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The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3619 - US Empire vs the Earth; MAGA Coalition Already Collapsing w/ Abby Martin, Ettingermentum
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- [00:00]
Emma Vigeland
You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily.
- [00:13]
Sam Cedar
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.
- [00:18]
Emma Vigeland
It is Thursday, November 6, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and this is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Abby Martin will be with us to talk about her new documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy. And later in the show, my friend Ettinger Mentem will be back with us to break down the Republican wipeout on Tuesday and what it means going forward. Also on the program, centrist Democrats are backing off their desperate desire to cave on the government shutdown because Tuesday's phenomenal election results make it a little tough for them. The shutdown pain keeps worsening as Republicans refuse to talk to Democrats. The FAA will reduce flights by 10% tomorrow if a deal is not reached. Air traffic controllers not being paid as well as the other furloughed federal workers that are taking gig work to stay afloat with the shutdown ongoing. Federal employment data is not available, but a private firm finds that October's monthly job cuts hit a 22 year high. Over a million jobs have been cut since January, same analysis finds. So now Trump's 2024 political director says we're going to focus on, you guessed it, affordability going forward. I'll have more to say on that in a second. The Supreme Court appears skeptical of Trump's lawyers arguments about his emergency tariffs. That's somewhat good news. Almost half of all US Imports are now subjected to the tariffs just in time for the holidays. In Chicago, armed ICE officers chase down a teacher in a private preschool, dragging her away in front of kids and and parents. Zoran Mamdani announces that Lina Khan will serve as one of his transition teams for co chairs, all women, by the way. Nancy Pelosi officially announces her retirement. And APAC Democrat Jared golden, who represents a key district in Maine, says he will not seek re election. What?
- [03:09]
Sam Cedar
I didn't know that.
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Emma Vigeland
Yeah, there you go. And lastly, Starbucks workers have voted to authorize a strike next week if the company does not come to an agreement with them. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show everybody. It's an M Majority Report Thursday. Hello. Hello. Hi, Matt. Hi, Brian.
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Matt Binder
Matt Dun Dunlop is running for that.
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Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Seat and he's the guy.
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Emma Vigeland
Oh, he is.
- [03:37]
Matt Binder
Matt Dunlap from What I can tell, my little research I've done, he was.
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Unidentified Guest
Going to primary him.
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Emma Vigeland
That's. It's really interesting. I mean, I'm going to have to read more into the dynamics of that race. I think it was important because Trump won that district by around 10 points in Maine, but it was the deepest red district that a Democrat still retained. But I would not be shocked if the APAC tag is enough to scare him out of the race, given the environment right. Right now and given what he might have been seeing in the primary challenge and given the enthusiasm that Graham Platner is generating around this kind of like more populous energy in Maine.
- [04:15]
Brandon Sutton
The APEC stuff is wonderful. I saw the reaction to our clip of Negus. I think the guy who had that admittedly very good statement on the Republican responsibility for the current shutdown. But the entire replies are. Or not the entire replies. I don't want to overstate it, but a lot of the replies are great. But we've been trying to get this guy to talk about why he takes APEC money and he doesn't answer.
- [04:40]
Emma Vigeland
It could be a really, like, there is an opportunity for Democrats to stand out. Like if he's a talented Democrat like that who might be on the right side of other issues. All you gotta do is say I'm sorry and reject that money going forward. That's all you gotta do. That's all you gotta do. And I do think that voters will be much more open to that than if you continue going down this course of supporting a genocidal regime and its lobby here in the United States, or them supporting you, rather. But let's turn to the economy here, because as I mentioned, this firm that, this private firm, I guess it's called. God, I can't read my own handwriting. Here we go. Challenger Gray and Christmas, which sounds fake, but they.
- [05:30]
Brandon Sutton
One battle after another.
- [05:32]
Emma Vigeland
I know. That's what I thought of, too. They are filling in the gaps because the federal government does not have the capacity right now due to the shutdown and also Trump's disruptions to provide accurate economic data, unemployment data. But they found that there have been over a million layoffs so far this year, which is the largest reduction in that way in quite a while. That mirrors 2008 to 2009 in terms of a decline. And that's, of course, the Great Recession. The.
- [06:05]
Brandon Sutton
Does that mean it's greater than 2020, Covid?
- [06:08]
Emma Vigeland
Yep. The October job cuts, when you compare October 2024 to October 2025, up 175%, ups nearly 50,000 layoffs, 30,000 layoffs from Amazon, layoffs from Target, warehousing jobs, retail technology. Those are where you're seeing most of these layoffs as well, let alone how farmers have been decimated by the tariff regime. The tech bubble appears to also be on the precipice of bursting because you're seeing a slow for demand for AI, even as in video breaks records in terms of its valuation on Wall Street. So we're in a very precarious economic situation right now, and many people in this country are already experiencing recession like conditions, and half of imports are now affected by these tariffs. The Supreme Court is hearing an argument on this right now. But the Yale budget lab basically says that the average tax on US Imports in their analysis due to the tariffs, plus, plus Trump's emergency tariffs, which is what the Supreme Court is hearing right now, it accounts for basically a tax of 18% on all imports borne by the American consumer. That's up from 2.4% before Trump took office. I mean, just a dramatic, dramatic escalation. But don't worry, Trump is saying that that dramatic increase in prices that are just starting to really make themselves fully felt with Christmas next month. They're saving the world, actually.
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Unidentified Guest
Saying you're.
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Matt Binder
Happy with what you came out of it.
- [08:11]
Sam Cedar
If I didn't have tariffs, we wouldn't. We were right now the entire world would be in a depression because, you know, that wasn't a threat against us. That was a threat against the entire world. I did this for the world. But, yeah, I would say that I, and I can guarantee you this, if I didn't put 100% tariff immediately on China, the entire world, because of magnets, a special kind of rare earth, et cetera. Right. We'd be closed up. Without the benefit of tariffs, we would not. We had a very successful meeting with President Xi of China and others. And without tariffs, that would not have taken.
- [08:48]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, without tariffs. The meeting that you had with Xi where you decided to have a truce on the trade war. Wouldn't have taken. Wouldn't have taken place. Yes, yes. There wouldn't have had to be that meeting to conclude the insane war that you started with China where they made you bend the knee. He loves to save face in public. I wonder if he's so deluded and elderly and deranged that he thinks that he actually won this negotiation, but China basically spanked him on the international stage and showed him that, like, they have the domestic capacity to not need the United States and the US with all of its imports and consumption they need China way more than they need then. Then China needs us.
- [09:31]
Brandon Sutton
We're touting the rare earth things as the victory. Trump knows he lost Magnets.
- [09:36]
Emma Vigeland
Are we back to this? Does he want to expand on his theory about how magnets stop working when they get wet? Because I still remember that thing. Here is the reality about what the tariffs are doing. This is the Attorney General of Oregon on MSNBC explaining, and this is accurate in when he's, you know, talking about what Trump's lawyers are saying to the Supreme Court. They have to admit this because this is legally binding. It can't just be Trump saying that, you know, the other countries are going to pay for it. On the campaign trail in front of the Supreme Court, they had to admit exactly what these tariffs are going to cost the American people.
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Guest Commentator
Americans should be really upset and bothered by what Trump's own lawyers are saying. They walked into that courtroom, they told the entire Supreme Court that it's going to raise $4 trillion t trillion unimaginable amounts of money. And even in their own words, 30 to 80% are going to be paid for. That's right, Trump's own lawyers. By the American people. That is wild. It's also consistent with what we're seeing on our stores right now. You're seeing the prices of groceries go up, you're seeing the prices of clothing go up. You're seeing utility costs in America going up when we have an affordability crisis. And in the same sentence, this president, in his infinite wisdom, is yanking back food assistance, is yanking back health care. This is not the America that anyone I know voted for last November. And it's a betrayal of TR for all of us.
- [11:10]
Emma Vigeland
30 to 80% is a pretty, pretty big range for $4 trillion in tariffs. And either way, it's going to have a significant impact. The affordability crisis is going to be the top headline here. The Democrats feel, and Democratic leadership in Washington feel like they can bridge a gap between Abigail Spanberger or, I don't know, Mary Glusonkamp Perez would be Ezra Klein's example and Zoran Mamdani with the issue of affordability being the centerpiece. And just put a pin in that for a second because I'm about to make a case for why the Democrats need to be a lot more specific on that, because Republicans are seeing this, too, but just a little bit more about what the economy is looking like right now. This is from CNBC this morning and Aaron Ross Sorkin, Steve Liesman, just laying out exactly what these corporate job numbers mean. That I kind of alluded to earlier.
- [12:11]
Guest Commentator
Is it about the health of the job market?
- [12:12]
Abby Martin
Steve Liesman joins us with the latest numbers from Challenger on job cuts. What's going on?
