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- [00:03]
Joanna
Classes in session. Oh, guys, stretch before this episode. Welcome to Unlearn 16. Class is in session. Today I have the one and only Lee McGowan. Lee, what. What's your politics project called?
- [00:18]
Lee McGowan
Politics Girl Project. Most people probably know me from my kitchen where I'm ranting away, or the podcast.
- [00:25]
Joanna
I enjoy it. You're never eating anything.
- [00:28]
Lee McGowan
No, I know. I should probably cook something. This, like, trad wife thing is a big deal. I should probably start cooking.
- [00:34]
Joanna
Hop on that. You know, Candace has kind of opened up that door pretty wide and, and so maybe there's a better. We're all being sarcastic just in case we have new listeners thinking she wants Candace Owens.
- [00:46]
Lee McGowan
No, listen, you guys, if you don't know what Joanna's talking about. Candace Owens has a new book where she's holding a sign much like Gloria Steinem on the COVID and it says, make him a sandwich. That's what it says on the sign. Just in case you thought women's rights weren't really under attack. They really are. They just hate us.
- [01:07]
Joanna
Sometimes I think about Candace Owens because obviously she is an intelligent individual. And I think to myself, she decided on her price. She. She sat down one day and thought, I can go on being a Democrat and saying all the rational things and not getting enough traction, or in this political climate, I can go against everything that is rational that I stand for that actually serves me as an individual in the United States of America. And I'm going to choose option B. Yeah, but I mean, do you think have done that?
- [01:49]
Lee McGowan
Lots. I mean, 53% of white women, right. Who voted in, in the last election.
- [01:55]
Joanna
I. I understand there's lots of people. I think she purposefully did it to make bank. Do you think she believe. No. So how many people do you think now milling around the, you know, the alt right sort of podcast world, making bank off this mentality who don't believe any of it?
- [02:16]
Lee McGowan
I think probably lots. But I think much like anything that you're, you're indoctrinated into, you know, like you can make a decision to make bank. I could turn my. I could suddenly change my mind and become some right wing pundit and they could say, look, we changed her mind. These people pay a lot of money. Like Russia was paying people like Benny Johnson and those guys $400,000 a month retainers. A hundred thousand dollars a month for. For $100,000 a video. Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro. These guys are making so much money, it is insane. But you have to, like you said, you decided on your price I guess. But you have to check everything you know about yourself at the door. And I can't imagine living a life where you look at yourself in the mirror and, you know, you are such an epic sellout that I think they have to click over in their brain somewhere and start believing what they're saying. Or no, they couldn't tolerate themselves. I think that is the case.
- [03:16]
Joanna
Yeah, I agree. I think, and I think it's also a slow boil.
- [03:19]
Lee McGowan
Yeah.
- [03:20]
Joanna
You can only say the thing so many times without actually starting to believe them. You know what I mean? So I think, and I think of a guy like Jordan Peterson because I often, horribly enough think about Jordan Peterson and, and how radicalized he's become and where he started. Because I watched those old videos of this kind of disheveled, very, very knowledgeable, the professor standing up there with chalk on his pants or whatever, you know, thinning hair and just the idea to be able to understand clinical psychology and make relationships better. And he's all about making the bed, that's fine. And then, and then the, the, the transfer of that to him and that moment that radicalized him. And I think you and I have to figure out what that moment is for a lot of these people.
- [04:13]
Lee McGowan
Yeah.
- [04:14]
Joanna
I honestly believe the moment of radicalization, it's like the point of a virus. And heaven help me, I don't mean to be comparing this to the Woke mind virus that Elon Musk is trying to eradicate. It's like ground zero. It's the point of contraction, you know what I mean? So I think in that moment there's, there is a switch. And I think it has. We, we have to figure out the value in that switch over moment. Does that make sense to you?
- [04:48]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, no, it does. But I think the thing is, is that the people that lead this, this, let's call it a virus, the, like we started with Candace Owens or the Charlie Kirks or the Fox News or, you know, Jordan Peterson, where he is now. They have made a conscious decision, whereas the people they're talking to are just infected. I don't think they made a conscious decision. I think there were some things in what they were saying that appealed to them. Whether they had. I know I have an aunt and uncle who were like my favorite aunt and uncle ever, and they went straight down the Fox rabbit hole. Love Donald Trump. And talking to them is, is like talking to people who have been brainwashed. Like, I can't. Logic makes no sense to them. You can't say, well, what about this? Well, what about that. And this doesn't serve you. And I think in many ways, it's because they are by nature selfish. They are by nature wealthy white people who have no children. So there's no kid in their life that went like, you sound like idiots. You know, like those kind of people. So they've lived their life in a certain way. They have got to a point where they, you know, they used to like to watch cops that. In the 80s and 90s, right? And. And I was like, okay, I guess, you know, and now I'm like, oh, they just like to see black people being slammed up against cars. Now they watch a show called Border Patrol, which is the same thing, but with immigrants. And I'm like, okay, so your brain was already tracked to believe all this stuff you hear on Fox and you hear on this thing, and it's easier to fall into it. But I don't think it was a conscious decision, much like these people like RFK who know perfectly well that what they're preaching now, the side that they have moved to is completely antithetical to what they know to be true, to what they stood for, to who they were. And they've made a conscious decision. So I feel like they've purposely infected themselves, whereas a lot of the people that believe what they're saying, I think they just were susceptible to the. To the virus.
- [06:50]
Joanna
Following the metaphor. Then guys like RFK Jr. And. And Candace and Charlie, they. They went to the measles party. They said, we're gonna have a measles party. I'm gonna go because I want to get the measles. And then. And then after they contracted, they just went to the movies and the. The grocery store and just saw how many people they could lick.
- [07:12]
Lee McGowan
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And also they got paid to go to that measles party.
- [07:16]
Joanna
Well, for sure.
- [07:17]
Lee McGowan
And they get paid every single time they go to the movies.
- [07:22]
Joanna
How on. Okay, I know we're at a place. We're at a place where there has been this huge push, and I don't know if there's a lot. And I've said this to people. Somebody just asked me who did. I did an interview with. They're like, joanne, are you hoping to change the people who voted for Trump's minds? And here's what I've decided. No, I'm not. If they change their minds. Amazing. I don't think they're all horrible, bigoted, irrational people. I think they were very much led and controlled by fear. But I'm not interested in it because I think the only way you change somebody who is controlled by fear is having something else big, bad, and scary on the other side. And even though I could press those, I'm not interested in that kind of politicization. Here's what I'm interested, and I think this is who the Democrats should be interested in, or intelligent, rational individuals, whatever political party you. You come from. The 90 million that didn't vote.
- [08:23]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, that's where I am, too. I always think, like, you're wasting your time if you're trying to turn what is essentially a cult member at this point. And, you know, they could have fallen into that for very many reasons. Like we said, there's lots of reasons. You were afraid things were genuinely too expensive for you. You really felt like your livelihood had been taken away, which it might have been when your jobs were shipped overseas. These are not.
