Loading summary
Transcript141 lines
- [00:01]
A
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.
- [00:45]
B
Joining me today on ihip News is my good friend Nathan June. He is a data analyst and communication strategist who unintentionally, kind of like me and pumps, became a political and economic panelist. Nathan, welcome to IHOP News.
- [01:00]
C
Thank you.
- [01:01]
B
I want to talk about something that you put up that I thought was very compelling. And you posted this on Instagram last week and it really caught my eye. Let's pop this up. And you said, scientific studies have said that we can't equate what a billion dollars actually is. Stanford neuroscientists Elizabeth Tamarion and Lindsay Hasek. I always mispronounce people's last names to to. So to the two neuroscientists, my apologies if I mispron.
- [01:30]
C
I don't know if they'll be watching,
- [01:31]
B
but found that people place 1 million halfway between 1,001 billion. In reality, a million is 1,000 times closer to 1,000. And then there's a little graph down there. So as we're dealing with this massive grotesque corruption, all the Bezos of it all, all the Elon Musk of it all, I thought this was really incredible messaging.
- [01:59]
C
Yeah. You know, like I would say 70% of my time is spent ratioing like dipshits all the time who just come on to the Internet and they post the dumbest things ever. And because they saw it on Prager U or they saw it on Fox News or Newsmax or oan, they just like to parrot it. And they take X posts and they just post them and try to act like they're some sort of like, political genius. And what I did with this was I wanted to remind people that because people always just keep screaming, why do the poorest Americans keep defending billionaires? I don't understand. Why do they think this? And you could say that it's because of Reagan era Economics with trickle down being the best for our country. But I had actually realized it's actually a lot to do with the fact that people can't equate in their head what a billion dollars actually is. When you have 30 something percent of the country living just a fraction above the poverty line, they're thinking they just want to be a millionaire. And they just think to themselves, like, if I just had a million dollars, like my life would be set. And so you can't comprehend exactly what a billion dollars is. But one of the things in that post was, you know, a million seconds is. I think it's like, I forget what it was. It's like a million seconds is like 12 days. A billion seconds is like, like a thousand years or something like that. It's something crazy like this.
- [03:25]
B
Yeah, I think that's. I think that's so true. When you think about the way the billionaires are behaving right now, this is what's really disturbing to me because Trump is able to govern the way he's governing, and I like to call it, he's governing as though he will never face accountability. One fascist collaborator was the Supreme Court. They gave him immunity. The biggest fascist collaborators in opinion are the industry titans.
- [03:53]
C
Yes.
- [03:54]
B
Because they have bent the knee and said it is okay. We are endorsing your regime because we want to see what benefits we can get from it. And what's so stunning about this to me, Nathan, is they arrive at the inauguration already rich as hundreds of billions
- [04:12]
C
and they've only gotten wealthier.
- [04:13]
B
Right?
- [04:14]
C
Yeah. It's funny because, you know, you and I are sharing very similar viewpoints on Israel and how much collusion there is with the United States and the funding of a genocide. You know, I am in a camp where I won't endorse a candidate, you know, unless they are not taking corporate PAC money of any kind. And that includes aipac. AIPAC funding has become this really hot topic issue in both, you know, far left and moderate Democrats. It's become something that everybody is talking about. But in this topic, people don't understand that, like aipac, yes, we should get rid of APAC funding in politics. It's manipulating. You know, we just recently saw in the Illinois elections where they pumped money into. They pumped $14 million into an Illinois primary. That is insane. But it is still fractional compared to how much the finance tech, crypto, housing, health insurance industries pump with their billionaires into campaigns. We are still beholden to billionaires and how they are manipulating these campaigns and billionaires are trying to navigate this. Like, you have, like, a good billionaire, I guess, which is like the CEO of and founder of Anthropic right now, who refused to capitulate to the administration when they demanded that he make, you know, Claude easily accessible. But the rest of the billionaires, they are fully understanding that their future is personal, and company is basically hedged against this administration just opening up every single door possible. And what we've seen in the past 18 months is one of the fastest increases in wealth inequality, getting even worse.
- [06:03]
B
Yeah. So we've seen unprecedented corruption in the second Trump administration. Explain the scale of it in a way that viewers can understand.
