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 1023: Life During Wartime?
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Episode 1023 tracks how Republicans keep telling us who they are, from Darren Bailey embracing young-earth creationism to Trump calling Democrats "the enemy from within" over and over again. Driftglass and Blue Gal line up years of Trump's own words describing political opponents as existential enemies, then ask a hard question: if the Right sees this as a real war, shouldn't we believe them and plan accordingly? The episode also catches Erick Erickson, a longtime Trump critic turned supporter turned critic again, warning about white nationalist infiltration of conservative institutions, proving that even his own allies can't escape the monster he helped build. It's a call to stop assuming compromise will work with people who have told us plainly that compromise was never their goal.
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SPEAKER_02He's being very needy. This is the podcast for the week of September 18th, 2026. It's not safe for work.
SPEAKER_07Recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance, where we are all registered to vote. It is the Professional Left with Drift Class and Blue Gal.
SPEAKER_02We're going to switch things up a little today. Instead of jumping into a long deep dive into some aspect of what the hell has happened to this country, and yeah, we'll get to that. We're going to start off with a news roundup, sort of. Not all the news that's happened in the last few weeks, but a representative sample starting with a bit of relevant local news. But first, this from 1997. This is Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou in conversation about a very important life lesson that way too many Democrats and virtually the entire legacy media keeps ignoring.
SPEAKER_03The other most important lesson. Well, it's hard for me to number them, but let's say one of the most important lessons I ever learned from you. When people show you who they are, believe them. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. A person says to you, I'm selfish, or I'm mean, or I am unkind. Or I'm crazy. Or I'm cra Believe them. They know themselves much better than you do.
SPEAKER_07We're gonna keep coming back to that, so you might want to make a note of it because we will return. Now on to local news where Donald Trump continues helpfully doing free campaign commercials for Democrats. What a guy. This is from the Chicago Tribune, September 14th, this very week, 2026, this very year, quote, Trump backs Darren Bailey for Illinois governor as GOP candidate has sought to distance himself from the president. President Donald Trump has endorsed Darren Bailey for governor, a move that undercuts the Republican nominee's attempts to distance himself from a president on popular Illinois, and whose backing contributed to Bailey's loss to Democrats, J.B. Pritzker, in 2022. I've already endorsed him. I'm all for Bailey, Trump told reporters as he prepared to depart Ireland on Sunday after a two-day trip that mixed diplomatic catastrophes. I'm sorry, that's diplomatic meetings, with attending the I am gen Irish Open Golf Tournament at his resort in Doonbeg, County Clare.
SPEAKER_02Donald Trump's own resort. Of course.
SPEAKER_07Of course. Where he can charge the taxpayers for putting up his Secret Service detail.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Track rate plus 10% or whatever. Right.
SPEAKER_07No, that that's just a that's a first Trump term ripoff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. That's a grift from the beginning of his first administration.
SPEAKER_07That's what he uses to tip the crypto guys that he rips off from now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, these days. Right, right.
SPEAKER_07Uh anyway, back to the article. Trump, who in 2022 endorsed Bailey in that year's GOP primary and Bailey's near 13% point loss to Pritzker in the general election, called the two-term Democratic governor, who is also one of the president's most vocal critics nationally, a disaster as a governor. Look what's happening with crime, and Jamie Pritzker should lose. For some reason, Democrats win there. I don't know why. Political genius, Donald Trump. Trump said a Pritzker, who, in addition to seeking a third term, is also eyeing a potential 2028 presidential bid. Unquote.
SPEAKER_02Now, Bailey may be a Rube who believes that our planet and the entire universe are 6,000 years old, and that people and dinosaurs lived together, and that enslavers were actually decent and provided many benefits to the enslaved, which is part of the curriculum of the school Darren Bailey owned. And sure, maybe Darren Bailey became a millionaire collecting federal subsidies and took hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-19 loans he never had to pay back for a pandemic that he called a hoax. And sure, maybe he's okay with the massive federal deficits that his own party has run up. Also, he's pro-Iran war and he wants big cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare. And he's in favor of the military occupation of Chicago. But Donald Trump has no idea why Democrats win here.
SPEAKER_07None at all. It's a great big stupid mystery. Now, Darren Bailey might be a joke of a candidate. He might be a big old slab of downstate ignoramus who supports Trump's hateful fascist policies right down the line. But Darren Bailey isn't stupid enough to want Donald Trump's shitty diaper loser stank all over him, which is why he's squirming so hard to stay the hell away from the dear leader while at the same time trying like hell not to incur the wrath of the dear leader. Very sour spot to be in. And this is the guy offered up by Illinois Republicans for the second time in a row as their best hope for retaking the governor's mansion.
SPEAKER_02This is the state of the GOP today. All still enthralled to the dear leader and all accurately reflecting the ignorance and bigotry of the voters who elected them. When they tell you who they are, believe them.
SPEAKER_07Yep. Then let's move next door to Missouri, where fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy and needs feeding. From ABC News, KMIZ 12 in Missouri, quote, University of Missouri investigating professor after video alleges DEI sympathies. The University of Missouri is investigating allegations of staff violating federal and state laws against diversity, equity, and inclusion practices after a video reportedly showing a professor expressing support for DEI surfaced Monday. That, boys and girls, what is what fucking cancel culture actually looks like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07The video filmed by Accuracy and Media with what appears to be a hidden camera shows University of Missouri professor and chair of the Department of Sociology, Wayne Breckhus, speaking with an AIME investigator about DEI on campus. I think we have a lot of awesome courses, and lots of us do, you know, DEI type research, Breckhus said in the video. Lots of us do DEI types of research and things like that. I do things with identities and inequalities and used to do a lot of LGBTQ research and things like that. Ames said the video shows a public employee breaking the law.
SPEAKER_02I just want to reiterate, this guy's a sociology professor.
SPEAKER_07He is.
SPEAKER_02That's what he's supposed to be talking about.