- [08:46]
Joanna
It's not like Covid was a. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [08:49]
Lee McGowan
These are legitimate concerns. We can't say that they're not. There's lots of reasons you might have fallen down this rabbit hole. And in some ways, you have to give people, some people grace. Maybe not people like my aunt and uncle, who clearly were doing it because they have hate in their hearts sometimes. But there are people who. And I say that with love, but there are people who genuinely don't understand. They don't understand how our government works. They don't understand how it's supposed to work. They don't understand that we don't make laws for EOs. Right? I mean, Donald Trump is just ruling by EO. He's got both houses of Congress. He could easily be ruling through Congress, but he's not, because he knows that his stuff couldn't pass because if anyone has to get reelected, they're not going to. So most people don't understand how it works to begin with. And then it becomes very easy for them to be like, well, both sides are the same. You know, like, everything is like, who cares if I vote? It's always gonna be the same. And now we're seeing in fricking less than three months that it sure as hell isn't gonna be the same. And it's only gonna get worse and worse and worse. Believe me. People like me that spent so much time trying to convince people of what was gonna happen. I did not wanna be right about everything. I really didn't. This isn't like I told you so. I'm like, oh, Jesus, I told you so. It is so bad, and it's so bad so fast. And I think the Only way those people that voted for Trump can even possibly wake up is if they actually feel the pain of what he did after he said he wouldn't do it. The people whose minds we can convince, the people you can actually talk to, are the people, like you said, the 90 million who didn't vote, who thought it didn't matter. And if we even get to 26. Because honestly, at this point, like, when people start talking about the midterms, I'm like, you're out of your mind. This has happened in three months. Like, we need to do something drastic before the summer if we're going to even hope to get to 26.
- [10:41]
Joanna
Okay, what is something drastic look like before we go there?
- [10:45]
Lee McGowan
Oh, you don't have, I mean, I mean, I have ideas.
- [10:48]
Joanna
You have a plan, but before we go there, do you. Can we just talk about the, the, the shutdown or the possible shutdown and then Chuck flipping sides a little bit because even somebody like me who, who's a little bit educated and, and is trying to understand anything.
- [11:06]
Lee McGowan
You are very educated, my darling. You don't get to listening to you.
- [11:11]
Joanna
So we're in this world of like, do we pass a budget? What kind of powers does the President have and does the executive have if no budget gets passed, does that allow them sort of carte blanche to do whatever he wants in this climate, is it possibly enabling and pushing towards what I think he desperately wants, which is to instill some kind of martial law?
- [11:35]
Lee McGowan
It.
- [11:37]
Joanna
Where, where do you stand on that? And if you know sort of a little bit more of that explanation. So just so everybody at home knows who's listening to this rant, as I got a little lost in my own thought, the government needs to pass a budget. So every, every year, the government Congress comes up with a budget. They're going to pass a budget for the next year. We're going to spend X amount of money. Here's where all the money is going to go. And then everybody sits there and, and votes on it. And in order to pass the budget, you just need a simple majority right in both houses.
- [12:07]
Lee McGowan
Well, here's the thing. The Republicans haven't actually passed a budget since, since a long time ago. The last real budget we had was in the 117th Congress when the Democrats were in charge. What they keep passing is what's called a continued resolution, which is like, we will fund the government for a period of time. The Republicans haven't for a long time put out, like, here is where we think we should spend our money. Here is what we should do. We're still working on this three month continued resolution thing. I know it's terrible. It's a terrible way to govern. It's a terrible way to do anything. Where we were here and I think why people were so upset was it wasn't that the opposition party being the Democrats, had that much power or control to stop it. The Republicans have a majority in the House. They only need a simple majority to pass. They do. The Republicans have a majority in the Senate, but because of the filibuster, they need 60 votes in this case.
- [12:58]
Joanna
And so explain the filibuster to everybody listening.
- [13:02]
Lee McGowan
Well, the filibuster, to be clear, the filibuster is a major, I think it's a major problem because it was not written into the Constitution. The, the founding fathers did not say, you know, and if you don't want to pass a bill, you can just talk it to death and then you never take a vote. Right? That is essentially when you think of the filibuster you think of like that old movie, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, right? Okay. So it's like I feel so.
- [13:26]
Joanna
From scandal, you remember when his wife.
- [13:29]
Lee McGowan
There we go. Okay. So the, the concept behind the filibuster was, you know, if I, I disagree so wholeheartedly with this bill you are trying to pass, not just a budget, any bill you are trying to pass, I can get up there on the floor and just refuse to leave. Just talk about why. And really the idea was to change hearts and minds so the public would go, huh? Why is this senator talking so much about this? What's happening here? And we're gonna talk and talk and talk until maybe hearts and minds are changed. Maybe I'm changing other senators minds, maybe I'm changing the public's minds. Maybe there's a shift in consc. Is that is the idea, the good faith idea behind the filibuster? That is not how it works anymore. So it used to be that you had to talk and talk and talk and never leave the floor so they couldn't take a vote, right? Like you, you would wear a diaper, you would do a thing, right? You'd read green eggs and ham like fricking Ted Cruz did. But the point is you make it so they can't take a vote and then the time runs out to take a vote. Now you just have to send an email, right? You send an email and you say we are going to filibuster. You don't actually do anything. You send an email week. See it's incredibly weak. It's incredibly weak. And so what they're saying is to not have a filibuster, you have to get cloture, which is 60 votes, right? And that's where we get like, oh, The Republicans have 53 votes, and they need 60 votes for cloture to stop a filibuster, Even though it's not actually happening. No one is actually standing there talking. They have just sent a little email saying, we are going to filibuster you and you need to get 60 votes. Now, this happened all the time when the Democrats had a majority, right? The Republicans would just refuse to give them 60 votes. They would refuse to give them the three votes they needed, the five votes they needed, the nine votes they needed to get to 60. And so even though the Democrats had the majority, they didn't have enough votes for cloture. They didn't have 60 votes. So they would, like, not get their shit passed. That's why when people say, like, I don't understand. They promised me a higher minimum wage. They have the majority. Why didn't we get it? You're like, because they needed cloture. 60 votes to pass it. And the Republicans were like, fuck you. You know, like, get out of here. We're not giving it to you. Then the Republicans are in the minority. I mean, the Democrats are in the minority, and the Republicans need them to get to 60 votes. So people were like, don't give them the votes. That's what they would do to you. And everyone in the House voted together to not have this bill go through. And then most people in the Senate, even Chuck Schumer himself, was like, we're not going to help them get this passed. And then all of a sudden, he got himself a bunch of Democratic senators to vote with them to give the Republicans cloture to pass this bill.
- [16:05]
Joanna
Okay?
- [16:06]
Lee McGowan
And you go, oh, my God, you are not the man for the moment. Now, his theory, and I will tell you this, I know I sound like I'm going off on a rant. His theory is that shutting down the government is bad. I agree. Shutting down the government is bad. However, the government is already being shut down. We're cutting the Department of Education in half. We're cutting federal parks. We're cutting, you know, we're talking about cutting. This bill itself is talking about cutting Medicaid and, you know, SNAP and all these things. Those are all government programs. So the government itself is already shutting down. Plus, the American public doesn't really understand how the government works. So if the government gets shut down and the Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, they will blame the Republicans, even though the Democrats are like, they're going to blame us anyway. You're like, of course they will. But really, they're in charge of everything. So messaging wise, you could say they're in charge. It's shut down because of them. But we don't have the, like, backbone to do that. You know what I mean? So I understand shutting down the government is bad. That's its own, that's its own story. Let me, I'll come back to that. Put a pin in that. Why we don't have the backbone. The thing is, is that Chuck Schumer's argument is shutting down the government is bad. And the only thing holding back the Trump administration right now is the courts. And if we shut down the government, the courts stop, they stop hearing cases, they stop having these things that are. Yes.
- [17:26]
Joanna
So he can do anything unconstitutionally because.
- [17:30]
Lee McGowan
There would be no court running if we shut down the government. So, like, I understand, I understand the argument. You know what I mean? But it doesn't, I think in this moment, it doesn't matter because we need to say we will not help you with this agenda. We will not help you get stuff done. We will not. Like, they're already ignoring court orders anyway.