- [06:11]
C
You know? Oh, man. See my head, if you. If you ask me, like, go through the corruption. Like, it's like that meme of all of, like, the dollar signs just floating around my head, and I'm just like, where do I even start? I would say the most topical corruption in the Trump administration with the war in Iran, which we have now started. War in Iran, too, as of today. Like, I don't know if you saw this, but he. He basically came out and said, I am re invoking the 1973 War Powers act, because technically, the war ended two weeks ago when we had a ceasefire. So now I'm resuming it, and it's a brand new war, so I still don't need congressional approval. Now, when we talk about corruption, I think the one that every American, including the intellectually lazy people who buy lots of merch to just profess their extreme racism and xenophobia and bigotry. Sorry, dad, he won't watch this. I think what they can understand is, look at Trump's own children leading up to his inauguration, all the way to the war in Iran. You have his children, Eric and Don Jr. Who within weeks after he won the election and after Kamala conceded, invested heavily in a drone manufacturing company. And they became board members. One of them became a board member. Over the course of the next 16 months, you have them continually investing in drone manufacturing companies, sitting on the board, including getting a $500 million government contract. I think, for one of them, they're obviously on the receiving end of this, you know, and. And when you talk about corruption and people are talking about, like, oh, what about Hunter Biden? Hunter Biden, like, if you even want to classify him as a consultant.
- [08:11]
B
Right.
- [08:12]
C
Getting hired to do a consulting job, and the, I think $3 million he was paid, now, that's a lot of money, but when you compare that to the hundreds of millions that his children stand to benefit from this war. Because as you know, wars are not fought on the ground. They are fought through drones and missiles. And right now you have us producing in mass drones and you have his sons who are sitting on the board or as investors in each and every one of those that is skimming the surface of corruption right now. You know, if you just look at all of the dealings in the Middle east that even Jared Kushner has, oh, it's terrible, you know, so we're not looking at things where it's like, oh, this seems kind of sketchy. This is like, like an idiot can make this connection, which is, huh, it's really interesting that his sons are investing in drone manufacturing. And it's really interesting that we're in this war that just doesn't seem to want to end and we keep producing drones to keep fighting it. Like, wake up somebody.
- [09:17]
B
Well, and it's, it's the, the corruption is so staggering. And then you get to corporate media, traditional media, and it's just, do we have media anymore? It's barely touched. And so we have a. There is a backlash to status quo. And Trump was the initial, in 2016, he was the initial anti status quo, anti establishment candidate. And then Kamala became kind of the establishment candidate, especially when she started campaigning with Liz Cheney. It was like, look, we're going back, you know, we have to keep things as normal. And then Trump became the anti establishment candidate again. And now a lot of, I mean there's some far cultists that will never jump off the Trump train, but there's fissures out the wazoo with the MAGA movement right now. And you have MAGA political leaders in the ecosystem talking about Tucker, Megan, etc, total fissures. They're all jumping ship. And on our side, you have candidates like Zoron, you have progressive Democrats living winning in special elections. And in a really stunning turn of events, you have somebody like you and somebody like me and my co host Angie, who are not trained in this. But there is such an appetite on the left and in the anti Trump that people don't trust any of it. If you're a part of the establishment and you're a part of a corporation or we don't trust you. And so voices like yours have just grown exponentially in a very small period of time because they know that you're not bought and paid for. And the same thing with this podcast. I self funded it when we started it. We're completely independent and voices like yours, mine and so many fabulous others, a lot of mutual friends we have in the left. Left wing media ecosystem are really, you know, taking off. What's your take on that? What's your take on how people like you and me that were seemingly normal five, ten years ago and now kind of have these political voices?
- [11:21]
C
Yeah, I mean, you said at the beginning I, I accidentally fell into this. It really started the day after the election because I have several MAGA family members in my family, and I'm a gay immigrant and I'm adopted into a white family and they're white evangelical southerners. What? Yeah.
- [11:37]
B
Where. Where did you grow up?
- [11:38]
C
I grew up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, which is about 40 miles north Tampa. But my mom and my family are originally from southern Georgia in an area called Folkston.
- [11:48]
B
Are they mega churchers?
- [11:50]
C
Yes.
- [11:50]
B
Tongue talkers?
- [11:52]
C
Yes. I. I grew up in a. I grew up in a charismatic fundamentalist cult church.
