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- [00:01]
A
Welcome, friends, to Economic Update Extra. This is where we continue the interviews begun on our regular program to go a little bit further into the materials and the personalities that we think will make an interesting program and an interesting intervention for you to think about. So here I am, continuing my conversation with Matt Christman and Will Menaker from from the Chapo Trap House, and I'm going to ask them first. Welcome back. But also tell us a little bit about your new book, the Chapo Guide to Revolution. Tell us what it's about, where it's going, when it'll be released so that people who are interested will be able to follow it.
- [00:43]
B
Well, most importantly, it will be released August 21, this month, so just a few short weeks before it hits stores. Find bookstores everywhere. But the book is really, it's funny writing a book. It's through the process of writing it that I think I really realized what the book is about or what our goal in writing the book was. Writing it sort of revealed that to me at least. And aside from, again, first and foremost, we want it to be funny and entertaining. That was our goal when we sat down to think up bits and material that we wanted to include in it. But now that it's finished and, you know, I have a finished copy in my hand, I think I've really realized that the book is sort of our prequel to the podcast in that I think it's our attempt to describe how we got to the exact moment we are now, like roughly the election of Donald Trump and like everything that's come after that, what, you know, what created the world that we now live in. And the book is our attempts to create kind of a satirical history of the United States and the world and the politics and ideologies and personalities that make it up that have created the sort of surreal and satirical reality that we're living in now.
- [01:57]
C
Yeah, it's too bad that what Happened was taken as a book title, because that really could have applied better to ours because it's called Chapel Guided Revolution. That's sort of tongue in cheek, you know, but it's more really of a diagnostic manual, sort of a necronomicon of all of the forces that have led to this situation, this intolerable presence that so many people feel alienated from.
- [02:21]
A
Tell me about this intolerable present. Give me a feeling, if you can. And to our audience, of what your overall, I know this is difficult. What's your overall senses of what's going on in the United States, to which Chapo Trap House is a Response, how do you, in the morning when you get up, what's your sense of the environment into which you are waking and about which you want to share some thoughts with other people?
- [02:49]
B
I think for most of our listeners, I think, are people who come from middle class to even upper class backgrounds who nonetheless feel a sense of precarity and downward mobility in that the things that they've expected or taken for granted as a kid, they're realizing as they enter adulthood are, you know, the ground beneath their feet is shifting and slipping away rapidly. And I mean, you know, not to put a word for it, but the word, I think, is neoliberalism. I know people, people hate using that word. They think it's impossible to define or a slur or something. But I think that pretty much sums up the feelings of, like, that is the ideology that has created the sense of total alienation and stress and anxiety and depression that is so widely felt among all people. And like in the accelerating wealth inequality and just the insane upward transfer of wealth and the feeling that you are at the mercy of the market and that the free market doesn't really feel free when you have to take part in it.
- [04:00]
C
Yes. And we're trying. I think that what we try to get across on the show is diagnosing that. And instead of whatever sort of phantoms get blamed for people's sense of dissatisfaction that demagogues and frauds like Donald Trump will try to exploit, to say that it's the fault of immigrants or it's the fault of Marxist cultural professors or whatever, or we try to cut through sort of these phantoms and say it is capitalism. It is this accelerating state of capitalism where the rate of profit is falling and that profit is being made up by just reducing people to the most bare economic unit possible. And that is leaving you as a person unmoored and totally unsure of what your future is going to be, and that that is the actual cause of it and that the solution to it is collective action, the idea that we have it in our hands to make an equitable society that doesn't just restore what we think of as our birthright that we might have not had, but that extends sort of the immense wealth and productive forces of society to all members of it.
- [05:20]
A
How do you make sure that your comedy, I think there's something you referred to earlier, Will, isn't a softener. In other words, comedy can function to take the sting out of a sting situation and sort of make people get through it with a grin, whereas before they might be angry at it and do something. Clearly you don't want your comedy to serve that function. How do you manage that?
- [05:46]
B
I mean, it's tricky. I think on our very first episode, we actually talked about the problem with political humor functioning as a kind of catharsis or sort of safety valve to let off the steam of the kind of anger that you. That you feel about your life and the world and the, you know, the people in charge of it. These, these awful people that you have to deal with either as bosses or politicians or demagogues in the media. And I mean, I don't know if this is something that we consciously do, but I think we avoid catharsis by our senses of humor being naturally sort of mean and absurd, basically.
- [06:26]
A
Or.
- [06:27]
B
That's what I was looking for.
- [06:29]
A
That's how you do it.
- [06:30]
B
We sort of. Even before we were doing the show, all three of three original members, Felix, Matt and myself, sort of got an audience through Twitter and the style of comedy known as Weird Twitter or Irony Twitter. It's the use of irony and absurdity as a comedic form to puncture the, I don't know, like the prevailing ethos and the prevailing. This Panglossian view of the world that I think is very effective. And that's what we're most comfortable with. And that's, that's the, the sword and shield that we wield.
- [07:09]
C
I mean, I honestly do struggle with that question because sometimes I do wonder if we are, if we are providing easy catharsis. As I said, first episode we did, we talked about how cathartic comedy is bad for political activism. And I think that to the degree that we avoid that, and I honestly don't know because I'm inside of it and I can't really tell how it's being perceived by others. I mean, I hear people tell me that listening to the show makes them want to be more active, which seems to be to suggest that we aren't softening things too much. But I think the main difference between us and political comedy writ large, not only is our palette of targets broader because we will go after the liberals to the extreme extent we will to the right. Whereas most of the political comedy is very focused on the evils of the Republicans. It's that even there, I think that their objection to conservative rule and the present regime is aesthetic. They are offended by the crudeness and the disrespect for office and for norms. And so their comedy is sort of self contained in an aesthetic bubble. And I think that our comedy hopefully, ideally points beyond that. Points beyond aesthetics, points to material reality, points to material exploitation and injustice, and suggests that, that it's intolerable, basically, because our show is known for just barbaric yawps of frustration and just moments of pure, just overloaded outrage. Which does suggest that, like at the end of it, you have to keep moving because that moment, living in that sort of unjust recurring loop is just intolerable.
