Mia Wong (1:38)

The story behind the Rumble in the Jungle is like a Hollywood movie, but.

Robert Evans (1:41)

That is only half the story.

Mia Wong (1:43)

There's also James Brown, Bill Withers, B.B.

Robert Evans (1:46)

King, Miriam Makeba, all the biggest black.

Mia Wong (1:49)

Artists on the planet together in Africa.

Garrison Davis (1:51)

It was a big deal.

Robert Evans (1:52)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman and the.

Mia Wong (1:55)

Soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app.

Robert Evans (1:58)

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five year old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off.

Mia Wong (2:08)

The coast of Florida.

Garrison Davis (2:11)

And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and.

Robert Evans (2:17)

He wanted to take his son with him or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to Freedom.

Garrison Davis (2:26)

Listen to Chef's the Elian Gonzalez Story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or.

Mia Wong (2:32)

Wherever you get your podcasts.

Garrison Davis (2:39)

Call Zone Media.

Robert Evans (2:41)

Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat Less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Oh, welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it happening here. Things falling apart. And today, the thing that is falling apart is infowars. Now, this is not a new situation. Infowars has been falling apart for, like, half a decade now. But we are. We are reaching certainly a point in that process. And to talk about that point, I am bringing on, really, the only two people you can bring on. If you want an expert opinion on Alex Jones, Dan and Jordan of Knowledge Fight. Dan Jordan, welcome to the program.

Mia Wong (3:40)

Hello.

Robert Evans (3:41)

Thank you for having us.

Garrison Davis (3:42)

Hello.

Robert Evans (3:44)

You can bring us on to tell you things that every other expert in the world will say are wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's nice to know that we are once again at that point where shit is looking that bad for Alex that it's relevant for us to get to start doing your media tours. Yeah, exactly. I mean, hey, I'm enjoying this because.

Garrison Davis (4:08)

I know we're going to see you.

Robert Evans (4:10)

Next year to have the same conversation. And I was flashing back to earlier times we've talked. We've probably been like, hey, things are looking bad for Alex. Oh, yeah. My fingers are crossed that he gets a bad batch of supplements and goes on, like, not a sad murdering spree, but like a cannibal spree. Like, he eats three or four people and then the news, like, you guys. You guys are on fucking CNN talking about. Well, actually, Alex has been discussing eating people for quite some time. Sure. This is really. This is really a long story for him. Really. Anyone should have seen this coming. The writing was on the wall. This is some of the least surprising cannibalism in media history. It turns out this supplement, it didn't make him a cannibal. It just brought out that cannibal that was already there. Yeah, that's what the iodine does first. Before we get into it, elephant in the room. By which I mean Dan, you look like you're ready to lead the Union army in a series of civil war battles. It's a compliment to your facial hair. So by elephant, you mean the tusks? Yes. Well, thank you very much. I'm learning to accept compliments. But, yeah, I've got a ridiculous handlebar situation that I did as a joke. I got this as a joke to go to undercover to a Tucker Carlson event. That's an incredible decision. And then the positive feedback's been too much for me to handle. It's good. Oh, well. I mean, this is really changing things for me because prior to seeing this, Jordan would have been my go to if I needed someone to help me burn Atlanta. But now. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Could be either of you. There's a lot of Civil war jokes, a lot of hitting home runs in the 70s. Sure, sure. Jokes. It's okay. I have a whole subreddit full of people that just Photoshop my face on the pictures of Rasputin. So it's what happens. Speaking of Rasputin, he was psychic. And so was Alex, according to Alex.

Garrison Davis (6:06)

Yep.

Robert Evans (6:06)

Yeah. What do you. What do you guys want to start here? Because, like, obviously the big news right now is all of Infowars is up for auction, including, apparently Alex is Twittering. It sounds like will probably be part of the deal, although I guess that's a little unclear right now. He's trying to fight that inclusion of the Twitter handle in his bankruptcy estate, but I think almost anybody could make a pretty solid argument that it's company property. Yeah. He uses it to broadcast his show. He takes calls on it for his show from Twitter spaces. So, like, yeah, he's probably going to lose that fight and it's probably going to be part of the auction. Yeah. But I mean, at the same time, him not having it makes it valueless. So it's worthless. Yeah. So if I were going to auction it, it would be worth $0, but if I were going to give it to Alex, it would be worth to him millions upon millions of dollars. And that's the issue here. Yeah. It does kind of seem, and I listen to Alex primarily through you, but it does seem like from what I'm hearing, your show, he's kind of more concerned about the Twitter account than the multimillion dollar studio space time.

Mia Wong (7:15)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robert Evans (7:17)

Which actually is kind of funny because I think it belies a lack of confidence. Yeah. Because I think if he loses real Alex Jones on Twitter, he could have realer Alex Jones.

Mia Wong (7:28)

Yep.

Robert Evans (7:28)

It doesn't seem like that would be a problem for him, actually. Do you think you can't gather this audience back together? I think that's the problem. He's worried he can't get it back. Yeah, yeah. Well, specifically him. Like, Elon would tell people to follow him. There'd be a bunch of people with huge accounts saying, this is the new Alex Jones. Like, I really don't think it would be much more than a speed bump, actually. Unfortunately you think that, but these aren't your friends. No, no. You can't trust Elon fucking Musk to help you out. What? I do think that there's an abandonment fear possibly or some sort of lack of confidence that like if this speed bump does hit, I won't be able to rebuild. Oh no. And it makes sense. Yeah. I think it's delusional. I think he's totally fine. Start a hundred new Twitter accounts, you can get a million followers on all of them. Agreed. Yeah, but I mean he's delusional about just about everything. So it makes sense that in this case he would be delusional in the wrong direction. That's true. Yeah. So yeah. How does this seem to be going? My big concern when I'm thinking about it is like, well, there's probably someone rich out there. Some like rich asshole think tank funding oil billionaire that would consider it chump change to buy all this shit up and just give it back to Alex. But my understanding is that that's not actually like a thing you can do in these kind of situations. Although I'm not an expert on it. Oh, I think you can.

Mia Wong (8:55)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (8:55)

The trustee has the ability to even say like if there was like a bid that was from whomever you want to say, like out of nowhere, George Soros, if you like fucking William Regnery V or whichever Regnary we're on now. Yeah, yeah. $10 billion. More money than God could imagine. But the trustee wanted it to stay in right wing billionaire hands. He could give it to somebody who bid $6 million for it or 5 or. I don't think that that's actually accurate fully. And I also don't think that the trustee is beholden to Alex in any way. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there is that level of control that is not just like it's going to the highest bidder. As I understand it, the trustees control in terms of that is more about a minimum bid. Like if there were higher bids, it would be very difficult to rationalize not taking them if they are from people who have the actual money. Sure. Aren't I guess involved with terrorism or something. Unless there is a concrete reason not to accept it. I would be surprised if they didn't accept Soros if he made a bid. I mean I would be too. But also currently we are on surprise number. Seven and a half thousand. That's true.

Mia Wong (10:08)

If not more.

Robert Evans (10:09)

Yeah. So that would be the least surprising thing if it was a surprising thing. Yeah, I guess. So I think we're all agreed Alex isn't going to just shut up and ride into the sunset. He's physically incapable of doing that. Like, he would literally, literally explode like a soda with Mentos dropped into it if that were to happen. But also, there's a massive judgment on him. Right. So my understanding is that like, any money beyond whatever a court decides would be necessary for him to maintain existence. Although I understand there's also, like, ways you can fuck around with that too. Like, what do you guys know about, like, what kind of limitations the court has placed on Alex for the future after all of his shit gets sold out from underneath him? Well, I don't know about like, specific details, but because his judgment was deemed to be like, malicious and intentional. Yeah. The amount that he owes, personally is not dischargeable by bankruptcy. Yeah. So he's in chapter seven bankruptcy now, personally. And so he's liquidating all the assets so he has to sell off the company, which is how we get to the auction in the first place. And so he will sell off these assets to go towards the payment of these people, but that's not going to erase the debts and set things even. So in theory, he could be hounded for the rest of his life. Sure. He could have wages garnished, have some oversight of his finances. In theory. Yeah. To the amount that that's exercised. I'm not sure how much it will be, but yeah, that's going to be hanging over him for the rest of his life. Yeah. Or I mean, if I was him, and based on how things are going for him so far and the direction things are taking, then once this is handled, then he's going to move all of his money to alexjonestore.com and then once they catch him there, he's going to move all of his money to alexjonestore.com too. And then once they catch him there, he's going to move his stuff to Alex jones.com 3 uh, until eventually everybody gets so fucking tired that they're like, fine, either we're no longer going to come after you or we'll settle for fucking nothing. Yeah. Cuz him and him and his lawyers explained that even as part of their legal strategy early on, which is that you exhaust people with delays and to the point where someone's just willing to settle because you're such a pain in the ass. Yeah. And that's just kind of his mode of operation.

Mia Wong (12:34)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (12:34)

And every time people have been like, well, clearly you can't continue to be a pain in the. The ass this way anymore. It won't be allowed. It has instead been allowed. So you can do it. It's fun. I don't want to get like, in the, in the way of people's, you know, celebrating the downfall of Alex Jones. But it does kind of seem like nothing realistically is going to stop him from being rich and being able to talk to an audience of people who are dangerously devoted to his shit. Like, none of this is actually going to. I'm sure it's unpleasant and stressful. Right. But it's not going to stop him. Right. That's just not possible. Yeah. This is why you get other experts. Because I do want to get in the way of people enjoying the quote, unquote, Infowars downfall. I'm just talking about, like, when I'm, when I'm watching people celebrate on Twitter. Like, you can't correct everybody. It's like whenever, whenever there's like disinfo about Alex Jones that people listen to your show know. Like there was a period of time where I would correct people about that or really literally anything else. And I've increasingly gotten to the point where, like, everyone's wrong about almost everything they say on the Internet and there's really no point in correcting anybody about it anymore. Like, what, what am I going to do? How is this going to help? Yeah. I see people like posting videos of Alex crying. Yeah. And like changing the context of what it is for. For some post. And it's like, you guys are just. I don't. It's not worth the energy to correct here. Yeah. To your point, though, Jordan does want to stop people from celebrating and ruining everyone's fun. I'm in the middle. Okay. I would like people to be a little. Half the time do it. People to be a little bit more realistic about their expectations. People being like, celebrating prematurely. Like, you're just going to have to deal with the hangover of this. That is, there's a pretty decent chance somebody aligned with Alex is going to buy the company and then all of it is going to get just given back to him. And it's equally likely that someone, you know, like a Soros or whatever does end up buying it. Infowars is destroyed and Alex's revenue streams remain intact because his dad runs his supplement company now. That's outside of the bankruptcy. He's shifted all of his merch over to this alexjonestore.com that's run by somebody else. So, like, all the meaningful ways that he can make money, are now protected and he can just start Alex Jones fuck around hour or whatever and have these people be sponsors. And, you know, it'll feel fun that Infowars is gone or someone else bought it or whatever. But, like, you know, like you're saying, Robert, it doesn't, it doesn't really address the issue and nothing is. Nothing's really gained. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of been a massive waste of everybody's time, but.

Garrison Davis (15:24)

But a lot of lawyers are going.

Robert Evans (15:25)

To make a lot of money, so that's good. It does seem if I. If I'm going out of my way to kind of look at what are the most positive results of this, like, if. I mean, it does look like he's probably going to lose control of all of the shit that they have to film Infowars. Right. That won't stop them from filming and doing videos, but maybe they'll look like crap and maybe that will have an impact on, like, the degree of credence people give them. You know, like, maybe the fact that Infowars has a nice studio isn't 0% of, like, why their shit gets taken seriously by people. I don't think it's most of why, but it's not nothing either. Otherwise, like, they wouldn't be doing it. Like, I do think that, that, although, I don't know, maybe that was in a different era is when that mattered. I think it's also psychologically important for him. Yeah, that might be the most. He wants to think he's doing a real show and without the trappings of a fake CNN studio, it's harder to pretend that you're not just reading Twitter headlines and then getting mad about them. But I do, I do feel like this idea that it's a waste of time and everything has been a waste of time, I just want to give a little bit of voice to the fact that it may feel like a waste of time and nothing has been achieved, but, you know, if you listen to the perspective of some of the plaintiffs and some of the families, the ability to face him in court and reclaim some of the power that he had over memories and the power and the pain, you know, that isn't something that is quantifiable in terms of the money or, you know, all of his feet dragging, but it is something that matters. And I don't want to pretend that that hasn't been achieved. Agreed. As much as it's not the catharsis of him getting arrested or losing all of his money or Whatever that. Yeah, I mean, I just. I think we all needed to understand clearly from the beginning what this was, and that would have altered kind of the way that this is perceived. Like, if we had all known from the jump, like, if all the lawyers and everybody and all the media had gotten together and been like, listen, this is going to be a moral victory and it's going to be good to have this, like, in public, to have this airing for all of us to see and for the families to have. I think we would have been fine with that. The problem was all the rest of the stuff was a waste of everybody's time. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. Yeah, a bit. I think if we had just had this could all have been banged out in a day. Really? Yeah. Like, we get everybody in court, everybody gets to say their piece, and then we're done. And Alex gets to remain rich. It's basically the same thing. All right, well, we're going to keep talking on this and I'm going to ask you guys for an update on how Alex is handling the election, too. But first, what's all. Handle some ads. And we're back. You know, this is one thing. This is. Sorry, I gotta stop you. I can't believe you're running an ad for Dr. Jones Naturals. That's just really different. Very different naturals, though. Very different naturals. Not. We are. We are using that in the porn sense. My. Okay, my Alex Jones deepfake pornography website is off the ground for $70 a month. You too can have a subscription. Dr. Jones. Alex Jones shrunk naturals. Yeah, yeah, Dr. Jones take too many supplements. You're gonna have some real shrunk naturals, hon. Most of what I do is just take clips from the Graduate and put him in as the male lead. I don't know why. I don't know why. To give people what they want. Anyway, we made $40 million last month. Shit. Damn. We should have stopped with this whole no ads thing. I want to talk a little bit about how Alex has been handling the election. Because, you know, one of the things that's always interesting to me is how his sense about whether or not everyone's doomed to be, you know, murdered by the new world order and have their corpse disposed of by a robot is not related at all to, like, how conservatism is doing, how. How his party has picked candidates are doing. And it's. It's a pure. His own personal vibes, because right now is not a terrible time if You're a fascist. In the United States, there's a real good chance they're going to have a. Have a runaway win here in the next couple of weeks. But Alex is at least based on the most recent episode of Knowledge Fight. I've listened to more or less on the everything is fucked and we're all doomed. The new world order is going to eat you all thing. I think it's just because he's got the auction team coming by his office. Well, spoiler alert. In the next episode, he's had a euphoria moment because he's realized that they're going to win. They've already won.

Mia Wong (20:29)

They've already won.

Robert Evans (20:31)

You're way too far behind now. Tomorrow, of course, they will be losing and we're all going to die. He's a rapid cycling kind of guy. After that, we're going to win. Yeah, but I mean, I think, I think that, you know, we've even talked about this before. This dynamic of like your enemy has to be super strong and then super defeatable and super weak. Like all of that must exist simultaneously or else. Yeah. You know, his game doesn't really work as well. Yeah. So that, that energy is going to keep going until the election.

Garrison Davis (21:01)

And also it makes sense.

Robert Evans (21:02)

I mean, I can't imagine the idea of a bunch of professional people coming into my home or place of business and just like cataloging things, just taking each individual pictures. The amount of stress and nervous energy that that would provide. Yeah. Like, I'd be like, I did. I didn't know. I don't know if I needed to clean that. I don't know if I needed to clean it. Shit would be getting real. Yeah, I just like, cleaning up my dad's place after he died was like this whole thing of all of these are items that have meaning to our family and I would be okay burning them all in a fire in a pit right now. Right. Like, I'm just, I'm done. I'm done. So I can't imagine, like the sense of fucking I would have in Alex, especially if I had Alex Jones money. Like, he really. It's just more evidence that there's a deep sickness involved in all this with him. Like, he can't stop himself. Like, yes, go fish or something, bro. Like, go on a nice fishing trip. What are you doing sitting in your office watching your life get picked apart? What a miserable place. Give everybody the day off. It's crazy. Fishing's not going to stop the devil. And that is really, you know, fishing is actually how the devil gets out. It's. Every water is a portal to the fifth dimension of hell, which is actually the lower fifth. There's a higher fifth dimension where good demons, I mean, angels come out of. But then the lower fifth dimension comes up through the pond, and that's where catfish come from. This is not an Alex theory, but it plausibly could be. Yeah. I feel like that wasn't far off. No. So how are we doing with Alex in terms of, like. One thing I've noticed, and maybe I have a. You can tell me if you agree with my kind of interpretation here, is that he seems to be at a little bit of a lower ebb in terms of getting invited on and talking with, like, much more popular creators. I haven't seen. Like, last year, I felt like I saw him on a lot of stuff. And this year, I don't know if it's just that he's not, you know, as sexy as he was to them last year, but I'm just not seeing him out as much as I kind of expected to in an election. And I'm wondering if that's your interpretation, too, or if I'm just kind of. You think I'm off. I think it's 50 50, because I think that there is something to that. Like, he was on. He's been on more fun stuff before in the past, and it's been. It's been a little bit limited this year, but he was just on Tucker's live show in Pennsylvania, which is about as big as anything he's done, probably. At least it feels pretty big. Yeah. It wasn't the Two Drunk Sports Guys podcast. No, flagrant two. Flagrant two. That might have been a few years ago, too. Yeah. My memory is terrible. Yeah. He hasn't been back on Rogan. There's some big gaps in terms of where he feels like he should be appearing, but if you look at the luminaries that were on that Tucker Carlson tour, him being included in that list of people is pretty, you know, that's. That's rarefied air. I mean, unfortunately, I guess it is, in a way. You got RFK Jr. Yeah. You got Vivek. They're consequential people. Which is the most disinterring part is that these are the dregs of humanity, and yet they are very consequential people that we should be paying attention to. It's absolutely infuriating that, Yeah, I have to care about. Especially fucking Vivek. Yeah. Because I ran into him at the fucking rnc. And he was being surrounded by a cloud of guys who all looked like Nick Fuentes. Like, the only reason I didn't assume one of them was Nick Fuentes is that any one of them could have been Nick Fuentes. And I had to fight this urge to, you see those, like, old man comics where like, a guy will be fighting a hundred shrews and like beating one of them to death with the others. I had to fight off the urge to pick up one Fuentes by the legs and just start swinging him. Just start swinging. You are my weapon. So where do you see Alex a year from now? Right. Do you have any kind of expectation for where he's going to be? Because at some point his dad has to die, which I understand is a pretty important part right now of how he's able to keep money flowing to his operation in the face of the judgment. Right. His dad and his brother in law both run the Dr. Jones Naturals. So even if David Jones kicks the bucket, his brother is still going to be there. So I think, I think Alex is fine. But he almost killed his dad with COVID Yeah. So, yeah, I am surprised Dr. Jones lived through that, given Alex. Yeah. Sitting on his chest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it is a little bit of a testament to how insane and how the best torture for Alex is, is just being cursed with being Alex is like, if I was in this scenario where I plausibly have a reason to never touch or talk about money and yet still make the almost exact same amount of it, that would be perfect. That's just taking a job away from me right now. It's my dad's problem to look at the sales numbers. Dr. Jones Go anywhere. Yeah. He's not a good ad man. That's the thing. Do a good read. Alex is the face guy. Dr. Jones handles the business. That means that Alex doesn't have to do both. It makes perfect sense. But to your, to your question, though, like, I really do feel like right now we're in the most chaotic possible moment. Right. Because you have these two things that could go any direction that are happening around the same time. Like, you have the election and then you also have the auction. Right. And if Trump wins or loses, there's a lot of different possibilities of how his path might go. And if someone who he's aligned with ends up buying the company or not, that's another. Like, the world would be very different in terms of the choices that he has in front of him. But I think it'll be bad. I think he'll be unhappy that I think no matter what. I think it'll be pretty miserable. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just because of him.

