The Simardone Show

Israel and The Future of American Politics | With Matt Lech

• Aidan Simardone

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In this episode of The Simardone Show, Aidan sits down with Matt Lech, co-host of Left Reckoning and producer of The Majority Report, for an in-depth conversation about Israel, Iran, American foreign policy, and the future of politics in the United States.

We discuss the emergence of anti-Israel voices on the American right and  whether figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens represent a meaningful political shift.

We also examine the evolving relationship between the United States and Iran, what recent diplomatic developments could mean for the Middle East, and whether they signal a new chapter in U.S. foreign policy. The conversation explores the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance and broader strategic questions surrounding American involvement in the region.

Finally, we turn to America's approaching 250th anniversary and discuss the relationship between patriotism and left-wing politics. We explore competing interpretations of the American Revolution and how America's founding continues to shape political discourse today.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Simmardoni Show. I'm your host, Aidan Simmardoni. America's 250th anniversary is approaching, albeit without much excitement. With a country led by corrupt pedophile with a temper tantrum, some are doubting the viability of the American project. Meanwhile, many are also turning against Israel, with even conservatives denouncing the Zionist state. This comes as the United States and Iran are working out a deal over the next 60 days. Will there finally be peace in the Middle East or is something worse coming? Joining me to discuss this and more is Matt Leck, host of the podcast Left Reckoning and the producer of the Majority Report. Malcolm, sorry, Matt, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01

Great to be here.

SPEAKER_00

So I want to first go over something that we've been seeing increasingly over the past year. And that has to do with these anti-Israel personalities, but from the conservative sphere or the right. These are people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. And some people on the left, like for instance, Anna Kasparian, see these people as potential allies, or at least voices worth listening to. But I know you have a different angle, and I want I want to hear from you and have an explanation on what your take is for these people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so and I've talked about this a little bit recently because uh Norm Finkelstein uh recently waded into these depths. And I actually entirely agreed with uh his perspective, which is, you know, um to back up, like I welcome them doing good work. And uh whether or not it will uh add up uh positive or negative is something I'm willing to suspend judgment on, particularly with Tucker Carlson. Candace, I think, is a little bit out there, and um I I I think we can table her for a second, but Tucker is probably the more serious person to sort of address. And for instance, the discussion he had with Mike Huckabee, there's been other interviews he's done with you know, maybe members of uh uh either either Palestinian groups or even uh, and I can't remember who he's allowed in a show, but you know, people that the mainstream press wouldn't uh talk to. Maybe it would take Jeremy Scahill to like talk to some of these people, and so I appreciate that work that Tucker's done on that. Whether it's having much of an effect in terms of say uh causing the right to stand down on this, I think is harder to argue. Like uh Thomas Massey just got beat by this guy, Ed Golrain, in Kentucky, and he had all the advantage of incumbency. And I would have thought if there was some sort of uh potent anti-Zionist uh energy on the right, that would have been enough to save his neck, and because I don't think Golerain had really anything to show for him other than he was uh like if you look at the guy talk, he's I think like I don't know, it's not the it's not the most slick uh operator. And so uh the this is all happening in the in the context of like if Tucker could do good work and if this work can amount to something, I I would welcome it. I'm skeptical that it can, and I appreciated Norm's perspective on this, which is that the we support uh ending the violence uh conducted by Israel, not because we hate Israel so much, is that we hate violence and the cleansing and these sorts of things. And it's hard for me as somebody who's my entire professional career been watching Tucker Carlson. Uh I've I I found today him going at uh Sadiq Khan like eight years ago about how he's letting in too many Muslims into London and it's just numbers, but but Muslims, you know, you wind up with terror attacks, and this is just like the stats. And I look at that now as frankly Zionist propaganda, whether it's evangelical Christian or uh Israeli Zionist. Like we've been dealing with this Islamophobia I have for my entire adult life. The uh way this country reacted to 9-11, which Tucker Carlson was in the media for, uh, was basically Israel's wish list. Go take out Saddam Hussein. And so I look at these things as part and parcel. So I do applaud Tucker if he's gonna go out there and say, you know, don't vote for Republicans, they're not America first, even though that's not why I wouldn't vote for Republicans. I that's not my nationalism first. That's at least if he can have an effect, I welcome it. But I also can't suspend my disbelief when it comes to a guy who's had a very long track record, who shouldn't have taken this long to come around on what Israel is. Uh, because I mean his father was uh you know uh voice of America sort of had honcho. Like Tucker Carlson's had all the benefits of education. Uh and uh it's coming a little bit late to me. And I also think while he may be having certain better guests now on certain topics, he could do more to lift up some of the people he was demonizing. And I'm not talking about like, you know, majority report, but I mean like Rashidz Lib, um Ilhan Omar, like he could lift these people up as actually uh fighters, and instead, I think I'm with a lot of people that are just waiting for him to say, well, actually, JD Vance has come to see my position and I endorse him for 2020. And so that's oh yeah, oh yeah, for Tucker.

SPEAKER_00

I'm sure J.D. Vance has had, you know, a change of heart. And this was this is what frustrates me that I think what you're referring to maybe is the recent statements where J.D. Vance was saying things like, oh, if everything is anti-Semitism, then nothing's anti-Semitism, uh, alluding to the fact that Israel accuses anyone critical of them as being anti-Semitic. The fact that J.D. Vance also appeared, at least in a press conference, I believe he was denouncing the mass killings that Israel was doing in Lebanon, but at the end of the day, while still sending billions of dollars in a in military equipment. So I don't think that's a victory. Like you say something and do something else, that's if anything, just hypocrisy, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so we're in this sort of realm where Tucker's pivot, and I think it has been a pronounced one, it probably is good for an to maintain an audience. Like the Daily Wire has it's appalling how fast they've fallen off. Now, some of that might be because it was artificial to begin with. I was always a little bit suspicious.

