Podcast Summary: Behind the Bastards — It Could Happen Here Weekly 195

Date: August 16, 2025
Host: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Sectioned and Summarized for In-Depth Reference

Episode Overview

This episode of It Could Happen Here Weekly explores several major themes:

• The role of infrastructure (physical and digital) as mechanisms of control and resistance
• Ongoing political developments around the Biden “Auto Pen” conspiracy and its legal/political fallout
• Organizing and activism in Tucson, Arizona, against Amazon’s massive data center (Project Blue)
• Escalating authoritarian measures—federalization of DC police, crackdowns on labor and unions, mass surveillance, and the transformation of public institutions
• The profound ramifications of new, sweeping global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration
  Each segment offers both historical context and personal insight, with a throughline of examining how systems shape our everyday lives—and how people can and do resist.

1. Infrastructure as Control and Resistance

Hosts: Andrew Sage & James Stout
[02:43-33:34]

Key Points:

• Infrastructure shapes daily choices: Borders, transit, surveillance, and labor obligations are not neutral—they are choices that limit or shape freedom.
  • Quote, Andrew Sage (03:04): “It’s like everywhere you turn ... every inch of land that's been claimed by the system, every bit of ... the way that you live and operate just feels like it's been manipulated and controlled in some way.”
• Colonial infrastructures served imperial extraction: Colonial and neocolonial powers create infrastructure to move resources outward, not to connect or empower local people.
  • Example: British railways in India designed to export resources, not connect Indian regions (05:52).
  • Chinese “Belt and Road” projects in Africa function similarly today.
  • James Stout (06:37): “There are these roads that they call Chinese roads that just go directly from the mine to the place where the raw material can be extracted.”
• Inherited exclusion: Even after independence, the structure and logic of infrastructure (roads, ports) persist, continuing to divide by race and class.
  • US: Redlining, gentrification, legacy of segregation
  • South Africa: Apartheid-era spatial exclusion
  • Syria: militarized state buildings serving as “strong points” (12:49)
• “Infrastructure can never be neutral”
  • Decisions about “where the road goes” and “who builds it” are underpinned by values and serve power.
  • Andrew Sage (15:02): “These sorts of spaces, these buildings, this infrastructure could never be neutral. And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.”
• Digital infrastructure is also a tool of control:
  • Algorithms, censorship, and platform dominance create “invisible” barriers (17:24-19:49)
  • “Euphemism creep”—platform polices language, changing how people discuss real trauma (“unalive”, “grape”)
  • Global surveillance and internet shutdowns (22:21): Governments and corporations act in tandem.
  • Example: Ongoing marginalization of Rohingya people—lack of access to consistent internet, even as they try to start a podcast (21:00).
  • James Stout (21:00): “Trying to find connectivity ... just another example of how they continue to be marginalized by the systems that first allowed them to be genocide.”
• Hope: Infrastructure can be reclaimed or subverted by communities:
  • Examples: Community-built mesh networks (like NYC Mesh), participatory planning, squatting, favelas building their own services.
  • Andrew Sage (24:11): “Infrastructure can be used to consolidate power and control people, but it can also be used to resist and reclaim our collective agency.”

2. Political Developments: The “Auto Pen” Crisis

Hosts: Dana Schwartz, James Stout
[38:31-65:28]

Key Points:

• Trump’s “Auto Pen” Conspiracy:
  • Trump’s team is seeding the idea that Biden wasn’t competent, and that a secret “cabal” used an auto pen to sign key legal and policy documents (41:16).
  • They allege that this should invalidate pardons, judicial appointments, and other executive acts.
  • The strategy is to sow doubt about the legal standing of hundreds of Biden-era decisions—potentially stripping judgeships, reversing pardons, and destabilizing governmental continuity (54:19, 57:03).
  • Quote, James Stout (57:19): “That is the real crux of their focus on this issue. … If they could recall like 230 federal judges … that would clear out so much of the, like, legal roadblocks that they’re currently facing.”
• Historical and Legal Context:
  • The use of the auto pen to sign bills or pardons is a longstanding practice and has legal precedent (45:14).
  • The current argument is largely considered specious by legal experts but plays on public confusion, the spectacle of crisis, and the Trump team’s willingness to push legal gray areas for political means.
  • “It’s not just about procedures; it’s about undermining the legitimacy of the opposition,” notes Dana Schwartz (49:21-50:51).
• Wider Implications:
  • This focus is part of a broader project (Project 2025, Heritage Foundation) to use every tool possible to purge the administrative state and consolidate power.
  • “None of this should be surprising if you’ve been paying attention. … There’s no fringe anymore.” – James Stout (64:12)

3. Organizing Against Corporate Megaprojects: Project Blue (Tucson Data Center Fight)

Host: James Stout with guest Carl Casada
[69:59-104:07]

Key Points:

• Project Blue:
  • Amazon planned a 290-acre AI data center south of Tucson, equivalent in size to downtown Tucson—posing catastrophic environmental and social consequences.
  • Quote, Carl Casada (71:00): “It pretty much envelops and ... consumes the entire downtown of Tucson.”
• Environmental Impact and Local Resistance:
  • Data centers have outsized energy and water demands; this one alone would have consumed as much electricity and water as the city itself (87:15-89:33).
  • This is especially egregious in the arid Southwest, where heat islands threaten public health.
  • Historic activism in Tucson (anti-freeway, Earth First!) provided a foundation for vibrant, direct local resistance (78:14).
  • The “No Desert Data Center” coalition organized massive in-person disruption of city council meetings, making the project politically toxic and forcing a “no” vote from the city (82:20-83:43).
  • Quote (83:29): “Not only online, but in person ... that forced their hand.”
• Broader Context:
  • The movement’s victory is provisional; corporations will keep trying, so wider, sustained movements are needed.
  • This struggle connects to global issues of data infrastructure, corporate power, climate justice, and indigenous rights (91:21-96:14).
  • Carl Casada (100:09): “Community defense is also protecting our planet so we can live on it.”

4. Tariffs and the Reversion to Overt Extraction

Host: Mia Wong (with Robert Evans and panel)
[108:39-138:13]

Key Points:

• New Tariffs Regime:
  • Trump’s administration has imposed blunt, deeply punitive tariffs: 15% on trade-deficit countries, 10% otherwise—with specific countries (Syria, Laos, Myanmar, Switzerland) seeing up to 41% rates (108:39).
  • Policy rationale: Replace income taxes, punish China, and curtail trade deficits—none of which is economically coherent.
  • Mia Wong (108:39): “Our trade policy is being run by people who don’t understand how any of this works and are operating off of … pure anger and rage.”
• Consequences:
  • Severe harm to global working-class livelihoods—in places like Laos, Syria, and Myanmar—whose export economies depend on trade with the US.
  • Tariffs are already disrupting medical supplies and causing price increases (inflation) in the US, e.g., the iconic Arizona Iced Tea can is threatened by aluminum tariffs (160:23).
  • The administration is shaking down major tech companies (Nvidia, AMD) for “fees” to do business with China—a direct, mafioso style of state extraction (133:01).
  • Analysis: This is not “corruption” in the usual sense but a reversion of the state to a pure instrument of violence and extraction—“just a shakedown.” (133:01, 138:13)
  • Mia Wong (133:01): "The state has always and has always only been the localized monopoly on the legitimate use of force … Trumpism as a political force has simply reverted the state back to a pure mode of extraction."