Garrison Davis (26:55)

He's just a real miserable piece of shit.

Robert Evans (26:58)

Yeah. I spent a lot of time thinking about his B cast and how they might do, because, again, I don't see a world in which Alex gives up what he's doing. But I do see a world in which he can no longer pay Owen Shroyer. And that's the true goal. And that could be a real win. Owen Schroeder's paycheck is gone. Owen's not making, what, a heartbreaking amount of money, I'm sure. Further into the six figures than Owen Schroder ought to be. Further than will ever be. I wonder what the deal with him would be, though. Like, he went to jail for Alex. God, he sure did. He sure did. He did time. Like, what could he tell if he was off the payroll or, you know, like. Or how much do you pay to keep him on the payroll? Because he's the kind of guy who went to jail for you. I mean, if you look at a. I mean, David Knight's not going to jail for you, but if that's. If that's a comparable exit for personal popularity, I don't think Owens got much of a shot. Yeah, I think he can be tossed into the ocean, but I think Chase. Chase Geyser is more of a B player than. Than Owen. We just have a personal. Yeah, that's true. Chase Geyser is a new character who's popped up in the later seasons of the show. Yeah. And he's really brought a new. He's brought a lot of late season juice to it that I think we needed. Yeah, yeah. He's better than Owen, though. That's for sure. Yeah. See, I was gonna say it's like when Frazier brought on all those British people, but speaking of British people, our sponsors might be British. We don't check. And we're back. Okay, guys, so I guess kind of closing stuff out. What do you think this year have been the big pieces of Alex misinformation that you've seen people spreading online. Like, what's kind of been your biggest. I'm guessing this is gonna be a Jordan heavy question, but, like, stuff about Alex or stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff about Alex that's like, specifically what kind of stuff have you heard, like, people in media saying about Alex this year that has pissed you off the most? I mean, the funny part of this question is that I've actually Left the Internet about as much as possible because of the rage that. The rage that I feel at this very situation. A wise move. Yeah. So I honestly, I think. I think the big thing for me personally is just the. If we are going to talk about Alex's auction, then to me, what we're talking about is how much money the families are going to receive. Receive. That's. That's, to me, in my head of if we're going to talk money, then what we should talk about is the end point. How much do the families get? And even if this auction just goes gangbusters, the families are going to get so. So little of whatever happens because they're the last in line before you pay. Like, Norm Patis is going to make more money at the end of all of this process than any of the family members. That's just. That's just probably true, I would say, if not guaranteed true at this point, unless, of course, Mark Cuban or somebody, a billionaire, shows up and showers them with money. But for the most part, it's like the end goal should be the families. They should be first, but that's the wrong thing. They're the last. So it's very annoying. It's very frustrating. Yeah. That is especially given that that's the whole reason for the suit. That's the whole reason for the season. But I mean, obviously the system is not conducted to benefit families who are suffering. That's not who makes the rules. That's not who operates the system. The system. Yeah. Okay. We don't need to rant about that. It is a bummer. Dan, what about you? I mean, maybe it's recency bias and stuff, but, like, I do think that the conversation around the auction is missing a little bit of the point, whether it be in terms of, you know, what the sale is, like you were bringing up Jordan, or like people thinking that there is a solution to the problem that Alex represents. Like, this isn't going to be like a ding dong, the witch is dead type moment. You're gonna. You're gonna have, you know, his new thing funded by the companies that he's been building up to avoid the bankruptcy, or you're gonna have somebody who's with him, but that buys it. Infowars is going to be the same problem on November 14th or whatever as it was the day before. And I think that. I think that people are getting themselves maybe a little bit up for a disappointment. Yeah. And I think that we've seen that a couple times, like with the. Alex had the night where he claimed that security guards were trying to shut him down and he was. Yeah. You know, people got excited about like, this is it. Yep. And I think maybe I'm jaded too because of years of doing this. Yeah, yeah. It's almost never it. I mean, I want, I want to say this and I want people to recognize that this is true in regards to this scenario. You are never going to come. You're never going to come. It's never going to happen. You're going to be perpetually close and then you're not going to make it and then you're going to come back. That's how it is. If you're into edging, Alex is the guy to follow. Yeah, it's perfect. No, I think that that's actually really good advice. Like if you, if you just as a layman have, are hearing people talk about Alex Jones on social media or like seeing some sort of like opinion column or what, whatever in some, you know, left wing or liberal rag and you want to know, like, how credible is this? I guess the first question to ask is, are they predicting a massive change to Alex and what he actually does? Because if so, probably nothing has got. Unless it's like an article that he's been diagnosed with a disease. Nothing's probably going to change. Right. Like at some point he's going to die. I'm not being mean. I wouldn't believe that article. I wouldn't believe a word in that article. They're lying. Well, you fake that illness with Dr. Marbles to get out of. Yes, exactly. Deposition thing. So like he, you know, fuck even that.

Mia Wong (33:11)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (33:12)

I think I look at it slightly differently and that is that I do predict that there will be a massive change. We just don't know what it'll be. Sure. Like there will be something. He's got to do something because his content is really stagnant and a bit uninteresting in the Trump sense. Yeah. And I do, I think that there is a change that'll be needed if he wants to maintain whatever he's doing. But I mean, anybody who has an idea of what it is is wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine that predicting anything in the next 60 days is going to be a ridiculous proposition. If you had predicted a new hurricane fucking two weeks ago, people would have thought you were crazy. Yeah, well, I think that's all I had to ask, guys. Anything you wanted to plug we'll bring up before we close out. No, just we exist. We have a show check out knowledge fight. It's my Favorite podcast. It's the only reasonable way to keep up with Alex Jones and a whole network of other con men and grifters who kind of latch onto him. Like that fish that lives on the underside of a shark.

Mia Wong (34:22)

A remora.

Robert Evans (34:23)

Except for Alex is also a remora. Or remora. Right. So it's just like a. It's like just a series of smaller and smaller ones, each sucking each other off.

Mia Wong (34:34)

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Robert Evans (34:35)

And Alex is latched onto the side of a cruise ship toilet. Yeah. He sees the remora on the cruise ship toilet. Yeah. You've now turned this into a human centipede situation. I have. I have. I don't know why. Again, this is all viral marketing for Dr. Jones. Big naturals. Now we've figured out an appropriate punishment for defamation of character. Human centipede. I've been saying that for years.

Garrison Davis (35:01)

Years.

Robert Evans (35:02)

Yeah. I feel like. And I do have to point this out.

Garrison Davis (35:05)

Sure.

Robert Evans (35:05)

That is both cruel and very unusual. It is perhaps the most unusual thing you could imagine.

Mia Wong (35:11)

Really?

Robert Evans (35:12)

I hate to say, but it would take, like, some of these people three months to have several thousand people convinced that human centipeding is like a mental health hack. Like, it's like getting rid of seed oils. You know, that's how you accelerate muscle development. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Ancient cavemen were always eating each other's shit. You know what? You've also. You've also made a very good point. If this. This whole thing. If you want to stop Alex. Alex is a symptom. Alex is a symptom of the larger problem. You need to regulate supplements. Yes. FDA approved supplements will get rid of most of these guys. Every podcast episode we can. We are pushing the line. In my dream, if I accomplish one thing in my life, it would be getting this to become widely agreed upon by liberals in the left. Regulate supplements. Allow direct sales of cars to consumers. Yep. And ban MLMs and prosecute people criminally for trying to operate them. Do that and you fix a lot of other problems. I would do something about precious metals businesses, too. I would throw that. Whoa, whoa. Hey now. Hey, now. Mike Lindell's giving us some gold money, so. Right. You just wait. Wait right there till runs out. Dan. Pillow sales are illegal also. I should throw that on the pile. Pillows are illegal. Make sure neck weak. Yep. All right, everybody. Listen to Knowledge Fight. Thank you, Dan and Jordan, as always. We'll be back tomorrow with some other episode of this podcast that we do every day. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare Enter Nocturnum Tales from the Shadows Presented by I Heart and Sonoro an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures, I know you take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Kotura Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (38:01)

Hey, I'm Jack Beast Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners. For those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zittron, host of the Better Offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

Mia Wong (39:21)

This season I'm going to be joined.

Garrison Davis (39:22)

By everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the.

Mia Wong (39:27)

Products you love keep getting worse and.

Garrison Davis (39:29)

Naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology, I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back.

Mia Wong (39:36)

To building things that actually do things to help real people.

Garrison Davis (39:40)

I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Mia Wong (39:53)

Check out betteroffline.com Muhammad Ali George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. king, Miriam Makeba. I shook up the world.

Robert Evans (40:04)

James Brown said, say it loud.

Mia Wong (40:06)

And the kids said, I'm black and I'm proud. Black boxing stars and black music royalty.

Robert Evans (40:12)

Together in the heart of Zaire, Africa. Three days of music and then the boxing event. What was going on in the world at the time made this fight as important that anything else is going on on the planet.

Garrison Davis (40:26)

My grandfather laid on the ropes and let George Foreman basically just punch himself out.

Mia Wong (40:31)

Welcome to Rumble, the story of a world in transformation.

Garrison Davis (40:35)

The 60s and prior to that, you couldn't call a person black and how.

Robert Evans (40:39)

We arrived at this peak moment.

Mia Wong (40:42)

I don't have to be what you.

Robert Evans (40:43)

Want me to be.

Garrison Davis (40:44)

We all came from the continent of Africa.

Robert Evans (40:48)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman, and the.

Mia Wong (40:51)

Soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app.

Robert Evans (40:54)

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola, mi gente.

Mia Wong (41:02)

It's Honey German and I'm bringing you.

Garrison Davis (41:04)

Gracias Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin.

Robert Evans (41:08)

Culture, musica peliculas and entertainment with some.

Garrison Davis (41:11)

Of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you.

Mia Wong (41:19)

We're talking real conversations with our Latin.

Garrison Davis (41:21)

Stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles and successes.

Robert Evans (41:27)

You know it's going to be filled.

Garrison Davis (41:28)

With chisme, laughs and all the vibes that you love.

Mia Wong (41:30)

Each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in.

Garrison Davis (41:38)

All sorts of industries.

Robert Evans (41:39)

Don't miss out on the fun El.

Mia Wong (41:41)

Teente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a.

Garrison Davis (41:45)

Podcast by Honey German where we get into Todolo actual Listen to Gracias, Come again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison. This is a little special episode. Today. I'm joined by Alex from Corvallis Antifa and Hank, who's using a pseudonym for personal safety, from the left coast. Right Watch team. Hello to you both and thank you so much for joining me.

Robert Evans (42:18)

Hey, what's happening? Thank you so much for having us. Thanks for having us. Good to be here.

Garrison Davis (42:23)

So today we're going to be talking about this group called White Lives Matter. I guess originally White Lives Matter was like a slogan and like a very, very loose group from like 2015, or at least it kind of started in 2015 as a reaction to the growing Black Lives Matter movement. I know. I definitely saw this phrase propagated via memes, flyers, billboards, and other forms of propaganda as a way to cede white nationalist rhetoric to the then growing and burgeoning alt right.

Robert Evans (42:59)

Yeah, so there was a formation that was kind of like an NSM splinter formation that happened in reaction to the initial Black Lives matter protests in 2015. The White Lives Matter that we're talking about today is a different formation entirely that utilizes the same slogan. They are a group that started in 2021 and have been organizing primarily on Telegram and have grown really rapidly across the country in the years since.

Garrison Davis (43:27)

Yeah, we can see the early use of this phrase spread by. You mentioned the National Socialist Movement, along with a few other kind of collections of neo Nazis, the Aryan Resistance Society and the Aryan Nationalist Alliance. But then things kind of, like, died down. It was like a slogan you could see at rallies, but it wasn't anything too prominent, honestly. But then we had this big second wave in 2021 with Telegram channels promoting a White Lives Matter march or a series of marches to be held across the country on April 11. This batch of rallies were mostly a failure in part due to the efforts of antifascists who worked to sabotage the planning of these rallies ahead of time. Of the rallies that did eventually take place, really only a handful of white supremacists showed up, and most were outnumbered by antifascist counter demonstrators. So then after this initial event with this big batch of channels on Telegram, which is this encrypted messaging platform based out of Russia, it's not very good. Don't use it unless you're trying to infiltrate a Nazi group. But after these failed rallies, White Lives Matter kind of turned into yet another one of these, like, networks for white supremacists and neo Nazis that advocate, quote, unquote, pro white activism. Typically this includes, like, putting up white nationalist, like, stickers around neighborhoods hanging large banners with fascist rhetoric or Nazi imagery flyering, and just spreading propaganda online with the occasional, like, in person rally. I think you can see kind of the peak of, like, the White Lives Matter slogan, at least, was when it was propagated to the degree that Kanye west wore it on a T shirt during his little Nazi era back in 2022. And I think now you see White Lives Matter as a network. It overlaps and crosses over a lot with similar groups like the gdl, that's the Goyim Defense League, as well as the National Socialist Club and Patriot Front to some degree. I guess one thing that I wanted to talk about is that and this is mentioned in the Corralis Antifa article on the Oregon chapter of White Lives Matter is like this idea of hiding your power level, which we used to talk about a little bit more. I think in some ways a whole bunch of Nazis kind of blew their cover back around 2020, but now you see kind of more attempts to try to seed a white nationalist rhetoric into other kind of right wing spaces to push them farther along that radicalization pathway. And I would like to have a discussion at least a little bit about how White Lives Matter specifically tries to hide their power level, like kind of disguise the level of like overt fascism that they're really proposing by employing this like quote unquote like pro white rhetoric.

Robert Evans (46:11)

Yeah. So White Lives Matter as a national organization is extremely like conscious of what they would describe as like their optics. They are very intent on like radicalizing who they perceive to be everyday white people into sort of fascist politics. And in their national level manuals and the materials that they provide the leaders of statewide organizations, they specifically talk about stuff like not displaying Nazi flags or using like neo Nazi rhetoric, despite that being what they believe. But their sort of goal is to use more innocuous styles of Sloveneering, like you know the phrase like White Lives Matter and protect white babies, stuff like that, as ways to kind of open the door to get people to become interested in a more like overtly national socialist politic. They can radicalize people to who like join their group. And you see a lot of groups like Active Clubs, Patriot Front, other sort of white nationalist formations using the national wlm. Org as sort of a way to recruit to their own organizations with this sort of more innocuous subtle style of propaganda.

Garrison Davis (47:24)

Yeah, and like one other thing that's pointed out in the, in the Corvallis and Tifa article is like they don't just do agitprop. Like they're not just a group that is composed of only doing stickering. There's been multiple instances when their online propaganda as well as their like in person stickering escalates to real, to like real violence. Last year a 28 year old from New Jersey attack an anti racism concert at a church. He yelled White Lives Matter at attendees, threw smoke bombs at the church and then tried to bear spray the crowd. I think inadvertently bear spraying himself, which he then recorded a video talking about and posted online later in AR15 and high capacity magazines were found in his home alongside White Lives Matter propaganda. And later that year a 20 year old male associated with White Lives Matter firebombed a church in Ohio and the church was picked as a target because it planned to host two drag events. After being arrested, police found six firearms and dozens of loaded magazines alongside Nazi paraphernalia. This guy also wrote a manifesto defending his actions and specifically stating that he was happy about it because people online were proud of him. And like, you can even go back to the White Lives Matter rallies back in 2021, especially the one in Huntington beach which saw a degree of, of physical violence. It's important not to just write these groups off as being like, oh, they only do banner drops, oh, they only do stickers. Because not only is propaganda a really important part of growing the number of them out there, but they also do real world violence.

Robert Evans (48:55)

It's also important to talk about the ways that WLM is organizationally connected to more scary elements of the neo Nazi right. Recently, Left Coast Right Watch published proof that Matthew Allison, who was one of the leaders of the Terrorgram collective who was recently arrested, was responsible for some of the national WLM like propaganda that they published, which is quite concerning. So, you know, even these groups that are more movementarian in nature and are trying to appeal to, you know, you know, more quote unquote, normie white people are like directly in bed with people who are like, associated with mass shooters and like terrorists.

Garrison Davis (49:38)

Yep. Specifically try to like groom people into becoming mass shooters.

Robert Evans (49:43)

Yes.

Garrison Davis (49:43)

I mean, and like, that's why I think specifically with both these guys who did physical violence, you can see violence as like an escalatory thing for the person who's like doing it.

Robert Evans (49:52)

Right.

Garrison Davis (49:52)

You start off with throwing a Molotov cocktail and then later you might do a mass shooting. It's like a testing ground. You can see the same thing with, you know, bear macing and anti racism concert. The fact that both these guys, specifically the one in Ohio had like, like a lot, a lot of guns. And like we're in America, there's, there's a lot of guns around. But, but having that many guns and, and, and loaded magazines in Ohio as a 20 year old with all of that Nazi paraphernalia like that, that is what a Nazi mass shooter's like, bedroom looks like. And these are not like isolated incidents, I guess. Let's, let's take a bit of a break and we will come back to talk about specifically the organ chapter of White Lives Matter and what they've been getting up to the past few months. All right, so after Corrella Santifa leaked like chat logs from the Oregon White Lives Matter group, back in 2021, the chapter went dormant, and then it restarted earlier this year, I guess. Alex, can you walk us through kind of the rebirth of White Lives Matter, Oregon?

Robert Evans (51:01)

Yeah. So the way that WLM works as a national organization is there's, like, a series of groups that all kind of are extant. Like, there are groups, and then people would, like, apply to be with the national or to be like a leader of a state group. So back when WLM initially began as a thing in 2021, our group was running the Oregon chapter and exposed several people who tried to join that group. And then after that, interest in that organization became. It stopped existing for several years. Then earlier this year, we noticed that somebody had taken over the chapter and had started engaging in some stickering and some propaganda. So we were like, well, we may as well join this group and see what's up. So we infiltrated the organization, gathered information about the membership, and published that information on online in order to warn the communities that these guys inhabit about their activities. The group, you know, was doing stuff that was not, like, extremely intense, like, they were doing stickers. They did two banner drops or three banner drops successfully, rather. But in their chat, we also found that they were talking a lot about, like, you know, military training and escalating. And, you know, even though this group kind of like, like, seemed very low key and was, like, not doing anything, you know, super scary, like, the stuff they're talking about is concerning and they're getting organized and they're getting to know each other. So we put a kibosh on them.

Garrison Davis (52:42)

So it looks like, according to your research, the new leader is this guy named Cruz Dean Walters.

Robert Evans (52:48)

Yeah. Yeah. So Cruz is a Marine kind of washout who lives in McMinnville, Oregon, until very recently, was living a double life. He was living with his mom and his fiance, neither of whom knew about his racist beliefs and now do. He was a highly incompetent leader who, you know, really had a tremendous number of security flaws in his organization, you know, as is evidenced by the fact that we were able to, you know, infiltrate and destroy it in a matter of just a few months. But, you know, it is worth noting that, like, the group grew from just a handful of people to, you know, doing banner drops with, like, you know, six or seven folks in just a couple, you know, a couple short months. So, like, even though these groups can kind of be benign, if there winds up being somebody who is, like, particularly passionate behind the channel, like, they can transform into something less benign very, very quickly. And that's something we want to impart to other antifascists across the country is there are all these channels, and they might be seeming kind of, like, benign now, but they can turn to something very malignant very quickly.

Garrison Davis (54:01)

I wanted to ask specifically about Cruz's radicalization. It's written in. In your piece that he was radicalized in part by the gdl, the Going Defense League, and participated in the City council death squads, as reported by our own Molly Conger. And then just seemingly, like, just getting bored of just calling into city council meetings to yell slurs. He then, like, couped the organization. So I'm curious if he ever wrote about or talked about his background with the GDL and his apparent boredom at their particular style of white supremacist activism.

Robert Evans (54:34)

Yeah, so he, I think, was just kind of like, sitting on the Internet as, like, a fucking, you know, dorky, lonely, sad little man, and, you know, got into the gdl. For those who have the fortune of not knowing, the GDL is sort of this network of, like, really grotesque, highly cringy, racist Twitch streamers. Or not on Twitch anymore, but, like, you know, there's streamers nonetheless.