SPEAKER_00

That's the one run by uh just to cut you off. That's the one the one run by Ben Shapiro, right?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And Ben Shapiro, it never stuck with me right that he was crushing on Facebook so much. Like I I come from conservatives, and I just thought his sort of brand of not only like the Israel stuff now, but even just I mean, he's a rancid little twerp. Like I I think like conservatives like to think of themselves as like more of a uh Bill O'Reilly type or even Tucker Carlson type. Like this little guy, I always but anyway, nonetheless, whether it's artificial or not, the Daily Wire has fallen off a cliff. Nobody uh uh watches it anymore. It's you know massively downsizing. They made some bad bets on uh trying to make movies, but similar things are happening. You look at um Patrick Bed David, who's sort of risen into the uh new online write space, I think fairly opportunistically. But the Israel issue absolutely eats up their comment section too, and it's a weird place where the comment section and like the a lot of these places Reddit accounts like Joe Rogan's Reddit will go on them for the this Israel stuff and taking the word of somebody who's like, Well, actually, they're fighting terrorists, like it's a hard job, whatever. People are over that stuff, but that doesn't appear in the broader right wing movement to me. It's somehow like it's it's this sort of audience phenomenon that's probably driving a lot of these right wingers crazy, and then they'll see like the polling, it's like, well, they still support Trump, they still basically support Israel. And I think it's like it's unlike on the left, where I think even people who didn't have much of an interest in Israel uh policy are now like, well, this is where everybody wants us to talk about. We're going to be talking about uh how bad Israel is. The right, there's a massive disconnect between I think what the actual voters want and what the audience, the very online audience members want to hear. And I'm not sure how that's gonna play out. I kind of think that it's going to end poorly for people like Candace and Tucker. Like, I think they keep having to, especially Candace, has to one-up herself. Like, oh, this new thing I remembered from when I talked to Tucker last year is Erica Kirk was secretly anti-Israel. And I'll like I just think that stuff is you're gonna run out of runway at cer at some point. But uh also Israel's not gonna behave itself any better, so it's not gonna get any more popular. So who knows?

SPEAKER_00

No, yeah, it's a very interesting perspective. I do think the right-wing turn against Israel definitely is exaggerated. It is interesting seeing you're right, this disconnect between the heads of these uh these right-wing personalities, uh, ignoring Tucker and Candace for a second, uh, obviously a lot of these right-wing figures are still defending Israel. Uh, it is at least hopeful. I've seen polling showing that young Republicans are like a majority of them actually view Israel negatively. And my view on this was kind of nuanced because so, on the one hand, like I really think other than the Israel thing, I pretty much disagree with Tucker on everything, uh, especially for listeners and viewers. Of course, I'm an immigration lawyer, and the things he says regarding migrants are disgusting. Even when he was talking about Gaza, like he was talking in person on this one interview, and he's like talking about how horrible it was, and I was like, okay, this is this is good, like you're going somewhere. And it's like, yeah, and then we have to bring all these people in, and I was just like, ah, like, okay, there you go with that stuff again. I guess what I've kind of come closer to your view. I think what kind of got me though initially with regards to this was the fact that it seemed there was a time period where very few people were talking about the Israel's genocide in Gaza, Palestinians. There was obviously people like you and me, uh, the program you run, majority report, uh, you know, even some left-wing politicians. But to a certain extent, there was this time period, especially early on in the genocide, and maybe even to a certain extent right now, where saying anything critical of Israel did make you persona non-grata. So to a certain extent, when I saw Tucker Carlson being vocal about this, like I think he's kind of a disgusting figure, but I don't know, it'd be the same thing if William F. Buckley was, for instance, one of the only people denouncing like the Vietnam War or something like that. I mean, that's a hypothetical, by the way. But like, I would definitely welcome certain conservative voices. And I think also historically you do see, now this is not quite the same, but you do see, for instance, historically many times where alliance, weird alliances do emerge. Uh, of course, World War II, you know, the fact that you had the Western world allying with the Soviets or the KMT and the communists in China against Japan. I'm not saying we're going to battle with Tucker by our side, but I do think there can be that kind of collaboration. I don't know if you agree with that or what the limits of that are.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, I think the the Massey Kana thing, um, particularly on the Epstein files, I think was a hopeful um sort of uh glimpse of that. And it's harder to talk about it now that Massey's gone. And then you have Marjorie Taylor Green, who all of a sudden, like, I don't understand the thing where she gives up her seat. I I'm still unclear why that happened because there's another one. It's like, okay, fine, we can put all this stuff of you know, you're saying Rashida Talib supports terrorists like a few, like however many months ago, water under the bridge because you have a voting power now, and let's actually use that to gum this up. And that's really what it needs because Tucker can't he can't. I mean, maybe he'll run for office, that's what a lot of people think he'll do, and be a senator or something, and and fine, pro I would love to be proven wrong on a lot of this stuff. Uh uh, it's just the I don't see the mechanism really how they're going to do that or who we're joining up with to do what. It part of me, like I think in the media it seems a little bit like we're gonna join up to get attention.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it reminds me of these, like remember the whole um anti-Trump Republicans, it kind of feels like that whole vibe again, and then nothing actually came out of that, and then they actually all fell in line with Trump. Reminds me of that.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Or like, you know, when it's like all these celebrities got together to sing a song about how bad Trump is, and they they you know, during COVID, it's like, okay, this is fine. I appreciate the message, and to the extent you have people in your audience that need to hear that, good, but what is it really doing? What does you know, raising a certain person's profile so they become a spokesperson for an issue? What does that actually do to cut off uh weapons from is for Israel? Like, can how do we get to that point? Like, who I mean, who's the next Thomas Massey to really like do you know who that would even be? I I I'm struggling to even think of who in the Republican would cross an aisle like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I definitely agree with this. And I think also when we see things materially on the ground, like as someone who has been to, I don't even know, 20, 30 protests that are related to denouncing Israel's actions. For instance, I've seen like the people who are there are actually mainly socialists and uh, to be frank, communist. Like that's who's in the crowd, genuinely. You have a couple of these also uh more human rights, humanitarian leading liberals. I don't think I see, you know, the conservative caucus for what it's worth, or even the to be frank, even like a more libertarian uh group of people who are there. No, it's people who are frankly left of center who are at these protests. It's these people who are also getting arrested and serving jail time even for their actions uh regarding Palestine. So these are not the people who are being mobilized. Uh, I think at best what you can see is maybe some of these younger conservatives I don't know, like not supporting Israel at the very least. Like maybe not taking action against it, but not being doing the flag waving. So this this is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean I'd say just like one victory Tucker could do is just get them to stay home and not elect uh you know, whoever the Garrin and the general or something like that.

SPEAKER_02

Bingo.