- [17:50]
Joanna
Said that.
- [17:52]
Lee McGowan
So I think the gist, like, I just don't think Chuck Schumer has the, the chutzpah for the moment because I really think he's working with the playbook from 1990, when we would reach across the aisle, when Tip O'Neill would go out with Ronald Reagan for a drink. Like, we don't fricking live there anymore. Like, I just, I don't know what planet you're on, but it's not that planet. Right? So I think the thing is, is at this moment, every single corporate Democrat, every single Democrat that makes money from every single Democrat that's been there for 40 years and has a sweet deal and free airline travel and lifetime pension, those guys need to take a back seat or they need to take a hike and allow the young fighters who don't take PAC money and this kind of people to come in and really speak for the people. Because the people of America, most of us, the majority of us, are so angry and we're watching our country devolve and we feel like there's nothing we can do.
- [18:49]
Joanna
Wouldn't this have been, is it illegal? Or, you know, you said you can send an email now for a filibuster Would it have been a moment to have a throwback to Mr. Smith goes to Washington?
- [19:02]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, the same thing.
- [19:05]
Joanna
And talked and educated. The use that time to educate every single aspect of civic policy, of governmental regulation, of why we don't want to shut down. We, we don't want to shut down because if we shut down, then the courts go down. If the courts go down, then this dictator has no, no leash whatsoever and explaining it right from the ground up. Wouldn't have that been the time. Give the mic to AOC and Jasmine Crockett and let him go. Let him wear diapers.
- [19:38]
Lee McGowan
Well, this is, this is what people are asking for. Now listen, Jasmine Crockett and AOC would have to do that speech from outside of the Senate. If you're going to do a filibuster inside of the Senate, they're House members. But you, an Amy Klobuchar there going into a Bernie Sanders, going into an Elizabeth Warren, going into, you know, a Chris Murphy. Those people are ready to fight if you're not ready.
- [19:58]
Joanna
Because a couple of those people I don't think can last so long.
- [20:02]
Lee McGowan
I love Chris Murphy.
- [20:03]
Joanna
We need some younger senators. I know.
- [20:06]
Lee McGowan
Well, this is the thing. You see these senators who are 76 years old and I don't think this is ageist. I don't think this is ageist because Bernie Sanders is kicking ass right now and he's old and like Donald Trump is old and he's doing his thing. Right. Like it's not about age, it's about energy level. Right. Like, are you ready? And we have 78 year olds.
- [20:24]
Joanna
She can't stand. There's no way she could be up there for hours and hours and hours. I mean, you, you have to acknowledge a little bit of that. But you're right. So we need, we needed people in the Senate that had the same fire. Now, I guess once they have the votes, they have the votes. I'm super disappointed with John.
- [20:44]
Lee McGowan
I know.
- [20:45]
Joanna
Like, did you put on that suit just to be an ass? It's like you changed your shorts and all of a sudden you turned into a Republican.
- [20:57]
Lee McGowan
I mean, here's the thing. I've heard two things about him. Either he's taking money or his wife was an undocumented immigrant for a while. And so the Republican side is. So he's either a sellout or he's protecting his wife because they've threatened to deport her. Which is not beyond a Stephen Miller move. Like, if you look at what's happening right now, I think people don't understand that what we are looking at right now in the States. And I say this as someone who is vocal and outspoken, and I'm genuinely nervous. I'm genuinely scared that they're gonna pick me up one day and send me off to El Salvador and no one will be able to get me. And this is very gulag Russia stuff. And it is exactly what's happening here and exactly what these sadists want. I'm not sure if you recently saw the head of ICE on tv, but he was like, I don't care what the judges say. I don't care what the courts say. I don't care what the leftists want. And I was like, the leftist? You mean people that, like, follow the Constitution? He's like, we'll take who we want, when we want, how we want. And I was like, like, does anyone hear those alarm bells? Because that is terrifying. That is scooping people up in. In their daily lives. And it doesn't matter if they are a green card holder, an immigrant, a citizen at this point. They will take anybody, and people need to wake up. Like, I keep thinking, if you are the super rich and you thought that this administration would be great for you because you'll get lower taxes or less regulation, do you want your kids living in a world in which you can just be scooped up anytime? Do you want your kids living in a world where people are dying and helpless and have no jobs and have so many guns? Is that how you want, want your country to be? Like, how rich do you need to be? Question mark?
- [22:43]
Joanna
Well, that's a, That's a great question. My, My, my other question is that. What's his name? Human Whoville.
- [22:50]
Lee McGowan
Yeah.
- [22:51]
Joanna
Yeah, that's Obama's guy.
- [22:54]
Lee McGowan
Tom Hooman.
- [22:55]
Joanna
He, he was in the Obama administration. I go. I. Somebody mentioned it and I went back and under. Yeah, he was. He did. Look him up. Look him up right now. Yeah, because he was a part. Not, not this level, but he was in Obama's administration. Not like as a. At a FBI level or at a. Do you see?
- [23:19]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, I'm looking him up. Hold on. Yeah, I want to know about Tom Homan, Border czar. Border czar. No one should be called a czar in the United States of America. I'm sorry.
- [23:34]
Joanna
Well, it's just absolutely ridiculous.
- [23:39]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, we're going to look up Tom Homan and we're going to look up Obama.
- [23:42]
Joanna
Any connection to Obama? Yeah, he was appointed by President Barack Obama's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Executive Associate Director. Holy crap. That's A long title of enforcement and removal operations in 2013. Here's my question. How. Why on God, why is a guy like Obama not speaking on this or Bush or any of them? Why not opened their mouths at all?
- [24:14]
Lee McGowan
That's what I wanted.
- [24:15]
Joanna
Michelle Obama, right now, love her, for the love of God, if she would have just run for president, we wouldn't be in this situation. Harris, I love you. I wish you would have won. I'm just saying, you decided you're sitting here doing a podcast with your brother while the world is crumbling and it's not political.
- [24:37]
Lee McGowan
I know, I know. Listen, here's the thing. I think Michelle Obama has frickin had it with the American government, Period. The end. And I get it, I get it. I think she's just sick to death of everything. And I think they destroyed her for years. And she's like, you know what? Fuck all y'all. And I kind of get that Kamala Harris, I believe, should be saying something because she ran for fricking president and how many of us voted for her? And she's just like awol, you know what I mean? I'm not saying you can't go to a Broadway show. I'm saying you also have to be like, this is ludicrous. If I was president, this would never be happening.
- [25:09]
Joanna
Stand up.
- [25:09]
Lee McGowan
Donald Trump never stopped running. He lost an election, said he won, and then ran four years on. I would be better. And she's just like, out to lunch. I did a rant a while back if people didn't see it. And it's called where are our Leaders? And I was like, it's not just people like Kamala Harris. And it's not just old presidents like Obama and Bush and, you know, like, even vice presidents like Dick Cheney and. Well, Dick Cheney was head chief of staff, but Quayle, who helped Pence, and Pence himself, who's been more brave than half the Democrats, and also like ex head CIAs, ex head FBI's, you know, ex chief Joint Chiefs of Staff, guys like the military guys, they should all be standing up. It shouldn't just be like, podcasters like me. You know what I mean? It should be big, huge leaders. Because we will follow you. We will follow you. Now, between you and me, I hope the military is paying fucking attention right now because their job is to follow the Constitution. They take the Constitution and they're.
- [26:09]
Joanna
Yes.