- [12:17]
Unidentified Guest
Yeah, well this is like a clue from like a cough or a sneeze or whatever but announced corporate job cuts, Andrew, in the US surging past 1 million so far this year with 153,000 new layoffs announced just in October. According to Challenger. That is the worst October since 2003. Here are the numbers. October up 153. That compares with September. That's 100,000 more than September and 100,000 more than this time last year in October 2024. Andy Challenger commenting. Some industries are correcting after the hiring move, the pandemic. But this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending and rising costs drive belt tightening and hiring freezes. Announced layoffs don't always lead to actual cuts and could take place from attrition. But the report puts in perspective what we've been reporting here day after day, week after week series of marquee announcements unveiled in recent weeks across US Industries including ups, Amazon, Target, among others, Paramount, Rivian, all these companies, their government has been responsible year to date for 308,000. But look at that tech 141, that could be where you see a lot of the maybe some in warehousing, but a big chunk of that's going to be UPS as well as potentially some hit from reduced flows of trade. Retail is up there as IS services at 64,000. You take out the doge cuts the numbers a bit better at 800,000 but still well above last year. Challengers doesn't see much in the way of hiring saying announcements are 30.
- [13:42]
Emma Vigeland
There you go. So I mean those are even the traditional economic metrics showing that that things are horrible. And we know that what's really scary too is that the stock market is in many ways sometimes very disconnected from this. Where you see the concentration of who owns stocks being, you know, it's the top 10%, the top 1%. They play and they gamble with money like this even if it affects your 401k if you have one, they have the bulk of the stake in this. But there's also just like, you know, economic indicators that were in place prior to the earlier this year that showed that the economy was in really, really bad shape. The past due car payments hit a record high earlier this year. It was like the highest level since there was data collection on this very front. Credit card debt hit a record high earlier this year. And we showed that statistic the other day that basically the top 10% of this country is responsible for nearly half of all consumer spending because everybody else is really struggling right now. And so the Trump administration is seeing this. Of course, the people around him who let Trump be Trump but want the machine to keep moving along and the Republicans to keep winning are seeing this. This is Trump's 2024 campaign. Political director James Blair speaking to Politico in the wake of these election results and saying what they're going to try.
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Matt Binder
To pivot to.75% of Mickey Sherrill's ads were positive, overwhelmingly talking about cost of living and heavily talking about lowering power costs. Jack didn't really talk about that. He talked about taxes and he won the tax vote. But he didn't address those key issues of affordability very effectively. He was mostly talking generically about change. New Jers not denigrating Jack, but it was not in line necessarily with what voters were saying. Two, in Virginia, over half of winsome Sears ads talked about transgender. And it's not even the top five issues, according to voters. Why did Zohan Mandani do so well last night? He relentlessly focused on affordability. People talk about communists, they can say all these things, but the fact is he was talking about the cost of living.
- [16:06]
Emma Vigeland
Folks that I'm talking to privately who are supporters of President Trump think that he needs to be talking about cost of living a whole lot more.
- [16:14]
Matt Binder
I think you'll see the president talk a lot about cost of living as we turn the year and into the new year. The president is very keyed into what's going on. And he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround. But all the fundamentals are there. And I think you'll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living.
- [16:32]
Emma Vigeland
All right, so this is, that's really important in my view. That clip. Does, does Trump have the discipline to do that? I don't know. Right. I mean, he's all, he's so steeped in right wing cult, so steeped in a basically a white nationalist worldview. The conspiracism and his lack of connection to reality makes it so that I don't know if he has the message discipline at this point, especially when he's in power, as opposed to being out of power, where he's much more comfortable making critiques to make the argument there. But we should not dismiss that that argument can be adopted by the Republicans. And this is why the buzzword of affordability to return to what I was saying earlier is insufficient. It's insufficient. It does not say what the action items are for the Democratic Party to address something like affordability. It does not talk about taxing the rich in order to provide for social programs. It does not talk about using the government to aggressively build up the capacity for more housing and not just through deregulatory measures or unleashing the private sector abundance style. Having the state have a real hand in this. That is not what the messaging on affordability has come to with the Democrats. They need to center it around something more specific because the right is very, very good. And we've seen this time and time again with co opting Democratic messaging and basically adopting it for their own ends and making the playing field a lot more neutral in that area. So the Democrats have to get specific and they're going to have to get specific in a way that might upset donors. The Democratic Party trying to build this big tent again from Spanberger to Zoron and having affordability be at the centerpiece and it's a step in the right direction. But it's not going to win them the day and win them the argument in the long run because the Republicans will catch up to this. And it was less than a year ago that the Republicans were by default kind of winning this message. It's there to be had if the Democrats choose to get more specific. But they have to do it in a way where Republicans cannot co opt that message. Republicans cannot say that they want to tax the rich to fund social programs, that they want to diminish the power of billionaires. They will not say it. If they do. It's aesthetic. So that can be a unifying message for the Democrats if they choose to take it. And that's how they can actually make the party build up the trust with the American public that they will be the party to take on the affordability crisis. You can't just say we're tackling affordability. You've got to say how because the Republicans are about to say we're tackling affordability. In a moment we are going to be speaking with Abby Martin. But first a word from some of our sponsors. This episode of the Majority Report is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first baked from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, seasonal pastries and fresh pastas. Plus all items conveniently bake in 25 minutes or less. Unlike store bought, Wild Grain uses slow fermentation processes that is easier on your belly Richer in nutrients and antioxidants and it's made with simple ingredients that you can pronounce. Wild Grains boxes are fully customizable and they're constantly adding seasonal unlimited time products for you to enjoy. Like right now they have the tear and share Cranberry pecan rolls, oh my goodness, Parmesan herb biscuits and Apple pie bites. In addition to their classic box, they now feature a gluten free box and plant based box. I got that classic box and those apple cider donuts. I mean, my mouth is watering just speaking about them. They also had this frozen bread that was really, really easy to heat up. 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They're male cats so got to worry about, you know, certain things with like their kidneys and stuff like that. Making sure that they are getting enough liquids. Smalls makes me feel a lot better about that. Still not a believer in Smalls. Forbes ranks Smalls the best overall cat food while Buzzfeed says my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. Matt, I know that your cats also are big fans of Smalls and some of their some of their products as well.
- [24:24]
Brandon Sutton
Yeah, they love the, I mean the gravy on the dry food is just such a treat.
- [24:29]
Emma Vigeland
Smalls also has a bunch of amazing treats and snacks that you can add to your order after switching the smalls. 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. That is a big deal and the team at Smalls is so confident that your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they will refund you or if your cat won't eat their food, what are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time because you are a majority Report Listener. Get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com majority one last time. That's 60% off your first order plus Free Shipping when you head to smalls dot com majority we will put a link down in the episode description and at Majority FM for a limited time, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com majority quick break. And when we come back, we'll be talking to Abby Martin. We are back. And we are joined now by Abby Martin, journalist, creator of the Empire Files, and documentarian behind the new film Earth's Greatest Enemy. Abby, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.
- [26:10]
Abby Martin
Thank you so much, Emma. It's great to be here. I'm sorry that I'm so white. I'm hoping you guys can fix that in post. I'm like a freaking ghost over here.
- [26:17]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, my gosh, you look great.
- [26:19]
Abby Martin
Thank you.
- [26:20]
Emma Vigeland
Did you dye your hair? I mean, not. Not to queen out right now, but, like, it looks really, really good. So, yeah, you probably don't rely on the spray tan lotion that I rely a little too heavily on. So we're evening each other out here.
- [26:36]
Abby Martin
I'm gray, dude, so I'm like, I know. Guys email me all the time. They're like, go back to your natural hair color. I'm like, jet black. That's what you think my natural hair color is?
- [26:45]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Wow.
- [26:47]
Emma Vigeland
You know, also, why are men emailing you about your hair color? That's another question. We can talk about that maybe over drinks at another time. So congratulations on this documentary. Huge, huge deal. And for people that may not be aware, your documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy really explores how the US Military is this horrible driver and maybe the one of the major drivers of climate change disasters. And it goes under reported that the US Military is the largest consumer of oil on the planet. I saw in your documentary, it was, what, 270,000 barrels of oil a day? Let's just start saying, Cool.
- [27:38]
Abby Martin
270,000 barrels of oil a day. No biggie.
- [27:41]
Emma Vigeland
Hard to even fathom that. Yeah, it is.
- [27:43]
Abby Martin
And again, it's like this. The onus is on us. And this is the whole kind of classic interpretation of the capitalist society that we live in. The onus is on us. It's all about individuals. We just recycle. We do our part and we drive our Teslas. Don't forget the Tesla. You got to get the Tesla. But no, it's like. And that's it, right? And they want us to pivot away from the actual perpetrators of this crisis. And, you know, report after report over the last 10 years, we are in a red alert. If we are in a red alert when it comes to climate change, why are we not pointing to the main perpetrators of the climate disaster? And that is not just oil companies, it's not just politicians, it's the entire structure and apparatus of US imperialism, which basically imposes capitalism on the rest of the planet. It pivots countries away from being able to really invest in sustainable, you know, biodiversity. All of these things. It's just all about great power competition and building up the arsenal of weapons, because that's just the consequences of having a global military empire.