SPEAKER_07He's the chair of the department. He's the fucking chair of the sociology department. But he's not doing phrenology courses. So you know. Right. Why aren't we doing skull? If you just if you just fill the white skull up with mustard seeds and the black skull, like, and this is but this is what they're dragging us back into.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And now AIME said the video showed a public employee breaking the law. What we see consistently is that these administrators are breaking laws, deceiving laws, ignoring executive orders to push their radically divisive politics, no matter what they're told to do otherwise, and every taxpayer should be outraged. AIM President Adam Julette said, unquote, because the fascist Looks like he comes from French immigrants, Adam. Adam. Hey Adam.
SPEAKER_02Hey, Adam.
SPEAKER_07And you know what? The fascist Orthodox police never sleep. So when they tell you who they are, believe them.
SPEAKER_02All right, let's move on to national news now, Driftglass, where the RAP is reporting that, quote, the revamped 60 Minutes suffered double-digit ratings declines with its season 59 premiere. Sunday's episode brought in 7.94 million viewers on CBS, down 21% from last year's premiere, according to Nielsen figures provided to the RAP. The broadcast drew 1.6 million viewers among adults ages 25 to 54, a steeper 33% year-over-year decline in the key demographic. The results mark the program's smallest season premiere audience since at least 2000. That's 26 years ago.
SPEAKER_07Quarter of a century. A quarter of a century. Yep.
SPEAKER_02And the first 60 minute season premiere this century to fall below 9 million total viewers and 2 million adults ages 25 to 54, according to Nielsen Records reviewed by the rap, unquote. Oliver Darcy at Status reacts, quote, Barry's 60 bust. Barry Weiss blew up 60 minutes, ostensibly to create a better show. Instead, her revamped premiere just suffered its worst debut ratings of the 21st century. What one longtime TV executive told Status amounts to a quote death spiral. Yeah. Unquote. Also, I think uh she did a story that was uh designed to make Pete Hegseth happy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well and made and and viewers turned it off. They did like ratings from the beginning of the hour to the end of the hour. People turned it off.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, the Ellisons bought the network to break it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And they succeeded.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And now it's broken. And every one of these stories should begin with, to no one's surprise.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Because no one has any business being surprised that fascists, and that's what they are, fascists cannot tolerate opposing opinions. Remember, Elon Musk spent $44 billion of other people's money to buy Twitter just so he could turn it into a Nazi shithole. And you know what? Mission accomplished. But of course, it doesn't stop there, does it? This is from the Houston Chronicle Today. Quote, Elon Musk is spending big to keep James Tallerico from winning the U.S. Senate seat. Elon Musk is getting more aggressive in trying to stop Democrat James Tallerico from becoming his U.S. Senator. Over the last two days, a political committee tied to the richest man of Texas reported dropping another 1.2 million into the heat of the contest. The group has now committed more than 3.8 million to helping Republican Ken Paxton, the most corrupt man in politics, maybe the second most corrupt man in politics. And what has become one of the most expensive battles for Congress in the nation? The New York Times reported earlier this summer that Musk planned to spend more than $100 million in the midterm elections to help keep Republican scumbags trying to retain control of the U.S. House and Senate. A little editorial by me on the side of the case.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, we'll be editorializing in there, Driftglass. Watch it. Watch it.
SPEAKER_07Watch it. I might get called out by AIME for falsifying the.
SPEAKER_02AIM might be secretly recording this. Oh, wait, we're recording it.
SPEAKER_07Hey, AIM, I've got my DEI right here in my pants. So why don't you come investigate that? These fucking people. In 2024, Musk gave $2 million to a political committee that was used to help U.S. Senator Ted Cruz with his re-election, and in May he donated $500,000 to Governor Greg Abbott's re-election campaign. Musk's spending for Paxton is increasing just as President Donald Trump and other national Republicans have been pouring money into the U.S. Senate race. Polls show Paxton and Tal Rico are in a dead heat, according to recent polling. Four other Super PAX besides Musk's have committed to spending $91 million just in September to help Paxton, unquote. And as Heather Cox Richardson said in a different venue, because she's not a guest of here, but we'd love to have her. All of this should be illegal. All of this should be illegal, but it's not. But it's not.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and I don't know where all of this money is supposed to go because the ad buys are all done through November.
SPEAKER_07I know in Illinois it would be wasted because Doris Turner already owns YouTube. She owns the airwaves here. Yeah. And you cannot go two minutes without a Doris Turner commercial anywhere. Anywhere. Showing up in the fillings of your teeth.
SPEAKER_02So it's just it's insane how many ads she's bought. But she bought them a long time ago. And that's what I'm I, you know, I can see okay, let's hire a bunch more million-dollar consultant, you know, million-dollar for two months consultant to come on board our campaign and do and do something something.
SPEAKER_07Well, and but Tex Texas is huge and has a lot of radio stations, a lot of local TV stations, you know, hire a lot of you know actors and spokespeople. To roll into there and talk about Ken Paxton, what a what a great guy he is. You know, just because he was impeached from by his own party. Yeah. And he's the most corrupt, you know, a lot of that corruption, he plowed that money right back into Texas. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, she divorced her husband for biblical reasons. Texas.
SPEAKER_07Was it because he took the Lord's name? Adultery. Oh, that other one. I thought he he planted rows of crops next to each other that he wasn't supposed to be.
SPEAKER_02He took his girlfriend to Iceland during this campaign.
SPEAKER_07Hey, look, you know, sacrifices had to be made, Blue Gal. You want to know where that 91 million is going, Lou Gal?
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that was what I was thinking was remember when Colbert and um the Daily Show and the Colbert Show had super PACs, dueling super packs.
SPEAKER_06Create a super pack, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and they they bought gold shoes. Yeah. With super and it was all legal. All the spending they did was illegal. All legal. To highlight just how horrible our campaign finance laws are. You could go out and buy shoes. This is this is why, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green could buy a $96 million SUV with campaign money.
SPEAKER_07You can't buy $96 million.
SPEAKER_02I mean $96,000, excuse me.
SPEAKER_07Thank you.
SPEAKER_02You know, armored SUV with all of the trimmings. Yeah. With campaign dollars.