Garrison Davis (55:01)

They've been banned from Twitch, but, yeah.

Robert Evans (55:04)

But, yeah, so they have this program called the City Council Death Squad, where they will like, call into, like, your local city council meeting and just, like, yell slurs at the beleaguered municipal employees that have to sit and watch. They did one in Corvallis, and, like, watching the footage was just, like, watching, like, these, like, grown men acting like children, like, you know, hollering at, like, random, like, City Councilor 23 or whatever. It's really, like, pathetic. So. And I think, you know, Cruz kind of saw that, and many do, you know, the GDL is just a tremendously fucking pathetic organization. And he was, like, kind of decided that he wanted to get more involved, and he chose to get involved with WLM as opposed to, like, another neo Nazi formation. Because WLM is, like, a really, really easy entry point and has a very, like, you know, kind of base politic. It's not like, you know, patriot front or an active club where there are, you know, membership requirements and you have to engage in certain amounts of organizing activity or whatever. It's just very easy for, you know, your lazy Nazi to engage with.

Garrison Davis (56:12)

Yeah, absolutely. It definitely feels like the lazy person's option who doesn't want to go through the work of being vetted by, like, actual, like, larger organizations.

Robert Evans (56:20)

Yeah, and he. He took over the chapter from an even lazier Nazi named Christian Coates, who lives in Portland, Oregon, who is like this old school bonehead from the 2000s who like, has some hate crime charges from, like, I think, like, attempting to and failing to assault some black teens in like 2007. So Christian had, in the interceding years between us, destroying the initial iteration of wlm, taken it over and basically done like zilch with it. He posts like one photo on the channel ever. But then he got taken over by this dude, Cruz, who grew the organization from like just a few people to, you know, being a reasonable street presence in a short number of months, obviously at the expense of including an antifascist infiltrator. And, you know, also just a true coterie of scumbags and idiots. And the. In the group.

Garrison Davis (57:16)

Yeah. One of the other guys that you've identified is. I don't know how to say his last name, but Casey, I want to say Knutson. Oh, yeah. Casey Knudsen, who after being kicked out of both the Proud Boys and Patriot Front, made his own group in 2022, the Rose City Nationalists, which is kind of the laughingstock of all white supremacist groups in the pnw. And the group has. The group has largely fallen apart after being just extensively investigated and exposed by local antifascists, almost to a comical extent.

Robert Evans (57:46)

Yeah, ourselves, Rose City Antifa and the Stumptown Research Collective have been kind of going through and just, you know, ripping apart rcn. And RCN is at this point more or less just Casey and this fellow named Jaren Huber, who is an absolute, like, freak. He's got a bunch of tattoos all over his face. He was arrested for kicking a puppy nearly to death and beating up his grandfather. Just real scumbag.

Garrison Davis (58:15)

Jesus Christ.

Robert Evans (58:17)

Yeah, they all have, like, domestic violence charges and, you know, are just. Yes, just real nightmare folks. The funniest thing about Rose City Nationalists is they got in this conflict with the Proud Boys at, I believe it was in Oregon City, where they got just absolutely washed by some drunken Proud Boys on the street. Not because of, like, ideological issues, but just because they, like, have, you know, interpersonal issues. Between Casey and the Portland chapter of the Proud Boys, it was, you know, they are truly just a laughing stock and are just like, you know, I hate to use the term, but kind of like lol. Cows at this point.

Garrison Davis (58:54)

No, I mean, and one thing that you do, like, document is just how many of these guys are like, domestic abusers. And like, this is not uncommon for, like, these types of fellows. But also, Cruz, like, both admitted to stealing a gun and also abusing his wife and threatening other family with firearms. And this is like a trend across so many of the people exposed in these articles is the extent to which they're all imbued in like, spousal abuse, child abuse. It's one of the very consistent factors.

Robert Evans (59:25)

Yeah, misogyny is one of the very, very core parts of neo Nazism and white nationalism. And yeah, there's a really, really horrible, like, section of text in our article that where Cruz discusses, like, physically hitting his fiance and then threatening his brother with a firearm. And yeah, it's really, really common that these people have domestic abuse charges. Multiple people in wlm, Oregon have histories of domestic abuse, including Jeremy Huber and Casey Knudsen, who are the two other members. And yeah, it's just anytime you look at a Nazi group, there's a dude who beats his wife in it, like, kind of, bar none. As long as we've been doing this work, we've been seeing it.

Garrison Davis (60:06)

I'd like to talk now about the second in command of White Lives Matter, Oregon, this small business owner in Coos Bay named Michael Witt Gatenbein, who usually just goes by Wit. Now, Wit has been a part of the White Lives Matter, Oregon banner drops and is also responsible for a lot of the stickering that gets done as he leaves stickers across the truck stop bathrooms up and down the coast. Now, Wit's kind of a fascinating fellow to me. He has shockingly bad opsec. Kind of one of the worst examples I've ever seen. His very easily recognized custom flatbed truck can be seen at banner drops in August and even appears in their own, like, propaganda videos for another banner drop in September. He like, talked about his just, like, utter disregard for OPSEC in one of the audio archives that you have hosted on Left Goes Right Watch. What else can you tell us about kind of Witt's background here?

Robert Evans (61:04)

Yeah, so Witt is a Nazi, and I believe his mother is actually, you know, he said at one point his mother was like, quote, awakened to the truth about the Jews or something like that. So he seems to come from, at the very least, an anti Semitic family, but he himself is certainly a Nazi. And I think he has believed he can operate with impunity in Coos Bay. So I think it's less that he has bad OPSEC and more believes he seems to think of himself as living in a world where it's okay to be a Nazi.

Garrison Davis (61:34)

Sure, we can talk a little bit more about that.

Robert Evans (61:36)

But yeah, he runs a company called WIT Industries, which he's claimed does business from Mexico to Russia. He works in the marine and maritime industry within the Port of Coos Bay and Coos County. We know that he's gotten about a quarter million dollars in public contracts primarily from the Port of Coos Bay, but also the Port of Umpqua, the City of North Bend, Coos County, South Coast Education Service District. That's just what we've found so far. It can be pretty difficult to find. You know, even though this is public money, it can still be sort of a pretty difficult process to get public records and things like that. But yeah, we know that the Port of Coos Bay alone has awarded him like $219,000 in contracts for work ranging from hydraulics repairs and replacements on vessels and the bridge. He's also painted the state dredge and.

Garrison Davis (62:29)

The trailer, things like that.

Robert Evans (62:32)

You mentioned him using his work vehicle. So he has stated, and this is from information we have from the Corvallis antifa infiltration. He stated that part of his goal is to build a white supremacist hub in Coos Bay. He wants to get guys elected to mayor and city council and things like that. And he actually was using White Lives Matter to recruit guys to come and work for him. He was recruiting a guy named Landon Calhoun who is also an alleged pedophile. And we go into that in the West Coast Right Watch article. But he got this alleged pedophile, Landon to come and work for him. They met in White Lives Matter and he said, hey, come work for an all white organization where we can come and build the movement together. And as far as we know, it does appear that Landon has moved there. He was planning to move there in this fall and we believe he's currently there.

Garrison Davis (63:24)

Yeah, I like to kind of go by some of these points one by one because he's certainly like a worrying figure. The fact that he's using his income, which is largely derived of government contracts, to specifically fund white supremacist activity in the PNW and use his own company resources to grow the number of far right extremists in Coos Bay. Specifically his plans of having them eventually occupy positions of local government. It's a degree of long term planning that isn't always present in some of these types of guys. Plans are one thing, but when you actually have a business that you are hiring people to move to this town to actually build this plan up, it shows a degree of chutzpah, I guess on his part that he's actually doing this it kind of reminds me of the rise above movement's tree trimming business. But that was just to pay bills. They had no plans to slowly actually just take over a small town. There's a lot of these businesses that are run by Nazis that primarily hire other Nazis. But the degree to which that Michael Witt is able to operate without much oversight and just get all of this money from local government is certainly worrying. I know he stated that one of his employees prints out all of his White Lives Matter stickers and has gotten help from employees to do one banner drop outside of Roseburg and has a history of hiring far right people, conspiracy theorists, and monetarily supporting them to help them continue their own far right activism.

Robert Evans (64:58)

Yeah, and you mentioned his employees that were printing the stickers for him. That was before he hired Landon. So, yeah, he already has guys that are doing this. And the port. I think it's important to point out that the port of Coos Bay is public body. The commissioners are elected by the governor and they're confirmed by the Oregon Senate or. Yeah, the Oregon Senate, I believe it is.

Garrison Davis (65:19)

So.

Robert Evans (65:19)

So this is a state body that is giving state funding to this Nazi. And I think that's really important to name. It's also, like, just to give people a little bit of the geography because it's a small town that actually geographically takes quite a while to like drive from North Bend to Coos Bay. And Whit lives right over by the Charleston marina. And we know he's pretty in bed with the marina folks there. There was a. A big Oregon Department of Transportation grant at the state level that the port had written that Whit would have been one of the, like, people making money. He was like, written officially into this grant for. It was a 3.5 million dollar grant that Whit was written into. Right. So they're like his friends, you know, like, they're like, yeah, they're writing him into these grants. Witt's office is over there on Ocean View Boulevard, which is right next to the confederated tribes of Kuz, Lower Umpqua and Sayuslaw Indians tribal housing office and right next to one of their constit casinos. And just to give folks the terrain of where he's living and kind of operating too.

Garrison Davis (66:25)

Yeah, hello, Garrison from the future. Just cutting in to say something that Hank said, but it got a little bit garbled in the voice modulation. So I just want to state it a little bit more clearly here. There's some other events that can help contextualize what wit is doing in Coos Bay, because currently in Coos county, there's this sort of intense far right power grab that is slowly happening. Some people might know of this radio host named Rob Taylor. He's said to be one of the guys who coordinated the breaching of the Oregon Capitol in late December, which was basically a Test run for January 6th. And he's hosted people with the far right group Patriot Prayer. He has an old Gap account, which was essentially like Nazi Twitter before Twitter just became Nazi Twitter under Elon Musk. So this guy is, like, very comfortable and associates with extremely far right people, as well as engaged in a level of activism in Oregon at least. So that's Rob Taylor, the radio guy. There's this other person named Rod Taylor who's a Coos county commissioner who actually was a January 6th insurrectionist. He was arrested at the Capitol on J6. Now, Michael Witt Gatenbein has also previously employed this guy named Matt Wilbanks, who's a buddy of Rob Taylor. He runs this blog called the Daily Resistor, and also one of the Coos county neighborhood watch groups in the Empire District of Coos Bay, which is mostly just focused on, like, doxing and harassing homeless people. And these guys are also part of various mega groups like Citizens Restoring Liberty. And Wit himself is a part of this network. He has attended Citizens Restoring Liberty events. He's also an admin on a telegram channel called the Oregon Patriot alliance, which is like this mega patriots organizing channel on Telegram. Nominally, these mega types typically say that they are, you know, not for Nazis. They are against Nazis, they are against pedophiles, and yet they are associating with Wit here, who employs a pedophile and is a Nazi. But one other thing that Hank said that I want to reiterate is that Coos Bay is also a contested space. Although there is this intense far right power grab happening, there's also a whole bunch of other much more positive activism. Hank pointed to the tribal communities fighting for indigenous sovereignty, as well as environmentalist groups calling BS on the port's greenwashing of all their projects. So it's not just that, like, everyone's Nazis now in Coos Bay. Yes, Wit is a Nazi, and people should be concerned about that. But it is a contested space home to a diverse group of people who are also fighting for good things. We're now going to have an ad break and then return to talk more about White Lives Matter, Oregon. Okay, we are back. And Alex, you said you wanted to add something on this point about coups being a Contestant's yeah, I think one.

Robert Evans (69:27)

Thing that is important to just like throw onto what Hank is saying about Coos Bay as a, as a contested space is like it's not entirely unheard of for Neo Nazis to kind of try to do these projects of like moving a bunch of people to certain usually rural areas to, you know, try to take them over, you know, most notably like Leaf, North Dakota where Crane Calm tried to take over. But, but what I think has been shown really repeatedly is that these projects have failed because the communities that live there, you know, even if they're rural communities, even if they're small towns, don't have it and are willing to fight back. And that's what we're really hoping to see from folks on the Oregon south coast, being willing to push back against this sort of thing like was done in Leith and you know, forcing these people out of the institutions that they're trying to inhabit.

Garrison Davis (70:21)

Yeah. And especially with someone like Michael here because he's like hiring people who advocate going much farther than White Lives Matter to actually engage in like paramilitary training. Hiring someone who is like not just accused of being a pedophile, but has admitted to Michael that his family like hates him because of an allegation that he's, that he's touched someone and that Michael himself witnessed this guy Calhoun being quote unquote, hands on with an 8 year old girl while they were meeting together in Coos Bay. So there's like that side of it and then you have him posting on telegram about wanting the day of the rope to come faster. Kind of an old Nazi slogan about racial lynchings and furthering racial conflict, as well as sharing instructions from the Meme Waffen Telegram Channel about how to make Molotov cocktails. I believe we've talked about meme Waffen on the show before. So he's doing all of this type of stuff that's so much more obviously objectionable while also trying to make space for himself within the mega community, being the admin of this Oregon Patriots Alliance Telegram Channel, which is also an attempt just to further the radicalization of these mega centric members by inundating them with more explicit fascistic propaganda, but on a slower level. And then there are multi million and multi billion dollar government projects to improve the port that wit is expected to receive funds from. And I feel like this is something that's pretty, pretty objectionable and it should be easy to stop, but it requires attention and requires a degree of public pressure to make sure that the government, both state and federal, are not giving funds to an explicit neo Nazi who hires alleged pedophiles to fund right wing activism across the Pacific Northwest.

Robert Evans (72:04)

Yeah, totally. And I think it's important to point out too, you know, Coos Bay is in this process. They have the intermodal port of Coos Bay, which is like a $2.3 billion project where they want to become like, you know, they want to be as big of a port as Oakland, California or whatever. And, you know, one of the things, I mean, my understanding from talking to folks in Coos Bay is that it's just greenwashed capitalism that will be destructive to the environment. It won't actually bring the community, be.

Garrison Davis (72:33)

The kind of like, people are, like.

Robert Evans (72:35)

What about bike lanes? You know, like, there's like community infrastructure people want in Coos Bay. And dredging the port is not that, you know, and I think there's also like a couple examples of that is it'll destroy eelgrass, which is a really important marine habitat and also source of storage carbon. It'll destroy indigenous cultural resources or impact the spaces. And, you know, Wit, we haven't seen the exact financials yet for what this project will be, but it's a $2.3 billion project that involves dredging, you know, which is sort of deepening and widening the port and the channels. And we know that WIT has gotten money, for example, to work on the state dredge and do work on it. So I think it's very possible that WIT would be. Until the port takes a stand and says, hey, we're not funding this Nazi who uses his work truck to do Nazi stuff. I think people should be really concerned about this port money going back to help build a Nazi community that he's trying to build there.

Garrison Davis (73:38)

Yeah. And like, to your previous point, like, the fact that he's able to be so flagrant about his white supremacist beliefs, the way that he doesn't feel like he needs to care about OPSEC because he has a job that's like irreplaceable. Like, he. He provides a service to this community that he feels like no one else can do. Therefore, he is secure in that. Like, you can't allow them that level of comfortability. And that's something that has to be opposed due to both public pressure and research that you have done, as well as the crucial work from Corvallis Antiva.

Robert Evans (74:07)

Yeah. I think just to add to groups like the Oregon's Bay Area, which is a popular Facebook group, has been doing a really great job raising, just talking about WIT and What's going on? I think largely we really haven't seen much response from the Port of Coos Bay or the governor who's confirming these commissioners, like largely the sort of institutions of power are not yet responding. And so I think that's something that both local folks in Coos Bay could be pressuring and also at a statewide level. Right. Like this is state funding and the Port of Coos Bay development has federal funding, too.

Garrison Davis (74:45)

But I think those are places where.

Robert Evans (74:48)

There could really be a lot more pressure being applied and I think a lot more people should be talking about all of this as well. As we mentioned earlier, you know, WIT claims to have a reputation and work and contracts all up and down the entire West Coast. So certainly if there are listeners in here in Oakland or Alaska or Washington or wherever you might be who know the name Whit Gate and Vine or WIT Industries, and you want to send in a tip to Corvallis Antifa or whatever, left those right. Watch. We would be really happy to hear what you know about this guy because we know he's working in other communities. We would love details or any tips folks may have. Yeah.

Garrison Davis (75:28)

Would either of you like to kind of add anything else before we close out and point people towards both your work and where to send information to?

Robert Evans (75:35)

Yeah, I guess the thing that I would just close out with is WLM is not just an Oregon problem, it's a national problem. I know this podcast reaches folks all across the country. If you are somebody who is antifa curious or is interested in making a difference in your community, it's a group with really terrible security culture and it might be worth taking a gander at that. And then, you know, God, it feels so silly to do a podcast plug. But please check out our work@cvantifa.noblogs.org we're also on Twitter at CV against Fash and Instagram at See the Antifa. And you know, we have lots of articles exposing neo Nazis in Oregon and across the country, and you might just find somebody in your community who sucks.

Garrison Davis (76:24)

Hank.

Robert Evans (76:24)

Yeah, I'll just add, you know, if you want to see the. Of course, the Left Coast Right Watch article gives a really deep dive on wit. And also information for public use has posted like the Financials. So if you really want to, like, get into the numbers, it's worth looking there. And yeah, just to reiterate, I mean.

Garrison Davis (76:41)

I think Coos Bay and so many.

Robert Evans (76:43)

Other places are really contested spaces, and I think these Nazis want us to.

Garrison Davis (76:48)

Believe that they're in charge and that.

Robert Evans (76:50)

They'Re powerful and they have this idea that they can operate with impunity and it's really not true. Like, we've seen small and rural towns take down Nazis all over this country and I think that will continue. And I think that, yeah, like what tactics and ways people might do that in from place to place can look different. But I just, you know, encourage folks to dig into your local Nazis and get together and figure out how to, how to mess them up, you know, and it's, it's a good way to have fun with your friends and, and we can do it, you know, and we need, we need to be doing it. I mean, there just shouldn't be state money going to help a Nazi build a white supremacist utopia. I mean, that's the, that's the history of this country. Right? Like, that's the history of colonization.

Garrison Davis (77:36)

That's the history of Oregon specifically. So, yeah, it's time to do something else.

Robert Evans (77:41)

Yeah. And Antifa isn't just for you big city folk. You know, those of us that live in rural communities can and should be involved in these struggles. And it is something that like, is not just something that happens in Portland. People in rural Oregon are doing anti fascism and will continue to do it and will continue to win.

Garrison Davis (78:02)

Thank you both so much. I will leave links to your orgs and your and your articles in the description below. Thank you for listening. And yeah, if you are Antifa curious, give it a shot. It is indeed done.

Robert Evans (78:31)

Welcome. Good evening, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum Tale from the Shadows presented by I Heart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures, Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Tuda Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (79:31)

Hey, I'm Jack Beast Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. I'm Jackpiece Thomas and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting, directing and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners. For those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the story stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hola mi gente, It's Honey German and.

Mia Wong (80:31)

I'm bringing you Gracias Come Again, the.

Garrison Davis (80:33)

Podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you.

Mia Wong (80:46)

We're talking real conversations with our Latin.

Garrison Davis (80:49)

Stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles and successes.

Robert Evans (80:54)

You know it's going to be filled.

Garrison Davis (80:55)

With chisme, laughs and all the vibes that you love.

Mia Wong (80:58)

Each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community and breaking down barriers in.

Garrison Davis (81:06)

All sorts of industries.

Robert Evans (81:07)

Don't miss out on the fun El.

Mia Wong (81:08)

Tecaliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a.

Garrison Davis (81:13)

Podcast by Honey German where we get into Todolo actual Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Text Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search, Better Offline Is your umbrella varnished and at times unhinged? Look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

Mia Wong (81:46)

This season I'm going to be joined.