- [28:43]
Emma Vigeland
It's just amazing to me that great power competition is still like it is the driver, even when there's even a tacit admission that that war is basically over, that we have to embrace multipolarity. I mean, there's an interesting piece that I keep citing Ida Chavez had last week, just speaking about how the Trump administration, with this pivot to Venezuela and using our war on terror tactics within, you know, the Western Hemisphere is a tacit admission that basically China has won in this way. And so it's like the forces of capital are still operating in the same way, even when we know that the capacity for endless growth, we cannot get there, we cannot reach it, and yet we'll still consume and will still use blunt military force in order to, to maintain those same systems for greed purposes.
- [29:41]
Abby Martin
Basically, it's just collective madness. I mean, it's. It's like what Antonio Guterres says every year at these stupid climate treaties that mean nothing because they don't incorporate militarism, because the Pentagon lobbied for a blanket exemption. And this has been the way through all of these treaties every single year. But like he says, we are digging our own graves. It is absolute lunacy that this is the system that we are operating under. And, you know, you mentioned 270,000 barrels of oil a day. That is the statistic that you hear when you hear the US Military is the largest institutional polluter alone, the oil purchases. And then when you unpack all of that, when you unpack, what does that really mean? You go into the lifecycle emissions, the actual supply chain of the arsenal, of the munitions. I mean, let's face it, the US Military is its own capitalist enterprise. So as you're talking about, you know, as we've recognized the need to collaborate, cooperate on these global crises that are on our doorstep. Instead, we're fomenting war with China, we're bombing Venezuela, we're living in the backdrop of this genocide, this unending genocide in Gaza. Of course, the war in Ukraine still rages on. It is absolutely insane. I mean, the US Military operates like a capitalist enterprise. So basically what that means is that Every year, it doesn't matter if we withdraw from Afghanistan or not. The Pentagon budget needs to continue to increase just like every other corporation. You have to continue to increase your bottom line, otherwise you are failing as a corporation. We know how this works. But it's just so stunning when you look at these Pentagon brass that I'm confronting and they are looking at you with a straight face and they're just like, no, we need the oil. All these other systems need to be keeping at bay, actually, because it's a joke. You can't green a global military empire. I mean, they say it themselves. They're at these panels saying, we need corporations to come and experimen. They have used the military as a battering ram for resource extraction. Now that we're facing a future of scarcity and disaster, they're using the military as the solution for the problems that are going to arise from climate change. They are openly addressing this. So we're in a crazy situation where the military has caused this problem and they're using the military as a solution to it.
- [31:49]
Emma Vigeland
You do have some fun confrontations with folks in your documentary. I like the guy that said, I don't like your tone, you know, I mean, as if that's what's important there. But I mean, you mentioned there how at the beginning of your answer about how the United States exempts basically the military and its footprint from the collection of this kind of data. Can you take us back to the Kyoto Protocols in the late 90s and where this really started? So for people who are unaware of why that exemption exists.
- [32:24]
Abby Martin
Exactly. So everything that the US does operates under the pretense of national security. So basically when you're looking at, you know, commercial shipping, all of these things that, that happen under global capitalism. Yeah, you could argue, yeah, what about the emissions of this? What about the fact that these ships can go into these habitats? No, the US Military can override and supersede basically every entity on earth under the guise of national security. So it can go where places cannot. So under this guise, it lobbied the, the very first treaty that, you know, all of these countries around the world were basically trying to pioneer some sort of stabilizing, you know, curbing their emissions collectively. This was the first instance of that in Kyoto, Japan. This was in 1997. Of course, Bill Clinton, you know, was very concerned about making an economic boom off of this climate conference. So, you know, he's talking about how we got a market oriented approach. We're doing great. All of these people, they just keep talking about profiting off of the collapse. It's quite surreal. But at that conference, they lobbied, Pentagon lobbied to have a blanket exemption on military emissions under the guise of national security. So then every other country just said, well, why are we counting our emissions if the US Military is not counting theirs? So they just said, well, we're not going to count ours. So you've had this backdrop of just completely omitting the actual data, the actual calculations of emissions. How can we calculate our emissions? How can we reach net zero if we are not even counting what the emissions are from the military? And when you look at the actual military as an institutional polluter, and the fact that then you link it into NATO, this entire apparatus of US Imperialism, I mean, it is so gargantuan. The supply chain, the life cycles, it's not just the consumption of oil. It is stymieing the entire world's ability to fight this crisis. Emma?
- [34:20]
Emma Vigeland
Well, it reminds me when you brought up the genocide in Gaza earlier as well, the fact that so many in our liberal media class was very happy to bring Greta Thunberg on their shows when she was speaking about climate change in a way that was palatable to them. But when she made that connection overall to capitalism and imperialism, they've basically either kind of been participating in the smear campaign against her or not including her in their coverage at all. But it's very easy to see how these two things are indelibly interconnected with climate change being an outgrowth of capitalism and the results of capitalist greed and imperialism being of a branch from the same tree. It's not very difficult to understand that if you think about it critically at all. But there's a lot of obscuring of that and even the flipping when you hear this from Democrats, can the United States military be a force for greening the world? What's your response? I mean, you did mention it a bit earlier, but what's your response to that? Because that is obviously not. Does not seem like a fruitful endeavor, to put it mildly.
- [35:32]
Abby Martin
Well, well, as this issue becomes more pressing and as it becomes more just in the consciousness and in the lexicon of American public. I mean, we're talking about a notion that Americans are largely ignorant of the fact that they even live in a global military empire. People seriously think I'm talking about Star wars when I talk about the word empire. They think this is a thing of the past. And then because it's been rehabilitated and rebranded in the wake of 9 11, people just have no recognition of the Relationship of, you know, all these people around the world living under the boot of US Empire, whether it's sanctions, whether it's just overt warfare or proxy forces or NATO. And so, you know, people like Greta Thunberg who have linked these dots are Personas in autograda in mainstream society, because the military establishment knows that this is coming similarly to how Israel knew the writing on the wall. They have passed legislation to try to preemptively curb this consciousness, try to preemptively curb our movements from understanding this. Right. And so the US Military, in a similar fashion, has gone through this whole propaganda effort to basically say, no, no, no, we're stewards of the environment. We're actually fighting climate change. We can be a force for good. And as you see this issue becoming more and more pressing, especially with liberal minded people who care about the environment, because the US military is obviously the elephant in the room, you're going to see more solutions like the Elizabeth War One, which is we can green a global military empire. We can put solar panels on bases and we could, you know, Somehow hybridize these B52 bombers and stuff. I mean, it's absolutely cartoonish. We're not just looking at hybridizing Bradley fighting machines, which does nothing. We're looking at the actual expanse, is the expanse of a global military empire with 900 bases, with virtually no environmental regulations at these bases that are used as toxic dumping grounds and desecrating indigenous lands all over the world. Is that compatible with a habitable future? Is that compatible with the resilience that we need, the cooperation that we need to actually curb the worst of the crisis that we know is coming? No. And that's what we need to challenge the actual premise of empire. I mean, this whole issue of climate emissions. Emma, we went into this documentary just kind of unpacking that and we realized how much broader it was. I mean, every Stone Unturned is another documentary. So this documentary is really taking the totality of two huge existential subjects that no one really wants to look at. US Militarism, imperialism and capitalism and climate change. No one wants to look at these things. But this is why we did a one stop shop, to learn a little bit about everything, to really understand who the real enemy is and why all of these seemingly disparate issues really do connect. Whether it's police militarization here, the ICE raids, the increase of ICE budget, migration, immigration, all of these things because you look at surplus military equipment. Again, the Pentagon being a capitalist enterprise, the military needing just more money to make Profits every year. Whether it's blowing up all their ammunition with the million dollar minute or not. I mean, it's basically just they need to continue to pull in, they need to continue to extract. They've caused this problem. It's absolutely insane, Emma. The level of just contamination of the arsenal, you know, that's what we realized. Just the maintenance of the tanks, of the machinery, the dumping of toxic waste into the groundwater every single day. And that's just what we know is happening here. Imagine the indigenous land, imagine the people all around the world, the sacrifice zones at all of these bases. I mean, it's insurmountable. It's incomprehensible when you look at the totality of this thing. So, you know, my shirt. The US Military is the largest polluter in the world. Will think it's China. You know, China's absorbed most of our manufacturing. We have to look at this with a global lens and a global perspective if we want to actually solve this problem.