- [11:56]
B
No, I was, I did not know that.
- [11:58]
C
My, when my. Oh, my God. I'm sorry, dad, if you're watching this, but like, when my family found gay porn on my computer, they took me to a church and they actually put me in this tiny room with about 25 elders where they just put their hands out and screamed in tongues at me for like 25 minutes.
- [12:16]
B
Is this like tongue talk the gay away?
- [12:19]
C
Yes. But I was also put in conversion therapy as well. So, like, how long did you go? I was in there for about six months.
- [12:26]
B
Oh my. Nathan, I had no idea.
- [12:28]
C
It's.
- [12:29]
B
I'm very. I've been from the Bible belt, so I'm very familiar with this type of cruelty. But tell me about, like, the shame, the unnecessary shame I mean, we're put through. You know, I don't think you should have felt shame, but I know that's what religion puts on to you.
- [12:43]
C
You know, I didn't, I didn't fully come out until I was already lived here for three and a half years.
- [12:49]
B
Were you terrified?
- [12:50]
C
I. I just. I had ingrained in my head that I was going to just burn in hell forever. And my parents reminded me that frequently. And you know, it's funny because when you go through religious abuse therapy and you unravel all of this, you are actually able to get to a place where you can actually look even at your parents and say, like, you did what you thought was right because you are brainwashed and I'm not like mad at you about this, you know, and you can compartmentalize it. I take a lot of things that happened in my life previously and through therapy. You put it over here and you're like, that is just an aspect, but it influenced me, but it doesn't define me. And so getting back to what we were talking about though, I know this took a sidebar, but like, no, I'm
- [13:36]
B
very fascinated in all the religious stuff though.
- [13:38]
C
It's funny because people think about conversion therapy and they think it's like you going there and they have this vision in their mind of it's like a weird Christian pastor who's like making some 13 year old kid watch straight porn or like, you know, doing all these things or just praying over you. No, it was like a psychological deconstruction of like telling me and forcing me to read the Bible and over and over again and just fear mongering me into believing that I was going to have my skin burned off for eternity if I had ever enacted on the way that I was biologically born, you know. And so when you go through that as a young person, you know, you carry that. I haven't met a single person. I call us survivors of religious abuse.
- [14:28]
B
Yeah.
- [14:28]
C
I've never met a single person who is angry about it. I don't meet that many people who have actually gone through religious abuse therapy and they've come out the other end feeling like furious and mad. I meet a lot of people who are like me who are just like, I'm just angry that churches are basically mega corporations in themselves and they profit off of this ideology of just constant fear mongering. That's what I'm angry about. I'm not angry at the people because people never angry at them. I know you are.
- [15:00]
B
I will be angry for you.
- [15:02]
C
Yeah. I think people, you, you grew up in the church, right?
- [15:06]
B
No, I grew up with. My parents are atheists, but I grew up in the Bible belt.
- [15:10]
C
You grew up in the Bible Belt, so you get it.
- [15:11]
B
The same sense of constantly. My peers in junior high and high school. Have you been saved? I'm like, from what? Like, you have to accept Jesus or you're going to burn in hell. And these demons will like peel your skin off and it will grow back. And they peel it off again. They would tell me these horrific stories and it'd be at a sleepover and one of my friends would be like, I think there's a demon in the room. And I was just like, this is insane. I'd go home to my mother who was an atheist who thinks like religion is like an intellectual weakness. She's like, oh, for God's sakes, Jennifer, that's ridiculous. Let's read about Religious addiction. And she'd pull out the encyclopedia. This is before the Internet. So my life was this split screen of these indoctrinated kids that I wanted to fit in with. And everything was rigid and black and white and you could not question, you could not ask, you cannot say, well, that sounds kind of crazy. You couldn't say that. And I go to my mother and it was just open minded, any question, any. Which is how it should ask on the planet. So let me ask you this. So you go to the pray the gay away, the conversion therapy, and then you come out and do you think you're straight when you come out?
- [16:17]
C
My girlfriends in high school and college thought I was. I lost my gold card. I aggressively tried, I really, really tried to be straight.
- [16:28]
B
Really wanted to be straight.