Garrison Davis (81:47)

By everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the.

Mia Wong (81:53)

Products you love keep getting worse and.

Garrison Davis (81:55)

Naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to.

Mia Wong (82:02)

Building things that actually do things to help real people.

Garrison Davis (82:06)

I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Mia Wong (82:19)

Check out betteroffline.com. muhammad Ali, George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. king, Miriam Makeba.

Robert Evans (82:28)

I shook up the world. James Brown said, say it loud.

Mia Wong (82:31)

And the kid said, I'm black and I'm proud. Black boxing stars and black music royalty.

Robert Evans (82:37)

Together in the heart of Zaire, Africa. Three days of music and then the boxing event. What was going on in the world at the time made this fight as important that anything else is going on on the planet.

Garrison Davis (82:51)

My grandfather laid on the ropes and let George Foreman basically just punch himself out.

Robert Evans (82:57)

Welcome to Rumble, the story of a world in transformation.

Garrison Davis (83:00)

The 60s and prior to that, you couldn't call a person black and how.

Robert Evans (83:05)

We arrived at this peak moment.

Mia Wong (83:07)

I don't have to be what you.

Robert Evans (83:09)

Want me to be.

Garrison Davis (83:10)

We all came from the continent of Africa.

Robert Evans (83:14)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman, and the soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What? Brett. Mike Havanaz. I'm Robert Evans and this is it could happen Here, a podcast about it. Happening here with me today is Sophie Lichterman and Mia Wong. We're going to be talking about a guy who is near and dear to my heart because the second to the last conversation I ever had with my mom was about Brett Kavanaugh. Mia, what are we going to learn today?

Mia Wong (83:53)

Oh, boy.

Garrison Davis (83:54)

Oh, my God. Have you done the. What's breading my Kavanaugh before? Like, I know.

Robert Evans (84:00)

I'm certain I haven't. Why would I have? I don't know.

Mia Wong (84:03)

It felt oddly familiar.

Garrison Davis (84:07)

So if he has somebody, let me know. Thank you. Yeah, tell us the good and the bad.

Robert Evans (84:12)

Yeah, we already know the ugly. Yeah, I'm body shaming Brett Kavanaugh. Yeah, that's right, motherfucker.

Garrison Davis (84:18)

That's right, motherfucker.

Mia Wong (84:22)

The worst that he consequences he's ever going to suffer are this bad news cycle and me saying something that's not legally defamatory.

Robert Evans (84:30)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (84:30)

And if he wants to fucking prove it, you can sue me over it.

Robert Evans (84:32)

He has a sweet gig for life. Yeah, he's set. He's set, bro.

Mia Wong (84:37)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (84:38)

Yeah, he sucks so bad that even like, you know, Midwest dads hate him. So at least there's that.

Mia Wong (84:47)

Yeah, he's. He's really rancid. And so I think. I think the place to start with this actually is not with Kavanaugh, but with Trump. Because what we're talking about today is a thing that we kind of knew was true but didn't know the extent of until now, which is that the supposed FBI investigation into everything that Brett Kavanaugh did was, like, fake and deliberately fucked by Trump specifically. Like, Trump specifically told them to just, like, not do the investigation, and so they didn't do the investigation and not happened.

Robert Evans (85:18)

This is.

Mia Wong (85:18)

This is sort of how he got confirmed. And I think the interesting thing about this partially is because I hate Brett Kavanaugh.

Garrison Davis (85:23)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (85:23)

He sucks the worst guy.

Robert Evans (85:25)

A real dick.

Mia Wong (85:27)

Yeah. But I think the other thing about him is, like, I think I feel like everyone has forgotten what it was like to live under Trump.

Robert Evans (85:34)

I agree.

Mia Wong (85:35)

Because there was just so much shit happening all the time. Like, every single. Every single day was like, a new one of these things. And I want to go back to what, like, one week of Trump was like, because every single fucking week was like this, and it was the most miserable thing. So who is Brett Cavendaugh? He's one of the nine assholes who get to decide whether we all have rights for people who've sort of forgotten his background. So he's like an old. Old 90s era, kind of like, protege of the 90s Republican ghouls. He's like one of the people who helps Ken Starr do the Monica Lewinsky trial. Like, he's a. He's involved in a whole bunch of sort of, like, Republican rat fucking operations. He's also. And I think this one's actually important to remember as you go up to the election. Kavanaugh was part of the legal team that helped Bush do the original Stop the steal in 2000, and Bush just, like, straight up stole the election in Florida.

Robert Evans (86:31)

So. Love that these guys keep getting jobs as opposed to, I don't know, getting the punishment for treason.

Garrison Davis (86:38)

And he's only 59 years old.

Robert Evans (86:41)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (86:42)

He's so young for that job.

Mia Wong (86:45)

We have, like, 40 more years of him.

Robert Evans (86:47)

If you ever wanted, like, a clear reason why we shouldn't do things like the death penalty for treason, it's because when people commit treason, nothing happens to them. And when people, I don't know, agitate for Puerto Rican independence, they get executed. Like, that's. Yeah, that's. That's what happens with those laws. I just bad Avoid laws existing.

Mia Wong (87:10)

Yeah. And especially avoid all of your laws being dictated by a bunch of. A bunch of fucking serial predators.

Garrison Davis (87:17)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (87:18)

And this gets us to. So Kavanaugh's appointment was very, very close. The Republicans at the time, they controlled the Senate, but they had a 52 to 48 margin. And a lot of those kind of marginal senators just were like, there were.

Garrison Davis (87:37)

There was. There was a more realistic chance of it not happening than typically.

Mia Wong (87:42)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (87:43)

But they still fucked it in the end.

Mia Wong (87:46)

Oh yeah, 100%, of course. But you know, the, the reason, the reason why it was close is, as I think most people probably remember, Kavanaugh is a serial sexual predator. He has sexually assaulted so many people. People saw him do it. There were times when he was the only person there who did it. There were times where he did it in crowds. He definitely, he 100% did it. And if he wants to su about it, like, I'll see you in court.

Garrison Davis (88:09)

And, and while we're here, Clarence Thomas, also a predator. Thank you.

Mia Wong (88:13)

We're gonna get to that.

Robert Evans (88:15)

Let's, let's be clear here. Like, if we're doing a, an Olympics of predators, Clarence Thomas is up in the number one spot. Brett Kavanaugh is down in place three. You know, Thomas is, is, is a much, much more, I don't know, expansive predator.

Mia Wong (88:30)

Yeah, there was some belief at the time in this is sort of like every single article about this, like, talks about how this is peak B2. But it is sort of important that like this it was a real possibility that he was going to go down in flames.

Robert Evans (88:41)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (88:42)

It has happened before, it can happen again. And it was a real issue for him. It was a real issue for him in large part because Christine Blasey Ford, who's a psychology professor, just like testified under oath in one of the most like fucking harrowing things I've ever seen on the floor of the Senate.

Garrison Davis (89:00)

Horrific.

Mia Wong (89:01)

Yeah, the thing that stuck with B was like he was laughing while he did it. It's just like this guy is a fucking monster.

Robert Evans (89:08)

I mean, one of the things that you do have to take into account is that like the media infrastructure that whirled up to defend Brett Kavanaugh to ensure that this didn't take him down existed in part because about a third of right wing media, like about a third of that whole infrastructure system existed because of the Clarence Thomas hearings. Yeah, like that and Nixon's resignation being forced are kind of the two inciting incidents of modern conservative media. Those were the things that made them really commit to the idea that like, we have to build a completely separate ecosystem of facts because if we let reality in at all, like our guys who are all sex predators and criminals, will never be able to win or stay in office.

Garrison Davis (89:52)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mia Wong (89:53)

And also, I mean, it's worth noting too that like Roger Ailes, who is like one of the people responsible for building all this infrastructure, was also himself just a surreal predator on a like, frankly incomprehensible scale.

Robert Evans (90:06)

Yes.

Mia Wong (90:06)

And so all these people are also just defending themselves because they also are all fucking their own sometimes miniature Kavanaugh, sometimes worse Kavanaughs, and into this sort of breach. Right. Like, so this is, this, this is a real PR crisis. The Republicans, this is, this is going even worse for them than, than the last time that they fucking did this. Which was, as we've alluded to, when they got Clarence Thomas on and when Joe Biden, like personally helped railroad Anita Hill to make sure that when she would get fucked when she tried to testify against Clarence Thomas. So that's great. Incredible stuff. There was a point in our nation's history where that was actually like a political problem for Joe Biden. We're fucking no longer there anymore. And into this breach steps what's supposed to be an FBI investigation.

Robert Evans (90:54)

Yeah, ostensibly.

Mia Wong (90:56)

Yeah. So I'm going to read from a recently released report, there's going to be, I'm going to quote from this report a lot because this is the sort of new information that we have.

Garrison Davis (91:04)

Where can people see the report?

Mia Wong (91:06)

It will be in the description, but if you just like search Sheldon White House report, you should be able to find it. There'll be a link in the notes.

Garrison Davis (91:14)

Yeah, we'll link it.

Mia Wong (91:15)

Yeah, it's like, it's like 30 pages. It's actually not 30, it's more like 20 pages because a bunch of them are just citations. So it's a pretty easy read. I'm going to read some of it. And also I do want to point out the fact that the Senate Judiciary Committee member who wrote this thing is named Sheldon Whitehouse. Incredible name. Incredible Senator.

Robert Evans (91:33)

That is a great name. Where does that come from? That can't be a real name. That can't be a name that existed. That can't be a name that existed before the White House. Right. Like it has to have at some point been named after the White House. Right. I mean, why else would you have that name?

Mia Wong (91:48)

Well, it could just be that this family historically lived in a White House for 700 years.

Robert Evans (91:52)

You'd have to be in a White House for a long ass time to get that last name.

Mia Wong (91:57)

So here's from the report. Quote, after hearing the testimony by Ford and Cavendaugh, the Judiciary Committee agreed to request the FBI conduct a supplemental background investigation, quote, limited to current credible allegations against Kavanaugh before the full Senate voted on his confirmation. And so there's an important detail here that wasn't clear to anyone at the time because fucking no one knows how the minutiae of FBI Investigations work, but this was not actually a full FBI investigation. This is something called a supplemental background investigation, and we'll get into what exactly that is in a second. But it's not like a real FBI investigation. And this investigation does what it was supposed to do, which was clear Kavanaugh's name, enough Republican senators to be able to vote for him without immediately getting destroyed politically. What it didn't do was actually conduct an investigation. Trump very famously at this time says that the investigation had free rein and it unbelievably did not.

Garrison Davis (93:01)

Bull fucking shit.

Mia Wong (93:03)

Yeah. He just lied about this, like.

Garrison Davis (93:05)

Yep.

Mia Wong (93:06)

Yeah. The administration directly ran the investigation, killed it, and then used its political power and the FBI itself to, you know, illegitimately railroad a serial predator on the Supreme Court to take away everyone's rights to get an abortion. And then after that, they stonewalled the investigation for six years. So this is how that sort of process worked. I'm going to quote from that report again. Third, although the Trump administration and the FBI assured the Senate that the FBI's investigation was being conducted, quote, by the book, they failed to disclose that there was actually no, quote, unquote, book at all. The FBI produced no written records for supplemental background investigations, saying it was merely acting as the, quote, agent for the White House in such matters.

Robert Evans (93:49)

But which White House was it, Sheldon? White House, Sorry.

Mia Wong (93:53)

No, unfortunately, White House bad. The one where the President is.

Robert Evans (93:56)

Oh, the bad White House. Yeah.

Garrison Davis (93:58)

By the way, I was. I was trying to debunk his last name. He comes from the longest line of nepotism of people that held. I was like. I was like, oh, they must have.

Robert Evans (94:08)

Gotten named that back when, like, the fact that they had a house at all was noteworthy. Yeah.

Mia Wong (94:13)

These people have paint.

Garrison Davis (94:14)

It literally kept going. I was like, okay, one level, okay, two levels, okay, three levels, okay, okay. When does it end? And then I got bored.

Mia Wong (94:24)

And the funny part about this, again, is that, like, this is the good guy in this story. Is this, like, Nepo baby, like, infinite, like, corruption guy?

Garrison Davis (94:32)

Junior senator of Rhode Island?

Robert Evans (94:35)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (94:35)

Okay, yeah.

Mia Wong (94:36)

And I want to kind of focus in on this statement in and of itself, because this is just like, an absolutely hideous view of just, like the hideous power of the unitary executive. Just do whatever the fuck it wants. Like, what do you mean that the FBI produced no written protocols for how they're supposed to do supplemental background investigations? What do you mean that they were, quote, acting as an agent for the White House? That's batshit. Why do your security services literally directly answer to one guy who can just tell them what to do, whatever the fuck he wants. That's insane. That is a fucking. That is a deranged political system. And yet this is, you know, this is the system that's supposed to be doing this stuff, which is also very funny because White House is, like, not really trying to get into a feud with the FBI. So there's a lot of kind of, like a sculpatory stuff with the FBI. But also everything the FBI does in this is such a fiasco that it's very clearly, like, also very much their fault. I'm going to read another quote from this. This is from a bit later in the report. Fourth, the FBI's tip line was not used to facilitate the FBI supplemental background investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. On instructions from the White House, the FBI did not investigate thousands of tips that came through the FBI's tip line. Instead, all tips related to Kavanaugh were forwarded to the White House without investigation. If anything, the White House may have used the tip line to steer FBI investigators away from derogatory or damaging information, which is, again, absolutely nuts. Insane.

Robert Evans (96:14)

And like. Yes. So this is. This is the kind of thing that, like, should be serious crime, right? Like, yeah. That you. You go. You get locked up for. Forever. Like, this is a forever crime. Yeah. It seems much more serious than, I don't know, robbing a bank to try and fund the Puerto Rican independence movement.

Mia Wong (96:29)

Yeah. It's not clear to me whether this would have been a giant scandal for a normal administration just because the American presidency has so much power, but it should have been like, this was just, like, a thing that would happen every week under Trump was like, he would just do shit like this. Do you know also what you should do?

Robert Evans (96:45)

Shit like.

Mia Wong (96:46)

I don't know. That would not. Not my best pivot.

Robert Evans (96:47)

No, no. But. But do. Do shit like.

Mia Wong (96:50)

Yeah, like. Like these products and services that support the podcast. And we are back. We've gotten to a point where, again, the FBI's tip line is not actually being used in the investigation. They're sending it all to the White House. The report found that. So the FBI, like, and they talked about this public at the time, they talked to 10 people who they said had, like, direct knowledge of the situation, but again, they only talked to 10 people. And there is a whole bunch of people who had very relevant evidence about a lot of important stuff in this. Like, so one of the. One of the claims that's going on here is that Kavanaugh was just wasted all the time and this is like, every single person you talk to who knew Kavanaugh in college and isn't, like, directly employed by the Republican Party was like, oh, yeah, this guy was wasted all the time, right? And this became a big part of the trial. And there were a whole bunch of people who tried to go to the FBI to be like, hey, he did this. And they just, like, would not talk to them. People who tried to come forward, like, they wouldn't talk to people who sent them information to the tip line. They just, like, didn't talk to them at all. I'm going to read from the thing again. According to a, quote, executive summary of the FBI supplemental background investigation issued by the Judiciary Committee majority, the majority of that time was Republican majority. So that's why it's fucking. These people were, quote, all witnesses with potential firsthand knowledge of the allegations. The FBI did not, however, interview Ford or Kavanaugh, the witnesses potentially with the most firsthand knowledge, nor did it speak to other potentially corroborating witnesses who had not witnessed the events firsthand. Nevertheless, the Judiciary Committee's Republicans executive summary concluded that the, quote, supplemental background investigation confirms there is no corroboration of allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez. So they didn't talk to either Kavanaugh.

Garrison Davis (98:48)

Or Fort, the two people who.

Robert Evans (98:50)

The thing was about, well, I mean, you know, why would you need to do that, right?

Garrison Davis (98:54)

Like, wait, what the fuck? This is so insane.

Mia Wong (98:59)

The other part of this is, so the FBI's initial background check didn't turn up any of this. And so the supplemental thing is being done in place of, like, the normal background check, because the normal background check was also done, like, shit. And so they never figured out any of this incredibly obvious stuff about him. And meanwhile, like, the supplemental one, they just kept being like, oh, well, we don't actually, like, need to talk to the people who this is about for incredibly nebulous reasons. And the other part of this that's going on is that, like, while this process is happening, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are trying to figure out how this process works, and Trump just, like, refuses to talk to any of them, and the FBI refuses to fucking send any of them. People are fighting out, like, we. We. We know that there's no specific process for this, like, supplemental investigation thing because, like, their staffers found it out from a YouTube video.

Robert Evans (99:47)

Jesus.

Mia Wong (99:48)

Like, they did not find this out from the FBI. It was like, this guy. Senator staffers were, like, watching YouTube videos to figure out how this investigation was supposed to work. So, And. And it turns out we had known at the time that the FBI was doing some kind of shady stuff, but what we know now is that. So Ford and her lawyers repeatedly tried to talk to the FBI, and they were just never able to do so.

Robert Evans (100:12)

Right?

Mia Wong (100:12)

The FBI completely stonewalled them. And it turns out that they stonewalled them because Trump specifically ordered the FBI not to talk to her or Kavanaugh.

Garrison Davis (100:20)

What?

Robert Evans (100:21)

What?

Mia Wong (100:22)

Which is absolutely insane.

Robert Evans (100:24)

Yeah. I love the law, it turns out.

Mia Wong (100:27)

And this is the.

Garrison Davis (100:28)

Part of.

Mia Wong (100:28)

This is the most insane, right? Everyone thought that. That the FBI was doing a normal FBI investigation, right? And part of what's going on here is that the media is just these, like, absolute credulous idiots, right? Because every single day the media is reporting that, like, Trump is allowing an open investigation, because, like, somehow, again, this is. This is like, two years into him being in office, right? None of these people have figured out that every single thing he says is a lie. They're all like, oh, yeah, Trump keeps saying that these people can talk to whoever they want and they can investigate whoever they want. And this gets to the point where the FBI is calling the White House every day because they'll be reading the news reports that say, we can talk to anyone. And they'll be like, hey, you told us we can't talk to these people. And they'll be like, no, no, actually, you still can't talk to these people. And it turns out that what's happening is this, quote, unquote, supplemental investigation. It's not an FBI investigation. They can only do things that are, quote, unquote, directed by the president. So they can only talk to the people who the President tells them to talk to. And they can't look at evidence that the President doesn't tell them to look at. And so what ends up happening is that, like, you know, there's initially, like, four people that they're supposed to be talking to, right? And, you know, they keep getting these, like, press things that are like, oh, hey, this is the full. This is an open investigation. You can, like, do whatever you want. And eventually, they put in, like, six more people. So, like, they talked to 10 total people. But because this is an investigation that is not being run by the FBI, really, it's being. It's being directly ran by Trump himself, which he's lying about because of that, they fucking never talked to anyone. And then also. So again, as we talked about, right, that. That tip line, they set up a bunch of people who tried to talk to the FBI, who the FBI wouldn't talk to, were like told, okay, go submit stuff to this tip line. And the FBI later admits that the tip line was like never real.

Robert Evans (102:09)

Sure, have a nice fake tip line.

Mia Wong (102:11)

Yeah, they never used any of the investigation. They sent it all to Trump. Yeah. And the reason they did it was that they were sick of people calling their regular tip line. So they set up a specific tip line so they could just have all the stuff that they would never listen to and instead just send it to the White House so they could do, I guess like oppo research bullshit on it. So this is just straight up a sham. There's no actual investigation going on. The media people at the time should have been able to figure out that obviously this thing was bullshit. Right. But nobody looked into it except for this one guy on the Senate committee. And so this, this report comes back and goes like, yeah, we did no research. We Talked to like 10 people and we didn't like ask them anything and we didn't use any of the research that we had and we have cleared this guy. As this is happening, Right. The Judiciary Committee Democrats are like trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. And this begins a six year process of Senator Whitehouse just fighting a war with the actual White House and the FBI and the DoD to try to figure out what the fuck just happened. And the interesting part of this also is that so obviously the Trump administration was never going to talk to them.

