKER_00Democrats. He knew they were hacking Democrats.
SPEAKER_01And yet he did nothing in 2016 about it.
SPEAKER_00And that brings us to episode 502. That was from July 2nd, I'm sorry, 12th in 2019, the title of which was Breaking the Fourth Estate by Breaking the Fourth Wall. Governor J.B. Prisker, our new governor at the time, disinvited the band Confederate Railroad from the Illinois State Fair because the Confederate flag is a symbol of, quote, murder, rape, and treason, unquote.
SPEAKER_01There was a band called Confederate Railroad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And he said, fuck off. And of course, everybody, you know, all the Republicans at town lost their mind, and he said, I don't give a shit. You're not coming. So that was like, we're like, oh, oh, he's a good one. Oh, okay. This guy, yeah, all right. Uh our congressman at the time, Rodney Davis, floated his own unique theory of why there are so few Republican women in Congress. He blamed, wait for it, Nancy Pelosi. You're gonna have to follow this because the reasoning in this is very intricate and stupid. Uh, this is from WCIA in Champaign, Illinois. Quote, there are too few members of our Republican conference that are women, or African American, or a minority, Davis told a group of women on Monday. I get asked a lot, what do you think as a Republican with the fact that you have many fewer women in your conference today than you ever have? He continued, and this is where it gets weird, folks. I like to remind people that it is Nancy Pelosi, who in many cases spent millions of dollars to elect a male Democrat over a female female Republican in swing districts. Damn her. Right. That's the that's what she should do to support women. She should support women.
SPEAKER_01She should let, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's that's former Congressman Rodney Davis, folks. That's kind of that I believe we we referred to him as inert carbon Rodney Davis.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we did.
SPEAKER_00Um, Donald Trump's innovation was breaking the fourth wall of Republican politics. And we we talked over the years, sort of in-depth analysis of what is he doing and the Republican Party and to the media. And this was one of those, one of those podcasts. For decades, it's been established protocol in the media to let David Brooks gas on about an entirely imaginary, wish-fulfillment beltway Republican Party, while conspicuously not noticing what the actual Republicans were doing and saying out here in the real world. These fourth wall breaks freaked out the mainstream media because, according to their mythology, no such Republican constituency for such overt racism, hypocrisy, conspiracy mongering, and pathological lying could possibly exist. Though that's just impossible that those people exist out there. And so each time uh Trump did something monstrous, they pronounced his candidacy doomed. And yet, each time he did it, he just got stronger because he understood the Republican base, and the mainstream media has been lying about the Republican base for as long as I can remember.
SPEAKER_01And he ran against the mainstream media very consciously. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He ran against the Republican Republican establishment, against Jeb, and against the mainstream media who were lying to you. And they were and still are, but not in the way that he represented. And we believe the reason the media freak out over Democrats in disarray is that some candidates and elected officials, this is back in 2019, specifically Elizabeth Warren and AOC, are also breaking the fourth wall in their own way. They're telling the truth and they're telling it unvarnished. And that just blows the media's mind. You're not supposed to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01This is eight years before Zoran Mandani, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you're not supposed to talk about politics or politicians that way. You're not supposed to call them liars when they're liars, or traitors when they're traitors, or racists when they're racist. That's the rule. Now, right after this, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee declared tomorrow to be Nathan Bedford Forest Day. Uh, in case you didn't know, this Forrest was the first grand wizard of the KKK, a ruthless, murderous traitor, and domestic terrorist. Uh, State Department official intelligence official resigned in protest after the White House blocked portions of his written congressional testimony on climate change and its threat to national security. Rod Scoonover spoke before the House Intelligence Committee in June that climate change is a possibly catastrophic threat to national security, but the White House would not let him submit evidence and data supporting his assessments.
SPEAKER_01The White House correspondent for Breitbart has joined the Trump administration. Michelle Moons will work in the Office of Domestic Policy Counsel.