5. Escalating Authoritarianism, Labor Crackdowns, and News

Hosts: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong
[142:30-179:33]

Key Points:

• Federalization of DC Police:
  • Trump invokes emergency powers to place the DC police under federal control, mobilize National Guard, and pursue a “war on crime.”
  • Plan to extend this tactic to other cities—framing it as a “retaking” of DC for “public order” (146:05-154:24).
  • Comparison made to Nazi Germany's centralization of police control.
  • Robert Evans (147:11): “There’s this dude Hitler who … worked with a guy named Hermann Göring … that was in Germany, you know, a country totally different from the United States...”
• Spectacle and Substance:
  • The administration uses the spectacle of militarized police for political effect, regardless of actual results—public resistance is growing.
  • Mia Wong (157:08): “It feels like a lot of what their politics is is, like, the spectacle of making it look like there's power there versus actually doing the thing...”
• Labor and Union Suppression:
  • Trump administration is removing collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of VA employees—other agencies may follow.
  • Labor response muted—a telling sign of organizational weakness (177:41-179:33).
• Assorted News:
  • Supreme Court may (but likely won’t) take a case challenging gay marriage rights.
  • Recent CDC shooting in Atlanta tied to anti-vaccine conspiracy rhetoric (172:07).
  • Immigration crackdowns: Removal of “sensitive places” doctrine systematically enables ICE/CBP to target parents and children at schools.

6. Closing Thoughts: Agency, Community, and Resistance

[31:24; 104:07]

Community Spaces and Mutual Aid:

• Contrast alienated American suburbia with authentic community found even in hardship, as in refugee camps or solar canoes in the Marshall Islands.
• The episode ends with a call to “make the good things happen here,” to build community, engage in direct action, and resist both physical and administrative forms of authoritarian and corporate control.

Quote, James Stout (33:43): “Yeah, yeah, you gotta make the good things happen here too, because enough of the fucking bad shit is.”

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• “These sorts of spaces, these buildings, this infrastructure could never be neutral. And once you see that, you can’t unsee it...”
  — Andrew Sage [15:02]

• “Once you see it, you see it everywhere and you think about the nature of the state that designs infrastructure with that explicitly in mind...”
  — James Stout [12:50]

• “So as Illich saw, it's really a cultural imposition that shapes how we end up living, interacting, moving, and it's frustrating.”
  — Andrew Sage [16:41]

• “Transgender for everybody. The defining legacy of the Biden era. It's his core policy platform.”
  — Dana Schwartz [41:34]

• “If they could recall like 230 federal judges ... that would clear out so much of the, like, legal roadblocks that they're currently facing.”
  — James Stout [57:19]

• “The amount of pollution that would be belched out of this data center or the ones being proposed in Arizona affects everyone. The reality of climate change is in my opinion, indisputable. We're seeing it every year.”
  — Carl Casada [95:59]

• “Our trade policy is being run by people who don’t understand how any of this works and are operating off of … pure anger and rage.”
  — Mia Wong [108:39]

• "The state has always and has always only been the localized monopoly on the legitimate use of force … Trumpism as a political force has simply reverted the state back to a pure mode of extraction."
  — Mia Wong [133:01]

• “It's so strange that like, in a sense, in those refugee camps, we were closer to the beautiful life that we want than we are in these million dollar homes in America.”
  — James Stout [29:01]

Resources & Calls to Action

• No Desert Data Center (Tucson/AZ anti-data center coalition): https://nodesertdatacenter.com
• Immigrant mutual aid highlighted by James Stout, esp. in San Diego (look for fundraiser for Buket)
• Reading recommendations:
  • James C. Scott, “Seeing Like a State” (21:00)
  • Ivan Illich, “Tools for Conviviality” (15:53)
• Ongoing union news and labor actions; support local journalism as NPR & PBS networks are being eradicated.

Themes & Tone

• Tone is urgent, often darkly humorous, but grounded in historical analysis and resolute advocacy for direct action, mutual aid, and seeing beyond the surface of systems and policies.
• The sense is that the world is entering a period of heightened, shameless extraction (“no longer under the table”), but that mass resistance and creative community responses remain both possible and necessary.

This summary is intended as an exhaustive reference for listeners who missed the episode or want to revisit major insights, quotes, and action items from It Could Happen Here Weekly #195.