Robert Evans (103:26)

Right.

Mia Wong (103:26)

Which is in its of itself incredibly disturbing. Like the Senate Judiciary Committee, who in theory is one of the organizations that's supposed to be doing oversight of the FBI, would send requests to the FBI for information. The FBI would just tell them to fuck off.

Robert Evans (103:37)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (103:38)

But the interesting part is they kept doing this under Biden. So Biden's FBI was also doing this. It was awesome.

Robert Evans (103:45)

I love, I love the degree to which fucking liberals like have concluded, politically at least, that they have to be as like vociferously pro law enforcement as they can. And all cops ever do is say, we are just waiting for the chance to kill you. Like that. Yeah, it's great. Cool. Good stuff.

Mia Wong (104:03)

I'm going to read a line from this. It's so insane. When the senators followed up, they faced the challenge of aligning FBI, DOJ and White House equities. So they sent like requests for the emails between Trump and the FBI, Right, to figure out whether Trump was doing the thing he was doing, which was like directly running the investigation himself. The FBI claimed it could not answer without authorization from the DOJ in the White House. The DOJ directed the senators inquiries to the White House and the FBI, and the White House referred the senators back to the agencies. So they're doing this like, they're doing, like, the circular runaround thing you get from your insurance company where they tell you to talk to three people and every single one of them tells you to talk to the other one. But. But again, this is the Biden doj, the Biden FBI, and the Biden administration all doing this. The FBI finally provides documents about, like, their contact with Trump during the investigation. They finally provide the documents in November of 2023. This investigation started in late 2018. It took half a decade, almost half of which was under the Biden administration. And also Senator Whitehouse literally threatening to torpedo a nomination for the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. Like, he had to threaten the Department of Justice in order to get them to send the documents that proved that Trump colluded to stop the Kavanaugh investigation, which even just from, like, a political standpoint from the Democrats. Right. Why the fuck would you not want that in the open? I mean, I guess. I guess unless you're Joe Biden, you don't want everyone remembering, like, all the shit you need to Anita Hill. But, like, this is literally free political ammunition of your opponent, like, abusing the political process. And it still took a Democratic senator just directly threatening the DOJ of a Democratic administration to get this out. I just.

Garrison Davis (105:49)

Like, it also took so many years. Kavanaugh has been able to take away and fuck up our rights since, what, 2018, 2019. And the damage he's done is permanent.

Robert Evans (106:06)

Yeah. He will be around in office very likely for most of the rest of our lives. Lives.

Mia Wong (106:11)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (106:12)

Like I said earlier, he's only 59 years old.

Robert Evans (106:14)

Yeah. He could have another 30 years there at least.

Mia Wong (106:17)

Yeah. And if this stuff had been known, he absolutely would not have gotten nominated. Right. There were two unbelievably close votes to get him appointed. Right. There was a first vote where the Republicans straight up bypassed the filibuster and still almost lost. And it turns out that, okay, the actual final vote ended up being 50 to 48 with two abstentions. And one of the absences was because this guy was going to his daughter's wedding or something. But the other abstention was Lisa Murawski, who's the senator from Alaska, who's, like, the most sort of liberal of Republican senators. And she does, like, a coward present vote, so it can happen. And if she had voted no and if Joe. Manchin hadn't fucking crossed party lines to get. To get him in office, which I think also people just forget about Joe Manchin, that he is also, like, individually, specifically, the guy who got fucking Kavanaugh appointed. This would have failed. And the only reason that it didn't fail and that this guy was able to fucking destroy Roe v. Wade is that Trump just straight up ran a fake FBI investigation and lied to everyone about it and fucking railroaded the nomination through. That's fucking Kavanaugh. And I think the thing to close on here again is, like, every single week of Trump is just like this.

Garrison Davis (107:34)

Yeah, Right.

Mia Wong (107:35)

Like, every single day has some bullshit like this that just, like, fucks everyone for the rest of their lives.

Robert Evans (107:39)

Yep.

Mia Wong (107:40)

And it's deeply grim that he could take power again and we could get back to, like, the stuff he was doing at the end of his administration where he was just, like, having protesters killed with federal marshals. Like.

Robert Evans (107:53)

Yeah. That's the scary thing about it. Right. Is there's not any kind of, like, functional resistance to this. Right. The left has no power, has no serious organizing capacity in the United States, and can't get on the same page about anything that matters. Whereas liberals, when they have four years of control of the federal government, cannot adequately prosecute an attempt to overthrow the government and murder them.

Mia Wong (108:21)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (108:22)

So I don't know. You know, make sure you got clean water, folks. Folks, check on that garden. I don't know what to tell you.

Garrison Davis (108:30)

It's just so bleak because, like I said earlier, everything is so permanent.

Robert Evans (108:35)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (108:36)

You know what I mean?

Robert Evans (108:37)

It just lasts so fucking long.

Mia Wong (108:39)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (108:39)

It lasts so long. And, like.

Robert Evans (108:42)

And like, we.

Garrison Davis (108:43)

We don't even know the damage that Kavanaugh is going to do to our society because of Trump. And it's also just terrifying that, you know, Trump was able to manipulate the system in this way and that so many people were silenced, and now our rights are gone or our rights are going to be taken away. We have no idea what else is gonna be taken. Yep. We have no idea what else is gonna get fucked up. We have ideas.

Robert Evans (109:10)

We have ideas again. The problem is that the root of the problem is that liberals work tirelessly in this country to stop the left from gaining any power. And the left works tirelessly to stop itself from having any kind of influence by having no capacity to organize or compromise with people who do not agree with whatever their little brand of leftism is. Right. Whereas conservatives are willing to work together with other conservatives they hate for 40 straight years in order to get us to the position that we're in. That's what happened is they had message discipline, they had organizing discipline, and they successfully pushed their madness into the mainstream in such a way that now the Democratic Party, in a lot of ways, is expending a huge amount of its efforts on moving in the direction of that madness, especially as regards immigration. Look at where we've moved on immigration from 2016 to 2024. Right.

Garrison Davis (110:05)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (110:06)

That is the result of disciplined power building as opposed to, you know, what liberals and the left do, which is fight with each other and fight amongst each other and engage in a mix of, like, craven power politics and worshiping various con artists. And the right worships con artists, too. They just actually get power out of the deal.

Garrison Davis (110:30)

Yeah. And just like this, the other terrifying thing about this story is that it's not fucking everywhere. It's not everywhere. Ten years ago, this would be the scandal of all scandals, and it's barely a headline.

Robert Evans (110:47)

No. Because no one's going to do anything about it. It's like Elon Musk paying people a million dollars a day to vote in Pennsylvania. Like, yeah, that should be illegal. Like, you can at least make a strong case based on existing laws that that is election interference, the kind of which. That can land you in prison. Everyone knows. Nothing's going to happen to him. Yeah, nothing's going to happen to him if Kamala wins. Right. If the Dems have a blowout and wind up with both houses of Congress, nothing is going to happen to Elon Musk. It's.

Garrison Davis (111:14)

Yeah. Again, just like, we have no idea how. How long this is going to go on and how much worse it could get.

Robert Evans (111:22)

And, yeah, I have some ideas, but I podcasted about those back in 2019. Sophie. Yeah, I was there.

Garrison Davis (111:33)

I was quite literally there.

Robert Evans (111:34)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (111:35)

But, yeah. Yeah. So thanks, Mia. That was a bummer.

Robert Evans (111:39)

Thank you, Mia. No, this was good. This was solid.

Garrison Davis (111:42)

And a bummer.

Robert Evans (111:43)

Again. I started this by saying my second to. The last conversation I had in person with my mom was about Kavanaugh. It was her almost screaming at me because of how unfair what the Democrats did to Brett Kavanaugh was because of the good man that they. And she felt the same way about Clarence Thomas. Right. That, like, these guys were the victims of media assassination attempts. She felt the same way about Bill Cosby, by the way. Anyway, whatever. I don't need to yell about my mom. I've yelled about enough. This episode.

Mia Wong (112:11)

Tomorrow's episode will be more fun, I promise. We're gonna yell about why the Econ Nobel Prize is fake. And read some of the dumbest things you've ever seen in your life.

Robert Evans (112:18)

Hell yeah. There we go. There we go. Back to the good stuff. Back to the good stuff. Yeah.

Garrison Davis (112:24)

Mia's been deeply excited to do this episode, so look out for that one. And, I don't know, touch grass and pet. Pet a dog if it wants you to.

Robert Evans (112:33)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (112:34)

Bye.

Robert Evans (112:52)

Welcome. I'm Danny Thr. Well, won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum Tales from the Shadows Presented by I Heart and Sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Tuda Podcast Network. Available on the I Heart Rate Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (113:51)

Hey, I'm Jack Beast Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners. For those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech. From an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

Mia Wong (115:10)

This season I'm going to be joined.

Garrison Davis (115:12)

By everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the.

Mia Wong (115:17)

Products you love keep getting worse and.

Garrison Davis (115:19)

Naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though. I love technology, I just hate the people in charge and want them to.

Mia Wong (115:26)

Get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

Garrison Davis (115:30)

I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

Robert Evans (115:47)

Hola Mi Gente.

Mia Wong (115:48)

It's Honey German and I'm bringing you.

Garrison Davis (115:50)

Gracias Come Again, the podcast where we.

Mia Wong (115:52)

Dive deep into the world of Latin.

Robert Evans (115:54)

Culture, culture, musica, peliculas and entertainment with.

Garrison Davis (115:57)

Some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you.

Mia Wong (116:04)

We're talking real conversations with our Latin.

Garrison Davis (116:07)

Stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles and successes.

Robert Evans (116:13)

You know it's going to be filled.

Garrison Davis (116:14)

With chisme, laughs and all the vibes that you love.

Mia Wong (116:16)

Each week we'll explore everything from music.

Garrison Davis (116:18)

And pop culture to deeper topics like.

Mia Wong (116:21)

Identity, community and breaking down barriers in.

Garrison Davis (116:24)

All sorts of industries.

Robert Evans (116:25)

Don't miss out on the fun El.

Mia Wong (116:27)

Tecaliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a.

Garrison Davis (116:31)

Podcast by Honey German where we get into todolo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Mia Wong (116:43)

Muhammad Ali, George foreman, James Brown, B.B. king, Miriam Makeba. I shook up the world.

Robert Evans (116:50)

James Brown said say it loud and.

Mia Wong (116:52)

The kids said, I'm black and I'm proud. Black boxing stars and black music royalty.

Robert Evans (116:57)

Together in the heart of Zaire, Africa. Three days of music and then the boxing event. What was going on in the world at the time made this fight as important that anything else is going on on the planet.

Garrison Davis (117:12)

My grandfather laid on the ropes and let George Foreman and basically just punch himself out.

Robert Evans (117:17)

Welcome to Rumble, the story of a world in transformation.

Garrison Davis (117:20)

The 60s and prior to that you couldn't call a person black and how.

Robert Evans (117:25)

We arrived at this peak moment.

Mia Wong (117:28)

I don't have to be what you.

Robert Evans (117:29)

Want me to be.

Garrison Davis (117:30)

We all came from the continent of Africa.

Robert Evans (117:34)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman and the.

Mia Wong (117:37)

Soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app.

Robert Evans (117:40)

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast podcast.

Mia Wong (117:51)

No Bell Prize. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about Nobel Prizes. I guess I'm your host via Wog with me with me is James.

Garrison Davis (118:03)

Hi Mia.

Mia Wong (118:04)

Excited to hear about the Dynamite Guy prizes?

Garrison Davis (118:06)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (118:07)

So as people, I think are aware, the man who invented dynamite established a bunch of prizes to be like the pinnacle of human, human achievement. Right. Every year, this is decided on by a bunch of judges. And this year in the Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Physics went to two guys who did a whole bunch of the fundamental basic work on what became machine learning algorithms. And as annoying as modern AI is, machine learning algorithms has fundamentally changed the way that science works. It changed astronomy. I used them to do astronomy. There's all of this. It has fundamentally changed the way that humanity functions. Yeah, it's an important discovery.

Garrison Davis (118:46)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (118:46)

And the Nobel Prize in Medicine went to a group of people who discovered microrna, which is like a different type of RNA that fundamentally changed the way that we understand how gene regulation works. This is like a fundamental path breaking thing in biology. They got the fucking medicine Nobel Prize for. The Nobel Prize in Economics went to three guys who discovered that institutions affect prosperity.

Robert Evans (119:16)

Huge, groundbreaking shit.

Mia Wong (119:19)

It's like economists don't discover shit.

Robert Evans (119:23)

They just, they just say shit. And then other economists are like, yeah, cool.

Mia Wong (119:28)

Okay. So when I was originally planning this episode, this is going to be an episode about the fake Nobel Prize, which is the economics Nobel Prize, which we've talked about on the show before. But it's worth saying again, this is not a real Nobel Prize. Like, this is not one of the prizes that was established by Alfred Nobel. This was a thing established by the Swedish Central bank as a way to push neoliberal economics. Neoliberal economics. And every year, they're always very stupid, is the thing, right? And my plan for this episode, because I started seeing stuff about this Nobel Prize and I was looking at this and I was like, this is one of the dumbest ones they've had since they gave out one in the 2000s for realizing that people could simply not make a trade. Like, but it's. I was like, okay, I'm going to go read all of these papers, right? We're going to come back, we're going to have a detailed analysis of it. And I'm reading these papers and it's like, it's nothing. These three economists are. They're from what's called institutional economics. These are supposed to be the smart ones, right? These are the economists that the neoclassical economists have to bring in, like the normal neoclassical economists have to bring in because their models don't work, right? And the thing that makes them, quote, unquote smart is that they understand that institutions exist and they know how to use really, really BAS game theory models. And this makes them, like, the cutting edge, the absolute elite, cutting edge of bourgeois economics. They're on the front lines. What have these people discovered? What do these people win this prize for? Right, okay, the thing that they won this prize for, like, the initial thing, there's a couple of stuff that we'll get to in a second. But, like, the big thing that they. They figured out is through a series of thunderously stupid regression analysis, they discovered something. I don't even know how to frame the magnitude of this discovery, but it took them a shit ton of math and, like, a bunch of, like, tabulations of mortality data to discover that in some places, European colonial powers formed settler colonies, and in some places, they established colonial rule that wasn't based on settler colonies and that these were different. This is what they won the Nobel Prize for. They did a bunch of regression analyses and were like, holy shit. In some places the Europeans did settler colonies, and in some places they didn't. And it had to do with, like, disease and the level of resistance from the indigenous population. They won a Nobel Prize in economics for this. Are you fucking kidding me?

Robert Evans (121:55)

Also. Also a paper that you could write.

Mia Wong (121:57)

For my History 110 class at Community college. Okay, so then some of the discourse about this, right. The Marxist economist Shahram Azar pointed out that, like, these fundamental observations were made by another guy we've talked about on this show, the renegade Marxist economist Paul Baron. And that's a good point. But also, when I was thinking about how to do this episode, right. This isn't a thing, like, with, like, Donald Harris, like, we talked about Kamala Harris's dad's book, Right? And that's. That's a book where there's. There's, like, ideas in it.

Robert Evans (122:29)

Right?

Mia Wong (122:29)

Right. You can go through it and you can watch him developing ideas. You can't do that with this because these people are not developing ideas. They have discovered the most obvious things. Yeah. They have read a single book about history, and they have attempted to use a bunch of regression analyses to prove things that, like, you can just read a Wikipedia article and discover about the course of colonization.

Garrison Davis (122:52)

Yeah, yeah.

Mia Wong (122:52)

And then you can go back and.

Robert Evans (122:54)

Do a bunch of regression analyses to.

Mia Wong (122:55)

Prove something that everyone already knew. Yeah. And the place that I got to about. I have this joke about Maoism where all the things that people get from Maoism are things that you should have learned in elementary school. Like, one of the most common things you get from Maoists is like, ah, you have to read no investigation, no right to speak. And like, my friend, okay, if you needed Mao Zedong to tell you that you needed to. You needed to research something before you talked about it, what the fuck happened in your, like, what is going wrong with your life? What went wrong with your education? Like, what has gone wrong with the way you think about the world that you needed Mao Zedong to tell you this? And this is what most Nobel prizes in economics are, and this is the most that it has ever been.

Robert Evans (123:43)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (123:44)

So basically their argument is that, like, this is also an argument that Paul Baron makes. Is that, like, okay, depending on whether you're dealing with a settler colony or a sort of like, India style, like, administrative colony. I guess I'm playing a technical term for it, I guess, like an extractive.

Robert Evans (124:02)

Colony where you're more about extracting labor.

Mia Wong (124:03)

And raw materials and settling. Yeah. Like, that changes the kinds of institutions that are set up. And like, okay, you can, if you want to credit Paul Baron for the discovery that like, settler colonies and like extractive colonies have different legal institutions and they function differently and that has had long range economic impacts, like stretching into the future. But, like, this is something, again, that you can, you can just. You can find in a history book and immediately understand. And these people have tried to do this. They're trying to, like, track the difference in why were like, some colonies more prosperous later than other colonies. Right. They're trying to track this process through. Through a whole bunch of incredibly sketchy regression analyses and weird assumptions about what income is. They're trying to track, like, why was it that, like, China and Turkey were, like, rich in the 1500s, but they ceased to be rich after that?

Robert Evans (124:56)

Oh, sick. They're doing a fucking Jared Diamond. Yeah. They're doing a West and the rest.

Mia Wong (125:00)

Yeah, yeah. It's warned over, Jared. I'm. Bullshit. It's. Except, you know, with China, standard of living in Europe, if you actually go back to the historical record and aren't doing their, like, stupid weird, like, using population density as an index for stuff where they start bringing malthus into it. If you don't do that and you look at like, the actual, like, historical record, like, the average, like, quality of life in China, like, is not eclipsed by Europe until like the mid-1800s.

Robert Evans (125:29)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (125:29)

Like, you know, so, like, this is all. This is all, like, very.

Robert Evans (125:32)

Even then, like, life expectancy in the mid-1800s didn't. It took decades to go up after the Industrial Revolution. Right. Lately.

Mia Wong (125:39)

Yeah. This is sort of drawing to what they're trying to do here is that like a lot of this is just, is directly just a product of colonialism. Right. And they sort of acknowledge that colonialism existed and that it was like extractive. But their job is to take the basic insights of history and depoliticize it.

Robert Evans (125:54)

Right.

Mia Wong (125:54)

We are going to get to later. One of the things they win this prize for is depoliticizing revolution, turning revolution into like a Nash equilibrium game theory thing.

Garrison Davis (126:04)

Oh, God.

Mia Wong (126:05)

Which is unbelievable. It's incredible.

Robert Evans (126:08)

Yeah. These are the kind of people who I have to deal with on a.

Mia Wong (126:11)

Daily basis on listservs. Like, these are the economists emailing the entire listserv with their unique insight into something that we all knew 30 years, like the all faculty email list is plagued by this kind of individual. Yeah, yeah. And like, like this is a thing where. So they're absolutely convinced that like, like they're 100% convinced that the thing that leads to economic prosperity is like the safeguarding of individual property rights. And like, I will give them a little tiny bit of credit where they're like, well, yeah, so direct colonial institutions were extractive and they're bad because they infringe on property rights. And that's mildly better than most of these people. Yeah, but like, these are, these are, these are again, these are the most advanced bourgeois economists. Right. They're not, they're not like pro Rhodesian neoclassical guys. Right. They do, they do have a line where they say we're not going to say whether colonialism is good or bad. And I think that's been misinterpreted a little bit because, like, in their work they're pretty clear that it's bad. They're just trying not to make like.

Robert Evans (127:10)

A moral judgment because God forbid.