SPEAKER_07And then she bought, remember, uh a fully equipped armored boyfriend with all the all the with all the extras. With all the extras. We don't know how much that cost her, but it was probably a pretty penny.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, anyway. But but yeah, I mean, that's what they're going to spend it on, obviously, is and of course, like you said, in Texas now they're going to be spending it on gasoline.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Just to get around the state. You know, that's the thing. Uh once Jeff Bezos decided collaborating with fascists was better for business than opposing it, and fuck the little people, he broke the Washington Post and drove out dozens of reporters, editors, and op-ed columnists who didn't want to be part of the post's Trump cheerleading squad. Democracy dies in darkness, Driftglass. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Another mission accomplished. Now we're going to move briskly through a lot of different headlines from different sources. Keep in mind the theme of when they tell you who they are, believe them. From North Carolina Public Radio of August of 2024. Quote: Earlier this month, former President Trump told Fox News Maria Bartorromo that long ago. That long ago. That the United States has two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all those countries. Because if you have a smart president, he can handle them or they can handle him. Like Joe Biden.
SPEAKER_07A smart president like Joe Biden.
SPEAKER_02Or I think he was thinking handlers at that point. No, he continues. These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people. But when you look at Shifty Schiff and some of the others, yeah, they are to me the enemy from within. I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within. It's something Trump talks about a lot. He doubled down on his remarks a few days later in a Foxtown Hall, describing these so-called enemies as Marxists, communists, and fascists. Unquote.
SPEAKER_07And I can tell you, local MAGA reflects every one of these thoughts.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_07Absolutely. This is from PBS, October of 2024. This is Donald Trump. Quote, I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people who have come in and destroy are destroying our country. And by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, the villages, they're being inundated. But I don't think they're the problem in terms of election day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, unquote.
SPEAKER_02From an October 13th, 2024 Fox interview, quote, I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, unquote.
SPEAKER_07From CNN, October 21st, 2024, quote, shifty shift. Yes, they are to me the enemy from within, unquote. And quote, I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within, unquote.
SPEAKER_02From the Guardian of this year, June 26th, quote, Trump attacks Democrats as godless communists in test of midterm's message. Donald Trump has previewed a Republican strategy. It's a strategy, Drift Glad.
SPEAKER_07It's a strategy. Let's gauge how successful it is, Bluetooth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that for the midterm election seizing on a progressive sweep in New York to portray Democrats as godless communists who pose an existential threat to the nation. Unquote.
SPEAKER_07This is from the New York fucking Times this very month, September 1st, 2026. Quote, one by one, Republican speakers at President Trump's midterm convention in Dallas this week turned to a far-fetched argument with echoes of the Cold War. Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana claimed next year the communists will be in Congress. That's what's so frightening. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the number two House Republican, said implacibly that there had been a quote Bolshevik revolution in the Democratic Party.
SPEAKER_02No, he did not. He said in the Democrat Party. Yeah, we do. Also, you gotta keep the Rush Limbaugh alive by saying Democrat Party. Democrat Party.
SPEAKER_07It's the Democrat Party. That's how long this has been going on, folks. That's how long we've been putting up with this. And it's time to stop putting up with this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that I think that's Drift Glass's point.
SPEAKER_07We're heading in a direction where we're just not going to tolerate this anymore. Yeah. And what do we do about that? But that's let's let's talk about that in a few minutes because we have more exciting headlines to get through. I'm continuing with the same article. And then Mr. Trump, the ringleader of the new red scare, took the stage. He returned again and again and again to baseless claims that Democrats are running as communists in the midterms. It's going to be a communist country if they win, he predicted. One of at least 60 times a speaker at the convention mentioned communism or communists, unquote.
SPEAKER_02In 2018, Axios posted an article listing the dozens of times Trump called the media the enemy of the people. That was back in 2018. That was eight years ago. Now the number of open, intimidating threats Trump has made against the media is easily into the hundreds, maybe thousands, especially if you just can consider uh face-to-face attacks on women reporters.
SPEAKER_06Quiet Piggy, quiet piggy. Low IQ, low IQ people, low IQ.
SPEAKER_02Uh everyone knows this dirty old degenerate cannot stop lying about the 2020 election, or for that matter, the reflecting pool. New information has always just been unearthed, and arrests of his political enemies are always imminent.
SPEAKER_07And just this week, yep, yandy again, when Donald Trump accused the Democrats of orchestrating the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania that allegedly nicked his ear. This is him on Truth Social, quote, everybody knows the crooked Joe Biden FBI didn't do what they should have with respect to the lunatic who shot me in Butler, Pennsylvania. By the time I got into office on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found. Why wasn't it seen long ago? This was all a Democrat plot to get me out of the election that failed. Dirty cop Christopher Ray should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt and certainly for the things he said, unquote. Unquote.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so after all of that, all of that kind of rhetoric, here's a thought experiment.
SPEAKER_07This between you and me, and anybody can play along at home.
SPEAKER_02Consider the tidal wave of unhinged lies about traitors and enemies within and Bolsheviks, that the president of the United States and his fascist goons have been troweling out for the last decade, and that those lies are not that different from the lies the conservative media has been spewing for decades. Then consider that ninety-five percent of all Republican politicians have aligned themselves with those fascist lies, and that Republican voters have nominated Trump three times and elected him twice on the basis of their fear and hatred of us as existential threats to their way of life. They describe political opponents as enemies. They describe Democrats as communists and babykillers. They have dispatched masked goon squads to terrorize. Places that oppose them. They have murdered U.S. citizens in cold blood, on the street, on camera. They describe internal political opposition as an existential threat. They talk about using governmental force against the enemy within.