- [26:10]
Lee McGowan
And there have been. There have been military officers who have been online saying, we do not, you know, if we are asked to do something unlawful, which is what you were speaking to earlier, which is about, like, Donald Trump is chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit for military rule, for, you know, to declare martial law on us. And that's why in some ways, people are like, why aren't Americans in the streets? I'm like, first of all, we are. Secondly, it's a lot easier to show your, you know, your dissatisfaction with your government in hungary, which has 40 million people total, and it takes everybody maybe three hours total to get from the farthest part to the capital, right? For us, America has 330 million people. Most people have a job. Most people can't just fly to D.C. it is a lot harder. So you see all these things happening. First of all, they don't show up on mainstream media. But secondly, this man is dying for us to look violent so he can declare martial law on us and then, like, fire on us and terrify us. But the question is, what does the military do? Like, Trump was talking about sending the military into Chicago to arrest the mayor of Chicago right? Now, that has not materialized. But I know that a lot of military watchers were watching that and saying, like, okay, watch what happens here. Because if he does send the military, the military can either, A, decide not to follow that order because it's unlawful, B, find themselves up against the National Guard from Illinois, right, which would meet them at the border. If you were coming to, like, just haphazardly attack, then it's, do American soldiers fire on American soldiers or do they back down? Right? So these are questions that I think we're going to see the answer to in the next three months. When I said before the summer, I mean, this is the shit I think we're going to see. And I don't mean this because I want to see this. This is an absolute travesty, nightmare. But the more he ignores the Constitution, the more he ignores court orders, the more he ignores this kind of thing, the more. The closer we get to some sort of a military action, because either he's going to have to use it or we're going to have to use it. And then the question becomes, does the American military support the unconstitutional president with his unconstitutional orders, or do they support the rule of law and the Constitution? And then who steps up as the leader of the military? Question mark?
- [28:33]
Joanna
Listen, when I said I did a video where I said six months, and a lot of people think I have secret information, which I think is hysterical. But my bottom line. My bottom line is I am betting on the men and women in the American military. And, and a lot of people be like, oh, no, they all support Trump. And I'm like, look, he's becoming more and more of a warmonger every single minute, every single minute. And all of these, all of these service people who have served and have gone to maybe wars where, you know, they think they shouldn't have gone, he's upping the ante in all those areas. He's succumbing to Putin. Everybody and their brother knows it. It's not even a question of debate. And all of these people, for their entire lives, if we're going to talk about how they've been taught and trained, it is an anti Russia, anti communist, anti authoritarian manner. And I'm going to bet on them. And, and in my head. Have you ever seen the movie the Siege?
- [29:42]
Lee McGowan
No.
- [29:43]
Joanna
Lee. What, you're gonna watch that movie? Denzel Washington, Annette Bennett.
- [29:50]
Lee McGowan
I'm writing it down. The Siege.
- [29:52]
Joanna
The Siege is like a late 8, late 90s. Here's the premise. The, the premise is terrorist attack in New York, which is kind of weird because it came out in 99, so 98. So it's like, what did they know? Anyway? Terrorist attack in New York. And then there was subsequent attacks, so not as big as nine, 11, but incremental. And there was like four attacks. And they instantly institute martial law. The head of the military is Bruce Willis, so. So they, they target Brooklyn because of the ethnocultural demographics of Brooklyn. They cut off the bridge, they go in, and Denzel Washington's head of the FBI and said, don't do it. Don't put the military on the streets. That's our job. You can't put the military. The military says, don't put us there. We're not. That's not our business. But once they're in, you can't get them the hell out.
- [30:47]
Lee McGowan
Right?
- [30:48]
Joanna
And there's this scene in the movie, and you'll. I don't want to ruin it for you, Denzel. In opposition to Bruce Willis saying, what are you going to do? Are you going to make murderers out of these men and women? Is that what you're going to. Because that's what you're going to have to do now. Is that what you're going to do? And I feel as though we're going to have our Denzel moment. And I believe we have far more Denzels than we have, you know, blind, just following orders. People of our military.
- [31:22]
Lee McGowan
Listen, I agree with that. And only because if you look at who Trump has put up to Run his cabinet, who he's put up to run the FBI, who he's put up to run the military. It's not because he has a huge backbench of massive talent and brilliant leadership and strategy minds. It's because these are the people that will do what he says without saying what. Like that's he's hired based on loyalty, not based on skill or devotion to the United States or devotion to the rule of law. In fact, many ways, he's done it for the exact opposite reason. Right.
- [31:58]
Joanna
So, yeah, hire. Many people would call them, many would say, just saying.
- [32:06]
Lee McGowan
But listen, here's the thing. You were saying that you people think you have some sort of secret information. Then you said, you know, they made this movie before 911 happened. Like, what did they know? And I'm saying, here's the thing, you just need to pay attention. You pay attention. Brilliant writers pay attention to the way the world is and they go, this is the logical next step. Right. So for you to say, I think it's going to come down to the military, that is the logical next step because it's not going to happen politically. We can see, first of all, the Democrats leadership is absolutely not up for the challenge at this moment. I think you will see a major sea shift, but it's not going to be political because this man is ignoring politics. He's not doing business as usual. He's not following the Constitution. And every day it gets worse. And these people are sadists. I mean, truly sadists. It's too much to, to get your head around because you go, well, what would I have done in 1938 in Germany? You're like, yeah, people can't get their head around it. It doesn't feel real. And it is real. But like you said, there are so many more people. I wish they were speaking up, but there's so many more people that I'm hoping are having these conversations behind the scenes that it's like there will be a tipping point where in many ways I'm, I'm thinking if I was a logical person and I had power, I might wait for it to be a tipping point where the people who support him, the people who had his back, the people that would take up arms, you know, January 6th style, are so angry because they lost their Medicare, so angry because the veterans have been defunded, so angry that they lost their Social Security, so angry that they're losing their homes, that they are not going to fight for the person that did that to them. And then all of a sudden an alternative comes in and God bless us. Like, our best case scenario at this point is like a Brazilian style military coup, right? Like, and then we're, we're militarily occupied for the next 10, 20 years until we can get our shit together, then have elections again. And that is what happened in Brazil. Literally. That's our best case scenario at this moment.
- [34:18]
Joanna
Like, let's play it through. Let's pray everybody's listening to us having coronaries. Let's play it through.
- [34:24]
Lee McGowan
That don't have a coronary. It just. Life is weird. Life is weird.
- [34:28]
Joanna
Let's jump into Obama. I like to say Obama because man, do I miss that man more than any man.
- [34:36]
Lee McGowan
On the, you miss the calm, calm int. Miss sleeping at night, missful sentences.
- [34:43]
Joanna
But so, so let's say he's doing, he's having conversations. Him and Bush, let's just go, I.
- [34:50]
Lee McGowan
Do not think Bush is doing anything. I think Bush makes money from all of this. I think he's the last person that's going to get involved, unfortunately.
- [34:56]
Joanna
Let's, let's hope that conversations are behind, being had behind closed doors with ex military, with military right now, with people who still don't support yada, yada, yada. Push comes to shove, Trump says the military is going into Chicago. The military says, or you know, Illinois puts up their National Guard and the military comes face to face with the National Guard in Illinois, then what? Let's say, let's say Trump's military, right, the federal military go, we're not shooting these people. This isn't constitutional. We're putting our guns down. Then what happens?
- [35:35]
Lee McGowan
Then you have to turn that military on Washington and they have to take over because you, if the military won't follow the commander in chief, you have to replace the commander in chief. And if the commander in chief is telling the military to do unconstitutional things, I think the thing is that people have to understand is that we only have a president based on the Constitution. We only have these, these representatives based on the Constitution. The rule of law only exists because of the Constitution. If you ignore the Constitution, if you tear up the Constitution, you are also no longer in power. Your power is dependent. It's like we all agree money only has value because we agree it has value. Right? The president only has authority because we agree he has authority, but his authority is based in the Constitution. If you remove the Constitution, you are no longer our leader because that is not how the system works. And if the military said, we're not firing on these people, we ignore the orders of Our commander in chief, then the only next step is not to put your guns down. It's to turn your attention.