Mia Wong (127:12)

Yeah, well, like they said, they're saying it's extractive and they think that like, extraction is bad because it's inefficient. Yeah, but basically the thing is, like, they think that like, like, okay, so like if you set up like regimes that like, safeguard private property, this will like, make people like, richer. But I want to read a quote from one of the papers they wrote, quote. In comparatively poor and less dense populated regions where Europeans could easily settle, it was in the colonizer's interest to introduce inclusive economic institutions that helped to boost prosperity for the majority in the long run.

Garrison Davis (127:44)

No, me, like, they didn't go on.

Robert Evans (127:49)

To say how, like, yeah, but Britain built the railways in India. Like.

Mia Wong (127:56)

This is one of these things.

Robert Evans (127:57)

Right.

Mia Wong (127:57)

Because what's happening here, you know, this is something that economists love to do. It's like, economists love to go into other fields and have to colonize them.

Robert Evans (128:03)

Right?

Mia Wong (128:03)

Yes. Like what they're doing here is they've gone into like this field of history.

Robert Evans (128:07)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (128:07)

And they're attempting to sort of colonize them. Right. Many such cases. Yeah. And you know, they're looking at this stuff. Right. And you got things like this where it's like. No, like the economic institutions that were set up in like settler colonies were not designed to introduce inclusive economic institutions to like help us boost their prosperity for the majority in the long run. Like that was the result of social struggle.

Robert Evans (128:30)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (128:31)

But they for some reason basically think that social struggle started in like the 1880s.

Garrison Davis (128:38)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (128:39)

The Nobel committee, they're like econ. Fake econ. Nobel committee releases a giant statement. There's press summaries. They have a slightly more detailed one. They have the econ one. And I want to read this from. So part of what they're doing. You're talking about the work that was inspired by this, by the understanding that the different institutions change economic outcomes. Quote Banerjee and Ivor 2005 examined the legacy of British land institutions in India that gave cultivators in certain regions proprietary rights rights including their productivity was higher in these regions post independence. Ginny Oli and Rainer and Michaelopoulos and Papa Ianu studied the impact of differences in political centralization along ethnic groups. Dream pre colonial times. Nunn documented the long run negative impacts of the slave trade. Dell 2010 by the way, none paper in 2008. So we'll go back to that a second. Dell 2010 investigated the long run effects of the so called MITA system in operation between 1573 and 1812 in Peru. In Bolivia and Peru, where men were forced to work in mines within the boundaries of MITA, household consumption was 25% lower in 2021 than just outside the boundaries. So what they have discovered here it again. In the late 2000s and early 2010s they discovered that slavery had long run negative economic impacts on the places where there was slave.

Robert Evans (130:09)

Jesus Christ. Thanks for trying guys.

Mia Wong (130:17)

This is the shit that they gave these people a Nobel Prize for inspiring.

Robert Evans (130:26)

This is insane. You're right. Economists do just love to tourist in.

Garrison Davis (130:30)

Someone else's discipline and fucking have the most basic insight possible.

Robert Evans (130:35)

All of these are things that would be like an interesting undergraduate paper, right? Like yeah, insane that these people are.

Mia Wong (130:44)

Getting Nobel Prizes for this. It's not insane.

Robert Evans (130:46)

It's economics. But same difference I guess.

Mia Wong (130:49)

All right, so speaking of economics, we need to go to ads.

Garrison Davis (130:52)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (130:52)

Because there'll be a Long term detrimental.

Garrison Davis (130:54)

Consequence for us if we don't.

Mia Wong (130:56)

But when we come back, there's some more unreal bullshit. We are back. Okay? So speaking. Speaking of undergrad bullshit, one of the big things in their, like, initial paper that. Where they. They did the whole. Oh, my God. They discovered that there's a difference between settler colonies and like, extractive colonies. One of the big things in that paper was they spent a whole bunch of time looking into was. Was the economic difference in these countries because of the climate. Which now, for those of you who are students of history, right, the thing you will remember is that this was like the most advanced race science theory of the early 1800s.

Garrison Davis (131:40)

Yes.

Mia Wong (131:41)

And these people are like, the economists are finally getting around to busting this in like 2004.

Robert Evans (131:49)

Have they ever looked at skull measurements? Because I feel like we're heading down that path, like econophrenology.

Mia Wong (131:56)

So bad.

Robert Evans (131:59)

Incredible.

Mia Wong (132:00)

That was actually a whole thing in fascist Japan where they had all. I can't remember if I ever talked about this in the episodes that I did on Bastard's episodes, but they had this whole thing where they had like, racial categorizations and like, biological characteristics of like, the races. And they would use them to like, determine allocative efficiency of which slaves you should use to do what.

Robert Evans (132:19)

Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Mia Wong (132:21)

It was great. And by great, I mean like, holy fucking shit. It's so bad.

Robert Evans (132:27)

They dismiss their time mia. Those people could kick the shit out.

Mia Wong (132:30)

Of a Nobel prize in like 2020. They came back with that stuff. Yeah, I get like, you know, I mean, one of the things we were talking about, right, it's like you were mentioning is like, these are like, these are like such obvious insights. And I remember, so I went to the University of Chicago, right? And that means that I fucking know all of these fucking ghouls. Like, I bet all the people who are going to become these econ dipshits. Yeah, you are ground zero for that shit. One of the things that's funny is that, like, this is like a particular thing of the universe of Chicago. Econ people, they all think they can do math and they can't, right? They suck at it. But one of the things I was film was like, so a bunch of my friends are math majors. And math majors can like, actually do math. Like they could do the kind of math that's like, there's no. There aren't like, numbers involved. Like, it's like they're doing like field theory or some. Or like they're doing a Kind of math that when someone tries to explain it to you, they have to start like making diagrams of like the faces of cubes and then like explaining how there's like 32 dimensional edges or whatever. And there's always this joke from like math professors where they'd be mad because like they'd look at the econ Nobel Prize and they'd be like this person made like an incredibly minor optimization to a trading algorithm that's like incredibly obvious to anyone who even sort of knows math. And they gave them a Nobel Prize for this. And this is that before history.

Robert Evans (133:43)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (133:44)

So the other thing that they discovered, right. Oh God, I'm trying to find the least depressing way to put this. This. They discovered that there are revolutions and they discovered that there are different interest groups in a revolution who have different interests. And legitimately one of the things that they won this prize for is a paper where they discovered that giving people the franchise, giving people the ability to vote and setting up the welfare state was something that was done by elites to stop revolutions.

Robert Evans (134:21)

Yeah, again, yeah.

Mia Wong (134:24)

They have all these mathematical models that look very impressive until you realize they're just, they're like incredibly stupid game theory bullshit to like determine whether or not a country will do a revolution. And their model for it basically is like. And they've discovered some genuinely impressive insights for like a 16 year old who wants to go into political science. Right. Like they discovered that for example, elites have economic interests and that those economic interests are different from masses. But because they're economists, the only way they can conceptualize this is in terms of tax rates. So they make the argument, and this is not a joke. I am being serious about this. I read this fucking footnote. They make the argument that the overthrow of Salvador Allende was about elite tax rates.

Robert Evans (135:13)

Oh, that one is, fuck it, like Jesus wept.

Mia Wong (135:19)

And it's so funny too. And this is like one of the biggest, most obvious problems with their models. Right? And this is from all the way back to like their whole thing about like how the institutions that were set up by colonialists being different affected like the long term trajectory of these countries. They treat this entire process because like one of the things that they've discovered is that there are revolutions and counter revolutions because they read a Wikipedia article about like, like right wing coups in Latin America and they discovered that elites can do anti democratic coups because they don't want their taxes to be too high.

Robert Evans (135:50)

That's the only reason they do it.

Mia Wong (135:51)

Yeah, but their discovery of this, right, that right wingers do anti democratic coups to like preserve their wealth and political power. Right. But never at any point in their process does it seem to have occurred to them that elites are not purely single national figures and that there are in fact multinational elites. And in fact there's something called the Central Intelligence Agency does in fact hope these people do coups. And this is like the fundamental core of this, right? It's like these models talk about sort of like a lead extraction, right? But it's all framed through the language of sort of like either like taxes or like rent, basically like they're thinking like land rent or like they're fighting over a surplus. Right? Okay. But what they're trying to do is depoliticize how this actually works. Because the thing they're trying to present is that all extraction happens through the state, right?

Garrison Davis (136:41)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (136:42)

Like the state is the tool that elites use. And now if you think about this for about five seconds, we're like, well, no, obviously there's an exploitation in the workplace that's actually in these right wing military dictatorships. That's actually like the primary place where extraction happens, where you shoot all the union organizers and then you fucking force all the peasants to work in the fields and shoot them if they don't. Right. But what they're doing is attempting to sort of depoliticize, to depoliticize this entire process. This is what I'm talking about. They are the most advanced Bush walls economists. And being the most advanced bourgeois economists, they have finally figured out that the whole. They call it modernization theory. That's not really what modernization theory is. But they're economists. They're fucking stupid. They don't know anything. You can't judge them for not actually knowing what modernization theory is. But they finally discovered that the old line about how economic development inevitably brought democracy was wrong again. Huge insight.

Robert Evans (137:38)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (137:38)

But this brings them into the world of democratic transitions. Now, after we come back from these ad breaks, I am going to read you the most thunderously stupid line I've ever read in a paper in my entire life. And that is fucking saying something given how many Econ papers I've read. Yeah, you've been in the trenches. Okay.

Robert Evans (138:06)

Oh God.

Mia Wong (138:08)

Let me, let me, let me, let me read this slide. This is. This is a quote from the Econ. The Econ. Noble Prizes site in their 2006 book. This. The two, two of the three economists made an ambitious attempt to provide, quote, the first systematic formal analysis of the creation and consolidation of democracy. See, the first.

Robert Evans (138:32)

The first. The.

Mia Wong (138:37)

This Is very funny.

Robert Evans (138:39)

This is fucking insane. This is like an entire field of international relations of political science. This is shit. Yeah.

Garrison Davis (138:46)

Not.

Mia Wong (138:46)

No, there are literally multiple disciplines where this is an entire field of study. Yeah, right. Like I have read, like, obviously, this is an entire branch of political science. This is an entire branch of international relations. This is an entire branch of sociology. There, like, there's like an anthropological school kind of that's about this interdisciplinary fucking.

Robert Evans (139:06)

Institute that exists for this reason. Like, this is shit that I studied from people who wrote books about it in the 1950s.

Mia Wong (139:15)

Like, this is like. The funny thing is they literally quote people who are writing about this from the 1840s. Like, people have been studying this for fucking as long as there has been democracy. People have been studying this shit. Yeah, yeah. Their econ thing that they always do is like, oh, nobody ever did formal analysis before. It's like, have you ever fucking read.

Robert Evans (139:39)

Yeah. Have you read a poly sci paper?

Mia Wong (139:40)

I understand. I too dropped my public policy major the moment I realized that public policy was just fucking econ with the lines on the graph relabeled.

Robert Evans (139:48)

Yeah, yeah.

Mia Wong (139:49)

But like, have you ever fucking read one of these papers? Like, you. You actually have a chance of understanding them because they are, you know, I. Okay, I can't. But you mean to political science. They are about 150 times more advanced than the econ papers on the subject. But that's still not like a very high level of advancement. Right.

Garrison Davis (140:05)

But like, still, they're like, they have.

Mia Wong (140:07)

Formal models of this. They've done all the stupid math bullshit. The sociologists have done all the number crunching. Like, okay, okay, here's another quote from this. The authors start the paper by showing that democratic transitions are precipitated by falls in GDP per capita. They discovered this in 2019. I was having Twitter arguing, like, arguments again with like 16 year olds on Twitter in like 2016 about what the relationship between revolutions and declining and raising living standards were like. This was Twitter discourse. Right.

Robert Evans (140:42)

This is seven years after the Arab Spring, 2019. Insane.

Garrison Davis (140:51)

They discovered this.

Robert Evans (140:52)

Yeah.

Garrison Davis (140:52)

Do they do formal analyses of the.

Mia Wong (140:54)

Arab Spring, famously the first and only democratic transition it's ever happened? No. That's like two reasons. Okay. They're all their stuff is what they call the quote, the second wave of democratic transitions, which is not second wave at all because they're idiots, but they're talking about the. The pro democracy movements in the eighties in Latin America and East Asia. Great.

Robert Evans (141:15)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (141:16)

Which they also were just thunderously wrong about, like, all of the time.

Garrison Davis (141:18)

Yeah.

Robert Evans (141:19)

I was going to say, I can't.

Mia Wong (141:20)

Wait to hear what they have to say about those. I'm literally not even going to talk about it because it's nothing. It's just like air.

Robert Evans (141:27)

I'm just looking up a very, very.

Mia Wong (141:29)

Insightful paper that Ali Khadiva wrote, who I've interviewed several times at different things. It's called Stick Stones and Molotov's Cocktails. Oh, that ruins it.

Robert Evans (141:37)

Is a fantastic analysis of democratic transitions.

Mia Wong (141:40)

It's about like the strategic use of violence against property and the correlation it has between successful democratic transition movements.

Robert Evans (141:49)

It's good paper. Read that.

Mia Wong (141:51)

Yeah, there's a lot of great analysis. We'll put that in the notes here. There's a lot of great analysis of this, but what they're trying to do is they're trying to build this model where they're looking at basically bargaining between the masses and elites to decide whether to do a revolution or a counter revolution. And they're trying to build a game theory model based on fuck off the elites and give ranting concessions. And when they don't grant concessions and whether people believe they're going to grant concession. The other thing that's also very stupid about this writing is that like the thing that they're interested in is why or why not people like believe that neoliberal economic reforms are going to work. And a lot of democratic transitions are also about like resistance to that shit. Yeah, like the revolution in Sudan, for example. It like is a proto Marxist movement, but like, it is also in large part a reaction to IMF and post structural reforms, which these people all think are good and will like, cause long term. And a lot of the democratic traditions they're talking about, for example, again, Pinochet, right, that was obviously the pro democracy reformers did more neoliberalism. But a big part of the reason that stuff worked was because Pinochet ran the economy into the graduating neoliberal economic bullshit, which is what he was there to do. Yeah, but I want to close in on two things. One, I want to read this line right from talking about like the advances in their papers. This is again from the economic prize thing, quote, in the earlier models, the probability that the masses are successful when they stage a revolution is always one. But this is a strong assumption that does not reflect real world events very well. They published a paper about how people make a decision to do a revolution. This was peer reviewed in an economics journal. It's one of the papers that is cited in the fucking Nobel Prize. They gave them where they assumed that revolution always succeed Nobel Prize. And the second paper was when they realized, holy shit, that's not true.

Garrison Davis (143:48)

Isn'T it?

Mia Wong (143:49)

This is the kind of assumption that these absolute fucking morons make all of the time, all of their fucking. This is why they had to bring in the institutional economists in the first place to bring this shit in.

Robert Evans (143:57)

Right?

Mia Wong (143:58)

Because like they're basic models of how humans work. Where like every single human like sits down and calculates a fucking utility curve. Figure out what going to brush their hair in the morning was obviously not true. That's why they had to bring in game theory in the first place. Right? They make stupid assumptions like this literally all the time. And again, this is one of the ones they're making in one of the papers that was cited in here as a reason they won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Yeah, I want to read this Molotov cocktails paper out to everyone.

Garrison Davis (144:23)

Here's a fun little sentence.

Mia Wong (144:24)

An event history analysis finds that riots are positively associated with political liberalization in 103 non democracies from 1990 to 2000 for attacks by civilians on police stations during the January 25 Egyptian revolution illustrate one way in which unarmed collective violence can bring about a democratic breakthrough. Incredible.

Robert Evans (144:44)

Thank you. We love to see it.

Mia Wong (144:46)

Great stuff. We love this. That's a pretty normal thing from like, I guess you would call it like the center left of like democratic transition studies stuff, right? Yeah, it's a sociology paper. Yeah, that's like a pretty normal. It's like a good life, a good paper. This is from one of the books written by people who won the economics Nobel Prize. Quote, chapter six explains why several European countries have managed to build broadly participatory societies with capable but still shackled states. Our answer focuses on the factors that led much of Europe towards the Corridor during the early Middle Ages as Germanic tribes, especially the Franks, came to invade lands dominated by the Western Roman Empire after its collapse. We argue that the marriage of bottom up participatory institutions and norms of Germanic tribes and the centralizing bureaucratic and legal traditions of the Roman Empire forged a unique balance of power between state and society, enabling the rise of the shackled Leviathan.

Robert Evans (145:44)

Oh God.

Garrison Davis (145:46)

Fuck me.

Robert Evans (145:49)

Sorry. This is so depressing. I spent 10 years getting a PhD in history and they've just given these people a Nobel Prize for like Jordan Peterson.

Garrison Davis (145:56)

Shit.

Mia Wong (145:59)

They have discovered, this is the thing, these people have discovered the concept of history.

Robert Evans (146:04)

Yeah.

Mia Wong (146:05)

And they've read like four Wikipedia articles and they've used those Wikipedia articles to start Doing regression analyses and this is what they won a Nobel Prize.

Robert Evans (146:15)

Yeah, this is fake Nobel Prize again.

Mia Wong (146:20)

I've been thinking about in physics, what you have to do to win a Nobel Prize is you have to make a prediction about the fundamental nature of the universe that can only be tested by building a fucking machine that can measure a vibration of gravitational waves which is a. It has to be able to measure a ripple in the fabric of space time that is smaller than the diameter of the fucking nucleus of an atom. That is what you have to do to win the Nobel Prize in physics. What you have to do to win the Nobel Prize in economic comics is realize that institutions affect prosperity.

Robert Evans (147:00)

Jesus. I just cannot.

Garrison Davis (147:04)

Like this has been.

Mia Wong (147:06)

This has been the vibes Econ Prize episode. I. I don't know. I hope this made your day slightly, slightly better because holy. This is the fakest prize in the entire world. Shout out to the economists like, I guess I'm eagerly awaiting you discovering some other shit from my 101 class. Feel free to sign up at any time if you want to get a Nobel fucking Prize in economics. I guess. All right, well, this is Benny Kidapam here. I will return. Yeah, next time they give the economics.

Robert Evans (147:38)

The prize for tying their shoes or. Welcome. I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tale from the Shadows Presented by I Heart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Tuda Podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (148:58)

Hey, I'm Jack Beast Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black lit. The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black lit is for the page turners. For those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and recognize refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zittron, host of the Better Offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech, from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

Mia Wong (150:17)

This season I'm going to be joined.

Garrison Davis (150:18)

By everyone from nobody winning economists to the leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the.

Mia Wong (150:24)

Products you love keep getting worse and.

Garrison Davis (150:26)

Naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to.

Mia Wong (150:33)

Building things that actually do things to help real people.

Garrison Davis (150:37)

I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever else you get your podcasts, check.

Mia Wong (150:50)

Out better offline.com.

Robert Evans (150:54)

Hola mi gente, It's.

Mia Wong (150:55)

Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias Come Again, the podcast where we dive.

Garrison Davis (150:59)

Deep into the world of Latin culture.

Robert Evans (151:01)

Musica peliculas and entertainment with some of.

Garrison Davis (151:03)

The biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists and culture shifters, this is the Podcast podcast for you.

Mia Wong (151:11)

We're talking real conversations with our Latin.

Garrison Davis (151:14)

Stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles and successes.

Robert Evans (151:19)

You know it's going to be filled.

Garrison Davis (151:20)

With chisme, laughs and all the vibes that you love.

Mia Wong (151:23)

Each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community and breaking down barriers in.

Garrison Davis (151:30)

All sorts of industries.

Robert Evans (151:32)

Don't miss out on the fun El.

Mia Wong (151:33)

Tecaliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a.

Garrison Davis (151:37)

Podcast by Honey German where we get into Todolo Actual. Listen to Gracias, Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Mia Wong (151:50)

Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. king, Miriam Makeba, I shook up the world.

Robert Evans (151:56)

Jane Brown said say it loud and.

Mia Wong (151:59)

The kids said I'm black and I'm proud. Black boxing stars and black music royalty.

Robert Evans (152:04)

Together in the heart of Zaire Africa, 3 Days of Music and then the boxing event. What was going on in the world at the time made this fight as important that anything else is going on on the planet.