- [16:29]
C
Well, because of course it made your life easier. Like, it's a very controversial take, but because of what I went through, I was asked on a podcast maybe a year ago during Pride, it's like, if you had a choice, would you be gay or straight? And I was like, if I had a choice, I would be straight. It's like, and they're like, like, and like everybody's just like, that seems so anti gay. And I'm like, no, I went through psychological torture all of my life. My life would have been exponentially easier. I wouldn't be where I am now.
- [17:01]
B
I want to confirm that because what my mother would say to me, I would say, mom. But like when I would ask her, somebody, this person, they seem gay. What, why would they be gay? And my mother would say, darling, all you need to know is nobody in their right would choose to be gay in the Bible belt.
- [17:16]
C
And on top of that, nobody in their right mind would choose to be trans in Alabama. No, like that's the part that people do not fundamentally understand. It's like it's the choice is basically accepting who you are and choosing to live whatever is going to make you happy. Like, if the choice is, would you rather do this or rather not? Nobody in their right mind would choose to be trans in a Bible thumping red ocean where they are just going to face ridicule and be attacked by everybody in your community, in your state and now in your country, in a
- [17:57]
B
countryside, rates are so high.
- [17:59]
C
Is built on the foundational principle of everybody is created equal. We are currently in this constant battle where people are believing that parents are forcing their kids to do something or that, you know, there's all of this health care coverage going towards and it's all, all just propaganda to Just foundationally allow somebody to have comfort in. Just because I'm a idiot and I don't understand trans people means that it must be wrong. It all just perpetuates itself into that scenario. And getting back to what you asked me, God, we went on a tangential.
- [18:37]
B
One more question. Are you religious now or did you deprogram all of it?
- [18:41]
C
I believe in God, but I believe in the God that I think. I, I imagine you have viewers who, who would say, like, you know, that they believe in the God that I believe in, which is a God and, and a, you know, person, individual who spoke about loving each other.
- [18:58]
B
Is this God non. Binary?
- [19:00]
C
You know, I, I sometimes say God is Lady Gaga, so I don't know. So, you know, you're spiritual. I'm.
- [19:08]
B
You have a spiritual.
- [19:09]
C
I have a spiritual connection. And like, and I believe, I believe that the shitty. The part that drives me crazy is that the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ, and I'm sorry to like, force this down, people who are maybe going to be mad about somebody talking about, like, Christianity on here, but like, the fundamental teachings of Christianity were to love God, but then to love your neighbor as yourself. And he literally said that there is no other law except to love me and then to love your neighbor. That's it.
- [19:40]
B
When he was radically empathetic, he was radical empath. Right. So, I mean, it's like when I hear Bernie Sanders speak, who's an atheist Jewish person.
- [19:49]
C
Yeah.
- [19:50]
B
And then I hear Ted Cruz speak, the one who sounds most reminiscent of the central character of the Bible, Jesus Christ is the atheist Jew.
- [19:57]
C
Yes.
- [19:58]
B
Or Zoran Momdani, the woke Sharia Muslim Mom Donistan.
- [20:03]
C
How are you dealing with Sheree Law? And, And I love woke Sharia.
- [20:06]
B
It's great.
- [20:08]
C
Every day I walk out and just be like, another beautiful day in Cherie.
- [20:12]
B
Okay, all right, let's. I, I just can't thank you enough for sharing that. I'm very fascinated by all of that. And I tell my listeners all the time about what a problem evangelical Christianity is in the Republican Party. And it is a cult. And it is. People will ask me constantly, how do religious people support Donald Trump, like people in the Bible? I'm like, oh, it's easy. He is an evangelical preacher.
- [20:36]
C
Easy.
- [20:37]
B
It's the easy.
- [20:38]
C
It is the easiest thing to understand because. Because Christianity foundationally. And I'm not on the religion by saying this foundationally. Christianity is built on a premise of putting your faith and trust in something you cannot see. And it is basically. And it teaches you suffering is Good. Going through hard times is good. It's like it's all meant for the greater good. So you look at this pedophilic like crumbling physically and mentally in front of us every day. Can't even stay awake in a single war briefing person. And they worship him because there is no reason for them to worship him. Though the economy is in the tank. We're in a war. When he promised no new wars. The war in Ukraine and Russia is still going on and he promised to end that on day one. And we have no new jobs. Agriculture industries are, are doing awful right now. FEMA has been destroyed. So you have things, you have states like Nebraska who just went through wildfires. They're getting nothing, but they're still blindly putting their faith in somebody because they believe one day it will all make sense.