SPEAKER_01

But uh but yeah, besides that, it's it's it's like you know, the with the Massey thing, it was very pronounced. Garrin won with everyone over 50, and Massey won everyone under 50. And the problem is, you know, who votes in this country? It's it's simply the older people. But like I would I would like to see those under younger conservatives develop into something that I thought would be useful politically that could combine with, say, you know, the socialist slate we got going on in New York here. It's hard to imagine that right now. Like, I don't know that it's not going to be led in that direction by Fuentes. Like, so many of these guys seem to be like, okay, Israel's bad, but fundamentally, we're right about America first. We're right about like we can't become a third world country, whatever that means. Like it's still sort of bringing it back to stew in this um nativist freak out that is not just American. Like, you see, every single country. I was just over in London, and it's like the the sort of anti-Muslim uh hysteria there, it's like it it it that's what politics is in so many places, and it it as long as like that is uh a fundamental thing, as long as like your political project can't see people from a background like Islam uh as humans. I I I'm not super hopeful on where it's going to develop to. I I would love to see a lot of those younger uh Republicans just stop being Republicans, just you know, don't have to be a Democrat, start something independent. There's independent populists going on, like figure something out, but like you can't do this America first, like you you've been had with that. Like, this is always what it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_00

And regarding this Islamophobia, I think there's actually even reports over the past couple years Israel has actually dropped its propaganda in promoting Israel and is instead just going full speed ahead on anti-Muslim rhetoric. Their logic is people aren't going to like us anymore, but if they hate the Muslims, the Palestinians, the Arabs more, then as long as that's going on and they hate Muslims more than us, then we can therefore, you know, keep our project going. So, you know, it's not like the way I see things too. I think it's uh we would agree on this, is even if these people are speaking out against Israel, as long as they are promoting this Islamophobia and treating Muslims as subhuman, the Zionist project will remain.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, it's really just there, they've uh added a new variety to the uh racialized other that they are blaming for all of the problems, as opposed to you know, the type of extremely wealthy people who are paying to cultivate this hate, you know, toward a specific political project that depends on it. If there isn't widespread hatred uh between races, the justification for Israel, which you know, in my opinion, doesn't exist, but in the eyes of most people, is out the window. You need to have the constant threat of uh mass racial violence to justify an ethnostate that we arm uh we've given like a third of a trillion dollars since my grandma was born just to build up walls and missile systems. Like that what we're what we've come up against is like we've made horrible investments toward a basically like cynical and hateful future in this world, and you know, uh we can't it's hard to turn that ship around when you put so much money towards security and uh so much like intellectual like uh work toward, well, they're different than us, they're in the Muslims are incompatible with democracy. All that stuff is hogwash, but there's been massive amounts of state power and financial power put toward that I guess dystopian vision, and that's just the one we have to try to untangle right now.

SPEAKER_00

No, absolutely. Uh speaking of untangling, so one thing I want to ask you about is how do you see the future relationship between the United States and Israel, especially that we have this supposed eventual perhaps deal between the United States and Iran? I'm just kind of curious what the future is in this relationship.

SPEAKER_01

You know, ever since we went to war with Iran and Trump's talking all this stuff about we're gonna take Kyrig Island or uh we're gonna reopen the Strait of Hormuz, all that stuff to me, just based on looking at a map, was like that seems a little bit unlikely.

SPEAKER_00

Geography 101, like seriously, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