Garrison Davis (152:18)

My grandfather laid on the ropes and let George Foreman basically just punch himself out.

Robert Evans (152:24)

Welcome to Rumble, the story of a world in transformation.

Garrison Davis (152:27)

The 60s and prior to that you couldn't call a person black and how.

Robert Evans (152:32)

We arrived at this peak moment.

Mia Wong (152:34)

I don't have to be what you.

Robert Evans (152:36)

Want me to be.

Garrison Davis (152:37)

We all came from the continent of Africa.

Robert Evans (152:40)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman and the.

Mia Wong (152:43)

Soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app.

Robert Evans (152:46)

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (152:58)

This is it could happen here today. I your host Garrison Davis and there sure has been a lot happening this past year. I am kind of feeling emotionally exhausted and just numb in general. It's a different feeling from the political desensitization that my job usually provides me. I'm frankly still recovering from attending the dnc, even more so than the rnc. At the rnc, I knew I was going to be walking through the pits of hell, and despite the immense evil on display, the sideshow conspiracy theory freak nature of the event made it almost absurdly amusing. But the DNC kind of broke me between the infighting among Palestine protesters and the insistence from the official organizers TM to oppose any course of action that would actually disrupt the event or apply pressure to attempt attendees and instead just use the Palestine protests to promote their little socialist newspapers and political orgs. Meanwhile, inside the actual event, I was surrounded by some of the richest, most powerful people I had ever been around and just watching them maintain their like Kamala is brat party atmosphere at all costs and purposely blind themselves to the atrocities happening around the world, especially Gaza, was a deeply unsettling experience. Like these are supposed to be the, if not the good guys, at least the better guys or the less openly fascist guys. And like among the American right wing's unprecedented focus and organized attack on trans rights, this was the first DNC since 2012 to not feature a trans speaker, and trans people were never directly mentioned during the convention's prime time speaking slots. And now, with the election ramping up and the Southeast still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Israel escalating tensions with Iran, and with the backing of the United States, continuing strikes in Lebanon and Palestine, I am just feeling more lost and discombobulated than I have been in years. So to cheer myself up, I decided to go to a Charlie Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy RA rally at Georgia State University. Now to some, that may sound just completely batshit or perhaps some form of bizarre self harm. But look, I've been covering far right rallies and writing about these weird conservative influencers for years now. It's almost second nature to me. Going to these events can feel paradoxically relaxing, even though it may trigger some stress. My body just kind of subconsciously knows what to do in environments like this. The RNC was so easy, it's like an autopilot just takes over. And so I thought going to this Turning Point USA event might help reset my brain by giving myself a simple task that I know I can excel at. But before we get into all that, first, for those more fortunate than I, here's some background on Charlie Kirk, also known as the far right podcaster with the smallest face As a Teenager back in 2012, Charles J. Kirk co founded an organization for campus conservatives called Turning Point USA. And then in 2019 he founded a sister organization called Turning Point Action, which focuses on elections and conservative political advocacy. Though initially more aligned with the so called alt light rather than the alt right, Kirk has slowly moved farther and farther to the right during the past 10 years, and by 2020 he embraced election fraud, COVID 19 and vaccine conspiracy theories. Also during 2020 he started his own podcast, the Charlie Kirk show, which is now somehow ranked as the number seven podcast for news in Apple podcast podcasts. So that's not good. At this point, Charlie has kind of taken the place of, if not surpassed, the role that was previously occupied by Steven Crowder before his fall from grace stemming from his breakup with Ben Shapiro and the allegations of abusing his ex wife. Through the Turning Point Action organization, Kirk is more tied in with the actual mechanisms of the Republican Party party than even the Daily Wire is. Just this past Wednesday, Turning Point Action hosted a rally for Trump in Duluth, Georgia just outside of Atlanta. Trump spoke at this event and Tucker Carlson made a very fascist speech advocating to refuse the results of the election if Trump loses and likening Trump to a quote unquote daddy figure needing to punish the country for being a quote unquote quote bad girl the past four years. It's a huge indictment against Americans deeply Freudian politics. Now the event that I attended on October 21 was a part of Charlie Kirk's you're being brainwashed tour where Kirk and friends travel from swing state to swing state to debate college students on camera about why Trump is the better candidate candidate. Charlie's focus on debating unprepared college students shows how he has kind of picked up the baton from Steven Crowder and his old Change My Mind videos. But this year specifically, Charlie's version of this college debate content creation strategy is more in line with this overall strategy to inflate Kirk's political influence leading up to the election so that he can get more directly involved in the GOP's get out the Vote campaign campaign in key swing states. As a part of this strategy, Kirk has been on a bit of a media blitz the past few months to promote himself. Some listeners may have seen the viral video featuring Charlie Kirk debating 25 quote unquote woke college students for over 90 minutes. This video from the YouTube channel Jubilee has over 20 million views. And like just as an aside, Jubilee is just so deeply essential evil. This company claims to advocate for like empathy and human connection while turning life and death political issues into fucking game show segments for YouTube ad revenue, often pitting media trained conservative activists against just random clueless liberals. I hate this company. They are so bad. But I digress. Now. I actually attended a Turning Point USA event on the GSU campus last year. Year it was a smaller event that was ostensibly about defending the Cop City training facility in Atlanta, though halfway through the event it just stopped being about Cop City and it just turned into an ad for Turning Point USA and this other political organization started by Candace Owens called Blexit, which stands for the quote Black exit from the victimhood mentality. This was one of the most racist events I've ever been to to the main speaker, in his best metrosexual attire, blamed black people for creating situations that result in police murders, said that the real problem is that black kids are never taught accountability and that in the MLK days people only ever advocated for more police training. He also claimed that rap music is causing a spike in violent crime and ranted against Jay Z and Beyonce and closed by saying that we need to support more conservative rappers and singers. It was really bad. But on the plus side, I went undercover to this event and when talking with the Turning Point USA officials, I convinced them that I was actually a student at a different nearby university and I reserved the right to start a fake TP USA chapter in that school. So hopefully that will never happen since I'm the one who's supposed to be doing it. For the Brainwashed tour event this past Monday, I dressed like an unfashionable campus conservative and donned my Reagan movie baseball cap acquired at the RNC welcome party and arrived at campus an hour early to scope out the terrain. They didn't announce the exact location for the event ahead of time. So for about half an hour I just walked around GSU with the fucking Ronald Reagan hat looking for like a TP USA booth. Now luckily I spotted some people with red mega hats that I tailed to the nearby Hurt park, where it was immediately evident that this would be a much bigger event than the cop city one I attended a year prior. In the middle of the park was a big table with microphones set up for questions and debate, and on either side there were booths with turning point stickers, buttons flying buyers, a pocket constitution, and sign up sheets to get involved in their political advocacy programs. I took home a big button that read Republicans are hotter. And I got another what I would call a brat style button, but brown instead of green that reads high. Period. Stop being a socialist. Period. Thanks. Period. Not good. Not good. But I watched the crowd grow from like 20 people to, I would say around 200. You know, it got kind of fluid, but yeah, around 200, 250, maybe a small majority were students, or at least young, and appeared to be equally made up of liberals and conservatives, with the rest of the crowd mostly made up of conservatives from all ages who came to campus just to see Charlie Kirk. As the event was about to begin, TP USA staff moved all of the older, quote unquote, non college students out of frame of the cameras to make the video seem more focused on liberal college students. And after waiting in the surprisingly warm October sun for over an hour, Charles J. Kirk finally arrived 30 minutes late from the official start time, tossing free mega hats wildly into the crowd, one of which I am now in possession of. For this leg of the tour, Kirk has been accompanied by the 2024 Republican presidential candidate with the tallest hair, Vivek Ramaswamy, who, by the way, has also won the Cool Zone Media award for presidential candidate with the most Nick Fuentes groiper energy. So there you go. I can't believe I've seen Vivek Ramaswamy like four different times this year. That doesn't feel good. But do you know what does feel good? That's right, these products and services that support this podcast. Okay, we are back. It's time to finally talk about this fucking rally. So I'm not going to go over like the whole event play by play, because there was over two hours of quote unquote debating that. I have neither the time nor the desire to recap, but I will mention some of the overarching topics and common lines of questioning. Even as the first student took the mic, I knew that this was going to be a rough day. Day. The first person to quote, unquote, debate, Charlie and Vivek, stated that their, quote, primary opposition to Trump is that he's anti American and anti patriotic, unquote. They said that they believed that Trump fundamentally undermines American values, and they specifically invoked Trump's rhetoric online about suspending the Constitution and the whole January 6th Inc. Now, look, I don't think this is a very compelling line of attack, especially in a debate setting. And I just don't believe that patriotism is like an inherently good thing. And I think grifters and con men are pretty darn American. But Vivek and Kirk responded by talking about how social media censorship in 2020 was a much greater act of anti Americanism. Although later on in the day, they defended Elon Musk and his running of Twitter, since he's a private citizen and should be allowed to do whatever he wants with his own platform. This is of course, ironic, amidst reporting from the New York Times, that Musk and the Trump team colluded to suppress information damaging to Trump on the platform. Basically exactly what the right was accusing the old Twitter of doing in the last election. But none of that really matters. There's no such thing as hypocrisy. You can never hold anyone account to this sort of thing on the right. Charlie Kirk then just went on to deny that Trump called to suspend the Constitution. Here's a clip he never has.

Robert Evans (166:19)

You're misquoting him, but let's just look at what he did. Not just rhetoric.

Garrison Davis (166:22)

Nice little quick pivot there from Charles, but. But yes, technically, Trump didn't say suspend. He actually said terminate, which is like, worse. I don't know. In 2022, Trump posted on Truth Social calling for the quote, unquote, termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution, unquote, in response to the 2020 election. I don't know how Kirk thinks that saying terminate is better than suspend. Of course he doesn't. He's just playing this game. It doesn't matter. Kirk went on to lie about the nature of January 6th and whether Trump literally, personally committed the legal act of insurrection action, eventually saying that even if Trump did, it would be thrown out under the new presidential immunity ruling by the Supreme Court and stating that though Trump didn't actually do a coup, the Democrats did actually do a coup to get Kamala Harris on the ticket. Okay, sure, buddy. Now, part of Kirk's just flagrant January 6th revisionist history was claiming that Ashley Babbitt was suddenly killed with no warning as she was retreating from the Capitol. And just none of that is true. That just isn't what happened.

Robert Evans (167:47)

The only person to die on January 6 was a Trump supporter killed by one of Nancy Pelosi's bodyguards.

Garrison Davis (167:52)

Okay, even that part isn't true. Two other Trump supporters died of heart attacks, and another died holding a Don't Tread on me flying leg after being trampled by fellow rioters. Now, a student countered Kirk's claim of Babbitt's innocence by confirming that he believes in stand your ground laws that if you're breaking into property, you can be shot.

Robert Evans (168:14)

Hold on.

Mia Wong (168:15)

But Ashley Babbitt was unarmed.

Robert Evans (168:16)

Isn't the whole kind of shtick of the American left like, don't shoot unarmed people?

Mia Wong (168:20)

If I break into your house, and I was unarmed, but I broken, I was breaking into your house.

Robert Evans (168:23)

Was George Floyd, was that a rightful death?

Garrison Davis (168:25)

Okay, first. First of all, incredible deflection, but, oh, yes, as if these two situations are in any way comparable. A black man being pinned down and choked to death for over nine minutes and a woman leading a mob intent on killing US Politicians right up to the last line of defense protecting said politicians as they try to evacuate the Capitol. Kirk tried to make this same gross George Floyd comparison like an hour later, later, again to booze from the audience. Later in the day, a second student hit the Charlie Kirk debate chair, debating on whether Trump is anti American, and mentioned Trump's recent comments. Talking about a quote, unquote, enemy within, some enemy inside the United States that poses a far bigger threat than foreign enemies. Vivek claimed that Trump was referring to people who shot at Trump, and Kirk claimed that it was a reference to drug cartels.

Robert Evans (169:23)

So Donald Trump is talking enemies in. He's talking about the cartels that are here, that are poisoning our streets with drugs, that are bringing illegal guns into the country. That is the enemy within. Yet we say Russia is an enemy. Russia has never attacked the United States of America.

Garrison Davis (169:34)

Curious Russia comment there, certainly. But, like, for this enemy within thing, we know that's just not true. Trump has specifically named multiple Democrats as the enemy within in it's not about cartels. It's not about people shooting him. There's just nonstop lying coming from Kirk and Vivek, and none of the students are, like, equipped or researched enough to call him out on it. Another common topic of debate was war and the insistence that Trump didn't start any new wars, unlike Biden and Harris, who have personally started wars. I guess with Kirk crediting Biden for starting the Russia Ukraine war by financing the Ukrainian defense offensive as well as roping in Harris by saying that she was in charge of the Russia Ukrainian war before it happened, unquote, which really doesn't make much sense as a sentence. Vivek later added that Kamala Harris was personally in charge of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which again just isn't true. Vivek is parroting a failed attempt by Republican lawmakers from last September member to invent some way to blame Harris for the Afghanistan withdrawal now that she is the presidential nominee. Harris is only mentioned three times in the 3,288 pages of interview transcripts from the Foreign Affairs Committee's investigation of the withdrawal. But by far Charlie and Vivek's main focus on the topic of war is just defending Russia.

Mia Wong (171:08)

Donald Trump's going to negotiate an end to that war.

Robert Evans (171:10)

That's reasonable. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have created that war and escalated that over the last three years.

Garrison Davis (171:15)

Trump did not really end any wars in his first term. In fact, he increased U.S. troop levels in 2017 and raised the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from drone strikes by 330%, according to Brown University. Still, VC tried to frame Trump as the much more principled anti war candidate.

Robert Evans (171:35)

Which candidate? Was there a major war in the Middle East?

Mia Wong (171:37)

Was there a major war in the Middle east under Donald Trump?

Garrison Davis (171:39)

There were multiple arms deal packages to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, and the US increased its involvement in the Syrian civil war under Trump. But to Vivek's earlier point, I really don't see a way Trump would end the war in Ukraine that isn't just giving more territory over to Russia. But to Charlie Kirk that might not be such a bad thing since he seems to be kind of fond of Russia.

Mia Wong (172:04)

You know, who is the enemy? China is the enemy enemy and Russia?

Robert Evans (172:07)

Well, Russia's not the enemy. Exactly. How many of your friends have died because of Russians?

Garrison Davis (172:11)

Here's another soundbite from the back.

Robert Evans (172:14)

Joe Biden and Kamal Harris, along with.

Mia Wong (172:15)

Some Republican help I'm going to admit, is sending more money to escalate that.

Robert Evans (172:19)

War that otherwise would have resolved itself if we had just negotiated peace back in 2022.

Garrison Davis (172:23)

Resolve itself sounds a lot like Vivek just means that Russia would have just seized territory. And like later on, Vivek argued that Ukraine just shouldn't be getting any NATO protection at so the US actually made.

Mia Wong (172:38)

A commitment back in 1990 to say that NATO would expand not one inch past east Germany.

Garrison Davis (172:44)

Hmm. I wonder what may have been different geopolitically in 1990 in relation to Russia. Vivek, I wonder if anything has happened since 1990 that might affect certain Slavic territories. Vivek, I wonder. Oh my God. God. Now, the topic discussed probably the most during this event was immigration. Even the liberal college students seem to believe that an influx of immigration was the biggest problem currently facing the United States. Kirk claimed that Kamala Harris let 10 million new, quote, unquote, illegal immigrants into the country. And like, no, the total population of undocumented immigrants in this country has fluctuated between 10 to 12 million over the course of the past 20 years. Though like J.D. vance, Kirk considers most immigrants illegal regardless of their actual status, Kirk claimed that the, quote, unquote, 9 million immigrants seeking asylum that have come into this country under Biden are all illegal because they are, quote, cartel sponsored fraudulent asylum claims, unquote. Kirk said that these false asylum seekers pay cartels $10,000 to be smuggled into the United States.

Robert Evans (174:04)

They're all illegal because they're.

Mia Wong (174:06)

We know it's actually, we know it to be true.

Robert Evans (174:07)

It's not the question. They're, they're fraudulent, they're, they're defrauding the American immigration system is what they're doing.

Garrison Davis (174:12)

When pressed for proof on this, Kirk just stumbled and Vivek took over and later just plugged his new movie about illegal immigration.

Mia Wong (174:22)

Yes, I mean, so for example, what is the asylum claim if you're coming from.

Robert Evans (174:27)

From North Korea?

Garrison Davis (174:28)

Yeah, actually. Wow, wow. Very, very convincing stuff happening. Vivek argued that most immigrants lie about seeking asylum in order to enter the country. And since that's illegal, that makes them more likely to commit other crimes once in the United States.

Robert Evans (174:47)

So right now, our immigration system literally.

Mia Wong (174:49)

Selects for the people who are most.

Robert Evans (174:51)

Willing to lie to the US Government to get in.

Mia Wong (174:54)

And that's why it's no surprise that the people whose first act of entering the country breaks the law often continue to break the law while they're already here.

Robert Evans (175:02)

I don't think that's racist or xenophobic.

Garrison Davis (175:03)

I think it's a fact based on.

Mia Wong (175:04)

Who we're actually selecting to come into the country.

Garrison Davis (175:07)

In actuality, immigrants, and especially undocumented or quote, unquote, illegal immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than US citizens. Most research puts it between 40 to 60% less likely, likely, at least according to Stanford, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Cato Institute, all famously liberal organizations. One thing that Kirk kept trying to do is pander his nationalism towards the racially diverse Audience of Atlanta students.

Robert Evans (175:37)

The people in this audience, which is.

Mia Wong (175:39)

A very diverse audience, specifically black Americans.

Robert Evans (175:42)

Should be incensed that they're being replaced by foreigners. Black Americans are now being put aside so that a bunch of foreigners can come undercut wages and fill your city. The black community, which you obviously both care a lot about, is actually not being prioritized. Instead, people from the Third World are coming in and black America is getting put last, which seems to be a common theme over the last 60 years when Democrats are in control. Well, okay, thank you guys so much.

Mia Wong (176:12)

Thank you, guys.

Garrison Davis (176:14)

The worst part is that this seemed to work. The audience seemed to resonate with this grossly fascistic framing, seemingly unable to recognize what Kirk was doing. And at this point, I was just, like, fucking losing it. Vivek said that if you don't know English, you shouldn't be allowed in the United States. And like, no one cared. No one pushed back on that. A pro Kamala person repeated false migrant crime wave rhetoric in her question about the Venezuelan refugee crisis. That student said that 300,000 Venezuelan refugees came to the United States in 2023. And Kirk then claimed that 3 million more would arrive if Kamala's elected, along with 20 million more immigrants. Kirk promised that if Trump's elected any immigrant, whether legal, undocumented or a refugee refugee, just any immigrant who commits a crime like a DUI will be immediately deported. And unfortunately, when pressed to, like, defend or even just openly express their own personal views on whatever the topic of debate was, multiple students just, like, completely backed down, saying that they would rather, quote, unquote, stay out of the political realm. Or in another instance, I'm not really.

Mia Wong (177:30)

Here to make politically charged statements.

Garrison Davis (177:31)

Fair enough. What are you doing? You're trying to debate about access to abortion or if all immigrants should be rounded up and deported, but you don't want to get, quote, unquote, too political, like, what. What are you talking about? I. I'm sorry you couldn't get a fast dunk on Charlie Kirk, but come on. But perhaps the most disheartening moment was when Charlie Kirk was challenged on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. Someone asked why Charlie thinks that the Civil Rights act was a mistake. Kirk started by saying that even if some of the original intent was good, it's now being used for bad things, like allowing men in women's locker rooms. To the complete shock of the questionnaire, Kirk and Vivek then went on to explain why we should repeal the Civil Rights Act.

Robert Evans (178:21)

The fanfare that the Civil Rights act is Met with. It's almost like the new Constitution. We talk about the Civil Rights act more than the Constitution. It is, it is cited more than the Constitution. We almost had a new American founding in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act.

Mia Wong (178:37)

So let me, let me share a.