SPEAKER_00Aw. Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking people on Twitter who criticized or mocked him. A federal appeals court ruled. And a federal appeals court dismissed an emoluments lawsuit against Trump. All three judges on the panel were surprised, surprised, appointed by Republican presidents.
SPEAKER_01So no emoluments against Trump. No. All right. Uh July 15th, 2019, we launched Science Fiction University as a standalone podcast with episode one, Yubick versus Inception. On July 19th, 2019, we did episode 503. The GOP's continued sliding into out and proud, full-blown public racism has led to a bumper crop of both ciderism and flat-out denialism from all the usual suspects. President Donald Trump directed tweets saying, go back, go as in go back to where you came from to four Democratic congresswomen of color. Rodney Davis had no comment. And the subsequent send her back chants were made by the MAGA crowd at a North Carolina rally. Go back. But but Marco Rubio responded the tweet was wrong and the chant last night grotesque. The left-wing politicians and many in the media demanding outrage are self-righteous hypocrites. And the outrage and response cycle allows for only two sides and demands you pick or else. It's a stupid game that I refuse to play. Between it's wrong to say go back to a black woman, congressional candidate.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't want to. This is the same dilemma that is now writ large with the entire Republican Party. They can't tell the truth anymore. No, or Donald Trump will annihilate them.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And so they they they make up these weird word-sile excuses about if this is a game, I'm not going to play it, I'm not going to answer your question. You're just looking for, you know, quick hits for the internet. You're just trying to make me look stupid. No, you are stupid, and you're a liar, and that's how you won't answer the question like who won the 2020 election?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Noted Daily Wire scumbag Matt Walsh weighed in to blame both sides. Uh Mitch McConnell at the time said, all of us need to lower the temperature. Send her back was the chant in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Uh human stool sample Noah Rothman, also at the time the most punchable face on television. Trump is committed to racial antagonism. So too are the squad in their own special way. Responsible voices are cowed. No one is going to intervene in this blood sport. And it's all going to get so much worse. Because equally to blame are the women of color of the squad.
SPEAKER_00Right. The fascists and the people opposing fascists are the arsonists and the fire department are pretty much the same thing. Yeah. Doing pretty much the same stuff, you know. And don't make me choose between them. I refuse to play that game.
SPEAKER_01Matt Schlap. Remember Matt Schlap?
SPEAKER_00Vividly.
SPEAKER_01He took a break out of ogling and rubbing up against men in a bar uh to say no one should be bullied. This must stop. Stop saying you're gonna impeach the motherfucker. Stop saying Pelosi marginalizes you because of her bigotry. Stop making Jews feel unsafe. Stop comparing law enforcement to Nazis. Just stop.
SPEAKER_00Stop. Just stop. Now, wasn't Matt Schlap part of the original um uh riot, the uh Brooks Brothers riot brothers riot in 2000?
SPEAKER_01That Roger Stone sent him down to Florida.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so these people are they just never go away. They just until they're taken out, like Lindsey Graham toes up, they never leave and they're they always find work on the right because there's always money for fascism.
SPEAKER_01There's always money. There's always money to support that. Yep. Future resistance hero Liz Cheney had a word to say. Our opposition to our socialist colleagues, okay. Our opposition to our socialist colleagues is not about race, gender, religion. It's about their dangerous policies. They aim to steal power from the people and give to the government. They embrace anti-Semitism, open borders, late-term abortion, and always blame America. Yeah. So we're just battling in an arena of ideas like open borders. Yeah, okay. Steve Scalise said tonight's disapproval resolution, which there was a resolution to disapprove of Donald Trump saying this, but it serves no one and fixes nothing. It divides our nation and distracts us from addressing the issues the American people sent us here to solve. It's time House Democrats start focusing on the real problems facing Americans instead of their own. And your party, Steve Scalise, is saying, go back, and the mob is saying, send her back.