- [39:24]
Emma Vigeland
Well, I mean, you mentioned just the sheer number of military bases, nearly a thousand the United States across the world. Compare that to Russia or China. What, you can count them on two hands. Maybe two people can count them on two hands with their military bases combined with. And there is absolutely no equivalence in between, you know, the United States footprint. And it's deliberately opaque really, to obscure that very fact. And the impact on people in these areas. Can you expand on that? Even, you know, military families that have had their drinking water contaminated all the way to folks in Iraq, and then of course, the Palestinians in Gaza, who. The starvation, the genocide, the missing limbs is one thing. Everybody in the Gaza Strip is inhaling just untold amounts of fumes and toxic materials just from the debris alone, let alone the unexploded munitions, let alone all of the other environmental impacts. And what is happening and concentrated in 141 square mile strip of land that has been bombed over and over again. Like this is the health impacts on people, millions of people, for the rest of their lives, for the rest of.
- [40:44]
Abby Martin
Their lives for generations. I mean, this is not only generational trauma, it's generational destruction, environmental degradation. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that the Gaza Strip was actually a really biodiverse wetland. You're looking at the 1.1 million olive trees that were planted there. 1 million have been destroyed. 1 million. I mean, the desalination plants, the, the toxic waste, the contamination, the continuous blowing up of concrete, which is an extraordinarily energy intensive material, and then the rebuilding of that as well. So you look at all these places like Cert, you know, Raqqa, Jabilia and Palestine. I mean, just completely looks like a nuclear bomb went off from the result of US Or Israeli bombing. That intensive, concentrated bombing releasing toxic chemicals that will affect, not just Israelis, the entire planet. The entire planet. There's still dead zones from World War I with those munitions that were used. So, you know, one of the leading toxicologists that we talked to who studied, you know, numerous cities in Iraq out of the fallout of the Iraq war, not only is it completely dangerous, you know, not only is it dangerous to have a child, and there's still extreme birth defects with. With all the children who are born there. It's every single person that's impacted by that, every single person in Iraq is impacted. It's just bullets. You know, she talks about, of course, we know about depleted uranium. We know about the fallout of nuclear radiation. All of this callous disregard for testing from the US Military. But just bullets, small arms and warfare. You never think about the toxic chemicals used from that. You talked about 270,000 barrels of oil consumed. 250,000 bullets are the estimated use for every single person who was killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. 250,000 bullets. And every single time that bullet was shot, it explodes into toxic carcinogenic powder. And I think one thing, you know, you mentioned just everyone being connected, whether we're talking about Micronesia, Guam, Okinawa, Hawaii, US Here, cop city, Atlanta, all of these people were all connected, right? And that's what this movie really is, an incredible kind of insight in Mike being a veteran of the Iraq war, inhaling the burn pit toxic chemicals, that same carcinogens are in the children of Iraq today, or Atlanta Tortuguita getting executed while he's sitting there like Gandhi sitting in a tent, that munitions that were used from the 1997 Congress that passed all the surplus munitions and military equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan and all of our adventures abroad, because they just need to keep making money. And so those. That equipment, that brunt military force is going to be used against us, it's going to be used against protesters here. And we're already seeing the effects of that today. So whether it's the Okinawan people fighting day in and day out, putting their bodies into the gears of the machine just to slow down the construction that's desecrating their ancient blue coral that's taken tens of millions of years to grow, that's just being ripped out for this unnecessary new military base in a place that already has 32 military installations. Whether it's Hawaiians being contaminated by ancient rotting jet fuel tanks that are seeping into their drinking water. They don't care about any of us, Emma. They're killing us all. Whether it's service members, whether it's indigenous Hawaiians, it doesn't matter. It's all about money and it's about short term profit and it's insane. And it doesn't matter what faith you subscribe to, what, you know, what politics you adhere to. We are all victims of this. And that's what this movie really tries to lay bare.
- [44:28]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. And when you talk about, you know, this all coming home to roost, I think it's a good way for us to kind of bring this full circle here because so much of what we're seeing with ICE right now. First of all, ICE is a creation of the war on terror didn't exist prior to the Bush administration. And the machinery that is being used now domestically to terrorize these communities and rip families apart and detain them and using basically torture, torture from the Bush administration era and those tactics on people who are here either without documentation or even with documentation, but if they're Latino, they're potentially subjected to this treatment from this administration. The Black Lives Matter protests and the tanks that would roll through our streets. This excess military equipment that these Pentagon contracts during the Iraq war, they were so lucrative and there was so much excess equipment that let's just give them to local police stations because, you know, they'll have fun with these new toys. That is such a visible example of what you're saying about this coming home to roost for the American people. But, but can you explain even more and expand on that notion with the environmental impacts as well?
- [45:45]
Abby Martin
Yeah, I mean, just that, that whole notion of the imperial boomerang, I mean, of course the tactics and the operations of the US have always been, you know, have always been used, of course, not only abroad, but of course against, you know, black, brown, indigenous people here. So it's not a new concept, but I think the new concept of is this high technological overlap where, you know, similarly to Gaza. Now we're see the bringing home of the technology that's been used primarily across the world. Now, now back to the citizenry here. The environmental impacts, I mean, again, going back to just the operational machinery of having this arsenal, like one flight mission of a B52 bomber is like equivalent to like decades of just someone driving a car. So you really have to wrap your mind around just the, the amount of toxic waste I Mean, and one amazing thing about this is like all of these numbers come from the US government's own data. You know, we didn't even have to do a FOIA request for any of this stuff because they list it all themselves. Whether it's Noah giving the permits to take tens of millions of marine mammals every year and these stupid war games. Just a full frontal fledged war on the oceans. You know, why do I know about Japanese whaling but I don't know about my, my own government's continuous and relentless assault on tens of millions of marine mammals? Isn't that odd? So again, it's just the obfuscation and misdirection. We need to pinpoint the real perpetrators. We need to pinpoint who's really causing the collapse of the environment. Emma. And I think we know it's not trans people and our Muslim neighbors. It's the, the Pentagon brass who's doing this to us. We need to fight. We need to really fight. I mean, I won't have a fighting chance. That's why we wanted to do this movie. We wanted an intervention in the environmental movement. There's so many people out there who care about the planet, right? I mean, everyone wants a habitable planet. We all drink the same water and breathe the same air. So why is it that we don't know? Why is it that we don't understand what is really happening here? And it's just the situation just becoming so urgent and dire, especially with this Charlie Kirk stuff and the political repression and censorship. Telling the truth and speaking simple facts like this have never felt more scary. So it's just so urgent that we get this consciousness to spread and really have a fighting chance to save the planet. Emma.
- [48:06]
Emma Vigeland
Well, Earth's greatest enemy. I can't recommend it more highly. Abby. Where can people check it out? I know it's coming out soon, right? Like this, this weekend. Am I crazy? It is.
- [48:17]
Abby Martin
We're on a nationwide tour. We're not only trying to show this movie. Every single city, every military town that we can, but I'm also trying to bring together environmental groups. We have Sea Sierra clubs hosting it at several cities. Trying to bring together a hub of community groups who have maybe never been in a room together before. And showing them, hey, we are all connected. We are all, you know, they want us to be atomized and isolated. That's the point. We need to get out of our comfort zones and get in the same room with each other and figure out how we can really join forces here. And so that's what we're doing all across the country. I'm going in person, trying to kind of catalyze and orient and motivate people. And then the next phase of the tour will be anyone can screen the movie. You know, it's going to be really, really amazing. I can't wait to get this out there. Everyone that sees it just says this isn't the typical doomsury, you know, climate change thing. This is really motivating me to get involved in the struggle and really fight for the planet. So it's really exciting to hear that feedback. Everyone could check it out. Earths greatest enemy.com bring me to your city. We'll release it online sometime early next year. Thank you so much for having me.
- [49:17]
Emma Vigeland
Of course. We will put a link to that down below wherever people are listening to or watching this. Abby Martin, thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. It.
- [49:24]
Abby Martin
Thanks so much.
- [49:25]
Emma Vigeland
Of course. All right, folks, quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Edinger Mentum. We are back. And we are joined once again by Ettingermentum, AKA Josh, whose latest piece for his Subsack, the Edinger Mentum newsletter, is entitled the Tuesday Night Massacre. Josh, welcome back to the show. It's so good to see you.
- [50:29]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, it's great to be back on. I'm glad to be here for the return of woke, the official return. It's back. Woke 2 has been invented Woke to has been invented by Zorhan Momdani. And it's, it's going to be even bigger and better than the past woke. I'm not, I'm probably going to write an article like titled that, like, I'm serious. It's a real thing. But, but that is more specific. Anyway. How much have you guys talked about the election so far? It's only been like two days.
- [50:56]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, we've talked a good amount about it. We were really celebrating, obviously, on Tuesday night. And here in New York City, it's hard not to be excited about it. But what was the most famous at all? Well, Georgia went. Did well.
- [51:11]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah. We got well, that's the Public Service Commission. Like.
- [51:15]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [51:16]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Still have a ways to go. Yeah.
