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- [00:00]
A
This is what Walter Benjamin means when he says that fascism is the addition of the aesthetics to politics. It's about feeling good.
- [00:06]
B
Yeah.
- [00:07]
A
And so for this, for Davos, it's about Trump feeling good.
- [00:10]
B
There's like also like the reverse seems to be in play in terms of like, it's a place where you can sort of like fabricate what's going, sort of going. You can, you can, you know, you can. It's a place where you go to rationalize the horrors and fabricate what's sort of going on. And for a very long time, like, you know, the system that has been in play, I think. And this is where Carney is sort of right, which is in the sense of like, well, it's self congratulatory, but we've also sort of like allowed ourselves to kind of as in like, you know, these countries have allowed themselves to, you know, turn a blind eye in order to sort of like, uphold the fiction and to sort of allow the dehumanization of certain people and certain kind of groups and communities while sort of convincing themselves that it's for like this kind of greater good. You know, it's to sort of sustain the liberal triumphalism. But then what happens when like, as you mentioned, you know, these, you know, the senile rapist and you know, his non senile rapist friends take over this power that for a long time, like they've, everyone has had to sort of like, at least profess some sort of belief in. And you know, for them to be like, no, actually it was never like this because this is it. It's also like, you know, the Trump administration is very much one of like the way that we are governing is not going to be like other administrations, but also like they understand what, what the, what the US State is and they understand what the empire is and they understand what its purpose is and they like it and they like it and they think fun and they think it'. And when you sort of see how they react to all the horrors happening in Minneapolis right now, as well as all the horrors happening in Gaza and in the west bank and all the other places where they are sort of facilitating wars, the thing that they will say is, actually this is all good and we should do more of it and if you don't like it, then there's the door and also we're going to invade you as well.
- [01:49]
C
It's because it all comes down to spite. It's just the sort of animating factor in American and I think Canadian politics for the Last at least 5, 10 years has been spite, like scoring points on the other side. And now, and now we're seeing what happens when those people are in charge. And to them, you know, Gaza is just, Gaza is just owning the enemy. You know, not even, not even Gazans, just people at home. The same with Minneapolis. It's like they'll, they'll kill and pepper spray as many people as they like. You know, they'll trick a five year old into knocking on his dad's door and then arrest his dad because it pisses people off. And that's all there is going on.
- [02:33]
B
And I think it's funny as well. And this is the other thing, like, I think, you know, pre, like this sort of period of like Trumpism, they've, I mean, it's not to say that they've been very good at sort of like ignoring the sort of horrors that are at their doorstep, but like, there are strategies that have been in play in order to sort of like never have to address it. So it's like, okay, like, how do you address the fact that you've sort of wiped out the majority of a population of people, stateless peoples, and that everyone sees videos of it every single day and it is not normal for that many people to sort of see just people starving and dying and stuff on a daily basis in that way and for that to never be addressed. Well, the way that you do that is employ that all these people aren't actually human beings anyway, or they're sort of nefarious enemies or whatever. But also, you don't even have to address it. Like, this is the thing. One of the sort of underpinnings of the Carni speech is also this recognition that actually none of the people that have sort of benefited from sort of like tentative US Protection have really had to work out how they rationalize the horrors. They can just arrest or punish or ignore people who have sort of brought them up and sort of criminalize them. And like, increasingly over time, as these people become harder to ignore the ways in which you employ the violent internal state in order to sort of deal with them. But the point is that the Trump administration and the way that it's kind of now sort of conducting policy domestically and internationally is one where they can no longer ignore what's going on, but they actually have to work out a new way of. They have to work out what they actually think and feel about stuff now. Right? And that's quite hard, seemingly. It's quite hard for quite a lot of them to do that. You know, not least our own Prime Minister who, like, is currently just trying to figure out how to sort of survive himself.
- [04:17]
A
Well, he's, he's short circuit without the, without the idea of the UK as a junior partner in the American imperial project in a way that's more close to that project than other European states. He does not know what to do because he is there to.
- [04:33]
B
But also. Yeah, but all I was going to say was also like the media, like, infrastructure that very much is kind of like how Starmer directs policy also has no idea how to deal with this. Like, someone sent.
- [04:44]
A
Well, it's because they know. It's almost. They don't know. They know what the right answer is. Because the right answer is, well, if a bunch of well meaning sandal wearing hippies think we shouldn't be close to the US Then what we should be doing is close to the US because it's all negatively polarized.
- [04:59]
B
Yeah, but if that president is like, we're going to invade a bunch of white people to piss off a bunch of white people, like, they don't. Because I'm just thinking about like these screenshots that someone sent me of like, Tim Stanley comment pieces. Like, and he's not a serious, like, he doesn't like, need that much like, seriousness, but I think it's like, indicative of like, where. Because he is like a notable, he's like a notable columnist.