SPEAKER_00And you will notice that the more over time, this is what we found so interesting about digging through our archives, that the the themes are just always there. They're always the same. The only thing that changes is the tempo and escalation. The crazier and more dangerous and more violent and more piggish and more racist Donald Trump becomes, the more the both sides do it brigade becomes absolutely a fetish because they can't blame Trump for being Trump. They can't blame Republican voters for putting him in office.
SPEAKER_03For being racist.
SPEAKER_00They can't blame Republican voters for being Republican voters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you have to find a way to not address the issue at all. And you do that by blaming both sides. And the more Trump becomes a monster, clearly is a monster, the more people in and around him, and people who are just stepping out of the party but can't really leave the party programming in their brain behind, becomes more and more kind of hysterical. And an automatic reaction every time Trump does something terrible is both sides. And you can watch this happen over time, which is why we say both sides do it is the big lie. It is the enabling lie. It's the load-bearing lie that makes all the other lies possible. So this brings us to episode 554, July 10th, 2020. This is pandemic, panic, and the collapse of conservative respectability. Cancel culture has become the new panic. Cancel culture used to just be called at-will employment. And pretty much every conservative was in favor of it because they despise unions and think the ruthless, unsentimental market should decide the worth of every individual, which in effect meant people with more power got to mess with people with less power. But different people have power now, and the ancien regime does not like it. David Brooks canceled the Republican Party, which is hilarious. Now, Charlie Sykes of the Bulwark, of the brand new outfit called the Bulwark at this point, was deeply concerned about caricatures being used by the left and the right. And that's when I began to smell rat in the bulwark universe. Brett Stevens was still getting paid to write ridiculous crap at the New York fucking Times, so this is not the cancel culture I was promised. Because he still has a goddamn job. Because, you know, sure Trump is bad, but quote, the more serious problem today comes from the left, from liberal elites who, when tested, lacked the courage of their liberal convictions, from so-called progressives whose core convictions were never liberal to begin with, from administrative types and nonprofits and corporations who, with only vague convictions of their own, don't want to be on the wrong side of a PR headache. Unquote.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot of words, Driftglass.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't think they mean anything.
SPEAKER_00Well, they mean that the real problem is the left. That's all it means. That's all it means.
SPEAKER_01And that there are elites in institutions here that are somehow protecting themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't they're can't they're doing DEI stuff to avoid a bad PR thing. And that's the real problem. If this is David Brooks, you know, Trump's a monster, but you know, there is a speech code at Brown University. And isn't that just about as bad, Blue Cal? Isn't that just about as bad? And at this point, I was writing about this stuff like every day. And you could see it happening in front of you. That was the weird part.
SPEAKER_01You could see the whole sure Trump is bad, but sure Trump is bad, but the left. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I hearkened back to the very first joke I told on the internet.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which is about about Dick Cheney and, you know, homeless veterans and burning kittens. And the first three words out of Koki Roberts' mouth were, but the Democrats. That lie has never changed. Yeah. And there is no force on earth that can stop these people from repeating it over and over again, other than Democrats taking over everything and firing these assholes. Now, brother Charlie Pierce had this to say about what was going on in the world at that time. Quote, Mark McKinnon is on Morning Joe talking about how he and W1 in 2000 on a platform of restoring honor and dignity to the White House. And Cleo, Muse of History, and I are vomiting in impeccable harmony, unquote. Yeah. Kanye Elizondo, Mountain Dew, Herbert Camacho West announced he's running for president on the they're using vaccines to put chips in us. Ticket. Whatever happened to that, that young man? Trump threatens universities' tax exempt status. Our children must be educated, not indoctrinated. From Twitter, too many universities and school systems are about radical left indoctrination, not education. Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their tax exem status. Again, using the power of his office to punish his enemies. It's all he's ever been about, and getting rich. Dr. Anthony Fauci, remember him, advised states having a serious problem with a surge in coronavirus cases to seriously look at shutting down. Another 1.3 million workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week. That was the 14th straight week of decline. More than 48 million people have now filed for unemployment benefits for the first time in the past 16 weeks. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman will retire from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of military service over a quote campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation by Donald Trump. Donald Trump strongly implied during this time that he's ready to pardon Roger Stone, and he would go on to pardon Roger Stone in December of 2020. Trump administration officially notified the UN that it will withdraw from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Episode 555, July 17th, 2020. Driftglass landed in Twitter jail again. That was the lead story.