- [51:18]
Emma Vigeland
But, but what was the most dark woke thing? Was it that guy J. Jones still pulling it out despite the fact that they leaked those text messages? We didn't really talk enough about this. Can you tell people about what happened there?
- [51:29]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah. So in Virginia, so as people may or may not know, Virginia, despite being a pretty like kind of consistently blue state, now it's voted Democratic for president, like, by, like, relatively wide ish margins. In every election since 2008, it flipped red at all three levels. In 2021, right after the Afghanistan withdrawal, all the Raytheon workers were angry that they weren't getting their checks, so they flipped out and they voted for Republicans in that race as a protest. And people thought that'd be, like, the start of the red wave. But then the Dobbs decision happened, and it made them, like, people like, those voters kind of shy away from Republicans a little bit. But they won all three statewide offices. And the way Virginia works, and it's pretty unique in this, is that they have one term, term limits for all of their three statewide elected positions. Governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Well, not. Well, the difference with attorney general is an attorney general isn't term limited. So the Republican incumbent was in that race, was the only one who was in, like, who was the only one who was running for reelection, which is supposed to give you kind of a significant advantage relative to an open seat, especially since he's won before. So this was considered, like, the most competitive race, like, even before the scandal happened. But what happened was that a Republican state delegate in Virginia leaked, for some reason, this guy, Jay Jones, the Democrat running for attorney general, he texted a Republican that he wanted, like, to kill other politicians and see their children die in the arms of their mothers, because that was. Yeah, that's what he. It's not fun. It's very, like, he's apologized for it. He said he's a changed man, but we all believe in second chances. So evidently the voters of Virginia do, because this guy, everybody expects him to lose. He's, like, losing in every single poll. And what happens isn't that, like, he just wins off of polarization. He won Virginia by more than. I think he won Virginia by more than Kamala Harris did. He flipped a county that voted for Trump. So that kind of. That was the closest statewide race of the entire night. So that, like, so you have, like, the guy who was, like, talking like a serial killer and, like, in text messages for no reason, who is, like, putting up the numbers that Democrats like their star candidate with $2 billion of funding achieved last year. So that's just kind of against an incumbent, like, who was seen was one in Virginia before. It's not like. It's like he's running against, like, some, like, total incredible whack job. So that's kind of the baseline for the results last night. At every single race that was, like, contested, Democrats significantly outperformed polling. They outperform expectations, outperformed Kamala Harris by a lot. I think in Virginia and between Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey and Georgia, there were only like a total of like two or so counties that didn't see a swing to the left from 2024. In some races it was, I think, Spanberger. In Virginia, the shift left was as much as 10 points, which is like, that puts you very solidly in blue wave territory. And in New Jersey, the shift left was seven or so points. And that was a race that people thought would be close. There was an unpopular incumbent, Phil Murphy. It's like the kinds of conditions where the Republican can run on a change message that we know have historically been able to break through partisanship in like recent years and statewide elections. Like Democrats were able to win a governor election in Kentucky two times, like, because the state level politicians were so unpopular. But not in New Jersey where, like, the candidate, like, everybody was worried that she was going to lose. She performed exceptionally well. And what I think is really notable here, and there is only, there's some degree to which people are saying this just because it was low turnout. But the big, really notable thing to me that I was really interested in seeing being tested that night was that there were massive Democratic rebounds with Latino voters and young voters. This is the really huge thing that, like, I noticed in Virginia and New Jersey, the two, like, in both states that, like, the areas that had the biggest swings, like in the states were the most Latino counties. It was like Manassas park in Virginia, swung left by 22 points. Passiac County. I probably butchered a pronunciation of that. I'm not a northeastern. Or in New York. In New Jersey, swung to the left by like, I think 16 or so points. It was this county that like, shockingly voted for Trump. It was pretty solidly blue this time. And in New York, I haven't seen people comment on this. There was obviously the mayoral race and Zorhan Data, Zoran did, He did pretty well. He won like a couple in some areas that voted for Trump. Last year he won some Trump precincts even while Kamala Harris won New York by 40 points and he only was winning by 10. So that's a pretty massive, like, difference. If you look at his relative strength in the city. It was, it was a lot more concentrated probably around the working class than Kamala Harris was just because of his weakness on the Upper east side. But you guys had two, I'm sure you know, you know this there, but this is just for, like, people listening. There are two other elections in New York that were for public advocate and comptroller. And in those races you didn't have an independent candidate running against a Democrat. It was just Democrat versus Republican race. So this could have been like a case to test. Well, if like they're literally running on the same pallet as Mamdani, so if he's going to hurt the Democratic brand, then like these people could be brought down a bit and they could like do worse versus their Republican challengers. That's not what happened in New York. I think Mark Levine, the comptroller candidate, got 75% of the vote. Well, I think Kamala Harris last year in New York City got 68 or 66% of the vote. So that's an even larger swing to the left in New York City, the city that saw some of the most intense swings to the right in 2024, like in the entire country than any of the races in Virginia and New Jersey. It's, I haven't really seen like the detailed precinct information, but the swings were particularly large in Queens and the Bronx, which suggests that New York City under like Zorhan Mamdani's Democratic Party. You can trademark that. It's official now. It was, it was exceptionally successful at winning back a lot of the voters who are at least winning back supporting the demographics that swung the most towards Trump, Trump last year. And I think that's a pretty profound thing because if you guys can remember from the lame duck period, there was something of a consensus that the coalition that he built with these young voters and these non white voters was an ideological cultural coalition that was based around anti woke ideas and dissatisfaction with the left and the extreme candidates. And that this was a realigning thing in the same way that Reagan or the New Deal was, but in the anti woke direction. And it's a little suspicious that this supposedly robust ideological majority is completely shifting back in the other direction after less than exactly one year and in response to the economy not doing well and dissatisfaction there. It's almost like the material conditions were actually what determined a lot of these shifts. But I don't know, you could have only like actually just listened to what those people were saying, the like pollsters at the time. I guess that was beneath a lot of the people who wrote about how they were all Reagan conservatives forever now.
- [59:08]
Emma Vigeland
Well, you said a lot there and a lot of insightful stuff. Let's stick with the Latino vote part for a second.
- [59:17]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah.
- [59:18]
Emma Vigeland
Because I'll read from your piece here. Mikey Sherrill won by 13 and improved on Kamala Harris by as much as 60 points in heavily Latino and Asian and Asian precincts. The same is true in Virginia, where the largest shift left the entire state. The largest shift left in the entire state came in Manassas Park, a plurality Hispanic city. You mentioned that. But the Latino vote, that was really important, obviously, to Donald Trump's victory. And in New York City, those are responsible for many of the swings that we saw there. But the fact that that part of his coalition is already crumbling. The redistricting efforts in, say, like, Texas, right, where they're trying to gerrymander even harder than they had before, which could create less dark red districts and more light red districts that lean Republican based on the data that they have. But if that data is based on 2024 and this Latino support is completely falling apart, that is another way that perhaps Republicans are more weak than they appear to be.
- [60:28]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, I think the Texas I want. I was planning on writing about Texas before the election, about how I was, like, kind of more interested in it. And I do. I know. I'm certain everybody listening to this has heard constantly about how, like, Texas is going to go blue, like, in the next election, every single election cycle for, like, 20 years. I will say whatever you want to say about me. I was not that person. I was very vocally anti Blexen in 2024. It was never part of my vision for, like, how Republicans could lose. I always penciled them in doing well in Texas and Florida because the Latino vote that year was just like, there were so many signs that it was going the wrong way for Democrats. This year. We've seen, like, a lot of signs. The Latino vote has shifted dramatically against Trump, at least in some polling. I wrote in the piece that one of the things I thought was so, like, kind of illuminating about the night and why I thought, like, the stakes were so high for it is that in polling right now, you see, like, kind of a consistent average for Trump for the past six or so months, ever since Liberation Day, like, roughly. And the Zelensky meeting and all the other stuff that he did early on that just killed his honeymoon. You see, like this kind of consistent average of where he's down by like the upper single digits or like minus 10 points. But what I always found interesting about that is that that was kind of an average of two sets of pollsters that were presenting completely different realities of the country. There were some Republican aligned pollsters that, like, up until, like, even, I think now still had Trump, but net positive outright, like, approval rating, they had him at like, plus 5, plus 10, like, or like, at worst, like, minus 2. And on the other hand, you had a lot of institutional pollsters like Gallup and AP that had Trump at minus 20. Like, the word, like George W. Bush level numbers with independence, like, completely losing support with young voters and Hispanic voters. And those averaged out to this kind of believable middle ground. But it was two different kinds of, like, political worlds that they were presenting. And what I thought, like, this election, like, kind of had the potential to show was, which of those worlds are we living in? And I think the results that we saw are pretty definitively consistent, like, to say the very least, with the world where Trump is at very historic lows in popularity. Because, like, in, even in 2017, like, a month before Democrats won a race in Alabama because of how unpopular Trump was, Republicans didn't lose Virginia by as much as they did. They didn't even come close to losing Virginia as much as they did this year. I think, like, it, like, their loss that year was like nine points. This year they lost by 15 at the Governor's level. Like, and it kind of tracks with the idea that during Trump's first term and like, if you want to talk about, like, wokeness and the return of woke or woke to Trump's strength was always on the issues that people always say they care the most about. The fact that he was unpopular was really kind of this exceptional moment where cultural issues, people thinking he was like a bad person and a bad leader and corrupt and especially, and this feels like a billion years ago, disliking him as ineffective on immigration. That was. None of those issues were nearly as salient as the economic thing. None of those were like, kind of coalition busters as the economic stuff was. It was kind of just like running up the score with polarization. But the Democrats were still able to defeat him in, like, the span of four years during his first term. Now, the basis for opposition to him isn't is economic much more than it is cultural. The situation is reversed. And if you listen to what people say, like, like, they now dislike Trump on the basis of something they actually care the most about. And you'd expect that to have a more kind of visceral and, like, salient reaction than even the first wave against Trump did. And, like, based on what we saw on Tuesday, that's what's happening.