- [21:44]
B
Yeah. No, you're 100, right. Okay. Thank you for sharing all of that. I'm always fascinated by that. And that won't be our only conversation about it because I think there's going to be a huge need at some point in the next 10 years for Mass deconstruction therapy groups and helping people, people deal with religious abuse. Deconstruction. My co host, Angie is, has gone through all of that. She's still sifting through it. I mean, and. And it took her a long time to get there.
- [22:10]
C
It was not a short.
- [22:11]
B
So liberated. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about, let's talk about the Democratic Party right now.
- [22:19]
C
Okay.
- [22:20]
B
Okay. So you have the centrists that seem to like kind of traditional Democratic candidates and then you have more progressive slash leftist Democrats. I was probably a lib a couple years.
- [22:38]
C
You lived out a lot.
- [22:39]
B
Love to live out. Yeah, loved it. So fun to live out. I have grown tired of living out. And listener, for those of you that don't know, living out is like, you know, like, yes, we can. And you have your comma, less stuff and you're kind of ignoring the problems where they're taking a lot of corporate money when you say that slipping out.
- [22:59]
C
Yeah. It's basically like the person is fighting for democracy or some key phrase and you know, I'm with her, you know, and you just feel, that was me. Yeah.
- [23:09]
B
And then after you. We lose to Donald Trump. That was so painful to everybody that didn't vote for him. I just, just like, what? In the actual fact, how do you. How do we lose elections like this? And I got off of MSNBC and I started really reading and opening up my mind more and I've gone further to the left. And I worry about sometimes when I get online looking for news to talk about here, I see there's just a lot of, like, people on the left calling the centrist Blue Maga and the Blue Maga calling the leftists communists. And all of that is good and well. And I think it's healthy to have disagreements. And I think. I think it's healthy to make each other think critically. I don't think we should all be in a cult. I'm not that don't have any problems with some of the bickering on the left. I think it shows diversity in thought. Where I have a problem is like, the canceling of Hassan Piker from within the party when they don't have the same litmus test for, like, politicians that go on Bill Maher, who is a brazen, Islamophobic misogynist.
- [24:19]
C
How do you really feel he is?
- [24:22]
B
And I used to be a big fan of his as an atheist. I used to watch his shows all the time. So what's your take on that? The tussling going on within the Democratic Party?
- [24:32]
C
You know, I think there's two things happening. Believe it or not. I regularly get called a shitlib, a neolib. Blue Maga.
- [24:42]
B
You get called Blue maga.
- [24:43]
C
I get called Blue Maga.
- [24:44]
B
Really? Are you Blue maga?
- [24:45]
C
I'm not. And it's funny, because I've only platformed candidates who don't take APAC funding. I've been very, very open about Israel and Netanyahu's, you know, responsibility and the US enablement of the genocide that killed 20,000 children and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
- [25:03]
B
And who calls you Blue Maga?
- [25:05]
C
It's because I will still take a stance of I can't go so far to say I'm gonna vote for Jill Stein.
- [25:13]
B
Oh, I wouldn't either.
- [25:14]
C
No. But, like, that is what gets me called Blue maga. So. So basically, if I say I will still, like, begrudgingly vote for Gavin Newsom In 2028, I'm Blue Maga because I am not, like, I'm not platforming him. I'm not, like, promoting him, but because I will say things like, I will still vote blue down the line.
- [25:37]
B
I will, too.
- [25:38]
C
I vote working family down the line now in New York City. And so it's kind of. This idea of that kind of bothers me a lot just because I'm like, I kind of fit the criteria for somebody who would be considered to be very, very far left. It's just because I am looking at the Voting Rights Act. Being abolished, that is completely disenfranchising black voters. I'm looking at the SAVE act, which is going to be attacking women. You know, I mean, I'm looking at all of these things that have happened over the course of the past 18 months. And I'm still on a position of. Personally, I think you're crazy if you say something out loud like Kamala would have been just as bad. That's my position.
- [26:19]
B
I'm with you on like crazy.
- [26:21]
C
Now, Mr. Piker, who I don't agree with everything that he says, but I agree with a lot of what he says. And I think that that discourse, to your point, is very important.
- [26:29]
B
I do too.