And like I I really think that um, you know, we had Mu and Rabani on uh Majority Report yesterday, and he compared it to the Suez uh canal uh crisis for Egypt, uh basically saying we want to reassert our control over this, and I frankly think that's part of why we support Israel so much, is that massive shipping lane there? Um we uh America fixed this for us, and we're like, well, how about we just like try to diplomatically uh reset this uh with our friends, Egypt, the second uh number one recipient of uh foreign aid, and we do this in a way that isn't the Suez Canal belongs to Britain still. And that was just I don't think like Eisenhower came to that because he was anti-colonial. I think reality sets in. Like these sorts of colonialisms are utopian in a way, and sometimes reality hits them in the face. I I really hope. Like it's it's funny, all these the Democrats saying how Trump lost the war. It's like the war was lost from the beginning, and the reason that we were involved in it is because y'all bipartisanly decided this belligerent psycho country, Israel, is an ally we need to follow into whatever it wants to do. Everyone know, everyone should know that Israel only wants to solve its problems through force and through violence. The the Palestinian question is one they only have ever wanted to solve through violent dispossession, um, and then you know, to uh redeem that or put a stamp on that in like I guess now we have to move past the right of return or whatever. Um the reality is set in, and we've you know, we've given so much money to our military. I mean, huge amounts of our paychecks, everyone knows it. And the thought I thought was that it would be able to sort out problems like the Suez Canal or um or the Strait of Hormuz. And it's actually turned out that. Really, what this is about is funneling taxpayer money upward through defense contractors. And if it makes us good at fighting wars, that's a cool byproduct, I guess. But the main thing is whoever's investing and owning these companies get a lot of money. And that's and that that's why you see all these tech companies become contractors, too, because that's where easy money is. It it's a it's a protection racket that everyone is realizing like actually makes us more or I mean, maybe not everyone has realized. That's probably a little bit too optimistic. We should, as a civilization, realize that these decisions, taken over the course of like lifetimes now, uh, we're wrong ones. We should not have been the Pentagon should be looked at as a giant sort of monolith to waste and cruelty, uh, because it can't deliver this sort of like uh naive piece that people think it is. We are very often, uh if not as a rule, the bad guys in certain conflicts, um, uh particularly recently. And so it's like, what are that's the America first thing is what are we getting for constantly funneling money towards security contractors? Even, even like, you know, I don't know where Tucker is. I know he spoke against the shooting of Alex Pray, so maybe I'll let him off this. But like anybody who's now an anti-Zionist on the right, do you support the occupation of American cities by ICE? Because like, is is that is your problem? We're just not focused on deep mass deportations. Um I'm rambling a little bit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, you know, it's all really great. And actually, uh there's there's also connections between ICE, of course, and and and the IOF, uh, especially also even policing. I know coming from Toronto, for instance, uh in Canada, even the a lot of our police forces get training in Israel or have contacts there. And I think what you're saying is it's very it's it's it's definitely eye-opening. What's kind of interesting, and I approached this with also my previous guest on the show, James Ray. You're talking about also, you know, I think we, especially as like a geopolitical analyst like like myself, I get so focused on strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy, kind of from a Machiavellian perspective, because I do like to take almost a scientific, not moralistic approach to things. And we try to figure out why countries go to war, what makes sense, why they do it. And then from there, once we describe it, we can then denounce what's going on. Sometimes there's wars that make strategic sense that are still wars that should be denounced and that are fundamentally evil. But I think what you're highlighting is something like a contradiction I increasingly see is so on the one hand, there is this strategic standpoint, but on the other hand, there is just this money-grabbing element to it. The fact that, yes, defense contractors need feelings of insecurity or war itself to continue to gobble up more money. And also, and as you're saying, it doesn't even really matter if they win the wars or not. It's it's just about launching more and more attacks so that the United States government can continue to funnel that money. And do you not also see this as a contradiction? Because like the way I see it is the Iran war, and you and I both agree, obviously, that it was a mistake from the beginning. And I think it's actually undermining America's foreign policy, right? It's it's something that is working to America's detriment. And if these contractors are not reined in, you'll just see more of this and eventually the undoing of America's strategy and American foreign policy more broadly. And in fact, actually, that can also have serious domestic ramifications. I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I I think it's not so dissimilar to a different time that happened in American history, which is like all of a sudden certain parts of America we're like this slavery stuff, like it might be traditional, and we might have been dealing business with them for a long time, but fundamentally we're industrialists now. Like, do we really want to be dealing with fugitive slave acts and you know, uh chasing uh their property and humans around our states? Like, this is not tenable anymore. We need to move on from that. Now, obviously, the South sort of forced their hand, and I think that's really where Israel is now. Like, they realize that they are the as Tony Jutt said in The New Yorker in 2003, they're an anachronism. Uh, the creating these sorts of ethnic states is something that was done uh century ago, it made more sense then, and now the world looks at it like, what do you mean? Like you have certain laws and you like like the it's it's funny to see Zionists deny that it it's a state that prefers Jews in all sorts of ways, like because it it that's what it's there for, and that just doesn't make sense anymore. And I think similarly, like that's why they're lashing out, is and I also think like South Africa similarly, like there was plenty of white supremacists in America that probably wanted to see that go, probably even Ronald Reagan uh wanted to see that project go on for a while, but all uh and there's a certain logic to it, and it may have even served a certain purpose um uh in uh on the imperial stage for a long time, and then all of a sudden it might still be serving that purpose, but it's also creating all these other problems for you, and then the expense of it and the uh just in financial terms or in political terms becomes too great, and people decide like slowly and very reluctantly that okay, we do need to reset. Now, of course, in the Civil War, there was the uh ending of slavery, but then after a very short time, a sort of restoration of white supremacy under change capitalist crime. Yes, exactly. Um so like that's I think maybe the the the wider concern is something somehow the status quo is is uh reset, but there's still so much of uh I mean uh in that part of the country, like a colonial logic that you know, uh unless Israel unless we I I do think like it has to be sanctions from the world, like they have to actually be concerned about the uh sustaining the project. And you know, hopefully, I like I've always been uh like Ilan Pape is a great Israeli historian who was predicting that this would lead to the end of Israel, uh I think somewhat optimistically. And there are certain things where like you know, people stop if if Jews particularly stop wanting to move to Israel and do Aliyah or whatever, um, and then Israelis there also also say, like, you know, this is not really where I want to be at. Um and and then we stop letting it just live off of our military as like a sort of outgrowth of our military industrial complex, uh, then maybe something can happen. Because I mean, as Israel reminds you, there are powerful players in the region too. Uh I look at the ones that you know play ball with Israel, and it's like you should learn from American history because there's all sorts of like uh indigenous tribes that also tried that, and we don't remember them any more fondly than the ones that we just uh exterminated right from the beginning. And so I I genuinely think like the uh the uh the Muslim world, the Arab world, uh they should take this as a moment to reassess like, is our are our problems with Iran so insurmountable that we want to keep supporting this country that we'll throw missiles into our urban areas if they don't like what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00

No, absolutely. This is uh absolutely fascinating, and I think there's so much I could say on that. You know, the the Civil War and it's kind of funny you say this moment where slavery is abolished but then something comes back. I think we actually saw that a bit in South Africa because to a certain extent, yes, apartheid ended, but then the economic inequality remains so great that the share of whites, the white population, which I think is like only five or ten percent, owns most of the land, most of the wealth. I do worry a feature of like that of a United Palestine where Israeli settlers still control the financial uh economic resources and land. Uh, but I think it's also interesting, and you mentioned this fact that I think the South African example, though, is also telling more positively because a lot of people don't understand that there was Western countries had extensive relations with South Africa, and nothing was done for so long until the writing was on the wall that this was no longer a political project that could work. And very quickly the Western countries abandoned it, and including corporations too, because at a certain point they're like, we don't want to be liable for whatever's coming, like a Nuremberg trial of sorts. So I think we could see that with Israel. When I don't know, I I definitely agree with Ilan Pape that I think its days are numbered. I don't think this is a project that can go on forever. I do think eventually even the demographics are going to shift. You are going to see some Israeli Jews leave, fewer Israeli Jews come to continue to grow the population. Uh, but I don't know what what would you see? Like, what would be, I guess, the signals that things were really starting to change and this was starting to unravel, Matt?

SPEAKER_01

That I mean, that's like the really scary question because uh, you know, you're familiar with the Seymour Hirsch book on the Samsung option, where he goes into Israel's sort of uh clandestine um uh development of nuclear weapons, and also that name alludes to the idea that if the project for Israel was ever under serious threat, they would use uh nuclear bombs as a blackmail uh technology against the world and say you need to come in and save us. Now, it is true that South Africa, the uh uh white South Africa uh also had nukes and didn't decide you know to nuke uh its neighbors. Um but like you say, like it's it's kind of scary when you have to hope that Israel is is as sort goes as sort of quietly as South Africa did. Um because I I I kind of don't think they will. Um I I don't think they have uh I I think it's a more radical nation, even than the white South Africa. Uh that uh South Africa was like, and there's certain news clips I've seen of the of a South African professor being like, look, when push comes a shove, like we have to assert our dominance by force. There we can try to just we can try to rationalize it, but uh, if we don't do that, uh we will uh disappear. And the truth is they couldn't do that, and they disappeared, and good. Um, and like you say, like never addressed, even in our own civil rights movement was the uh accumulation of wealth uh uh under the previous racialized regime. So it's like okay, vote now, good luck. Um uh, you know, that's nice, that's a cool thing to do. It's cool to be able to go into spaces without showing uh your passport in the in the context of South Africa or be able to use water fountains. But it's like we've been running this race uh economically for a hundred plus years now. Like, shouldn't there be something to I guess socialize, maybe is the best way to say, like, socialize the gains that were made collectively and that weren't uh and can you imagine that happening in Israel? Like, you know, my my preferred solution, as I think a lot of people uh in our area are, is to say like one democratic state, but then you get into the uh hypothetical of that, and it's like I don't think Israelis and got and Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank, uh particularly the Israelis, like I don't think they're ready to live alongside the folks. So, really what it is is the world needs to step in and remove the monopoly of violence from Israel, like the the IDF should be disbanded. Like, these are all things that um a world could do to a country the size of Israel, uh if they wanted to. And you know, the problem is like there's no will for that in America. Now it's it's all like, oh, well, how do we how do we get to a two-state solution?