SPEAKER_07So if they can if they conceptualize politics as an existential threat rather than ordinary democratic competition, what naturally follows from that? What conclusion can we draw? Wouldn't it be fair to say that they consider themselves to be at war with the rest of us? Now it might be a Cold War, it's a Cold War perhaps, or it's definitely a civil war, but it's some kind of winner-take-all war exists now between us, whether we like it or not, and whether the basis of their hatred is deranged or not. Would you say that's a fair characterization, Lucal?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would. I would say, but I would say that the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be continuous, as Orwell would say. That this is the war against East Asia, and the enemy always has to be, you know, and and it does it does morph itself. You know, this week it's Mexicans, the next week it's Haitians. Now we have East Indian, uh South Asians in general, yeah. Uh in Texas being the enemy. Uh, and Democrats, you know, it just depends on who is closest to prosecuting or somehow getting the message out against Trump. Tallerico is one who's getting a lot of this kind of heat right now.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because he's win, you know, he's definitely doing much better than any Democrat could have hoped to do in the past.
SPEAKER_07Thanks to the absolute corruption and depravity of the government.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_07Let me put it this way. I I agree with you know, the war should needs to be continuous in the sense that you always need the hayseeds and the rubes and the cousin fuckers, pardon my language, to show up at the polls and vote for vote for the guy who's gonna solve all their problems who never, ever, ever does. So they that that part of the concept of war is certainly true. It goes on and on, they need an enemy all the time, gays, blacks, liberals, especially liberals. But if you if we take our focus away from all of the minority groups, and there's a lot of them, the constant obsession with the enemy within, the people in this country, uh Democrats, the radical left democrats, the communists, that that's a theme that has run for decades.
SPEAKER_02Right. Since 74, right? Yeah. Really.
SPEAKER_07Now, here's my argument. I would say that the constant rotation of enemies with like a spoke in a wheel. The enemy of the week is always different, but the the radical left liberal democrat party, because that's the only political opposition they have, is is at the hub of that wheel. And they want to break the wheel. Now, the average moron is happy to go vote because Jesus told him that Donald Trump is his savior. That's fine. But the rich guys and the powerful guys, the people with influence at the top of the party, have an agenda.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07They have a thing they want, I believe they want to accomplish. And telling the idiots that the the, you know, that they're eating the dogs and cats is a means to that end. They have a strategic goal. Elon Musk has a fucking strategic goal. Oh, yeah. These guys do. The Rubes don't, and the the continuous war is for their benefit to get them to the polls. But here's what I would argue: that the goal of the people at the top of the pyramid, the influencers, the people who can dump $100 million into an election, their goal is the end of liberal democracy in America. Because that opens the door to everything else they want to do. Because if it were just one thing or another, some tactical advantage, if they just want to get rid of USAID, well, that's done, right?
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_07Get rid of Roe versus Way. Well, that's done. So they should stop being mad, right? But they're mad all the time. Because there's no end to the number of things they want to achieve, and the only way they can achieve it is by destroying democracy, replacing it with a one-party fascist system backed up by a Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_02A friendly dictator to them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And has the Supreme Court ruled.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that is the that is the international standard for currency, no matter what happens. And so corporate fascism, I think that's what you're talking about. Because Elon Musk and and Bezos and these guys, they want to run roughshod over average citizens and have all the power. And average citizens are simply consumers. And so they get all the say because they are have bought it and paid for it. And that's why they all went, the five of them went to Trump's inauguration. Yeah. And the jumbotrons for the public, for the Trump supporting public, were taken down outside.
SPEAKER_07Right, because the little people. Fuck them.
SPEAKER_02No one needs to watch this be present there except the wealthy.
SPEAKER_07And and you know, you put up a a massive um MMA wrestling ring and put on a freak show for the Rubes, and that keeps them happy because bread and circuses and you know the mob is Rome and all that.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07But that's that's to keep the voters that they need to keep voting for them angry and stupid and voting the right way. So if you accept the premise that we are in some sort of war with these people, we don't want it, we didn't ask for it. But you know, if your neighbor keeps throwing garbage into your yard over the fence and trying to poison your pets, at some point you have to retaliate.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07At some point you have to go over there and make them stop doing that, whether you want to or not. We happen to be, by the way, blessed with very nice neighbors. Um that is not happening here. But if that keeps happening because they think that we're Martians who kill babies, um, at some point you have to go over and take away their ability to do that from them, or they're never gonna stop. Because they've been soaking in this shit for so long, they're just lost. They're just dead from the neck up. So, my question is my next question is the harder one, which is if the right has a strategic goal of defeating liberal democracy in America and replacing it with an oligarchy or a theocracy or corporate fascism or whatever, what is the Democratic Party's strategic defense against that? What are we gonna do at a strategic level to stop that from happening or beat that, given the fact that legacy media is fucking broken and on its knees? The Republican Party is lost, conservative media has spent 30, 40 years building a giant propaganda machine, which is the only thing they're good at. What is it that we need to do at a strategic level to not just win an election? That's terribly important, but destroy the Republican Party. You know, de-republicanize this fucking country.
SPEAKER_02Make sure people And you know, I talked to the I talked to a woman who said to me who we we were talking politics and we're on the same side of things. Yeah, and I've I mentioned this before, who said, I'm I'm surprised at how violent my thoughts have gone. I'm just to the point of violence against people who are destroying my country.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02And I don't want to be that person. And you and I have had these kind of conversations before. I the furthest I have gone in public is uh to mention that one of the activities of Stephen Miller makes me think of a high bridge and a short rope. And and that's as far as I'll go in public because I don't want to threaten somebody's life. I mean, I'm not interested in doing that. No, but you and I have had conversations in the car on the way home where both of us have spun out some fantasies about certain people. Yeah, and you've spun out fantasies about certain people in the mainstream media too, or what you would actually like to do to Fox News in the building uh that involves you know fumigation. And you know, I mean, we I I don't want to talk about fellow human beings as if they're insects. I don't either. That's not my that's not who I am.
SPEAKER_06I hate that. I hate that.
SPEAKER_02We hate that, but you know, you want to put a tent over this building, get everybody out and say you were unemployed.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and now you're incarcerated. Now you're under arrest.
SPEAKER_02Right. But but a couple things here. One is f the media has to be suable because once the money's gone, uh that's the that is the motivation is to is to make money. Yeah. These corporations have to be sued. And Fox News has already lost three-quarters of a billion dollars in the lawsuit. They're facing another one. Uh people are talking today on on social media about, and I and I think this is another this could be another investigation. Scott Jennings clearly being proven a liar about uh, you know, um wheelchair guy, uh house house leader.