- [36:38]
Joanna
Do you think in that moment there's a possibility. I'm always trying to be the optimist.
- [36:43]
Lee McGowan
Oh God.
- [36:45]
Joanna
Of him walking out of him saying, okay, I'm done. Trump.
- [36:49]
Lee McGowan
Here's the thing. Trump's. Trump's never leaving. He's never leaving. He's not leaving in 28. He's not leaving because if he leaves, he's going to jail. The man is a criminal. He is a criminal. He is an international criminal. The very best we could hope is that he gets on his plane and goes to Saudi Arabia and never comes back. But that's not going to. He's not going to do it. He's. He has too many people from Cash Patel on who are willing to take his enemies out, shut down news stations, round up anyone that disagrees with him.
- [37:21]
Joanna
Willing to do that. But I don't think the FBI is. Do you understand?
- [37:25]
Lee McGowan
I do understand.
- [37:26]
Joanna
More loyal leaders with zero intelligence, zero cachet with those people. Those people don't like him. They don't respect him. And it's the same with, with friggin Pete Hegseth. You, you, you decided to disrespect the military so horrifically, right? So horrifically by putting this piece of garbage in charge. You think they're going to listen to him? When push comes to shove, that's just going to be another reason where they're like, oh, that's not the guy. Because if we're behind that guy, then that's how we have to go invade Panama. That's how we have to go to invade Greenland and Canada and wherever else.
- [38:06]
Lee McGowan
And send military troops, boots on the ground to everywhere to go to Gaza and make Trump of the Middle east, the, the Riviera of the Middle East. Like, we want American soldiers to mass murder people so we can build a beach resort. Like, there has to be enough people that are like, yo, nah, you know what I mean? And like, I think we, we forget. Like, yeah, we put Pete Hegseth in charge of the military very much so he could ask him to do stuff that the military would say no to. Mark Milley, Mark Milley had that job and he said, can we just shoot the protesters? When he did that photo op with the Bible and they ended up, you know, smoke bombing all the protesters and he was like, no, we can't shoot the protesters. He was like, well, just in the legs and he was like, no, we can't shoot the Protesters, right? Like, that was Mark Milley saying that, right? Pete Megseth would be like, sure, go like shoot him in the legs. What do I care? You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, would all of the military do that to American citizens? And that's the question. And I think a lot of people don't realize that that's where we're at. Most of us are like, I'm willing to fight back, but like, show me a leader to follow. Show me someone to follow. Like, I'm just, you know, this girl in my kitchen, or I'm just whatever. That's why I think groups like indivisible and move on, they're actually doing on the ground work that you can follow to fight back. But in the meantime, you're like, what do we do next? What do we do next? And I think what we do next is, yeah, this is it.
- [39:32]
Joanna
Wait for that. Who do you think will rise?
- [39:36]
Lee McGowan
Here's the thing that's interesting is that crises moments often bring out leaders we did not expect at all. Right. Like, even in the Canadian election that you guys have coming up, like, I wouldn't have said Mark Kearney was going to be coming out. You know what I mean? Like, I just thought you guys were screwed and you were going to elect, you know, the, the Elon choice. When I was home at Christmas in Toronto, my friends were like, Trudeau's done.
- [40:01]
Joanna
Like, yeah.
- [40:03]
Lee McGowan
And, and, and I was like, oh my God, this is. You guys are going to choose the same thing we did. You're going to choose exactly the same thing. The Russian backed candidate who's anti democracy, who will literally destroy. Like, you're going to do that. And then Trudeau honestly, patriotically stepped down and put in like a banker. Right. Someone that if you are a classic conservative, could potentially go, well, I don't want to vote for this.
- [40:26]
Joanna
Yeah.
- [40:27]
Lee McGowan
You know what I mean? But like, you don't know where these leaders are coming from down here. To me, it would be great to see someone like AOC rise because she really is a leader. She's an actual leader. She's unafraid. Your Jasmine Crocketts, your AOCs, your Maxwell Frost. You know, I was a Warren Democrat for a million years. I was like, the woman's just smart. She's just smart and organized. You know, she's wonky, but like, I'd love her in charge of our money. Like, it'd be great. She started the Consumer Financial Production Bureau just to like make sure we weren't all getting ripped off all the time. And Trump comes in and shuts that down just to make sure the corporations can rip you off. Just, that's, that's the goal. But like there are people here, but I think there's also going to be people that we don't even know right now. People that just stand up in the moment. Like, I think it's very interesting that Pete Buttigieg decided not to run for Senate. He was going to run for governor of Michigan, then he was going to run for Senate, and now he's not running for anything. And I go, hmm, he's got another plan. Right? There are people out here that are testing the waters and they're all young, well spoken, non wonks. And those are the people I want to see. I do think that the base of this country is furious. I will tell you that. I think we need more than anything a Democratic Tea Party. I think we need a party that is pushing the Democrats from the outside. Like that's primaring people like Chuck Schumer. That's primaring people that vote against our best interests. That is just as annoying as the Tea Party was to the Republicans. You know, like John Boehner quit as speaker of the House because he couldn't take the Tea Party. Right. That is what the Democrats need if we're getting to an election. But what you and I were discussing earlier, we have to hold up on that.
- [42:15]
Joanna
Can I tell you who I wanted?
- [42:16]
Lee McGowan
All right.
- [42:17]
Joanna
Can you guess? It's a he. I know that's odd because.
- [42:21]
Lee McGowan
No, no, it's America. We hate women.
- [42:23]
Joanna
It's all right when you choose a woman. Yeah. Because I would have chose Michelle. I, I, I, honest to God, listening to her speak passionately, intelligently. She's better than Obama.
- [42:37]
Lee McGowan
She is. I was at the dnc. There's like, I was there for all the nights. I was there for the whole thing. Her speech was far and above the best one. And then closely followed, if I may, by AOC speech.
- [42:49]
Joanna
But she's, you know, busy doing a podcast about her child and she hates.
- [42:53]
Lee McGowan
The government, maybe her husband.
- [42:56]
Joanna
Are you ready? And if he's listening, just so every knows, it was my idea. John Stewart.
- [43:05]
Lee McGowan
Oh, I have heard this from some people. Tell me why Give me your whole spiel?
- [43:11]
Joanna
Because. Sell me on Jon Stewart because I think he's incredibly intelligent. I think he has a wit and a charm about him that is necessary if you want to pretend as though you don't need wit and charm and charisma to run a country. And and be like you do. You do. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. That's just the way it is. I've watched him get. Have you seen him speak about vet veterans to the, to the Senate? Like, I've watched him very calmly, in a very collected way on his podcast and when he interviews people take down governors of states when it comes to their trans policy or when it comes to their anti DEI perspectives. And he has a boatload of money I don't think he gives a crap about anymore. And I honestly believe he just wants to say what is right and what is true.
- [44:04]
Lee McGowan
True.
- [44:05]
Joanna
And he's not been in the mix, right?
- [44:07]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, well, I mean, I, I have heard people say that because he's unafraid. And, and I do agree with you on charisma. And I do agree with you, like, at the end of the day, this is a different medium. It's like when people said fd, you know, like FDR couldn't have been president in the land of television. Right. Once you saw him, it would be different. Right. If I'm listening to a Fireside Chat on my radio, that's totally different. But once you get into the era of television, it has to be a different leader. It's how we ended up with a movie star as president. Right.