SPEAKER_00

That's dead. I I laugh when people talk about the two-state solution. I'm like, oh boy, you're like it's like the internet explorer of like providing results. It's just like, wow, you are way you're not on the same wavelength, are you? That's yeah, that's done. We're way past two-state, you know? Like exactly. Oh my gosh. So um, I want to touch on one more thing, and then I want I do want to talk about this uh great American birthday, 250 years. Uh, but first, um, I do want to touch on Iran. This is something I'm probably focusing on eight hours a day. Uh, I I'm obsessed with what's going on. I think this is history in the making. So Iran and the United States are, of course, working out a final deal eventually, supposedly. Uh, less than 60 days, they need to do so. There's something called a memorandum of understanding, under which there's basic principles the states have to follow. Uh, this includes a ceasefire on all fronts, etc. etc. Listeners and viewers can look this up. Uh Matt, how likely do you think there's going to be a deal within 60 days between the United States and Iran?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um it's a good question. Uh I wouldn't normally I I kind of feel like I mean the question is, will Israel allow it? Because I think Trump and the Republicans, I mean, even Lindsay Graham is saying, well, I guess we can let him get some of that money that we were sanctioning him on. Right? If he's turning, it's because this is such an albatross politically that they just can't uh handle it. Like, how much you you know life is good if you're a Republican? Do you really want this messing up your grip on power uh because you support Israel so much? Like, I I I so and and I also think, like, what are we gonna do? Like, you're not gonna take Carg Island, which is something Trump's been talking about since the 80s, which makes me think it was always his idea. And the only reason any of us have been talking about that is because he's had this idea for a long time. But like, look at Carg Island on a map. You try to land soldiers there, and Iran will just rain missiles on them, they'll be they'll be cooked. This is reality setting in, uh, I think. Like an invasion, an actual proper invasion of Iran. I mean, look at the the the song and dance they made about saving that one so the the downed pilots like several months ago, which I still really and we don't even know if it actually was a downed pilot, it may have been an aborted mission to see his nuclear material, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But continue.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it's like so you want to uh like how many casualties do you think Americans are really going to put up with if you put poots on the ground? So that never happened. Um, you were they were never able to really like I mean the it's crazy, but the the straight of four moves just immediately closed and that immediately pinched the entire world in a way that hurt them extremely in the way that voters saw, like even more like during the Biden, it was like okay, they're seeing rent prices, they're seeing things like that. Gas is even more immediate of a political message to people, which is like I'm I cost how much for me to fill up my car, and it was for what reason? So so Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Does anybody is anybody in America really concerned about that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there was a funny thing. There was actually this woman, she said, I voted Trump three times, and I hate that this has happened. He like I I can't believe our president did this, and they said you vote for Trump three times. Why? And she said, Oh, I guess I'm an idiot. Just exactly like even her, she was like, Wow, I'm paying so much more. This doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, I I I don't follow stuff super closely, but for the first few months or so of this, the um it didn't really penalize Trump in the markets, like investors were like, Well, fine, the economy's still like booming, like that's what I care about. I don't really give a shit. But even now, you look at there seems to be the stuff's all these effects of closing a massive uh trade route are slowly starting to accrue. Uh and then if all of a sudden like the stock market tanks, like that that is fundamentally why I think this is real. Is they they can't Trump is not going to, I don't think, uh want to sink the world into a proper depression uh just for what? So because again, like what are you actually even going to be able to do? Uh get a slightly better deal than Iran gave Obama, like uh you know, over a decade ago. I I just think like it is it is I'm hoping at least, and I don't know if I'd predict it, but I'm hoping what it is is an acknowledgement of defeat. Uh and uh and so I I like to think, maybe optimistically, I'll say I I hope it is going to be a more lasting piece because I think this has been such a colossal, there's been nothing redeeming from no, there hasn't.