SPEAKER_07Oh, Mitch McConnell.
SPEAKER_02Mitch McConnell. Oh, I had a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell. This was three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_07You know, now here's the thing.
SPEAKER_02No, oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER_07He you can you can't sue him for that.
SPEAKER_02No, but you can investigate the conversation that were had at CNN. Say you broadcast a lie. Now you're cable, I understand you don't have the same FCC rules, blah, blah, blah. But you you can Congress can investigate anything.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And call people under oath for anything. And CNN employees need to be asked why Scott Jennings works there and what is the conversation about hiring him where he clearly lied.
SPEAKER_07Now and they I know I like that. I like that. So for whose benefit? What does that change?
SPEAKER_02It's not a show for the public. Now, CNN is one of those enemies of the people that Trump talks about. So who are you harming? I think there that then becomes the point. But but I want to get back to this violence thing, too. Because let's say Driftglass on his worst day.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Violence-wise, yes, uh, gets platform where he is able to call out Stephen Miller. Let's I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna hold Stephen Miller up as one of the worst people in the world.
SPEAKER_07You know what? You know what a you know what a pedantic person I am, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_07What do you mean by call out and how big a platform will I have?
SPEAKER_02You have uh you have a New York Times op-ed column and a s a 20-minute slot on the PBS News Hour, and you're on Morning Joe. Wow or you're on way too early with Willie Geist.
SPEAKER_07You've now you've you've described hell to me. So I understand. I understand. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02Oh, and you're at Davos. You're at Davos and you're at uh Aspen. Right. Let's that let's put it that way. You go viral for a speech at Aspen, where on and and I mean you at your most vitriolic give a speech about what needs to happen to Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller. Right. Okay. All right. This is just glass, gets to do this.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_02Who is the first person in media to go on the air of their own show and say it is time to tone down the rhetoric?
SPEAKER_07Oh, it's a race. It's a race. It's a race.
SPEAKER_02But who's the first who is the one who has done this several times in the past two years?
SPEAKER_07Uh David Fromm. Laura Ingram. Laura Ingram, well, Laura Ingram is the first.
SPEAKER_02Laura Ingram is the one.
SPEAKER_07Right. Now look.
SPEAKER_02Who says this whenever when the mayor of uh Milwaukee or Minneapolis, I think Minneapolis came out and said, I want the police to come out and be and be fighting ICE. Right. Because they're attacking our citizens and they are doing so lawlessly.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_02Whoa, we got to tone down the rhetoric here.
SPEAKER_07Well, except that's what I expect. Because your your premise is an interesting one, uh, but call that's what Fox is. Fox is a machine that just automatically objects to everything.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So the fact that she would react that way is not is of no interest to me.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Um and my speech at Davos that would go viral. Uh or or Aspen.
SPEAKER_02I don't care. I really don't care which one.
SPEAKER_07I would begin with Stephen Miller is not the problem. Uh-huh. The problem is a political party that created Stephen Miller and gave him power. And I would argue that the entire Republican Party needs to be made extinct as quickly and efficiently as possible. And if it were within my power as a demigod, I would just wish them into a cornfield. They would just be fucking gone tomorrow. But I don't have that power, and no human should have that power.
SPEAKER_10Right.
SPEAKER_07So we have to do, in a sense, what the Allies did in World War II, which was how do we end this fucking war? What's the quickest and most efficient way? What do we have to accomplish to achieve our strategic goal of defeating the Nazis? Well, we have to destroy their army, roll into Berlin, and just and destroy their government and make them sue for peace and unconditional surrender. That's what we need to do. What do we need to do to break the Republican hold over this country? It is not compromise, I would argue. Yeah. Look at Barack Obama. He spent eight years trying to find some way to negotiate with these people who were who were actually better than they are now. They've only gotten worse.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07There's no, they lie all the time, they'll tear up any treaty, they don't give a shit what they have to say to accomplish their means. So you can't trust them. Therefore, you have no partner in peace. There's no way you can negotiate with them in good faith because they never argue in good faith. And they'll fucking stab you in the back the minute you turn it. So we have to talk about how do we break the Republican Party's hold on this country. And I think we've identified the two sources of it. Without their propaganda and without their enablers in the legacy media, they start to weaken immediately. Take away from them the centrists and the undecided who just can't seem to make up their mind who are a complete product of the legacy media and the complete product of the both sides do it. And I would say to my Davos audience, the hello folks, I I'm easy, I'm cheaper to hire than David Brooks. Okay? I'll come and do it for.
SPEAKER_02But your wife gets to sit in the hotel room and read while you're giving your speech. Blah, blah, blah. Drift.
SPEAKER_07I'll do it. I'll do it for half of what you pay him in cash, okay? And a free trip to well.
SPEAKER_02With your wife to a nice hotel, Davos, at Davos. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07No, you have to, you have to send us over on a cruise ship. That's that's the deal.
SPEAKER_02No, we're gonna have a private jet drip class like everybody else at Davos.
SPEAKER_07That's true. That's true. But in this speech, I would say you're looking, you're you're trying to fix the wrong problem. Stephen Miller is an odious, ugly Nazi. Straight up fucking Nazi. That's what he fucking is. But he didn't come into being and and he wasn't given power by God. He was given power by a political party that was elected repeatedly by tens of millions of Americans. The tens of millions of Americans, the 70 million, 80 million, whatever it is, are the problem. Our fellow citizens are the problem. And since there's no way to drastically reduce the number of Republicans in this country overnight, we have to take away the things that make them possible. We have to cut off their supply of drugs. And their drugs are Fox News, OAN, right-wing talk radio. And we need to make the people who run those organizations, we need to make their lives unbearable. We need to talk about their families, talk about where their kids go to fucking school. And I'm not kidding. We need to make sure that people know that guy over there, that guy, that guy's the man who's pumping propaganda out into this into this world. And you need to know what docs the fuck out of all of them.