- [26:30]
C
You know, I mean, and, and if I ever sat with him, I would love to have that conversation where it's like, we don't agree 100%, but we're like 80% there, right? The thing about Hassan Piker that I've always said is that, you know, when he was with you and he said that he wouldn't vote for Gavin Newsome, I think that I want like, like it was taken moderately out of context in the clips.
- [26:49]
B
I agree.
- [26:50]
C
Based off of the full conversation. And I think watching the full conversation is very important. But when I saw that, you know, I was kind of like, okay, that's where I don't agree with you. But, you know, I mean, it's worth a dialogue of habit of having around this topic. What I think is happening though is Hasan Piker represents a very, very, very important voice in this field right now. When you see that young white white men are flocking to the biggest pieces of shit ever on the right side and they are outspending us 10 to 1 right now to platform them and raise them up. We have to recognize that being able to take back even 3 to 5% of the young white male, 18 to 28 year old vote wins you elections across the country. It absolutely does. And so what I'm seeing with mainstream media, like there was a USA Today article, like they just keep rehashing this one. It's to drive clicks. Let's just call spade a spade. Their mainstream media is dying. They're losing clicks. The Wall Street Journal, it's pissing me off. They started removing opinion from their tweets. So now it just looks like it is an article that their editorial board wrote. And I realized why they started doing that. It's like, oh, because like, if you don't, if you put opinion, people won't click on it. But if you say something, something insane, people are gonna like start commenting, they're gonna start sharing. They're gonna be like, what's wrong? Here's the reality, Jen. And you know this. Politics in 20. I would say since 20, since 2008. Not even since 2016. Since 2008. Politics is theater. It's political theater a lot of the times. And. And it's just exponentially grown. And so my issue with the Democratic Party right now is they are so bad at communicating anything in a way that would actually resonate with people that are interested that you hate them. Because Sawyer Hackett, who's a Democratic strategist who worked on the Obama campaign, he and I met up.
- [28:58]
B
He cooks.
- [28:59]
C
Yeah, he cooks.
- [29:00]
B
Yeah, yeah, I want to have him on.
- [29:01]
C
I know. Great. He would love to be on. It's like he and I are friends and we met up a couple weeks ago in D.C. and he was saying like. And he said it so perfectly. He had said the Democratic Party is like the dorks in the back of the class constantly raising their hand. Or it's like. And I had said they're like hall monitors. Yeah, they're the hall monitors of the school.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah.
- [29:21]
C
You know, and nobody wants to listen to them. And then you have Hasan Piker, who again is raising awareness about things that young people would never care about before. He's a good looking guy. He posts a thirst trap once in a while. He's very smart about the way that he does it. And you know, he's good at it. And so. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, why haven't you just figured out how to harness him in ways? It's like, and here's where it comes down to. And this is going to get me probably banned from a lot of Democratic dnc, anything moving forward. And it is what it is because it's just what I believe right now. It's not about actually trying to do things like taxing the rich. It's not about trying to do things like protecting women's rights and black voters rights and trans rights. It's about maintaining political power. And the reason why the Democratic Party leadership right now refuses to actually back progressive candidates is because if they lose, if Dan Goldman loses in my district, if, if Grace Meng loses in New York 12 to people who are saying, I'm going to run a corporate free apac, free like lobby free campaign, then they lose power because then they can no longer control the caucus or the constituency that they need in order to pass moderate bills. And so that is where I start to get really really frustrated with the discourse because it's like some people are in a camp where they're like, it's just so bad that I would just like to go back to normalcy. People talk about the Hungarian election right now like and people are like look at this young person that they elected. So now they got rid of Viktor Orban who is this authoritarian who was doing all these things like suppressing media and like gerrymandering. And I'm like, yeah, so sounds familiar. They Hungary effectively elected Rand Paul.
- [31:10]
B
Yes. But it cannot be dismissed.
- [31:12]
C
It can't be.
- [31:12]
B
It cannot be dismissed. What he did.
- [31:14]
C
Yeah.
- [31:15]
B
Is incredible. What the. In Hungary, Magyar I think he's called. He ran on an anti corruption platform and he couldn't just go full tilt.
- [31:30]
C
Yeah.