SPEAKER_00

There's been no achievements, and as I said earlier, or as I was alluding to earlier, there's really nothing that has been even advanced from a strategic perspective. I mean, like they keep talking about reopening the strait, it's like that was the status quo before February 28th. So, but I think you're right. I think it is really the billion-dollar question, or maybe I should say $300 billion question of how this is gonna go. Because I am of two minds. So, on the one hand, I definitely agree with you. I think from just a very strategic perspective, the war messed everything up, the economy's gonna tank if the strait remains closed. We need to get a deal, even a really bad deal for the United States, a great deal for Iran, I should say. But on the other hand, I don't know, like I think there's also all these weird like the like Iran controlling the strait really does give Iran dominance over, at the very least, the Persian Gulf countries, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia to a certain extent, Qatar, uh Bahrain, I forget if I mentioned that. But so on the one hand, I think it would make sense for them to get a deal. On the other hand, I don't know if the I don't know if America's right to grip give up the strait yet, but I guess we'll see, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean that's the thing, is I I just think like if I'm in one of those countries, and I think I saw one of their leaders say this, um, and I'm not sure which one it was, but saying, like, look, we've been we have our problems with Iran. Um they're going to be here. Like nothing nothing that happens in the next few months is going to make it so they're not our neighbor still. And that is really where they need to get to, in my opinion. Because like it's so it's so revealing of you know how much we've demonized Iran versus uh what the reality is that this big scary Iran that we've been hearing about needing to go to war with uh ever since the war in Iraq could have asserted this control over this strait this entire time, and they didn't until they were attacked, and and not just attacked once under Trump's first term, we lobbed a missile at uh Suleimani, like their main defense guy. Like, imagine if Iran assassinated Pete Hagseth or something like that, and Iran is like they did a little bit of like you know, say Boradley, and then maybe lobbed a missile somewhere, but ultimately the response was like, Well, they could have done this, and instead they waited until a decapitation strike, uh, you know, more and more uh subterfuge by Israel. Like we they were so clearly pushed towards doing this, and I think that says so much. I I can't imagine like the world looking at it and be like, well, like now you've did it, you you've you poked the bear or whatever the uh like I guess Persian metaphor be. And yeah, now you have an even bigger problem. Um, maybe this sort of this sort of military belligerence doesn't actually solve problems in the world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean it's out I agree with you. And also, if anything, as you're saying, it's like Iran is actually showing restraint, attacked three times, 2020, 2025, and then finally again, 2026. Not only the decapitation strike against Ayatollah Khamenei, but also the murder of 160 people, mostly schoolgirls, um, at Minab school that was struck. I can't imagine the American reaction if they had, if if on the February 28th it had been the opposite, and Donald Trump was assassinated at the White House with a missile, and then Iran struck some sort of school girl, a school, um school for girls in Virginia, they would have probably nuked Iran's. You know, that would have been that would have been it. Instead, Iran says, okay, well, we're just gonna do tit for tat, we're going to attack some of the Gulf states that you The host bases, and we're going to do this. Hopefully, we can come to some deal eventually. Like they're showing a lot of restraints, you know. And and also for listeners, they should know, you know, the you're right. So they wait so long to seize the Strait of Hormuz. There's another strait. It's called the Babel Mendub Strait, which is between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. And one-third, or I think it may actually just be 15%, of all world container traffic passes through there on the way to the Suez Canal. The Yemen, whose um most of the, not most of the territory, but most of the population is uh under the rule of Ansar Allah, also known as the Houtis, they could very easily close that off too. They've done it before. So again, Iran's actually showing restraint. They haven't done that. They could absolutely tank the global economy further. And yet the fact that they're not doing so, I think the countries are going to have to have a wake-up call that Iran is a country that you have to recognize. Heck, even just, I mean, even President Nixon had to eventually recognize that mainland China was the real China, and that was his famous trip, right? So in many ways it's also not radical just to accept that Iran exists and is there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it's funny, like the Houthis, like that was early, wasn't that this Trump term, right? Where it was, yeah. They tried to again use force and bring them into line. And then Trump had to be like, I gotta hand it to those guys. I know. Or they really know how to fight.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, and they had this uh agreement, they always call them agreements. No, it was a surrender. Like the United States literally said, Yeah, we're gonna stop attacking you, like that's like we ser, like we surrender. So, you know, all this chaos. I want to turn to America at 250 years, um, 4th of July, 250 years. Matt, how does it feel to be an American right now and uh this big birthday party, if we want to call it that, coming up?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, I uh I am I'm from North Dakota, uh, so I am um and I also share a birthday with uh George Armstrong Custer, who uh was uh killed on the hundredth anniversary of America. It was a hundred years uh around there, it was that summer, uh, where he was uh uh you know got a little bit too cocky and ended up getting killed by a sitting bull and crazy horse out in Montana. And um and I think about that a lot uh this past summer because yeah, I fundamentally like I I can be you know talked into you know patriotism versus nationalism, patriotism being a more salutary uh notion, and uh you think of all the people who have uh fought for a fairer world uh in America, and I I I genuinely like uh appreciate uh raising that up and having a positive sort of vision of what an American uh would be. With that said, like the state of the country right now is such that like we have, I think, a basically a mob criminal uh in the White House.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no, a mob criminal who's also a pedophile. That's that's that's a key detail, right?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And we are uh uh as belligerent on the imperial level as uh I mean, I never thought we would see stuff like uh you're growing up during the Iraq war as a teenager, it's like, oh, everyone basically gets this was right, this was wrong that we did this, right? And then to just be like, well, we're gonna do another round war. We're gonna not not even that, we're gonna um allow Israel to ethnically cleanse people in front of your face and then call it self-defense. Uh so it's hard to it's hard not to uh reserve uh register a little bit of um problem with the uh when the national anthem plays or you're asked to like put your hand on your heart for the flag. Because I've frankly seen a lot of people do that that I don't think have really grappled with the serious role that our country plays in the world uh for millions and millions of people. Uh so uh 250 years. Um it's a it's it's a sh I mean I was just over in London. It's not that long of a time. Um uh there's been some good in it, but ultimately, like I think I think of America as a very uh sort of belligerent and hubristic uh sort of being that uh hasn't been humbled in a while now. And I I actually think that's something I'm also thinking about is you know, China is cleaning our clocks when it comes to production. To say nothing else of you know, civil liberties, whatever, um they're building cars better than us. They're building even like I think running shoes now. All of my running shoe uh YouTubers are like, oh, I gotta look at the Li Ning and all these Chinese brands that were nowhere to be seen. It's like all of a sudden they're rising to the top. Um, and America, we just have rich people that create different ways to gamble and uh for people, and that is going to catch up with us. I I don't know if the boomers will live to recognize like the failure in investment uh that should be evident. But like I said, I was over in uh the UK, which has many problems. Um, I think America's infrastructure is embarrassing. Like we there's just a massive warehouse fire out in Los Angeles, and that's like a month after they had to spray down some sort of like chemical tank from exploding again in Los Angeles. It's like we need it's funny, like the right, they're like they point to uh refugees as like we're becoming a third world country. No, our infrastructure is becoming third world because investors and shareholders don't give a shit about it, they want an easy buck. And meanwhile, other countries are expanding their ability to produce what's going to be needed for the future. And what are we doing? Gam, we're legalizing gambling. Okay, like probably legalize all sorts of things, like get high now. Um, but ultimately it's all geared toward how can we funnel money to passive investors? And that's a that's a crazy that that's is going to bite us in the ass, I think the same way it did maybe, I mean, about uh a hundred years ago.