SPEAKER_02This is why one of the Murdoch boys moved to Australia.
SPEAKER_07Yep.
SPEAKER_02Too many guns in the United States.
SPEAKER_07Yep. Because of people like Rupert Murdoch.
SPEAKER_02Because of Fox News. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07No, no, they they they shit where they live and then they move along like locusts to some other place. But I I would argue that short of taking up arms, which is no solution to anything, the answer is we have to take away the power ring that gives them power. We need to take away from them the ability to do propaganda for free. Now, my guess is that Fox News will just keep on lying as far as as far as it goes. But the legacy media, the enablers, the people who find merit in this bullshit and give it credence and say, let's meet them halfway. Come on. Those people are the people that we really need to make miserable.
SPEAKER_02That we really need to they need to hurt every day.
SPEAKER_07And we need to do what the right does, frankly. And I'm I'm not saying this as someone who would be good at organizing this, but if every liberal podcaster and blogger within the sound of my voice would focus on one issue for a week, just this one thing, and pound the shit out of it. And I'm talking about everybody from the pod save lads all the way down to little old podcasts like us and say the issue this week is going to be Mitch McConnell is unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate and needs to be removed immediately. Not we need to do the 25th Amendment or some made-up shit that's never going to happen that'll magically solve our problems because there's no such thing. But I have a feeling that if we were just to do what the right does, which I know is tough for us, which is not get involved in 20 different issues and move on to the next headline, because oh my God, the outrage. Oh my goodness, did you see what Trump said today? And focus on one or two things and just pound the shit out of them with the support of elected Democrats who are holding hearings on the same subject.
SPEAKER_09Right, right.
SPEAKER_07I think we could make Republicans in the media, the Scott Jennings of the world, crawl back under the rock from where they came. I think we could shame CNN by putting by doing what Jon Stewart did to CNN, which is you're hurting America. Why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Which means you have to lure them into a venue where you can beat the shit out of them. Because these people do not like to talk to people like us because we bring the receipts up.
SPEAKER_02Well, and it's got to be, I mean, this is why the next president has to be a fighter.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02And not a compromiser.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_02And and I think I think the the Democratic primaries are going to show that. That that the Democratic uh base voter is not interested in peace, peace where there is no peace.
SPEAKER_07Exactly. Exactly. No more. No more of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're done.
SPEAKER_07And you know what? We weren't interested in it before. No. But we were willing to try an eight-year experiment where we treated Republicans like We were interested in governing.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_07We can all agree that the health system, the healthcare system is in crisis. Let's all get together and fix that. So for all Americans. And then the Republicans lost their fucking minds. Because Barack Obama, we've said this a million times, it was black, a Democrat from Blue City. And he and he was in it was in they couldn't tolerate that. So when you are dealing with an enemy, and and now we must must consider Republicans our enemy because they have called us their enemy, and we have no choice but to either surrender or win. Those are our two options. And I prefer to win because winning means the survival of liberal democracy in this country, which I think is rather important.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you talked, you opened the show today with you know Donald Trump making ads for the Democrats, which he's constantly doing now and helping us. And you know, day after day, uh and and other Republicans are doing the same thing, you know, talking about, well, you know, ground beef is two dollars a pound since an elected official.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Well, then this this this uh this there's a a choir, the a group of women, mostly women, I think, who sing Leopards Eating My Face. Yeah, who are lovely, they have beautiful voices, they sound a little bit like sweet hunting the rock, they're great. And they they tag their video onto these guys. And there's this guy going, you know, I love you, Donald Trump. You know, you're my guy. You know, I'd I'd sacrifice my kid on ultra media toenails, you know, I'd do anything you want. But goddamn, diesel 750 a gallon, $80 a gallon. I got a quarter million dollar truck here. I can't even take out of my garage. You gotta fix that. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02That guyard's eating my face, leopard's eating my face.
SPEAKER_07That guy is never gonna be reachable.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_07So so decide, you know, sort of do what is it called? The the the death cleaning cleaning. Yeah. Okay. So so in your brain.
SPEAKER_02You know what we're talking about at home.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Given that we're 62, 3 and 65. Yeah, we're talking about not literally death cleaning, but getting rid of the excess. No, no, not not decluttering the nation, not at all. But in our collective liberal brains, decluttering it of all the many, many, many, many, many, many things we want to talk about, and all the all the footnotes we want to do on everything, and all the qualifications, and all the yeah, this, but yeah, that, which we said, I think, earlier this week on the previous episode. That it is it is against our nature to be simple, blunt, and unapologetic. But we have to go against our nature for a while.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we can't be sociology professors. We have we have to be blunt and and say these people are the problem.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. And I I saw a video of a very I I think it's Adam Mockler, I think. Um he was debating some guy on voting, and he and and the the headline was he destroyed! Him. Oh, yeah. No, he didn't. That asshole. I mean, he's he's a very smart young man. I respect his intellect. He has an awful lot going for him. And I think he's a great spokesman for liberalism. But taking on the idiot he took on, it doesn't change anything. Because that idiot's going to go right back and just continue being a moron. It won't change any minds on the right. Engaging these people as if they were rational humans is a complete waste of your time. All of the arguments, and believe me, I know I've done it for 21 fucking years. All those eloquent arguments and long chains of irrefutable logic that prove that you cannot possibly believe what the fuck you believe are wasted on them.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07They're not rational humans anymore. They are just fucking machines. And they're going to keep puking out lies until the day they keel over and die. So stop trying to negotiate with them and persuade them. That's useless. What you can do is deprive them of power.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And you do that by depriving them, by scuttling their propaganda networks by any means necessary, suing Fox into the fucking ground, a team at the Department of Justice that is nothing but file lawsuits against right-wing media all day, every day, drag them into court every day, depose them every day, bleed them white, and go after the legacy media. I want to hear a whole bunch from from Jeff Bezos' people about why why Mark Feeson is still on the uh op-ed page, the Washington Post.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I want to hear a whole bunch of information about that. And it's awful that the courts are our only remedy.