- [64:19]
Emma Vigeland
And another. This is. I want to read another part of your piece here because this is really important. I mean, for all of the. You also dive into the fact that on the Generic ballot. But the Democrats were somewhat underestimated. And we'll talk about that in a sec. But I want to read this part of what you say here where basically, yeah, Democrats, it's bad news in terms of national leadership, obviously being incredibly unpopular and the national party being mistrusted or seen as out of touch. But in part that's driven by their own voters, right? Like they are upset with leadership and so that's driving Democratic unpopularity. They still have a major problem. But this one silver lining that you write about is really good. Democrats may be able to pull this off because their national brand, although very toxic, isn't particularly sticky. Their own unpopular president, Joe Biden, was seen primarily as a weak leader who represented the past, although the fact that the party ran and supported such a leader is going to be a stain on them no matter what. It's also not that hard to distance oneself from someone like him, especially now that he has left public life. As such, if you give a candidate enough time and enough money to introduce themselves, they'll be able to establish their own reputation as an idealized good Democrat, irrespective of how the national party is seen. I would say Graham Platner getting out ahead in Maine is an example of this, but this part is really. I started. Republicans cannot pull off this trick because Trump has made himself synonymous with the Republican Party. As a concept, this puts the GOP at a major asymmetrical disadvantage when their Trump loyalists are put up against a candidate who is not an incoherent 80 year old man or one of his dead enders, as they were in Virginia and New Jersey. So expand on. That is a silver lining for Democrats branding if they choose to. And they haven't though, Josh, for years decided to say Trump equals Republican. They have segmented it over and over again to pursue suburban Republicans, disaffected Cheney, Nikki Haley voters. Like, they have made it very hard on themselves. But Trump with his authoritarianism is gift wrapping it to them. Trump equals Republican and Democrat equals question mark.
- [66:35]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think Democrat equals question mark is a great way to put it because if you, like you do have in these races where candidates like, I mean, maybe it's changed like to some extent because like, like you have the results that are corresponding so closely with the results like the statewide level top of the ticket and that might be like a case, like to kind of expand on that if you have like a candidate, like I would say like Spanberger or Cheryl. Not really exactly my preferred politicians. One is a literal CIA Officer. But it is true. They are younger. They have experience winning in tough districts. I think Spanberger won an election for Eric Cantor's old seat. It was a very historically Republican district in New Jersey. Cheryl won a seat based on Morris county, which is another ancestrally Republican area in New Jersey.
- [67:18]
Unidentified Guest
So.
- [67:18]
Emma Vigeland
And they have like these Virginia for Cantor, Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [67:23]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
That's what I meant. It's two, both next to each other. It's basically the same thing.
- [67:27]
Emma Vigeland
I understand.
- [67:28]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, that's all. All you northerners look the same to me. Like, I can't tell the difference.
- [67:33]
Emma Vigeland
It's just, I mean, to be fair, Cheryl and Spanberger could be sisters, but we'll put that aside for now.
- [67:38]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
They were roommates. They were BFFs. It's cute. It's a nice, fun story. Or CIA girl boss. CIA girl power. Their BFFs. It's nice.
- [67:49]
Emma Vigeland
All right, I took you off track. Sorry.
- [67:51]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, sorry. Anyways, but they, they are like credible candidates with like compelling, ish backgrounds who can like create. Like, I. And I think that like a big thing with. That we've seen with Democrats, not to go back to the Kamala Harris campaign, because I don't think anybody wants to relive that. But she did improve over Biden by a lot. And what I think is most notable about how she did that was that it didn't really come after she actually campaigned. It came when she became the candidate and people kind of saw her as a stand in for like somebody who's younger and capable and experienced and articulate, unlike Biden. And then over the course of the campaign, she kind of diminishes that. And then she loses her national, her favorability ratings. I kind of saw them as people seeing what they wanted to see in her because they just wanted there to be a good candidate in the race. And the story of the Kamala Harris campaign is that she dissuaded people of that impression.
- [68:49]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [68:49]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
In the case of Spanberger and Cheryl, I think that they might have actually did succeed in being that kind of like generic, like, like good Democrat compared to like the bad Democrats like the Pelosi's or the Bidens or the old people like Schumer. They came off as like a contrast there. So even though the party's brand was very poor, they were able to kind of create their own distinct kind of brand of being a Democrat that people who like including independence, not just Democratic voters, because the party has an image problem across the board. They could say, I think that I don't like D.C. democrats. Like, they're like, like out of touch and incompetent. But, like, these people seem like, pretty capable and that they don't like Trump and I don't like Trump, so I can go with them. And this is different from like the previous kinds of ways Democrats tried to separate themselves. Like in very red states like Arkansas, the Blue Dogs, who would like, try to run on their own brand as Democrat of like a conservative, that. That doesn't really work anymore. It doesn't work for Republicans and like running in blue states either. But that was a case where, like when you had the, like the destruction of the Blue Dogs, like in the Dakotas or like in Tennessee or the south or whatever, that was a case where there really was an ideological shift that was like conservative voters who didn't want to vote for the liberal party no matter what their candidates said. For the case with Democrats now with swing voters, the issue isn't as much ideology as it is with competence and leadership. And that's, it's a lot easier to create your own brand of competence and leadership and distinguish yourself in that capacity than it might be to like, like to fight an uphill battle ideologically. And again, everybody assumes that everything is ideology now. And they sued that everything is like, unfixable. And if somebody does it like a Democrat, it means that they're this hard line conservative on every single issue. But we saw it like in these races, they were able to like, kind of perform at like a pretty like, strong level in spite of the party's popularity. And that's something the Republicans in the races weren't able to do because they have such a. Trump has such a strong leadership style that he like, just defines the brand. He's still around, he's a sitting president, and there's nothing they can really even do about that if they want to. And they kind of Stockholm syndrome themselves, and they're not even wanting to do that.
- [71:05]
Emma Vigeland
And. Well, let me maybe add another theory. Zora Momdani's popularity increase interest across the country. Like, I mean, for all he probably elevated all of these candidates because there are young people seeing him on social media and engaged in politics, even if they're not from New York City. And so I understand what you're saying about it being more competence, at least for now.
- [71:35]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah.
- [71:37]
Emma Vigeland
But there's also the idea that there's a leading younger figure who's saying things as a Democrat that are genuinely impactful to people, even if they're not in New York City.
- [71:47]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, that's how the Democratic Party at least advertised it on social media. If you looked at any of their graphics before the election, they always advertised Sheryl Spanberger and Mamdani. He was considered part of like the team and the coalition. He was the candidate. If you look at how like, like people just like celebrating the results on the Internet, like, who aren't usually tuned into politics, they were celebrating the Virginia and New York City races in the same breath. They saw it as like him defeating Cuomo as the same thing as a CIA officer winning in a like kind of light blue purple. There's a blue state now they like. And I think that is absolutely true in New York City where again, the candidates for comptroller and public advocate were not hurt by the association with mom dummy at all. And here's one final point I will say to that. Every single, like for the past number of years there's been this big perceived crisis of Democratic or the Democratic Party having a voter registration problem where they are hemorrhaging support like in like a voter voter registration in states where you can vote by like, like have a party id. Like they, they like lost millions of votes. Voters in Florida. Republicans have a huge lead there where Democrats used to have a lead. I think they lost their lead in North Carolina. They've lost like their lead everywhere. They've made no gains. But in the big. And that somewhat continued into this year. It wasn't as bad as years before, but like they were, they did have something of a decline in these states. It's this long standing trend. But in New York City, New York State, not just New York City. Over the past year, the Democratic voter registration total increased by 200,000 people, which I think is directly attributable to Mamdani being in the race. And that is the kind of like surge in voter registration. Just the massive electorate shifting, paradigm shifting thing that we last saw in the 2000s with Barack Obama. So when you have like a candidate even in a local race at this point, because maybe New York City is just a case where like it's like becomes a national race because of the way the media covers it, like that can really lift all the boats for your party. And we saw like the, the Democratic candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, they won young voters, they won like young woman by like in like incredible amounts. I think like they, there were some races where like they hit 80% with a young woman, which nobody talks. We don't talk about how they aren't going on rotten.