- [08:49]
A
It says one listener. Let me ask your response. When I listened to some of your episodes, what immediately jumped at me was you were not hesitant to talk negatively about capitalism and you weren't hesitant to talk positively about one or another kind of socialism. Very few other comics dare even to this day to do it. I noticed recently Lewis Black, kind of who doesn't do it, saying in front of the press in Washington how he's a socialist. But I remember thinking, and I followed his comedy. That's news to me because he's good comic and all of that. But he has not gone there and was mentioning this in passing. He hasn't put it together. You're making an effort to do it.
- [09:40]
B
I mean, it's always hard for comedians especially to be the clown or to, you know, saying, oh, the emperor is naked.
- [09:47]
C
It's hard.
- [09:48]
B
It's hard if you have to take a stand for a positive vision. If you have to put yourself out on a ledge to be like, no, I'm not just making fun of people. This is exactly what you want. Because the danger, of course, is always that you get what you want and then you don't look cool anymore. Or maybe what you want doesn't turn out the way you want to, so then you look bad. So I mean, a certain part you have to. Politics and entertainment are at cross purposes, but at a certain point, you know, I think one does have to say, like, socialism is the only thing that articulates a positive vision that I think charts a way out of the nightmare that we're currently living in. And I think we try to explain that as best as possible in the book.
- [10:33]
C
And irony does have that. It does make it harder for you to be sincere because people say, well, what do they actually believe?
- [10:42]
A
But.
- [10:42]
C
But yeah, sincerity is very. Is very uncomfortable for comics, I think. And I think the fact that we honestly didn't come out of a comedy background, that we literally were just three guys who posted on the Internet, I think that actually helped us because it made us less self conscious about that. Because I do think that, like, the professional milieu of comedy is one where sincere expressions of certainly political Views are kind of embarrassing. And I think what we show is that that doesn't have to be the case. It's all about how you present it. And I think, I hope that we are able to sort of make that balance work.
- [11:17]
A
Does the notion spokespeople for a generation do anything for you?
- [11:24]
B
Yeah. No. It revolts me.
- [11:26]
C
That's what it does for me.
- [11:28]
B
No, thank you. Like I said, I mean, to the extent at which.
- [11:33]
A
Well, you did earlier say middle class and an upper middle class that feels kind of left out, betrayed, maybe even is somebody you're talking about or to.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, just because that's. I mean, that's who I am, basically. So just by default, those are the people who I'm speaking to. I hope that's not the limit of our audience. Like I said, I hope we can. You know, we're speaking to something broader than that, something more broadly felt than just middle or upper middle class anxiety. But to the extent that. Which we are associated with a certain kind of politics or humor or a kind of scabrous, you know, a left that is not academic and that is not afraid to be mean, as I've said before, then I guess I'll take it. But, you know, voice of a generation, I mean.
- [12:26]
C
I mean, there is nothing straight nowadays. It's all narrow casting. You know, it's a demographic slices. So we're the voice of a very, very. Some sub slice of a generation in.
- [12:37]
A
The little bit time we have left. One final question, and it's something I asked you before we went on. What do you think's happening right now? What is happening here in the summer of 2018 with everything you see around you? Where do you think this country's going?
- [12:53]
B
I think, again, the standard political consensus in this country, I think, is more up for grabs now than it's ever been in my lifetime. I can't compare it. You know, I'm sure there have been more tumultuous times in American history, but, you know, on both the right and the left, I think we're seeing a real sort of rewriting of all the. All the rules, which is both terrifying in one sense, because on one side, I think you're seeing a resurgence of a kind of real, you know, fascist nationalism on the right again, because everyone is more and more left out of an economic consensus that only favors a very tiny minority of people. And the anger caused by that can either be productive or horrifying. And I just think things are more up for grabs now. And as a result, things are Very strange because the institutions that have governed and kept everything essentially running pretty okay, or at least just functioning okay, even though it's not really great for everyone, don't know how to deal with it and are less sure of themselves than they've ever been in my lifetime.
- [14:02]
C
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It feels. Everything feels thin. Like all of these. The institutional legitimacy and stability and social cohesion, everything just feels sort of like it's.
- [14:17]
A
Things fall apart.
- [14:18]
C
Yeah, exactly. It feels like we're in the Yeats poem. It feels like we're in the middle of a centrifuge. And so it's gonna get. So it's gonna be torn into a new shape somehow. And what that's gonna be. I don't know.
- [14:31]
A
You know, Karl Marx, not that he should be brought into this, has this famous line of looking at his moment and saying, it's all falling apart. It's all open in a way that it hadn't been, and he wanted to dive in and help shape where it goes.
- [14:48]
C
In this moment, everything that's solid melts in the air. There's exactly right.
- [14:52]
A
Gentlemen.
- [14:52]
C
Matt, thank you, Will.
- [14:53]
A
Thank you very, very much for joining us. And to all of you. I'm glad you joined us on Economic Update Extra. It is what we do, and we want to extend it to our Patreon community with appreciation for the support in return you provide to us. And I look forward to speaking with you, too, again, Sam.