SPEAKER_02Some of them are better than others. And and hopefully we're going to fix that too.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Some of this is is going to be fixed by time and new people.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Not all of which will make us happy, the two of us happy.
SPEAKER_05No, I don't expect them to.
SPEAKER_02And I I did want to bring up um something my old fart husband said this week.
SPEAKER_06Well, he didn't say it this week, did he?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you you were gonna write a post about shut up about Ed Sheeran.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I said, don't do that, Drift Black.
SPEAKER_07No. Some some I know they all my ideas can't be winners, honey.
SPEAKER_02No, well, I remember when we we've talked about this before. Ed Sheeran's Shape of You music video on on SNL came out, and you and I watched it, and I said, Oh, let's just listen to this song. Usually we just mute the music because it's not our thing. But uh, I said, Oh, we might as well listen to this. And Driftglass's face as this guy starts talking about his bed sheet smelling like this young woman. And Driftglass said, My daughters are not going to be dancing to this song at prom.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_02And they said, I think they probably are Driftglass.
SPEAKER_07No, they're gonna be dancing to 21 Pilots and Imagine Dragon and Portugal the man. I know all the songs, okay? I'm I I am in the conversation. I am a member of society.
SPEAKER_02You have the you have the the uh satellite radio station tuned to their music while we're driving back to the room.
SPEAKER_07And when the 12 year olds says, that's my jam. Okay, okay. Okay, but but but remember, I got everyone to sing along with Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rapsi over and over again. That's our that's our family travel.
SPEAKER_02That was wonderful. But but my point was this this and I'm gonna use this awful, awful word controversy about Ed Sheeran and and the right of one of the opening acts to say free Palestine, you know, and got fired, and oh, now there's now everyone's quit, and Ed Sheeran is standing there going, I didn't do this, and I w and and Ed Sheeran wanting to stay neutral in the IP wars, which is I understand, but good luck with that, man. Good luck with that, right? So for people, our children's generation, this is the moral battle of our era.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Is what BB Netanyahoo is doing. And so it it comes, you know, we can't. I know you just sat there and went, what why is every other blue sky post about this singer who I don't want my daughters listening to because the songs are too dirty. Yeah. True.
SPEAKER_07True.
SPEAKER_02Old man shouts at Cloud.
SPEAKER_07Now, now we won't go down the long list of songs I've listened to.
SPEAKER_02No, no. No, we're not well, and we talked about David Bowie five years.
SPEAKER_07Oh, no, no, no. Uh that that's a lovely song. I'm talking about songs that were uh that are um that were playing in the clubs 15 years ago and are straight up, you know.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Anyway, yeah, god. No, uh no, I understand it because uh could well first of all nobody was saying what the issue was.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_07It was like it was all blue sky shaded. And like I don't care enough about either of these musicians at all to find out what they're fighting about. I wish they would just not be here.
SPEAKER_02And no one, no one would say because of controversy. You don't want to bring that up.
SPEAKER_07Yes. Um, yes, but if we're gonna court controversy, I I believe there's a a video out there by a gentleman named Abdul Al-Said, I believe that's his name. Uh he's running for the Senate in a state very near to ours.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Who said, look, whatever the free, freely elected people of Palestine and Israel want to do is fine with me. If they want a one-state solution, that's fine. If they want two states, that's fine. If they want 12 states, that's fine. As long as that they're free and they have made the decisions themselves. What I don't want is my tax money going to that war. I want my tax money spent here. In Michigan. Yeah. And and what what's going on with those people is their business. It is not our business. And I could talk for half an hour about what a fucking monster meeting that Yahoo is.
SPEAKER_02I see it is not going to get into evangelical heaven talking like that.
SPEAKER_07I know. I'll have to settle for a different heaven, I'm afraid. And you know, and and I'll wave at him as he goes by because I'm sure he's a better person than I am.
SPEAKER_02At our adult hippie Sunday school last Sunday.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The the former pastor teacher of the group had a long harangue about the line, my Bible says.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02My Bible says this. My Bible says that, you know, Mel Gibson's snuff movie about Jesus actually happened.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. That's why we go to that Sunday school.
SPEAKER_02That's why we go to that Sunday school. But but, you know, the the point being that uh that's another group of people that I would like to see walk into a cornfield. Yeah. Theologically speaking.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. And and there's no reaching them.
SPEAKER_02And there's well, and and their influence over the Congress is so hard and so phenomenal.
SPEAKER_07Over Republicans in the phenomenon, right. Over Republicans in Congress.
SPEAKER_02Republicans in Congress. Right.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, absolutely. So well, we've solved that problem. I I think we've we should have at least surfaced what the issues are.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Which is there is no getting around the fact these people hate us and want us gone and want to destroy this country's uh our form of government. And are well on the way to succeeding in doing that. And and all that is lost can be rebuilt, and all that has been been stolen can be recouped, I think, but we can't do it with a Republican Party that has any power over anything. And so the question then becomes for every elected official, what are you going to do to deprive Republicans of power? How are you going to talk about Republicans from now on? Because you have to learn about repetition and being blunt and clear in your language and making sure the normies, the centrists, the undecided are very uncomfortable every time you open your mouth. Because you're not going to be talking about, you know, my friends on both sides. You know, my good, you're going to be talking about the fascists who fucked this country up. And why can't you see that? What's wrong with you that you cannot pick between a democracy and a fascism?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07That that sounds like a uh that sounds like a you problem. And now you've made it an us problem.
SPEAKER_02Well, and as we've said before, I hope that the next democratic president does take advantage of the quote unquote unitary executive to make some decisions about what legislators in red states are doing. Yeah. This is not punishing blue states for voting against a Democrat or against a Republican or whatever. It's not like Trump is doing, like, I'm going to take federal funding out of Illinois and California and hand pick where federal where FEMA dollars go based on whether they voted for me or not.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But a legislature in a state that routinely denies women their rights, that routinely discriminates, that routinely throws trans people under the bus, et cetera. All like there I am using that phrase, which I don't like very much. But um federal funding and military installations and and and are open to negotiations.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Well, you know what? Here's here's a thought. And and uh how about this? Uh you get federal highway money as long as that highway leads to an abortion clinic.