- [44:40]
Joanna
A lot of people elevate JFK to being a saint. They are morons.
- [44:46]
Lee McGowan
But he was sure, sure good on tv.
- [44:48]
Joanna
Pretty. And he comes from. But he comes from a criminal family. The Democrats and Republicans alike believe that his. The election was bought. He didn't really accomplish anything while he was. I understand. But, but that allowed people to, to have delusions of what he could have done, not what he did. And this, the only reason RFK is anywhere near any of this. It's delusions of Camelot and, and then, and then you, you elevate the worst the Kennedys have to offer to some degree of, you know, Prince in this kingdom. We are obviously watching Get Built and, But, but charisma matters. But I've always thought charisma and intelligence, in the absence of intelligence, you'll just take charisma.
- [45:41]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, but at least Jon Stewart is incredibly brilliant.
- [45:44]
Joanna
But he's smart. I think he's smart. I think he gets it. I think he can understand common issues. Like I said, he keeps his cool under fire. I know he's not in government right now, but then he doesn't have the stain of government right now. Yeah, he doesn't have the stain of the Democratic Party because even if you're on the right side of the Democratic Party, even if you're an aoc, even if you're a Jasmine Crockett, even if you're a Pete. There's a bit of a stain.
- [46:13]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, that's why I said we need a, like a Tea Party, because we need, we need to offer people something that isn't. Because here's the thing, at the end of the day, you're not getting a third party that works. It's just not how the country is set up. We don't have time to get someone on every single ballot in every single state and change a new party and start a Freedom Party or the Green Party or the Independent. It's not going to happen. It's going to be a Republican or a Democrat. So what we have to do is have. Anyway, it's just the way it is. It's just the way it is. But we need to have a way for you to run on the Democratic ticket without being being stained by the Democratic stain, which is what you're saying. And I know people that want to run, you know, in certain offices and they're like, I can't run as a Democrat. I can't run as a Democrat in South Carolina or in Alabama. I can't run. It's like, it's like a poison pill. And so I, I believe we need something that is like, I think it should be a common sense movement, because I think that's what we should be talking about is like common sense. Does it make any sense that you work a full time job and can't afford your food? No, that's like, it doesn't make any sense. Right. Does it make any sense that, you know, I want people to be thinking in common sense fundamentals. But I think we need a common sense party. And you can say I'm a common sense Democrat, like, I'm not a Democrat Democrat. I'm perfectly happy to like ream on Chuck Schumer. I don't need the DNC money, I'm getting money from the Common Sense Party. And, and you're like, yeah, I'll run as a Democrat because it's like, I'm not a fascist. And the other choice is this. Right. But I am for X, Y and Z. And that's what I think we need people to have. I think they need to have something else to run on that isn't the Democratic brand, which I think is dead and sick and dying.
- [47:45]
Joanna
But the problem is in that capacity is you end up just splitting the left vote. My Question is this. If you did that, could you get the 90 million to buy in? Because if you're just going to split Harris's vote, just hand it over.
- [48:02]
Lee McGowan
But you're not splitting the vote. It would be like you would run in a primary as the common sense candidate against. Against the corporate Dem, Right? And hopefully you would win the election to run against the Republican. Then you're a Republican against. Yeah. And then once you get into the. Once you get into Congress or you're a governor or whatever, you then push against your own party as well as pushing against the Republican Party. You say, actually we're here for a higher minimum wage. Actually, we're here for universal health care. When you talk to com. Regular Dems, they're like, don't mention universal health care. Don't do it. And you're like, like, why? Not Everyone needs it. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you want to talk about getting that 90 million, what are we talking about? It's like, oh, well, you know what we could do? We could, we could offer. We could offer tax credits to surgeons that do surgeries for free. And then we could sort of. And you're like, what are you talking about? We're one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn't have some form of universal health care. And we pay more than any other country for less service. And we're the only country in the world where over 300,000 people a year go bankrupt for medical bills. Right. Like, we're the only country that's dumb. Let's change that. It's ridiculous.
- [49:08]
Joanna
I have spent hours, A, trying to understand Obamacare, B, trying to understand why that last stat you said is true, which is you pay more money per person in. In medical care and you still don't have universal health care care. Is it simply just because you're still allowing insurance companies, rather than collectivizing the insurance company to be. You now have one insurance company. It's the insurance of your state or of the United States of America. That's your health insurance provider. Period. No more bullshit. No more, no more compensation. No more playing one off the other. That's who it is. We are going to regulate them. Is that just it?
- [49:56]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. I mean, listen here. At the end of the day, I was born and raised in Toronto, right? So I had universal healthcare. It didn't occur to me when I was in a car accident at 16 to be like, how much is the ambulance? Like, can I, Can I afford that? Like, you just go to the hospital and get Fixed up. Now. I'm not saying the Canadian system is not broken. It is. In many ways it is broken. I watched my mother die in the Canadian system in freaking hallway care. I was like, well, this is freaking broken. But the beauty of where America is is A, it's got money to spend. B, there's 75 countries in the world that have some form of universal health care. You could do what Apple does and basically be like everyone else tried it. We're going to go, we're going to take this from South Korea and this from Denmark and this from Canada and this, and we're going to make a perfect universal health care system that goes so firmly with what we believe as a country, as what we say is that we're this land of freedom. Right. If we're a land of freedom, you shouldn't get trapped in your job because you need health insurance. You shouldn't get trapped in a marriage because you need health insurance. You shouldn't be trapped, trapped in debt because you couldn't afford your cancer treatment. That's not free. We're not free. If that's the case, and then everything costs a zillion dollars. If you have the American government as the one negotiator for all drugs, guess what happens? The prices go down. Right? You guys, I take ridiculous amounts of Viagra for my lung disease. In Canada, it costs one price. Here it costs $160,000 every three months. That's what it costs. Yeah. Because it was created for people like me with lung diseases because it is a vasodilator. The side effect was the ED thing because it's a vasodilator. So Pfizer markets it for ed, but it was really created for people like me who needed to breathe better. Now I have to.
- [51:38]
Joanna
My God, I feel like I just got such new information. I feel like every drug that we take is actually off. Off brand. It's. They're all off brand for. They were supposed to do a. But they do all of this better. And guess what? We make a bunch of money off.
- [51:54]
Lee McGowan
These ways, but this is why it cost me so much money. It's a hundred and sixty thousand dollars every three months because I take 300 milligrams of it a day. And because they market it for men that have ed, so it's a fortune. That drug makes a fortune. But for someone like me that needs so much of it, it's like, well, this is, this is the street price of your drug. So I have to jump through a thousand hoops and it's one of 14 drugs I take, by the way, to just get my medication every month. Like I always say, like, if the grid goes down here, like I'm dead. You don't need to shoot me. I'm dead. I'm not getting out of my medications that show up monthly. Right. We're so desperate in this country for proper health care that it is ludicrous. Universal health care in this country would be so smart and we could, we could take from all the other countries that have already tried it and we could make the best system. That's what the Democrats should be running on. Because guess what? Those 90 million people need that.
- [52:52]
Joanna
Talking about anything else, I would stop talking about anything else. And that's another problem, right? Is that people. And, and we see it in Canada as well. When you give me a laundry list of things you're going to do and I know you're not going to do any of them, maybe one half of one. Stop it. Give me, give me three things. Give me three things you're going to do and make it clear. Don't give me a concept of a plan. Make your plan crystal clear. Show me the evidence. Run on that drill at home. Simplify your message to such a point that people can actually explain how health there is going to work in this country, how they're going to save money and how their friends and family are going to be okay. And I honestly believe people will flock to that message.