- [05:19]
A
He's the kind of person that someone like Morgan McSweeney would think is the speaker for real.
- [05:24]
B
So in one week he's just like, oh, we should actually get closer to the US and like, you know, the way in which like, Trump is sort of doing things. He may be brash, but like, he understands like, how the world works. And then like the following week he's just like, fuck, we need to like, get away from the U.S. trump is crazy. And he's gonna like. And you know, his argument mostly hinged on the fact that what it very much seems like Trump is, you know, very close to just like abandoning Ukraine entirely. And I think when he does that, that's gonna be like a real, it's gonna be a real telling moment for a lot of like this particular group of people who have been very happy to sort of ignore the punit, like just ignore the horrors that are sort of taking place in Gaza to now have to recognize that like, oh, no, like the US empire sort of comes for everyone in some form or another. And actually like, the bigger, the bigger, the bigger thing is that like, Trump doesn't Trump actually just doesn't give a shit about British people. And I think for a long time they've been like, oh, yeah, we're going to be all right because we've got like, U.S. protection. And like, Trump really likes Nigel Farage. And, you know, I think this week, like someone senior from the Trump administration briefed like a couple of newspapers being like, yeah, he just doesn't give a shit about, like, Britain or Farage or like any of that stuff. Like, he kind of just thinks you're an irrelevant country, a smarter, a better politician.
- [06:39]
A
For example, hate on Carney all you like. He is smarter than Keir Starmer by probably quite a wide margin.
- [06:45]
B
Well, he's been alive, he's been more alive for a long time as a vampire, so.
- [06:48]
D
Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I actually was wondering this week if maybe this could all have a positive effect on British politics. If essentially this could do for British politics what it did for Canadian politics, which is that all of our hard right politicians are so in bed with Trump and now Trump is basically saying like, I hate Britain, Britain's gay, I'll invade you, like, whatever. And I think the British public are going to be like, nah, nah, don't like this, don't like that, don't like people who like it.
- [07:12]
B
I feel like we have enough self hatred to be like, yeah, ok, they just feel like, yeah, maybe, maybe we are actually really gay. Who knows?
- [07:20]
A
So, but I want to talk about before we time out, because I know Dan's got a heart out. I want to talk about this article I read in the Globe and Mail. This is why you're here, young Daniel.
- [07:29]
C
Hello.
- [07:31]
A
Just for a moment of gloating about total bottleman vindication and then talking about this article they're going to read.
- [07:36]
B
I remember in post.
- [07:37]
A
I remember, that's right. We did an episode with Gary Brescher, the war nerd at one point about Canada's military planning in, like, I don't know, 2021, the High Arctic. They planned for an invasion of the Arctic from Russia or China. The usual suspects of Western military planning. And what the three of us noted was there is absolutely zero consideration that the most likely threats are coming from the south.
- [08:01]
C
Amen, brother.
- [08:02]
A
And here we fucking go. I mean, you know, what is China, if not now, the single most powerful defender of multilateralism globally?
- [08:11]
C
It's funny, I, you know, I went on Radio Werner last year to talk about, like a potential invasion with, with Gary Brescher, AKA John Dolan, AKA the Warner and Mark Ames about a potential invasion of. And I reiterated some of the points that you and I went over. Riley, on the Bottleman episode with John and the Warner community was very split between being like, right on and fuck this guy. He doesn't understand Canada specifically. A lot of Canadians got angry and recently Mark Ames was like bottleman vindicated. And just a ton of people in the comments were like, well, the oaf and OF Overseer framework might work for British Columbia, but it doesn't work for Ontario. And it's just like it fucking frogs.
- [09:01]
A
Total bottle invitation every day.
- [09:04]
C
Which. Which family of oafs has controlled Ontario politics for the last like 15 years? Give me a fucking break.
- [09:11]
A
That's right. So we were right about that. We're right about everything. But I want to talk about this. There's Globe in the article. But the Canadian Armed forces now having to model a hypothetical US military invasion of Canada and the country's potential response. This is from the Golden Mail, which includes tactics similar to those employed against Russia and later US led forces in Afghanistan by the brave hosers of the Mujahideen.
- [09:33]
C
Oh my God. As fucking. If Gord who works at Tim's is going to be like, you know what? I need to be more like the Mujahideen. There's not a chance.
- [09:44]
A
Not going to be a fucking martyr, buddy.
- [09:47]
D
I want turban wearing Canadian Majahideen smoking ash, hiding in culverts.
- [09:53]
C
I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, buddy. These fucking Americans, these fucking Yanks are creating fitna, right.
- [10:02]
D
The fucking Great Satan, eh?