- [31:30]
B
And he was banned from being on television. And so he went much like Zoron did. Zoron went door to door, door to her. He went all over Hungary. And since he has won, he has proven to deliver immediately right out of the gates. Just like Zoron, just like Zorin. And so at least he is stamping out corruption. And he. All of the Hungarian oligarchs are tucking and rolling, freaking out. They are exposing now that hung Hungarian taxpayers were are funding CPAC and all sorts of. So I know he's not like the most progressive but compare comparatively speaking he believes in democracy.
- [32:10]
C
Yes.
- [32:11]
B
And so that's super important. I'd want to get back to the, the, the liberals and the leftists because I think this is a super important thing. I think we can both agree that disagreement is good.
- [32:22]
C
Yes.
- [32:22]
B
And I think we can both agree that when it gets down to it, you have read state trauma plus conversion therapy trauma plus religious abuse trauma. And I have red state trauma. So we have lived in red states and are abundantly aware of what Christian nationalists want to do. And from our lived experience in that when it gets down to it, I'm going to harm reduction vote. I am voting even if I don't like the politician. And I think they're a corporate hack. I personally am going to vote for the Democrat. I'm going to be the vote blue, no matter who at the end of the day. But during this primary period right now, we can certainly push progressive ideals. And I want to say as it pertains to Hasan, Hasan answered that question when I asked him what would you do? And he said I don't know. I don't think I would vote for Gavin Newsom Hassan saying that alone. He's not the only person that feels
- [33:17]
C
not he's giving a voice to people who feels that way.
- [33:19]
B
Yes. And so with that, you can't just try to cancel all of them and try to trot around with a moderate Republican to get votes, because Republicans are never going to vote for the Democratic Party ever. And so I think we have to try to speak to them. And I think our language surrounding that, if people don't like, well, Hassan said this or Hassan said that, I think our language surrounding that is agreeing. If anybody list agrees with me 100%, I would be completely shocked. If anybody agrees with Hassan, 100, I think Hassan would be completely shocked. We have to be the party of ideas and the party that engages intellectually about those ideas. And Hassan and I have had really, we had really robust conversations about. He said, jennifer, do you think they're taking your vote for granted? And I said, there's no question the Democratic Party assumes at the end of the day these people are not going to vote for Trump. And this last election, that gamble proved them wrong because the Democrats didn't go out.
- [34:22]
C
Yep.
- [34:22]
B
Voter turnout was lower.
- [34:24]
C
I think it's hard as well for progressives in this country, whether, whether you who are a moderate or a leftist or, you know, an anarchist, communist, you know, wherever you sit in the spectrum, it's hard because the right managed to drag so many people to the far right. And they did it almost easily. Like, so easily.
- [34:46]
B
It's a layup.
- [34:47]
C
It was, yeah, it's like. And this discourse that you and I are both advocating for, I don't think I'm as left as I am had people not been yelling at me and had people not been, you know, forcing me to do research into it. But I wouldn't be as left as I am if it weren't for good people who actually want to build coalitions, who would classify themselves as leftists, who would be like, let me talk to you about this. Let me tell you why this matters. Let me tell you about, like, why this exists. And then you kind of sit there and you realize, like, yeah, I, my ideologies is way more far left than I think a lot of people in this country are, who would classify themselves as a Democrat, you know, but I still am in this harm reduction phase and who knows where I'll be in two years from now, depending on how much more authoritarian we get. But I think that discourse is fucking stupid. Just because we, we classify ourselves as the educated side, we classify ourselves as the intelligent side, we classify ourselves as the ones that think for ourselves, and, and we're just Fighting with each other, trying to blame who's responsible for who room. Like. Like people didn't show up and vote. That's. That's absolutely factual. But the non voters statistically didn't impact the out the final outcome of the election. You know, there's enough data that says that that's factual. You know, I think the reality is that people just did not understand fundamentally how wildly popular he is with straight young white men, which is the category that he completely destroyed Kamala in.
- [36:22]
B
Yeah, white women. Us too.
- [36:23]
C
Yeah, yeah, sorry. White women don't get off the hook.
- [36:25]
B
Look. Yeah, no, they did. I just think that, you know, I don't particularly coming from a red state and knowing how draconian the laws can get, I have moved further to the left. I don't want to fight with centrists. I want to make them realize, like, I learned that I cannot trust a candidate that takes money from the same donors that are funding fascism and green lighting fascism right now. When you find out that Chuckles and Hakeem have Palantir checks and. Or from the same lobby and then you find out what Palantir's doing, you just. All trust is eroded at that point. It's just completely.