- [53:38]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, this is what I believe, too. I absolutely believe this. But if you talk to corporate Dems who make a lot of their money because we have so much money in our politics since Citizens United, you're absolutely screwed if you don't have money because you can't compete with the people that are getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the musks of the world, right? So you need all this money. So you spend all this time calling for money, right? A lot of their money comes from. From pharmaceutical companies, right? So they don't want to suggest that because then the pharmaceutical companies will be upset and then they won't get as much money and then they won't win and then they can't help anyone anyway. That's what they say to themselves. But really, you need to be braver and say, I'm not going to take your corporate money because what I'm going to do is this. And more people are going to vote for me anyway because I'm offering them something they need. And then you need to have the plan because what happens is you get into power. If we have a normal election, again, you get into power, and then the filibuster fucks you up in the Senate, right? You say, we have 51 Democrats that want this. And they're like, well, we're not going to give you eight Republicans to vote for this. So the next time the Democrats have power, if they ever have power, you have to consider getting rid of the filibuster, because you could. And then you pass the stuff that people need and you force people to start representing their. You force people to start representing their constituents again. Because the reason the Senate was set up the way it is, there's two senators from every state, right? Even though North Dakota has like 700,000 people and California has 40 million people, right? We have the same amount of Senate representation, which makes zero sense, right? So we have that already. But it used to be that they thought when the founding fathers created the country, it used to be that they thought that our first loyalty would be to our state, not to our country, but to our state, because that was who was most like us and had shared the most values. And for a while, that was sort of the case. And now it's our first loyalty is to our party, and that completely screws us up. So when these senators get to the Senate, like, as if Texas couldn't use a higher minimum wage, right? It's an expensive state to live in. But you get both Texas senators voting against it because their party doesn't want it, right? They're not representing the people anymore in the Senate. They're representing the party. And if we take away the filibuster, they would be responsible for their own vote again, in many ways. You know, like, you could see that, because right now, you don't need to say who's voting for it and who's voting against it. You're just like, no, we won't give you the votes, and you don't know who would have voted for and who would have voted against. If we got rid of the filibuster, which, you know, I think we should make it more the way it was supposed to be, then we could actually see how people were voting. And then we could use elections to tell these representatives what we thought of them. Instead of people being like, oh, we need term limits, you're like, well, technically, the elections are term limits. It's just that these people can't lose anymore because they're like, I'm over, so I'm a Republican in a safe, red state. There should be no safe, red seat. There should be no safe blue seat. You should represent the people. That's what I think.
- [56:28]
Joanna
That's why Washington left. I'm going to ask a very odd question, and this is very anti brand of me. Do you think in this podcast, anti legacy media reality that money matters the way it used to? If we have a sort. Look, look, if they've got Musk and we got a Soros, my question is, and you know, Midas Touch podcast is now number one four down is Joe Rogan in this world of access and social media and, and this is free. You know, I don't. $20 a month or whatever I pay for this in that world, does money outside of money. Let, let's just put the scary money over here for a second. Let, let's ignore. And I guess maybe this is where I get mucked up. Let's ignore the money where you're talking about John Federman having to protect his wife. That's a different kind. That's a different kind of money.
- [57:36]
Lee McGowan
I don't know that for sure. It could be just that he took a paycheck.
- [57:42]
Joanna
Let's ignore dirty money, right? Threats of violence kind of money in this burgeoning new world is, is money going to start mattering less if we're not saying you need big billboards anymore, you need a TV spot because nobody's watching TV tv, you need a Super bowl ad, you need, you know, your own bitcoin. Do you think possibly we could be shifting in that direction or am I delusionally optimistic?
- [58:16]
Lee McGowan
You're delusionally optimistic, but I say that with love only because if you look at the right wing ecosphere, if you look at how many people were turned on this election based on right wing talking heads, and I don't just mean on Fox, I mean like the people we were talking at the beginning, the Benny Johnson, the Charlie Clarks, but also just like who's amplified, right? There's so much money being thrown at the right wing because if right wing politicians win, the people who paid money into it, they get their money back, right? They get their money back in forms of tax credits, in forms of deregulation, in form, forms of whatever. They're getting their money back. Left wing donors, the Soroses of the world, they're not getting that same financial return, right? You, you put money into a show like mine and like you put money into Midas Touch. If we get what we want, you're going to get a healthier world, a better planet, more fair country, but you're not getting your Fricking money back, right? So if you are a billionaire, you are beholden to the right wing because that's the only people that are going to give you a return on your investment. Investment. And then when you look at something like Citizens United, which really is the beginning of the end for our normal democratic process, it was. It allowed you to spend unlimited dark money. And these people have goals that are everything from Christian nationalism to getting women back in the kitchen, to, like, childhood marriage. They want to marry little girls again before they know better. Like, these people are creeps and they're using their money to spread the message, to get the people that will give them those things elected. And money counts, whether it's on social media or on mainstream media, money counts. It's why, you know, Russia was so effective at beating Hillary, because they were able to, you know, they were able to make her into what they wanted her to be, enough to get people to vote against her, even though it was voting against own best interest. Money will always matter. The best thing we can do is hope to eventually take money out of politics. I would love to see publicly funded elections, right, like, where everyone gets the same amount of money and we're running for the way it is in the uk, you get six weeks and we're fricking done. Like, it's not a year round every day talking about politics. Bullshit. I'm sure most people would love to be like, I would love to not think about this for four fricking seconds. Send me another text message like, I want to kill myself. It would be great. But we're not getting any of that right now.
- [60:49]
Joanna
You just outlined why. Because I, I again, I've, I've, I've definitely backed that messaging. I've made the exact same statement. I think it should be in the Constitution. I think it's clear. I think it, Anybody disagrees with that constitutional amendment, it. They're, they're clearly fascist. But you just explained how even that can't work, because let's pretend I'm a bad guy, right? I don't put. I don't give money to Trump. I give money to Charlie Kirk. I advertise on Andrew Tate's platform. I advertise on, you know, Candace, whatever. I just spend my money differently in a capitalist system. I don't ever hand anything directly to the candidate. You don't have to hand anything directly to the candidate anymore. So how the hell do we fix that?
- [61:42]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, that's a campaign finance issue that the Democrats did have in the for the People's act that the Republicans used the filibuster to vote against. And what was in that bill was a removal of dark money in politics that you could only give. You, you, you make it so you can only give a certain amount. Again, it was, it was going to get rid of PACs and Super PACs. It was written into the bill. That's true. Because. Because an individual can still only give something like $2,700. But if I give to a pack, that's USA, right, I could give four or five million dollars and they can put it wherever they want and it's dark money and no one can follow it. That was supposed to be in a bill to be disallowed. It was also in there. An anti gerrymandering bill where no one could gerrymander, where election day was a holiday. They had all these wonderful things that didn't get passed because of the filibuster. And so this is the thing where people go, I don't understand why it's like this. And it's because the Democrats were playing softball when the Republicans were playing hardball. And now we're here, you know, well.
- [62:45]
Joanna
And the bottom line, goal. The bottom line, reality. Well, two things. Number one, no, even if all that, even every single thing you just described was in that bill and was passed, I can still fund Charlie Kirk.