- [74:18]
Emma Vigeland
Only young men get to be alienated. Young women don't get to be alienated about a racist.
- [74:23]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah, yeah, you're never alienated. I love that odd lot, the odd lots guy. He had that tweet where Republicans have absolutely nothing to offer downwardly mobile people with graduate degrees. They're out of touch with them culturally and economically. Like, just kind of like, like reversing. That is very fun to me. But young woman, like, nobody wants to talk about how people need to go on True Crime podcast to reach out to the young woman. Nobody cares about them. They're just taken for granted. Nobody talks about Dobbs anymore because Trump won by one and a half points after a cost of living crisis. But that doesn't matter. So we have to talk about young men. Everybody cares about us. We're the coolest people ever. But in those races, Cheryl won young men. Spanberger won young men. Zoran won young men by 40 points even though he won, like, he probably outdid Kamala Harris outright even though she won BY like, like 40 points in New York and he won by 10. So, like, and I have seen personally, we live in hood geniuses Democratic Party now. We live in hood geniuses America. Like, you'll see I saw people, like, celebrating the results from, like, like, just places. You wouldn't have seen them celebrating results for Democrats before. Like, NBA, Twitter are, like, stuff on, like, TikTok. There are a lot of number. There are a number of, like, trends there where people are just making fun of the Republicans, like, in the same way they made fun of Biden. Like, this is. It feels like really kind of like a. It's like anti. Anti. Woke, I think, like anti anti Trump. That's the moment we're in the vibe.
- [75:56]
Emma Vigeland
Shift, I definitely think. I mean, at least from a year ago. It's seismic, it's dramatic, and it made itself known in these elections. You had three more points that are just a little bit, you know, smaller. But still really important to point out this third point here. Centrist narratives about the black vote were dealt a major blow. Can you explain that? Because basically my entire time paying attention to politics, the Democratic Party has fetishized the black vote.
- [76:29]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I think I said fetishistic in an earlier draft.
- [76:32]
Emma Vigeland
And has conflated it with the more conservative institutions in the Democratic Party. Clyburn, the Congressional Black Caucus.
- [76:43]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Cope like a black woman.
- [76:45]
Emma Vigeland
Right, Right. But the results, at least in New York City, showed that a lot of what their viewpoints were. Here it is. This is. I highlighted this sentence from you. Pragmatism, not Ideological centrism ruled the day among black voters in elections. That is a very different narrative than what we've been told for 20 years about the black vote within the Democratic Party.
- [77:09]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Yeah. And I would say in a lot of ways, for, like, often as frustrating as it has been to see centrist candidates when states like South Carolina and sweep the entire south, like, it is understandable, like, if you're like that part, like, I don't want to like, speak on behalf of anybody's community, but it makes sense that you want to be on the side and make yourself indispensable of the candidate who's most likely to win. That is by definition as a block, how you consolidate political power the most effectively. And they have been undiscriminating against this. I think in the lead up to 2008, Barack Obama had a hard time consolidating the black vote because he was seen as someone who didn't have a shot at winning. So, like, a lot of black voters preferred Hillary until he won Iowa and showed that he was capable of winning over white voters in a way that like no black candidate up to that point ever had. So, and this happens again in New York and the primary where Zoran. And what's really exceptional about this, and what I like, totally blew my mind when it happened, was that he finally, he gets the youth quake that Bernie never got. And none of the squad candidates running in low turnout House elections ever got. And he also was tremendously successful with non white working class demographics that the left had never been successful with. Like, if you look at how you compare him to Maya Wiley in 2021, or even the combined vote shares of Maya Wiley and Catherine Garcia, the two Auntie Adams candidates, he was outperforming them by like, he was getting nearly three times like the vote share in Asian areas, in Hispanic areas, in like, like South Asian specifically, like, he had, he like practically controlled like the entire, like Bangladeshi vote in places like the Bronx. Bronx, where he made a big point of reaching out. But he did lose black voters. That was Cuomo's base. He, the Bronx was one of his worst counties, if not his word, like his total worst county. He lost the black vote areas in Queens, he lost them in Brooklyn. It was just the same story over and over again. But in this primary, the black vote completely flipped. I think that, like, this time the Bronx was his second best burrow. It went for. He went from not carrying the Bronx at all in the primary to he won it by 12 points when he only won Manhattan by 10 and Queens by 5. Obviously this best precinct was Brooklyn. He won there by 20. But, and this was directly because he flipped the plaque vote from Cuomo. He won across the board in southern Queens and southern Brooklyn. He won across the board and the like. Almost across almost all of the Bronx. He practically swept the entire center of it. That used to be Cuomo territory. And the answer for this is pretty. And like, if he didn't do that, I don't even know if he wins. If Cuomo gets his support with black voters that he had in the primary, I don't know if Sauron would have been able to actually pull this off. I mean, he might still have because the turnout in places like the Bronx was pretty low. But this is. It was a massive shift. I would be interested in seeing somebody map it. And it's for the same reason that he got endorsements from some Hasidic Jewish, like, communities at the very end of the election, like the Satmars. Those people, they saw somebody who was overwhelmingly likely to be elected mayor and they didn't want to alienate that person. They wanted to get in on like being part of his administration and being an ally to him. And it's just a case where like, it's a snowball effect where winning like, begets more winning. Where if you like, are seen as a winner, then more people want to get on your side and then that's how you build like your kind of counter establishment, which I wrote about, like my piece about Platner earlier.
- [80:55]
Emma Vigeland
Right. And also it makes a lot of sense that sometimes you know, that, that there is, if you're a non white community or you know, like the fear of a Republican winning and the pragmatism argument about centrism that was so sticky and the entire Democratic Party really bought into it. But you just need to notch a few wins like with Zoron, and then you start to see like, oh, okay, you can take this risk and still be electable and we can defeat the Republican. Yeah.
- [81:28]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Which is exactly what happened with Obama in 2008.
- [81:30]
Emma Vigeland
Exactly, exactly. And then, you know, just really quickly, cuz we gotta run. But you also talked basically about how your final points about takeaways here. The era of pro Israel forces controlling the Democratic Party is over. And then you also point out that Newsom maybe didn't have the exact night that he wanted with this. Trying to be a springboard for his presidential ambitions. Just really quickly, Josh, if you could expand on those notions.
- [81:55]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I think like he was really kind of just screwed a bit by his election being on the same day as Zoran. Just, just, that's just the way it worked out because he was too successful for his own good to an extent, which sounds weird to say. And I, maybe it might not be true because you might be able to brag about like how much is he won by and he's the big winner and he did stuff and he actually gets stuff done. But he, his big thing that actually got him into a position and like where he was leading in the polling was that he really dominated media attention during the whole redistricting saga and prior to that, to a lesser extent during the LA protest when he was publicly fighting against Trump. And he would have ideally had this election, this election day be one where all eyes are really on him. But unfortunately for him, the east coast, the polls here close at 7pm and 9pm while the polls in California close at 11. And as it turned out, the way that things counted in New York, one Zorratin Mamdani gave his victory speech at around 11:12pm so the period of time that would have otherwise been dominated by a, like the Prop 50 results coming in and how Newsom is changing the map and winning all these voters and like successfully did this was. It was the networks were carrying his victory speech. And don't discount the power of these election nights and like the perceptions they can give. Bader O' Rourke in 2018 lost his race, but because the way the votes were counted in Texas and the way votes were counted in other states, it looked like he was going to win in Texas because the urban areas counted faster than the rural areas. He looked like he was going to win in Texas at the same time when Democrats in states like Florida in 2018 were really lagging behind. So he got a couple good hours during that election night of people and celebrities and like people with actual influence talking about how he's the only candidate who pulled something off and how he needs to run in 2020. And he. That ended up obviously didn't end up working out, but he got, he became like a national star for like, like a pretty prolonged period of time even after his lost purely because of how things happened to go out on election night. So now Newsom is like, not really. This was kind of his last chance for Prop 50 is going to be in the spotlight. There's going to be a number of redistricting sagas that happen over the start of the year. There's going to be one in Virginia where they want a massive majority in the House of Delegates. So It'll probably be very easy to pass, like, whatever they're trying to pass there, but. And on the other hand, Abigail Spanberger, like, to the extent she has national ambitions. I mentioned earlier, the Virginia governors are term limited and they have two Senate seats that are presently occupied. So the only way to go up, if you are the good governor elect, is to international politics. And that could maybe mean a presidential run. I saw some centrist people on Twitter hyping up that possibility. It's very exciting. Poor Josh Shapiro. He was the guy who, like, won by like 15, 20 points running against a nut job and was able to, like, run as the Republican whisperer for a couple of years. But now his spot has been taken. It's. The CIA is once again taking control over Israeli forces, just like they did under George H.W.