SPEAKER_02An unencumbered abortion clinic.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah. Federally funded, yeah, free abortion clinic.
SPEAKER_02You know, it's it is fascinating to me that technology and mephopristone has has somewhat solved the problem of getting rid of rope uh to a certain extent. Yeah there's a lot of progress still to be made, and we need women's rights on the books. Well, yeah, we need that restored because and women have died, and and particularly in Texas, this has become a big issue where women have died with with ectopic presencies, and I just I want the president of the United States to have a diagram of the women's reproductive system up on a screen explaining where everything is.
SPEAKER_07I don't, and how it works. I don't that's see that's see now you're being very complicated and footnote and liberal.
SPEAKER_02No, I there's only like three parts you need to know about.
SPEAKER_07I must have missed one of them. I think I know about a couple of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know about a couple of them.
SPEAKER_07I'm aware of I'm I'm aware that there's a whole system down there, and that you guys, I really appreciate the fact that you carry the burden for our species. I really, really do. Every day I think whoever made this university, that is your job, not mine, because I did not do it. I would be incapable of doing it. Now just for fun, just for fun.
SPEAKER_02I did it three times.
SPEAKER_07I know you did. And I uh the evidence, again, once you keep calling us. Once you sprang these three kids on me after we've been married for two years and said, Oh my, I suddenly you have three kids. I'm like, why wasn't I No, that's not how it worked. No, not at all. I'd love these kids and they're great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they love you too. Uh yeah, you have something you want to add to as a coda to all of them.
SPEAKER_07Just for fun, just for fun. A little a little uh test, which I know you know the answer to, but others out there might not. So let's go. Just for fun, you all get to guess which liberal podcaster or blogger wrote or said the following. Quote, a group of white guys have suddenly inserted themselves into conservative institutions and church organizations. Oh no. By the way, this is written like this week. Okay. This week.
SPEAKER_09This came out this week, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Uh they all embrace racial grievances to varying degrees. They embrace white nationalism, anti-Semitism, even Nazi sympathies. They're getting added to conservative institutional boards, attempting to purge churches, and are desperate to indoctrinate young conservatives into fascist ideology. They even surround the vice president of the United States. Some of them believe the United States is a tipping point, and they want to push it over the edge and rebuild it in their image. You might think it does not affect you, but in time you will see their efforts in your church pews, in your kids' brains, and in your politicians' mouths. Unquote. TikTok. TikTok.
SPEAKER_02Now, this is a trick question because it's not a liberal podcaster, blogger, or liberal anything.
SPEAKER_10Nope.
SPEAKER_02Uh it is Eric, son of Eric from Red State, Eric Erickson. Uh, and yes, it was just this week that he published this and his his uh Substack.
SPEAKER_07Breaking the shocking news.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02This is another conservative goo from the before time who in 2015 the Atlantic dubbed as the most powerful conservative in America. Uh, I think he's looking for a job at the bulwark, is what I think. Um, you may remember him from his many, many opinions, such as Michelle Obama is a Marxist harpy.
SPEAKER_07And if you don't remember that, you probably remember him describing then retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter as, quote, a goat fucking child molester, unquote.
SPEAKER_02Later that same year, Erickson declared that President Obama won the Nobel Prize because of an affirmative action quota.
SPEAKER_07And in the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Texas, Wendy Davis was described as abortion Barbie.
SPEAKER_02You may also remember that Eric Erickson disinvited Donald Trump from the 2015 Red State gathering after Trump made derogatory, sexually suggestive remarks about Fox News anchor Megan Kelly following the first GOP primary debate. And of course, that ended Donald Trump's campaign.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it was over, all over. Eric Erickson swung into action, and that was that. Uh, then there was this from Politico. Politico. Politico. February 22nd, 2016. Hey, that was 10 years ago. Quote, Erickson, I'm never voting for Trump. Eric Erickson will no longer support Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee. The conservative declared on Monday, citing, in particular, the Manhattan businessman's support of Planned Parenthood. Yeah, that's how long ago this was.
SPEAKER_02That's how long ago this was, right?
SPEAKER_07That's how upside down the world has become. I will not rally to Trump. Frankly, if Trump is able to get the nomination, the Republican Party will cease to be the party in which I served as an elected official, Ericsson said on Monday's post. It will not deserve my support and will not get it if it chooses to nominate a pro-abortion liberal masquerading as a conservative who preys on nationalistic tribal tendencies and has an army of white supremacists online as his loudest cheerleaders. That was a decade ago, folks, unquote.
SPEAKER_02However, and to no one's surprise, this was Eric Erickson three years later on NPR on February 21st, 2019. Quote, Vogel critic Eric Erickson explains why he now supports President Trump, unquote.
SPEAKER_07And now here we are in 2026. And Eric Erickson is warning us that a bunch of white bigots with deep pockets have somehow infiltrated the conservative movement, and they're dangerous and wield an enormous amount of political influence. Not entirely stable. Just another right-wing asshole laying down the keel of a lifeboat he plans to use to sail away from the train wreck to come and find safe harbor somewhere in the never Trump media ecosystem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think he's looking for a job with benefits.
SPEAKER_07Eric Erickson has told us over and over and over again. They all have told us over and over again who they are. And when they tell you who they are, for God's sakes, believe them.
SPEAKER_02Each week we post to our Patreon page and website an internet kitty sent in by you, the listeners. This week's internet kitty is Spot. Spot not only has all the spots, including Torty and Orange, but she has a pair of tabby stripes at the end of her expressive tail. She is D E I. Okay.
SPEAKER_07She's all the cats.
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SPEAKER_04Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. Oh my lord, it's freshly poured.
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SPEAKER_02Hey Driftglass, how are the Internet Kitties doing this week?
SPEAKER_07Well, Blue Gal, the Internet Kitties want to remind you that a cheerful bonfire made of lifeboats can provide both heat and light and a place to toast marshmallows during the long winter months ahead.