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if you want to call, um, you know, thinking again, um, I'm thinking about like the global south, uh, which China I still would include in that category. Maybe America should be uh have third world uh infrastructure like China, maybe it should have third world infrastructure like Iran, which by the way had its bridge blown up. Um I saw this video of this once bridges was blown up, and then two days it had it rebuilt. And people might say, Oh, that's propaganda, whatever. Well, you know, the fact that they can even do it for one bridge is incredible. Uh I again uh you'd probably know more again. Listeners should know I'm a Canadian, so I'm not always in the thick of this, but I think there's also the Baltimore Bridge. I don't think that's been rebuilt. That was the one that was hit by a container ship, and then the whole thing crumbled, and that's still not built yet, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, just collapsed and still remains. And also, you know, just by the way, the people that were on it when it collapsed were um, I believe, immigrant workers. Um gosh. Yeah, it and it it it really is like we are we have under massively underinvested, and this is a problem that is so like when Biden was in office and they passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and Nancy Pelosi gets on stage, and it's the sort of thing where like you if you ever like buy a toy for like a toddler and they don't seem that into it, they're like you really try to like be, oh that isn't that amazing. Nancy Pelosi gets on there, it's like this is a once-in-a-lifetime bipartisan infrastructure bill. And it's like, once in a lifetime means I should be excited for it. But I what she really meant to say is like, hey, donors, don't get the idea that this is gonna be a regular fixture of the American state, that we're going to put money where it needs to be. Y'all still got this. We'll still rely on you guys. Uh, but we need to do something now. Because the truth is, we need to do that level of infrastructure spending over and over and over again. It's crazy like that the little amount of train infrastructure, like I have a very conservative grandmother. She uh is getting to the age now where she doesn't want to do any sort of travel except trains, but she's in North Dakota, so SOL. Uh and that never used to be the case, even like when she was like a child, right? We used to be able to have we we America should be able to have this sort of infrastructure. And instead, we just want really rich people because they'll like create jobs or something down the line, even though like I haven't seen that happen at any point in my life where all of a sudden rich people are like, here's a bunch of great jobs. In my experience, it's like, okay, Amazon's hiring, you can go break your body there for like seven years and uh you know, not have a whole lot to show for you at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, in solidarity, I will say Canada is having these issues too. We've also actually, by the way, I saw we can now do bets on wealth simple. Our infrastructure is also having its issues. Uh, even in the province I'm in, Ontario, we're actually having our healthcare system gutted. So we're not too far behind. So at least that we can build some solid solidarity there. Matt, my final quote, well, I think one of my last two questions. So I'm also kind of curious about this relationship between patriotism and the broader section of the left. Uh, left as in everything from progressive to communist, to be frank. So, some people, I think there's a long history of American leftism that has actually reinvested, reinterpreted the myths that built America. I definitely am thinking about this recent thing. Well, a month ago, AOC was talking about how the American Revolution was, you know, a revolt against the billionaires of her time. Then counter, and I think actually some other quick examples before I get into the counter case. Even you saw, like, for instance, I remember like the American Communist Party, if I'm correct, actually at one point not wanting to get rid of the Constitution, but actually make the Constitution, like keep the Constitution, but make it more communist and stuff. Uh, they used to have these rallies and there'd be these giant photos of Lincoln. And so kind of mixing this patriotism with a left-wing project. Others, for instance, uh, one person I think of who I actually have, I think has a really good nuanced view of this is the historian Gerald Horne, who I know has actually been a guest on the majority report. Uh, Gerald Horn has a great book where he says the American Revolution was really a counter-revolution. It was a meant to kept keep slavery. Uh, George Washington was one of the largest uh landowners in the world. It was also a revolt against the fact that Britain, the, I'm gonna get my year wrong in this. I think it's the 1768 uh proclamation, which actually restricted settlements beyond Appalachia against indigenous groups. It was a revolt against that, that the American project from the beginning has been one of capital accumulation, genocide. To me, to a certain extent, I do see America in any settler colony, Canada too, we're not above this, New Zealand, Australia. I'll be frank, I see all these places as just large Israels 200 years later, right? I'm wondering about, and I think this could be a very long discussion, but I'm just wondering how you see the relationship between leftism and patriotism, whether that's a contradiction or can be deployed effectively. Um, I would also add to the mix the fact that usually as people on the left, we also aspire for internationalism, not nationalism. So I want to hear your thoughts on this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think the you know the American Revolution thing, I've read the uh the Horn book, and I think it's hard not to, you know, notice certain facts, which is after the American Revolution, in at least in like New York State, like you say, the um the settlement uh and taking, which is the I guess code word for taking of Native American lands accelerated precipitously, uh as one of the um the downsides of overthrowing that feudal order. I I tend to think it it's sort of uh I guess dialectical in that that was that is definitely like I think a uh primary motivation. I think people like Washington, um even Jefferson, although you know he was obviously like supportive of the French Revolution at the time too. Um I I think they were more into what was good for them, and they saw a chance to take a continent and they took it. Um, I also and you know, there's the whole like Thomas Paine, what he brought to the American Revolution, which was the more popular anti-feudal uh egalitarian uh uh uh ideas. And whether or not those were subscribed to by the leaders of the American or the Founding Fathers, as we call them now. Um I don't think the American Revolution would have succeeded if it weren't for that change in mindset that is evident in the writings of someone like Thomas Paine. Uh and you you saw that, you know, with the you know what I would say, you know, obviously it uh it did have a terror uh element to it, but you know, it was good to get rid of the monarchy in France. I think we're uh I think it's better. Uh I think Britain should get uh on with that themselves. Uh so like generally, I I I think it's important to keep in mind the uh the sort of elements that Horne is very sensitive to uh in his work. But I also think you know, we look at Abraham Lincoln when he was running uh for president against uh Douglas, and I believe it was the Cooper Union speech where he mentions the uh uh Declaration of Independence, I think it was, um uh and sort of in a way that probably the the slave owners wouldn't have, but saying, look, if we believe in these ideas of uh you know uh men are created equal under God, uh then you can't have property in another man. And I I think that is an extremely potent approach for politicians particularly uh to take. And I think uh AOC could can do that. I don't know if she's necessarily like got the um footing on how to deploy uh some of that entirely yet. Uh, but I don't begrudge her the effort because I think ultimately she can't take the you know America Kaka um approach. Uh I don't I don't think any politician can really do that in any country that you're trying to run for office for. I think it's it's important to be aware uh of like you know the settler colonial, you know, it's it's funny, like just a random aside. Like people say Israel's doing a genocide. Well, no country's ever survived after doing a genocide. And it's like, well, I feel like I kind of am inside of one.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Grew up like around exactly and like like my uh high school um mascot was the Braves, and it's like we're growing up in like the sort of like yeah, the sort of surroundings of this. Uh, but I I do think that I think the Lincoln example is the most prominent one where it's like, okay, we are going to take this and we're going to act as if it means what we would want it to mean now. And we are going to trust that when we do step into that reality, that people will follow us into it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. No, it's interesting, because I don't expect people like uh, I don't expect any politician to, you know, including AOC, to say America with three Ks in it, uh spell it that way, and denounce the whole nation state. I guess I just wonder, though, like as leftists, like, you know, because we do, for instance, often subscribe to ideas that are, I think, scientifically correct, but which are not accepted by the broader society. And sometimes I do wonder, like, you know, when, you know, forget AOC, but like when we're campaign, I guess like from an ideological perspective, to what extent should we embrace America or should we just like kind of forego that as a strategy of radicalizing people? Like AOC, of course, she gets it. It's the same thing. I remember Mam Downey, he said, yes, Israel has the right to exist. And I was like, well, no, it doesn't, but I mean I know why he's saying that. He he like there is this element of you sometimes have to tone down the radicalism in order to win elections. But I guess just like, you know, we're running, I'm running a podcast, you run a podcast, like to what extent should we invoke that history, uh, bring in patriotism into our leftism, or maybe just I mean, on these smaller platforms, kind of reject that, like kind of take the horn approach.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I I think um generally, like the type of things I would want to emphasize would would be more internationalist, right? Like the Lincoln Brigades, the the folks who decided, okay, we're gonna go over to Spain to fight Franco. Uh, like that, that sort of stuff. Um, and then again, they called themselves the Lincoln Brigades, right? So that's like accepting this sort of thing, which like Lincoln himself like had to be pushed on emancipation by you know reality. He was uh he was uh uh uh repatriate them to uh uh Africa guy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Liberia, yep.