- [85:22]
Brandon Sutton
Bush.
- [85:24]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
But I can say that because I can see he was in the idf. Like, he volunteered.
- [85:28]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, no, I know. I mean, yes, but Jonathan Greenblatt would say, oh, he has no Palestine policy, which is very specific language to obscure.
- [85:36]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Everybody in the US has a Palestine policy. He certainly does. But anyways, she won by 15 points. She was literally the first major Democratic win because of how quickly her race was called that people had seen in years by what I call the. The Pop Crave Index, which is how well like election news it does. On Pop Crave, she did pretty well. She got 174,000 likes. Zoron obviously did a lot better than her. But, like, that was like, the big race everybody cared about. So, like, if she's not going to be running to be president, she is absolutely going to be the top of any VP list in approximately a year and a half. So everybody get ready. The CA doesn't die, just regroups in hell. Dick Cheney's got. He's. She's doing it for Dick. This is her legacy run.
- [86:28]
Emma Vigeland
All right, well, we.
- [86:30]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
But.
- [86:30]
Emma Vigeland
But we were supposed to be positive here. That's how we're going to end it.
- [86:33]
Abby Martin
It.
- [86:35]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Well, we've got a socialist mayor elected in New York. I think I can mention that she won by 15 points in Virginia. And, like, maybe she'll be like John Ossoff's VP or whatever. Like, I think. I think these things are pretty positive. At least she. At least she held up. That's the thing I will say with her and this whole group of people is that, like, her and Cheryl, like, they had this dumb thing after the squad was elected where they were mad that the squad was getting all the attention, so they call themselves the badasses because they were all like ex military people. And you know what? That's really stupid. But they can call themselves that now because they at least they won. Unlike some other centrists that I could mention. They pulled up their end of the bargain. They, they hooped, they put up points, they won their races. And it's like as we've seen, as we saw last year, you can certainly have things go a lot worse than that. So, like, fair enough. Yeah.
- [87:28]
Emma Vigeland
Well, Josh, I'm a big fan of your substack. I'm a subscriber. I encourage everybody else to do the same. Ettingermentum on substack. Thanks so much for coming on the show and breaking down the results with me.
- [87:41]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Thanks for having me on. It's always a pleasure.
- [87:44]
Emma Vigeland
Always a pleasure. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of the show and head into the fun part of the show where we will read your IMs, maybe we'll take some calls. We'll see. And we'll be joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder. Matt Lech, though, what is happening on Left Reckoning?
- [88:01]
Brandon Sutton
Yeah, we had a truncated show because Dave Griscom was in town covering some of the fun celebrations of Zelron's victory over at a watch party, including will Medicare Bracko march teach Matt Karp. Other folks, check that out over at the Jacoban YouTube channel. Go subscribe to J. Checkman.
- [88:21]
Emma Vigeland
Go do it. And hello. Let's go, Brandon.
- [88:26]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Hey.
- [88:27]
Emma Vigeland
Hey. What? How you doing? Did you hear that Dark woke is back? Are you excited?
- [88:32]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I am excited. I'm excited for planes to stop crashing. I know that we've had our differences with Woke dark and light, but you know, the things need to get better. Things need to stop falling out of the sky.
- [88:46]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. No, I agree. What's happening on the discourse, good sir?
- [88:50]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I mean, we're still grinding it out. We're still streaming every morning. And you know, I think tomorrow we're going to learn about all the different types of aliens there are currently existing on Earth and also do a few more Mamdani meltdowns.
- [89:05]
Emma Vigeland
All right, that sounds great. We have Bender 2 and we'll bring him in in just a second and we will get a sense of what's happening. There he is. Hey, Bender. How you doing?
- [89:20]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Good.
- [89:21]
Sam Cedar
How are you?
- [89:22]
Emma Vigeland
I'm doing well. What's happening on your end of things?
- [89:26]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Check out YouTube.com mapinder tonight for leftist Mafia.
- [89:31]
Emma Vigeland
Yes. Check it out. Gonna be a fun show. Lots to celebrate. We will do some more of that in the fun half, where we will play some clips, read your IMs, all that good stuff. See you in the fun half.
- [89:48]
Matt Binder
Okay, Emma, please.
- [89:49]
Emma Vigeland
Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.
- [89:54]
Matt Binder
Wait, look, Sam is unpopular.
- [89:57]
Sam Cedar
I do deserve a vacation at Disney World, so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure.
- [90:01]
Guest Commentator
To welcome Emma to the show Thursday.
- [90:04]
Emma Vigeland
I think you need to improve it for Sam.
- [90:06]
Sam Cedar
Yes, please, sir.
- [90:07]
Matt Binder
I'm.
- [90:08]
Emma Vigeland
I'm.
- [90:08]
Sam Cedar
I'm going to pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like.
- [90:12]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
This, and I'll tell you why.
- [90:14]
Sam Cedar
So, was offered a tour. Sushi and poker with the boys. Tour sushi and poker with boys. Who was offered a tour? Yeah, sushi and poker with the boys.
- [90:25]
Emma Vigeland
What?
- [90:25]
Sam Cedar
Tour, sushi and poker.
- [90:27]
Emma Vigeland
Man, Tim's upset.
- [90:29]
Sam Cedar
Twerk sushi and P. Or T. Boys was offered the twerk sushi and that's what we call biz. Twerk, sushi and bulker. Or Tin Boys.
- [90:39]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [90:39]
Sam Cedar
Twerk sushi and we're gonna get demonetized. I just think that what you did to Tim Pool was mean.
- [90:46]
Emma Vigeland
Free speech.
- [90:47]
Sam Cedar
That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about him. I think you're responsible.
- [90:54]
Emma Vigeland
I probably am in a certain way. But let's get to the meltdown here.
- [90:59]
Sam Cedar
Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh, my God.
- [91:02]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Wow.
- [91:02]
Sam Cedar
Sushi.
- [91:03]
Matt Binder
I'm sorry.
- [91:03]
Sam Cedar
I'm losing my mind. Someone's offered. Yeah, sushi and poker with the boys.
- [91:08]
Matt Binder
Logic.
- [91:09]
Sam Cedar
Sushi and poker. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like. Okay.
- [91:15]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I think I'm like a little kid.
- [91:16]
Sam Cedar
I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate 7,000 times, I think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a dick. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but, like, I absolutely think the US should be providing me with her life and kids.
- [91:34]
Emma Vigeland
That's not what we're talking about here.
- [91:38]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
It's not a fun job tour.
- [91:40]
Sam Cedar
That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. Real thing. Willy Wonka's work. That's a real thing. That's that real thing. That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. Real thing. That's the real thing that's offered at work. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. That's a real thing. Oh, I think he might be blowing.
- [92:00]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
It out of proportion.
- [92:01]
Sam Cedar
Real thing that's got offered. That's a real thing. Let's go, Joey. Sushi and poker. Take it easy. Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on live. YouTube.
- [92:22]
Emma Vigeland
Sam has like the weight of the world on his shoulders. Want to do this show anymore?
- [92:27]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Anymore?
- [92:27]
Emma Vigeland
It was so much easier when the majority report was just you.
- [92:32]
Sam Cedar
Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nicks are doing great now.
- [92:36]
Abby Martin
Shut it up.
- [92:37]
Emma Vigeland
Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.
- [92:39]
Matt Binder
That's one of the most difficult parts about this show.
- [92:42]
Emma Vigeland
This is the Pro Killing podcast.
- [92:44]
Sam Cedar
I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet.
- [92:46]
Emma Vigeland
Left his best Violet Tour.
- [92:48]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me.
- [92:51]
Matt Binder
And don't the way Emma has all.
- [92:53]
Sam Cedar
Of these people love it.
- [92:55]
Emma Vigeland
That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it.
- [93:00]
Sam Cedar
She wrote an honest thesis.
- [93:03]
Josh (Ettinger Mentum)
I guess I should hand the main mic to you now.
- [93:06]
Sam Cedar
You are to the right of me on foreign policy.
- [93:07]
Emma Vigeland
We already fund Israel.
- [93:08]
Sam Cedar
Dude.
- [93:09]
Emma Vigeland
Are you against us?
- [93:10]
Sam Cedar
That's a tougher question I haven't answered.
- [93:17]
Matt Binder
Incredible theme song.
- [93:18]
Abby Martin
Hi, bumbler.
- [93:19]
Matt Binder
Emma Viglin. Absolutely one of my favorite people, actually. Not just in the game, like period.