- [62:57]
Lee McGowan
Oh, for sure. But then you start passing things like a fairness doctrine for the new millennium, right. Where you can't lie on any airwaves without civil responsibility. Like right now, we don't have that right. The best thing we can do is civil cases against Fox News where they settle for $780 million. You know, instead of going into discovery. And you should, we need to say like, everyone is civilly liable for any lie you put out there. If it comes from an individual. It. The. The social media hub that, that allowed it to be spread. The Facebook, the meta, the whatever, the Twitter, they are responsible for allowing that lie to be spread. If it is on a network television, they are responsible for that lie being spread. There should be a truth in broadcasting. Again, we can't necessarily stop people from lying, but we should make it civilly liable. We need to have slander suits again. We need to have. And the government needs to set those rules. But we didn't do that in time. So if anything on our way back in, if we come back to any form of, of functioning democracy, it should be that you cannot lie to the public for profit. There has to be. Because it's not the algorithms. The algorithms can catch it. They can catch it. I mean, Meta was doing that for a long time with Facebook. They were like, oh, we'll stop spreading disinformation. And then they realized that it was the hate and the lies that got more traction and they were making more money. Yeah. So they were like, get those algorithms out of there. Just let them spread whatever they want. We'll make. Make more money.
- [64:23]
Joanna
Masculine again. Yeah.
- [64:24]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. Well, I mean, don't we need more masculine? I mean, come on.
- [64:32]
Joanna
I just. You know, and. And the more that you, you know, we talk about it, it makes so much fraking sense. The un. The unfortunate reality. And it sounds so ridiculous, but is the fact that the point. Point one. They're the problem. That's it. The bottom line is the point. One of the problem. What I really want to see is I want to see Tesla bottom out. I want to see him default on the loans that he took for Twitter. Yeah, Twitter. And I want to see if after that, Trump still thinks he's the smartest man in the room and should be beside him at every single theater. That I want to see that decoupling. Because in that moment, I think you will see something shake and in. And for the people, they have to understand that all of the power is them in that moment. If money's power. Okay, okay. Money's power. That means that these people only have power. Only have power because we have gifted it to them.
- [65:41]
Lee McGowan
Them.
- [65:42]
Joanna
So you get ri. First of all, by the way, while I'm on here, I don't advise anybody to protest a Tesla dealership. I don't advise anybody to commit any vandalism acts at all, ever. That's not the way you deal with these people. Because he wants it. He's. He's talking about making those individuals. Even if they're just protesting domestic terrorists.
- [66:06]
Lee McGowan
Yes.
- [66:06]
Joanna
Yeah, don't do that. Sell your Tesla stock. Get. Don't buy. Don't buy that car. Sell your Twitter stock. Sell all of it. Spit all of it and watch that weight collapse on them. Because as we all know, and everybody's becoming a little bit more aware of, it's not a lot of real money going on in this world. Right. It's a lot of. I'm boring. Against the possibility of me having money if I sold the stock. Stock.
- [66:36]
Lee McGowan
Yeah.
- [66:36]
Joanna
Well, if you don't have the stock and you can't sell it, you have nothing. In fact, you have negative $44 billion or whatever you're on the line for. I think that's the only rational way to Operate within a capitalist system, to regulate a capitalist system. That's it.
- [66:57]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, I think you're right. I think the thing is, is that we actually are in a position where that. That could happen, where that Tesla stock is really tanking.
- [67:07]
Joanna
Oh, yeah.
- [67:08]
Lee McGowan
And if the loan is called in, you know, and it is possible he could get a cash float from Saudi Arabia, who helped him the first time, this kind of thing, a cash float from the oligarchs in Russia, whatever it is. But a lot of this is perception. You know, it's how rich you appear to be, what you can do with the money that appears on paper, not the real money. And I think there was an interview a week ago or so where he was on Fox, and they were asking him just the softest of softball questions. And by he, I mean Elon. And he looked scared. Like he was gonna cry. Yeah. Like, he looked. He was like, I don't. It's not going the way. I just. I can't. And I was like, this guy isn't really that eloquent on a good day. But, like, this is something else. And, you know, we have to remember that before the election, he talked with Tucker, and he was like, yeah, if Kamala Harris wins, I'm going to jail. That's what he said. Right? So, like, the thing is, is that you have to start taking out the legs of the stool. Elon's one of those legs, right? And like we said, Donald Trump is not surrounded by the most brilliant people in the world. He's not surrounded by, like, the. You know, I would say Bannon is probably one of the smartest people. The. That's there. And he hates Ceylon.
- [68:25]
Joanna
Yeah, yeah. The periphery.
- [68:27]
Lee McGowan
But I keep thinking of that image that is a bunch of rich guys playing poker. So they're all playing poker on a table, a round table, and they're all playing their chips, and they're getting their money and whatever. But the table itself, what's underneath the table is a bunch of people bent over, right? So it's like these guys are all playing their game, and we're all. The table. Like, we're. What. What's. Their money is waited on. And the whole concept is, what if we stood up, right? Like, we don't need to be bent over under the weight of these people as they play this game of money on our backs. We can stand up, and then what would happen? The whole system would flip. And I think that people just need to have a little bit more imagination right now. That's what I would say is Like a parting thought. Just have more imagination. It's not all going to be fun, you know, like watch Elysia. Watch the siege. Watch, you know, read the road, right? Like these horrifying images, these come from somewhere. They come from understanding the human condition, understanding how we behave, understanding what can happen, having a bigger imagination. Like, I'm sure that your Canadian listeners would never have assumed that three months after our election, Canada and the U.S. would be enemies, right? Like, I, I don't think. Like, your imagination can't go. Like we. Wait, wait a second. What? Like we have been the number one ally of America. We fought with you in every war. Like, what are you talking about? You're going to invade us on the 51st state? What are you talking about? Like, we have to have imaginations that are far bigger than what we have, have had before. And if that includes using fiction to expand our imaginations, do so because maybe the borders do change. Maybe part, you know, the western US and the eastern seaboard join Canada. Maybe there's a civil war, maybe there's a military, you know, thing we, we don't know. All we can do is do the best with what we can. Stand up for our values, speak up all the time. Somebody said she was going into her insufferable era and I was like, that's me. That's where I'm at. Like, I'm just gonna be so. No. About herself. But I was like, that's where I'm at. Like, just be unbearably non compliant in a world like this. Be like, no, I'm not going to do that. You try and kick a gay couple out of the restaurant I'm in, I'm telling you, I'm in your face so hard. You're going to be so humiliated. You're going to get out that we have to be insufferable against this kind of overstep. Because these people that are doing it are actually cowards. They are cowards and they are stupid. And we cannot allow it to happen. There's just too many of us who know better.
- [70:59]
Joanna
Can I on a, on, on a parting note. And then we, we, we will say goodbye for now.
- [71:05]
Lee McGowan
For now.
- [71:06]
Joanna
Go watch the siege. I suggested nicely. Well, I haven't done this TikTok. I, I only did it in a live. We dumped the stock. We don't buy Tesla, we dump X and, and all of those things. We watch him crumble. And how about 20 million people don't go to work just for one week. 20 million. 20 million people. I know not everybody can afford it. I know I'm not, I'm not talking to those people living pay to paycheck to paycheck. But I know there's 20 million people that if they didn't go into work and they said why boots would absolutely shake the foundation. And that's no protest in the street. That's not going to D.C. that's not putting you and your family at risk, none of it. That's just saying I'm not going to work this week until I have a rational government in power that follows the constitution and the rule of law. One week.
- [72:13]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. I mean it's certainly better than fighting each other in the street.
- [72:17]
Joanna
I think it's a good idea. And on that note, Lee's going to go and watch the siege and I'm gonna contact 20 million people.
- [72:26]
Lee McGowan
Good.
- [72:26]
Joanna
And I will see you next Tuesday. That time, same Bat Channel. Thank you so much for joining. Dismissed.