Robert Evans (178:39)

Couple of, couple hard facts with you, which is that turns out that you're.

Mia Wong (178:43)

Much more likely to end up in prison, you're much more likely to end.

Robert Evans (178:46)

Up in poverty, you're much more likely not to graduate from high school if you grow up in a single parent household versus a dual parent household. Today you're talking about upwards of 60%.

Mia Wong (178:56)

Of black kids born into single parent households rather than dual parent. What number do you think that was in the 1950s before the Great Society?

Robert Evans (179:03)

Probably like 40.

Mia Wong (179:04)

Like it was even less.

Robert Evans (179:07)

20%.

Mia Wong (179:07)

20% back then.

Robert Evans (179:08)

So then we look at what the results have been of this entire agenda. Put the Civil Rights act, put the elderly, lbj, Great Society.

Mia Wong (179:15)

Black Americans are worse off today, even.

Garrison Davis (179:18)

Economic, economically, in terms of mobility than they were back then in the name.

Mia Wong (179:22)

Of laws that were passed to supposedly advance black interests.

Garrison Davis (179:25)

Oh God. Do you know what that can actually be attributed to? It's the massive increase in policing and the carceral justice system that was specifically intensified as a conservative reaction to black people gaining more civil rights in society.

Robert Evans (179:40)

The Civil Rights act has nine different titles. It and you have this leviathan that.

Mia Wong (179:45)

Was created and something that most black.

Robert Evans (179:48)

Americans don't support is men and female sports. Would you agree?

Mia Wong (179:52)

Say that again. Men playing in female sports.

Robert Evans (179:54)

I have not. Yeah, I know. No, no for sure, right? Believe it or not, the Civil Rights act is now being used to keep men playing in women's sports.

Mia Wong (180:03)

So it's.

Robert Evans (180:04)

The Civil Rights act was used to help black America originally. Totally get that. But now the way it was written is that any claim of identification, so someone says I'm a woman, therefore I can compete in your volleyball team. They come in with a civil rights claim. And so what we're saying is no, no, no, it should be specified to racial, not gender. All that other stuff. And there were all these other provisions as well.

Garrison Davis (180:26)

All right, how sad is it that this kid was convinced that the fucking Civil Rights act is bad through transphobe. It's so fucking predatory what Kirk is doing here. This was so fucking gross to watch in person. As the day went on, things just started to get more and more kooky. A whole batch of like libertarian Austrian trained economists went back and forth with Charles and Vivek on like tariffs Free markets and the validity of the economic philosophy of Frederick Hayek. This fucking dude with a little mustache who ostensibly got up to debate Kirk on abortion abortion said that, quote, I think my generation has started to abuse the option of abortion, unquote. Like why the fuck are you up there debating him then? Jesus Christ. And then what I would call generously a himbo in a white Dudes for Harris shirt said that Kamala's greatest accomplishment is being an idol. After debating Kirk about FEMA money being spent on illegal images immigrants. Meanwhile, Kirk just continued to spew COVID 19 conspiracy theories to very little pushback.

Robert Evans (181:40)

They were wrong about everything.

Mia Wong (181:41)

They were wrong about six feet to solar spread.

Robert Evans (181:43)

They were wrong about the vaccine safe and effective.

Garrison Davis (181:45)

They were wrong about whether the earth revolves around the sun. What are you talking about? Oh my God. One student just got so fed up with Kirk's endless rambling about topics unrelated to their question and decided to walk away. Which then of course Kirk claimed as a rhetorical victory.

Robert Evans (182:02)

Hunter Biden laptop misinformation. Where did the virus come from? Bio labs in Ukraine. No, it's exactly fine.

Mia Wong (182:07)

That's okay.

Robert Evans (182:08)

Go to your ethics class.

Garrison Davis (182:12)

I was losing it and frankly just shocked at how little pushback Charles and Vivek were receiving for what I saw as very clear lies and manipulative debate to tactics. The majority of people clearly did not think too hard about the question they were going to ask or let alone research the topic of debate beforehand. I saw people in line to ask a question using ChatGPT to generate questions to ask using a prompt about how to debate Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event like what the fuck is going on now? I fundamentally refuse to participate in debates like this for reasons that I will soon get into. So I just started taking notes of all the things Charlie was lying about and I was right at the very front of the crowd. So whenever TP USA publishes the video Charlie Kirk destroying silly liberal college students, you should be able to see me pretty clearly in the background in my fucking Ronald Reagan hat, just furiously scribbling down notes. Though I would recommend watching with an ad blocker not to give Kirk extra money. The whole event was a pretty pathetic affair. By my count, there were only eight liberal leaning challengers who questioned Kirk compared to 13 conservative leaning questionnaires who entered a friendly discussion with Kirk. Out of all the liberal debaters, two backed down because they didn't want to get too political critical and three others appeared to be at least somewhat swayed by Kirk and Vivek. Now, like I can't entirely blame these students. Right? Like this setting is not a real debate. Kirk holds all of the power. He does this for a living and he fucking brought a friend with him to help. It's two of them versus what? It's Kirk and Vivek. There's a reason he prefers debating college students rather than working professional professionals. Most students are not prepared to effectively counter Kirk's claims and don't have enough general knowledge on current events to call him out on every one of his many lies. And even if they do catch him on something, Kirk will try to project authority to sway the uneducated audience into believing that he is correct. Just because teens are chronically online doesn't mean that they have better media literacy, critical thinking, thinking, or know how to determine the validity of information. A 2024 survey by News Literacy America found that only 50% of teens could identify that an article labeled as branded content on a news site was in fact an advertisement. Barely over half of teens could accurately identify an op ed with the word commentary in the headline as an opinion piece. 44% claimed that a company's own press release was more credible than an independent news report on the same sub object. And 34% of teens incorrectly labeled a random picture of damaged traffic lights as quote unquote, strong evidence supporting a viral false claim that hot July temperatures had melted traffic lights. These teens surveyed said that local TV news and TikTok were the most trustworthy sources of information. And 35% of teens said that professional journalists journalists are more biased than social media content creators. Meanwhile, 45% said that journalists are just as biased as these TikTok influencers. Let's do a test right now. Try to see if you can determine that these following clips are in fact advertisements. Okay, we are back. Now, this was technically my first time seeing this format of conservative YouTube debate in person. The videos that get published online later get heavily edited down. And while I was going at it in my notepad, I started to recognize the repeating patterns that Kirk and Vivek employed to gain dominance in almost every single debate matchup. So now I'm going to talk about some of these common tactics used by Kirk Kirk. When Kirk or Vivek wants to end a particular line of questioning or move on to the next person, they'll just restate their own opinions as fact and then end that debate, leaving the impression that they won. They can just stop whenever they feel like they have made the final point that gives them victory. Here's Vivek, the number One human attribute.

Robert Evans (187:02)

That our legal immigration system selects for isn't who smart, isn't who's going to.

Garrison Davis (187:06)

Work hard, isn't who loves the country.

Mia Wong (187:07)

It's are you willing to lie to.

Robert Evans (187:09)

The US Government or not?

Mia Wong (187:10)

If you are, you get in.

Robert Evans (187:11)

If not, you don't. That's the way it works. Thank you so much.

Mia Wong (187:13)

Thank you.

Garrison Davis (187:14)

And here's another example from Kirk.

Robert Evans (187:16)

Black Americans are treated far worse than.

Mia Wong (187:18)

Illegals in this country.

Robert Evans (187:20)

And we have, we have violated our social contract to our own citizens. And I just want you to think about that, okay? Is that if you break into America, you get a flight to the country.

Mia Wong (187:28)

The city of your choosing, you get.

Robert Evans (187:29)

Taxpayer fund luxury hotels, you get a taxpayer funded phone, taxpayer funded food stamps. Whereas many Americans are struggling to even make ends meet.

Mia Wong (187:38)

So thank you so much for coming.

Garrison Davis (187:39)

What a convenient way to say a bunch of bullshit without having to back any of it up. Now, of, of course, welfare programs like food stamps and even assistance to get access to smartphones, since they basically are now a requirement of everyday life. Those programs do exist, right? Those are important programs. Programs. But those free flights to any city, that's actually a reference to New York City's reticketing program which offers one way bus or plane tickets out of the city. This program was actually started because the governor of Texas sent 40,000 immigrants to New York against their will. And those quote, unquote luxury hotels are actually a small part of an emergency housing program that utilizes some converted hotels as well as airport motels and even office buildings as temporary shelter for immigrants. But I'm sure Kirk would rather these people just be homeless living on the street. I'm sure he wouldn't find ways to complain about that too. A very common Kirk tactic to avoid answering a question is just to simply flip it around and ask the students a different question that might eventually be related to the student's original question, but not necessarily.

Robert Evans (188:52)

Let me ask you just one more question. Question. Can men give birth?

Garrison Davis (188:55)

Can men give birth? Yeah, if they're transgender. Cue the audience's shocked response. These people probably don't even know if this refers to a transgender woman or a transgender man. Whatever. For another example, here's how Vivek responded to a question about voter fraud allegations. Do you think Donald Trump committed a.

Mia Wong (189:15)

Coup against the US Government?

Garrison Davis (189:16)

This was part of Kirk's response to a question about U.S. aid to Israel.

Robert Evans (189:20)

What is your strong opinion about the civil war happening in the Central African Republic?

Garrison Davis (189:24)

For another example, a student asked Kirk what should be done about Hate crimes against Venezuelan immigrants in cities like Chicago.

Robert Evans (189:31)

Chicago.

Garrison Davis (189:31)

What do you think that we should do about that?

Robert Evans (189:33)

I have a question. So what part of Chicago you from?

Garrison Davis (189:35)

So these are all just classic red herrings. Here's another.

Robert Evans (189:39)

You admit that the Hamas tried to.

Garrison Davis (189:41)

Commit genocide on October 7th. Also simply not what a genocide is. Now, sometimes students can catch what Kirk is doing with red herrings and deflections. Elections. But even when drilled down on the original line of questioning, Kirk will try hard to pivot away whenever the momentum is not going in his favor.

Mia Wong (189:59)

You guys are super, you know, focused.

Robert Evans (190:01)

On technical things that we could talk about forever.

Mia Wong (190:04)

Let me just ask a question.

Robert Evans (190:06)

I asked you, what is Kamala Harris's greatest accomplishment? Can you tell me what that would be?

Garrison Davis (190:10)

Perhaps the most common tactic Charlie Kirk employs to maintain control over the inner interaction is instead of just stating his opinion, Kirk will throw a question back to his opponent with the intent of getting them to say something that's in support of Kirk's own argument. Alternatively, Kirk will ask a question that the student probably doesn't know, like some specific stat, but something that Kirk already has a prepared answer for so that he can throw off his opponent opponent, make them question their own ability to debate and make himself seem smarter. Here's a short compilation.

Robert Evans (190:50)

If there was a policy that made markets more free but hurt your country, would you support it? Do you believe that FDR was right in partnering with Joseph Stalin to defeat Hitler? Yeah. So I guess two questions with tariffs. How do you avoid a tariff? Let's ask another moral question then. Is it ever okay to do something evil after an under abortion? Do you carve out a new morality? Is there like a different kind of.

Mia Wong (191:12)

Morality that we apply only to abortion?

Robert Evans (191:14)

At what point does it get human rights? Let me ask you just a question.

Mia Wong (191:17)

Do you know which nation is the.

Robert Evans (191:19)

Biggest supplier of the US military today?

Mia Wong (191:21)

You can probably guess it. Is your phone paid for by US Taxpayers?

Robert Evans (191:24)

Let me ask you, did you have a vacation this summer in a luxury.

Mia Wong (191:27)

Hotel paid for by taxpayers?

Robert Evans (191:29)

10 people are murdered in Chicago. Out of those 10, how many of those cases will be solved on average do you think? Okay, so you said he suspended, wanted to suspend the Constitution. Did he do that when he was president?

Garrison Davis (191:39)

His argumentative style looks pretty goofy when it's all broken down into its respective parts. Now to circle back to my stance of just never engaging with these bad faith debate spectacles. Lastly, I'll show you what happens when you quote, unquote, do well against someone like Charlie Kirk. I think the only time Kirk was really thrown off was during one of the very last matches. Matchups with a student asking about Kirk's support of military aid to Israel despite his alleged anti war stance and his call for the US to pause all foreign aid until the southern border is secured. Like usual, Kirk first tried to deflect by using red herrings and turn questions back on the student.

Robert Evans (192:23)

Let me ask you just a first principle question. Do you think the Jewish people have a moral right to their ancestors? Religions do not have any sort of race.

Garrison Davis (192:31)

Kirk then failed to accuse the student of anti Semitism. Kirk then tried to trick the student into saying that Hamas is more morally good than Israel. But the student saw what Kirk was trying to do with his bizarre moralistic framing.

Robert Evans (192:47)

Do you think that Israel as it's currently constituted is morally equivalent with Hamas?

Garrison Davis (192:53)

The student quite wisely did not answer answer Kirk's precariously worded yes or no question and instead reframed the question in their own words and only then stated their opinion that both hamas and the IDF's actions can be constituted as evil. Still, Kirk wouldn't relent.

Mia Wong (193:13)

So which one is better? Which one is good or which one is better?

Garrison Davis (193:16)

His nonsensical framing was once again rejected. But then Kirk accused the student. Student of being propagandized and then asked if they had personally been to Israel to assess the situation. And this is when everything fell apart.

Robert Evans (193:31)

Let me tell you this, that you know that there's Arabs serving in the Knesset. You know that people. Yes, I know that there's Arabs in.

Garrison Davis (193:35)

Israel, which is exactly why your point.

Robert Evans (193:37)

Of Jews saying I don't like Jews because I don't like Israel makes absolutely zero sense. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna go back to this because I think it's so interesting though, which is that I believe that the Jewish.

Mia Wong (193:44)

People do have a rights, their ancestral.

Robert Evans (193:46)

Well, first. First of all, that you believe that they should be leveling buildings because that's their ancestral home. I'm not. I'm not defending every decision they made.

Mia Wong (193:52)

But that's exactly what they're doing.

Robert Evans (193:54)

You're interrupting your. I'm gonna ask you the next question because you're not arguing. Not much to debate, because I believe that Israel should exist in its current form. You do not. Thank you very much.

Mia Wong (194:07)

Okay. The moral confusion on the Israel topic is.

Garrison Davis (194:11)

It's hard to clear again, like, these aren't real debates. If the conversation goes any way other than how Kirk wants it to go, he has complete control of the environment and can move on to a more desirable opponent because, like, beyond convincing any gullible people that might happen to be in the crowd, the real reason Kirk does events like this is to make content. It's YouTube bait. These debate videos rack up thousands and sometimes millions of views on YouTube and TikTok. TikTok and every single person that participates as if these are real debates is directly helping Charlie Kirk make money and grow his brand. This TP USA Brainwash tour will continue into November, and I'm sure Charlie Kirk will keep doing events like this in the years to come, regardless of who wins the election. So what's the options to counter something like like this? I'm of three minds. My default response to stuff like this is usually just to ignore. Don't give these attention hounds what they're looking for. Don't try to debate. Don't try to own Charlie Kirk with facts and logic. There's no real benefit from engaging with him and his ilk on their own terms, but there will always be at least a few college students who think they can get one up on Charlie Kirk. So since these events are going to continue to happen even if my friends and I withhold our participation, the second option is just to simply confuse. This is what I call the skibidi Biden strategy. One which I deployed against the My Pillow guy Mike Lindell in front of the Israeli Consulate as he tried to suck up as much attention as possible during the dnc. See Mike Skibidi Biden what's up Skibidi Biden Skippity Biden. This was probably my favorite moment of the dnc. This strategy of complete confusion doesn't just deny the subject what they want if you're the My Pillow Guy, attention from reporters, or in the case of Charlie Kirk, an unfair debate against a non media trained college freshman. But the skibidi Biden strategy also also eats up their time prohibiting others from being able to engage on the terms decided upon by Turning Point usa. The more time you spend spewing your near unintelligible gibberish about how Warhammer connects to U.S. foreign policy or explaining your made up conspiracy theory about how the Hock Tua girl is a CIA asset. All of that is less time for some 19 year old to challenge Kirk on his abortion views and annoying Charlie Kirk is just a fun bonus. Now that I think about it, this is essentially the Patton Oswalt filibuster tactic. Now obviously Kirk has control of the MIC and probably won't let you ramble on about gibberish for Too long. So this strategy becomes more successful if you can get a whole team lined up in front of the microphone. Now, finally, the last option is disruption through four course, preferably in a way that limits the possibility of creating an on camera spectacle that can be utilized by TP usa. This has typically not been a common tactic used to counter Turning Point events on campus, but it may be time to reconsider. Forceful disruptions were often utilized when figures like Milo Yiannopoulos toured college campuses back in 2016-2018 and more recently against campus events featuring Daily Wire employees like Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh. Historically, this strategy has not been applied to Charlie Kirk as he's been viewed as less radical than some of these other figures. But I just don't think that's true anymore. Kirk is spreading and normalizing hardcore xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric across college campuses with little to no resistance. Not to mention his complete embrace of conspiracy theories and use of transphobia to undermine civil rights. There's many ways to disrupt events like this through forceful means. Sound disruption, visual disruption, physical disruption, Planning an alternate event to take place at the same time and place. Big banners with Charles tiny face carefully placed in view. View of the debate cameras. Creative opportunities abound, but it requires people to be actively monitoring when and where these events take place and actually plan a counter demo ahead of time. And that just doesn't seem to be happening at the moment. And so I thought going to this event would help reboot my brain, cheer myself up and amuse me with Charlie's Child childish display of debate. Kid politics. But it just left me more sad watching hapless kids fall prey to Kirk's transparent scheme. Just feeling like I had no way to stop the train wreck. But it doesn't have to be this way. With a few friends and a little preparation, there is an alternative. And hey, it could happen here. Well, that's my recap on this fucking Charlie Kirk rally. Oh, and heads up. Next week there's going to be no Spooky Week episodes for the first time in four years. Sorry. The world has just gotten too spooky this year. Between the election and hurricanes and the genocide in Gaza and everything else happening, the world's just too spooky. I'm really just not feeling Halloween pilled as I usually am. Hopefully things will get better soon. Soon. But in lieu of Spooky Week, we actually have a special series from James on the Darien Gap. So you have that to look forward to next week. Goodbye everyone. See you on the other side.

Robert Evans (200:20)

Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

Garrison Davis (200:26)

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

Robert Evans (200:44)

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me Danny Trail and Step into the Flames of Fright and Then Mythology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Garrison Davis (201:15)

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

Mia Wong (201:25)

From the chaotic world of generative AI.

Garrison Davis (201:27)

To the destruction of Google, search Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts wherever else you get your podcasts from.

Mia Wong (201:44)

Muhammad ali George Foreman 1974 George Foreman.

Robert Evans (201:49)

Was champion of the world.

Mia Wong (201:50)

Ali.

Garrison Davis (201:51)

He was smart and he was handsome.

Mia Wong (201:53)

The story behind the Rumble in the Jungle is like a Hollywood movie, but.

Garrison Davis (201:56)

That is only half the story.

Mia Wong (201:58)

There's also James Brown, Bill Withers, B.B.

Robert Evans (202:01)

King, Miriam Makeba, all the biggest black.

Mia Wong (202:03)

Artists on the planet together in Africa.

Garrison Davis (202:06)

It was a big deal.

Robert Evans (202:07)

Listen to Rumble, Ali Foreman and the soul of 74 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Daphne Caruana Galicia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017 was assassinated.

Garrison Davis (202:24)

Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder.

Mia Wong (202:27)

A one woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and.

Garrison Davis (202:31)

Corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio.

Robert Evans (202:39)

App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five year old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off.

Mia Wong (202:55)

The coast of Florida and the question.

Garrison Davis (202:58)

Was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and.

Robert Evans (203:04)

He wanted to take his son with him or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

Garrison Davis (203:12)

Listen to Chad piece the Elian Gonzalez.

Mia Wong (203:15)

Story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast.

Robert Evans (203:19)

Or wherever you get your podcasts.