SPEAKER_00It was. It was in the New York Times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And this time it was over literally nothing.
SPEAKER_00Nothing. Just nothing. And I was banned for life. I was banned for life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. From Twitter. And then I'll which then, you know, at some point we had to leave Twitter for some reason.
SPEAKER_00We left voluntarily, but I appealed twice and they told me you've used up all your appeals, you're never getting back in. I appealed again like eight months later and said, Oh, yeah, that was a mistake. Come on back to Twitter. So then now we're gone.
SPEAKER_01Ever heard of her? Yeah. And Andrew Sullivan have quit their jobs at being terrible at the New York Times and the New York magazine to form a new band, the Cavilling Wilburries. That was driftglass writing.
SPEAKER_00I thought that was kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good. Uh the U.S. surpassed 3,600,000 confirmed COVID cases. The day before, the U.S. set another world record with more than 75,600 new coronavirus cases in a single day. Another 1,000 dead in a day. 25 individual states, and Walmart, Target, and CVS all have net mask mandates, July 17th of 2020. But there is still no national plan, no national strategy, not even a national face mask mandate. Mika Brzezinski had to announce he is way worse than anyone thought he would be. We never thought that we would be seeing this. Nobody did.
SPEAKER_00Nobody could have predicted this, Bluegill. Nobody could have predicted it.
SPEAKER_01You know, she was doing uh Trump Tower fashion shows back when he was just a New Yorker. Thomas Sowell was on Mark Levin's Fox News White Power Hour telling his viewers that the concept of systemic racism has no meaning, that the left's use of that phrase recalls the propaganda tactics of Joseph Goebbels, and that if this goes on, the United States could reach a point of no return. Another 1.3 million people filed for unemployment the week before, the 17th straight week that new claims exceeded one million people. A White House coronavirus task force document shows 18 states are in the red zone for COVID-19 cases, with more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population last week. That was the week before July 17, 2020. Paul Krugman wrote, quote, the Trump administration is trying to solve the pandemic by suppressing information. It's both unbelievable and totally predictable. This is the first time this has happened in modern U.S. epidemic history. U.S. coronavirus data has already disappeared after the Trump administration shifted control from CDC to Health and Human Services. The CDC.gov hospital capacity dashboard has gone dark. The director has said CDC still has access to the data, but apparently the public no longer does. Trump won't sign a COVID-19 relief bill unless it has a tax cut for the rich. From the Washington Post, who would kick millions off health insurance in the middle of a pandemic? Yes, Trump.
SPEAKER_00Now that's roughly the first decade of Blue Gal's birthday episodes. It covers Democratic infighting, Mitt Romney's London Adventure, a global pandemic, open authoritarianism, the launch of science fiction university. And if you look back over time, like we've done, the details change, the recurring cast of villains changes every so off every so often, but the through lines, the media failure, Republican radicalization, the struggle to tell the truth, the war on facts, and the war on truth is remarkably consistent. So if you're ready for 2021 through 2026, join us again next week for part two of Blue Gal's birthday break and bask in the glory that is our remembering what happened before today. One other thing I'd like to mention is that having gone through these archives, if you live through this time and you voted for Donald Trump again for office, you are dead to me forever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you voted for him against Joe Biden in 2020, you are dead to me forever. Because you are an unsalvageable human garbage thing. You are, you are, you are an enemy of democracy because Joe Biden on his worst day is better than Trump on his best day. Kamala Harris on her worst day would have been a thousand times better than Donald Trump on his best day. And to vote having lived through this shit, having to have going back to vote for him again and again and again and again is unforgivable.
SPEAKER_01Yep. It is unforgivable.