SPEAKER_01

Uh on the campaign trail. Um uh you know, I I think it and you know, like David Griscombe, uh my co-host on Left Reckoning does a lot of um a lot of work on like Texas history and local history like that. And uh uh a good chunk of the people that he's talking about, the populists, had issues with you know massive bigotries, uh that we look back at and say, like, this is uh a huge problem. But nonetheless, there's a fundamental uh you know anti-capitalist through line. There's also people who were uh trying to uh organize across uh racial lines, and I think that is that that's why it's important, I think, to I don't know that you necessarily need to go at the um people's mythological understanding of the place they were, as opposed to say, look that clearly doesn't apply when it comes to something like Vietnam. We were we were actually, I mean, that's a good example. Ho Chi Minh uh cited the Declaration of Independence in his uh declaration of Vietnam's independence, cited Thomas Jefferson. Uh and America comes in and says, actually, we want to reassert colonial domination in this region by creating a whole new state that uh will be our puppet there. That is that's a good opportunity to say, like, well, this is against American values. We should be uh for these sorts of like egalitarian, uh all men are created equal sort of things, which again, like only in very brief glimpses has that been a reality in America. Um, but nonetheless, like it's very hard to say no, we're gonna just dominate you, and it doesn't we don't have any justification for it. Uh so like I I think there's often when America does this sort of stuff a way to uh reassert certain ideals that should be um common, but again, like that common is where you get into the problem, right? Like common as a nation, yeah. I'm not into that either. Like as Americans, like again, like I I feel weird talking about that stuff. We have to think about it as common as humanity, and to the extent that America has had a history that should be looked at by the mass of humanity as uh salutary, it's the things that are like I mean, uh fighting Jim Crow or uh you know belatedly getting rid of channel slavery. Uh like the and uh and in in fact, even I would include um overthrow and feudalism, which I think like I think monarchy and that sort of stuff, I think that is a huge uh we take for granted to the extent that that's a huge problem, I think, in people's minds when they think, well, maybe we should just have a king. Like I personally that's where I do get a little bit like July 4th. It's like I I don't ever want to have a King Charles or whatever they fuck the fuck they got going on.

SPEAKER_00

As a Canadian, don't emphasize it too much. It's it also grinds my we we still have a king. That is our official home state. It's not the prime minister. It grinds my gears, though. You know, it's on our coins, it's on everything. Uh and and um as a lawyer, it's also frustrating. Uh it's the king's bench. Uh the my clients, when they become citizens, have to swear an oath to the king. Uh so we're still working on it, uh, you know, 250 years later. We'll we'll get there. We'll we'll we'll definitely get there. My final question is um do you think America will be around in 250 years from now?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good question. Do I think America will be still around in the current borders? I think definitely not. But I think I think you could see some kind of. I mean, I'd prefer just one world government to take over everything. Maybe that's called like China or something. But um uh that's a little bit of a joke. But I I do think America not having and not even realizing that it needs to take seriously this idea that it is not the great producer of the world anymore. That's gonna play out in really ugly ways. Uh I think over the next I think it already is. I think that's partly what this whole support Israel to the hilt, uh you know, fight all these wars. But I think the bill is gonna come due on how badly we've investing towards militant ends. And I mean America it's it it's tough because it's hard to I don't really credit a lot of the sort of um like let's let's have the northwestern states separate and start their own little thing. I think that's fundamentally silly, but I also think the the way I'll say this. I think America will be one state in the uh in the one world government, and uh that's what I at least hope for in 250 years, that we're not this dominant pole that you know is both you know insanely like stupid and also uh uh crap hole, but also we can shoot missiles at anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00

I guess the real question Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

No, that's it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say, I guess the real question is is there gonna still be UFC fights uh in front of the White House uh 250 years from now?

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah, that's that's how we're gonna determine who's the head of state.

SPEAKER_00

Um probably. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you gotta be careful, by the way. Your your right-wing critics are gonna definitely cut up this uh world government thing, you know. See, you know, Matt Matt's part of the new world order, of course, right? No, I I'm with you on it. I I don't think we should be having all these separate states. I think we should have a system where states aren't always fighting each other and advancing their interests, a common humanity where we are uh hopefully uh trying to create prosperity for everyone, you know?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I I want to I I I would like the idea of uh seeing anybody anywhere in the world as like my countrymen. Yes. Or uh like I think that is um, you know, I I think it's good. Like in America, we have we can go to different states, but we all view ourselves as American. Um it's weird, like in Europe where you have so many cloth, like different cultures, but uh like so close to each other. I I honestly prefer more of a um, I mean, I guess uh more communication across borders. And I think ultimately like that kind of seems like where everything's going, right? Like we can fight it with all this stuff, but like it's never been easier to see somebody in any continent, you know, give an opinion and you can easily translate that. Uh now like communication just so fast. Like, I ultimately I think we're we're so provincial now. And uh I think that can't last forever.

SPEAKER_00

On that optimistic note, um Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, at Matt Leck on uh Twitter and uh Instagram and uh Majority Report. I'm there five days a week and uh left reckoning uh Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_00

Excellent. Well, Matt, thank you so much. Um, to all listeners and viewers. Uh next week we are planning on having Dr. Sabrina Gafar Sidiki uh with her book uh DEI Undone. Uh and thank you for everyone who listens. Please share the show. If you're watching this on YouTube, like and uh subscribe. Cheers.