- [37:12]
C
It should be an automatic disqualifier. Yeah, it should be an automatic disqualifier. If a PAC or a lobbying group or a billionaire is funding both political sides. That should be some form of, like, a giant red flag in that candidate. Because they're not funding you because they believe in what you're platforming. They're funding you because they believe that you will go into Capitol Hill and protect them.
- [37:37]
B
To control you.
- [37:38]
C
Yes.
- [37:38]
B
Controlled opposition.
- [37:39]
C
Yep.
- [37:39]
B
Which is devastating when you find that out. When you realize the party that you were living out for is taking money from the same people. It's so devastating. And I'm sure you all have gone through that, too. But I'm hopeful. Okay, last thought. I'm really hopeful that people are catching on and that regardless of the coordinated media attacks to take out members of our group or of our tent and the hysterical, bedwetting, ridiculous, embarrassing bed waiting that they. They're participating in, I feel like people are not listening to the corporate messaging anymore, whether from a corporate politician or corporate media. And I feel like people are more in our camp and are going to vote accordingly. What's your take on that?
- [38:23]
C
I think that right now, the Democratic Party is way focused on just winning the midterms, which means that most of the messaging is just anti Trump. And I understand that from somebody who's a communication strategist. I understand why they're doing that. Like constantly reminding people gas is more expensive, groceries are more expensive. All the things, things he promised, he's not fulfilling. Stop fascism, all those things. I think that what we're missing is the opportunity to simplify the pro, the approach for messaging, which is, you know, there's no way that every politician is going to be able to appeal to everybody's needs because everybody, every individual's needs are very different. I think what Zoron did that was so smart was he kept his messaging very, very simple and easy to understand and then he immediately started doing it. Yeah, it was this. And I know not, you know, like Tulsa, Oklahoma can't do that because like, they're obviously not going to get a Democratic socialist who's going to be promising them, you know, 60 new traffic lights.
- [39:23]
B
Right.
- [39:24]
C
But I think what the Democratic Party really, really needs to stop and figure out how to do is how can we long term figure out how to win people over without fear mongering them into. If you don't like, we're going to really be in a shitstorm even worse than we are right now. And so it really starts with we are in two simultaneous things right now. The current one is a short term racist war. Like we're in a race war right now, like the SAVE Act, Voting Rights act, all those things. And you know, racism is, people say that, racism, specifically conservatives, and I'm sure woman that you lived with where you are, they're going to say, I'm not racist. And I'm like, well, in the exit polling of the 2024 general election, 52% of Republicans said that immigration was the number one reason why they voted. I don't see them, you know, deporting many people from Denmark, you know what I mean, right now. So it's kind of racism. Yeah, it's like, so you have that, that. And then what you have is this tremendous opportunity to actually continually educate and tell people like, billionaires own 30% of the wealth. A thousand billionaires own 30% of the wealth in this country. They are buying the elections and they are funding campaigns with the biggest pieces of shit in this country to basically create divisiveness for us. They fund creators who are on the opposite end of the aisle that you and I are to convince their audience that. That I'm a communist.
- [40:59]
B
Right, right.
- [41:00]
C
It's like, and so we're in this class war which is funding everything. The minute that we can wake up and basically say, huh, should like 10% of Americans own almost all of the stock market. Should they be able to shelter their money in a way where they don't pay taxes?
- [41:20]
B
Right.
- [41:20]
C
Like could we maybe do what Scandinavian countries do? That is the messaging that I would try and break down, simplify it. And that's kind I do on my channel which is just try to explain like billionaires when we say tax the rich, we are literally saying stop allowing them to control almost all of the wealth in our country. That is the messaging that I would stick to.
- [41:45]
B
I completely agree. Nathan June, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad that you made it out of all of that and are now this shining light in the progressive media space because you definitely are that. Please go follow my friend Nathan June at Nathan C. June.
- [42:02]
C
Nathan C. J. Nathan.
- [42:03]
B
I look at that. Still traps baby at Nathan C. June on all of the platforms. And I'd love to have you back again.
- [42:10]
C
Of course I'd love to.