SPEAKER_00There's no excuse involved. Again, if you were dumb enough to vote for him in 2016 and support him in 2017, because you're a Rube and you don't and you get all your information through Fox News and hate radio, whether you're out on the fucking tractor and you have no idea what the rest of the world's doing or is like, okay, I can forgive you being that fucking stupid. But after a decade of this, you're still back in the sky. You are an enemy of democracy, and you deserve to be treated as the enemy.
SPEAKER_01But Driftglass, if they didn't vote for Trump, they'd have to vote for someone with a vagina.
SPEAKER_00I know. I know.
SPEAKER_01And that's a bridge too far. They can't do it. How could they have a choice? That's not a choice.
SPEAKER_00A fate worse than death, Bluegill. A fate worse than death.
SPEAKER_01So next week, uh part two, and it'll be a No Fair Remembering stuff on Tuesday. And and we'll see you then. Each week we post to our Patreon page and website an Internet Kitty sent in by you, the listeners. This week's Internet Kitty, once again, is a beautiful dog named Ruby. Uh Ruby's Human says that Ruby is an older gal who has recently had a successful surgery on her eyelid, but I'll spare you the details. And of course, Ruby Eats freshly poured pet food, our fake sponsor. Whether you serve Pet Store Perfection or Dollar Store Dreck, your pet will expect no sympathy while recovering from eyelid surgery and simply ask that the food they eat be only freshly poured.
SPEAKER_05Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. That's the flavor they adore. Once my scoop and hearts as sore. Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you can visit Ruby, who is a beautiful dog, at our Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash prolef pod or our website, prolefpod.com. And you can send your internet kitty, dog, or other pet to us at our email address, prolefpodcast at gmail.com, where you can also write to both of us. Feel free to write us. We love hearing from you. Be aware that if you write to us at any of our addresses, we reserve the right to read your email or U.S. Postal Service Go Postal Unions letter on the air, unless you say otherwise thank you to everyone so far who has donated something in honor of my birthday.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's not too late. Between these two shows is plenty the perfect time.
SPEAKER_02Plenty of time.
SPEAKER_01Send a birthday card or a birthday uh donation on PayPal or Patreon. Uh and uh I I thank you for all the love and and good wishes out there. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00And if you wish to do it some other way, there's a gourmet coffee guideline you could follow. Uh if you can afford to buy an espresso-based beverage for yourself, you could buy one for us at patreon.com forward slash proleft pod, because this isn't Jerry. This is actually the job we do every week with your help and support. And we've been doing it, as you know, for 16 years now. And we're gonna drag you through the last six of those years next week. You can also help us continue to grow by sharing the show on social media. I know a lot of you do that. I know the Bob Seska listeners and Nicole Sandler listeners and Brad Friedman listeners.
SPEAKER_01And when are you gonna be in Hell Sparks?
SPEAKER_00Next week. Next week, I think next Monday, gonna be on Hell Sparks' show. Um, I have to follow Bob Seska, which is like the worst thing in the world because Bob's amazing.
SPEAKER_01I don't know why Hal doesn't just have both of you on for the whole two hours, but I don't know why he doesn't just you know take a nap and we'll just do a show for him.
SPEAKER_00Like three days ago.
SPEAKER_01Hell Sparks cannot take a nap.
SPEAKER_00But we have gotten so many um crossover listeners from other places who discovered us through those sources. So we're we're incredibly grateful to those hosts for having us on. And we're we're glad that you're joining us, and we hope that you're finding something useful in the conversations we do every week. Um, so if you can, if you love this podcast, introduce it to a friend, they might just hit it off. And thank you for helping us spread the word.
SPEAKER_01Hey Driftglass, how are the internet kitties doing this week?
SPEAKER_04Well, Blue Gal, as the internet kitties say, You see, you see, your stupid minds. Stupid, stupid.
SPEAKER_00And happy birthday, Blue Gal.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Driftglass.
SPEAKER_00Love you.
SPEAKER_01Love you too.
SPEAKER_06Bye.com.