Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy.
And I'm producer Jesse Ken, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Happy Fourth of July.
What a great show we have for you today. We're joined by Ali Arbusamante, deputy director of the Roosevelt Institute, specializing in worker power and economic security. And he's here today to talk to us about how some of those policies might not actually be as democratic as we think they are. Then we'll be joined by David Roth, editor and co-owner of the Defector and co-host of the Distraction Podcast.
And Jeb Lund, a journalist who's writing has appeared in such places as The Guardian, Vice, Rolling Stone, Gawker, and The New Republic. And they're also the co-hosts of the It's Christmas Town Podcast. And they are here today to find out which one of them is the greater American. But first, let's have some fun.
So, Danielle, it's July 4th, and I think it's fair to say that this country has never been in a better place. I think you and I both agree on that. There's absolutely nothing terrible to talk about. Just everyone enjoy your barbecues.
Eat some burgers. Eat some ribs. Eat some chicken. Eat some dogs.
And... Oh, shit. Hot dogs. Hot dogs.
Oh, great, great. Not actual dogs. Not actual dogs. Come on.
Got it. Come on, people. I'm clear. You know, I'm clear.
Okay. Eat some cats. I'm just taking out of context. But look, I just want to start off.
Let's talk about the Supreme Court decisions that came down at the end of last week. I just want to start off with a general observation that we should think about how much different this country would probably be right now if we elected presidents by popular vote, as we should. We don't need to get into a discussion on this. It's just something that was on my mind as I was looking at these decisions, thinking about how Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.
And I've never been a fan of hers at all, so this is not... I'm not a Hillary stan by any means. But anyway, just food for thought for you people out there. So let's get to these Supreme Court decisions.
And let's start with the one where there's the six guys, one of whom gets tuition for people paid by his rich friend. His handler? Yeah. Yeah.
They decided that Joe Biden overstepped his boundaries when he canceled a portion of student loan debt for people. Danielle, I was a little surprised you agreed with the majority on this. You know what? It's a beautiful day in America where you have an unelected, corrupt, grifting body of people that get to decide, as they take bribes from billionaires, that they get to decide what the majority has to endure.
When Joe Biden canceled student loan debt for nearly 45 million people in this country, it was a major win for working class and middle class people. And why was this done? Because universities and colleges have made acquiring and higher education a six-figure debt for a majority of Americans. We tell people we have changed our industry, changed what it is that work looks like in this country because we've shipped jobs overseas and given those companies tax breaks.
So we tell people you must get a college education if you are to be, quote-unquote, successful. If you are to live out the American dream, well, 45 million Americans are being crushed under that American dream, and many of whom actually leave college before they have a degree because they can't fucking afford it anymore. But you have these black robes who have decided that they are able to get trips and seats first class on private jets and luxurious locations and tuitions and houses paid for, but they can't receive a little bit of relief that would allow them to take that money that they are paying off and actually invest in things like buying a home, buying a car, actually accessing that American dream and feeding money back into our economy. What do you think?
Oh, my God, that makes so much sense. Well, that makes sense if you actually care about middle and working class people and you want them to have a better life. But these black robes do not. I think you cut to the heart of it there by saying, you know, when Biden did this, it was a major win for middle class and working class people.
And we can't have that, Danielle. We can't have that in this country. I mean, this has nothing to do with the actual decision, but it still blows my mind. The New York Times, as this decision came down, was running like a live blog on their site.
And I think they might have actually put this in a full article, but I can't remember. And they had a list of options that are now available to loan holders, disability claims and stuff like that. And then one of them was, and I'm not making this up, one of them was death. And then they wrote, if you're a young adult wondering about the federal loans your relatives took out to pay for your education, you may be wondering whether the debt dies with the person or the people who take it on.
It does. The federal government will not make a claim on their estate and you will not inherit the balance. They're literally throwing death out there as an option for people who are buried in loan debt. This is 2023 America.
And a lot of people are pissed at the Times for doing this. And I get it. Like, I don't really think you need to be putting that thought in young people's heads. But I think it is, you know, it's important to note that there are people out there who are already thinking of this because they're like, I'm so crushed by debt.
I don't see any way I'm going to get out of it. And my college education has not led to a high paying job. And I probably just got laid off because some asshole thinks AI can do my job. Yep.
And I guess their solution is basically everyone needs to find a rich friend. Yes. That can give them trips and pay for their education and stuff like that. We all need, it's the sugar daddy law.
We all need a sugar daddy. Yes. No discrimination here. No discrimination here.
Yep. No, it's just insane. They made this ruling by saying that Joe Biden overstepped his bounds. I don't think that's accurate.
I understand that there are legal people who do. So it's maybe a muddled thing. There are other options that Joe Biden can take. AOC was out there on Friday tweeting immediately that there are other ways we can do this.
There are ways we've been pushing, you know, from the start. So I hope that the president does that and doesn't just tell everyone to vote harder. We can't have that. And let me just lift this up.
A friend of mine and a friend of the show, Eamon Mohadeen, who is on MSNBC, he tweeted out just, you know, a quick reminder for folks and said, just a reminder, the U.S. government has forgiven loans for people, businesses and industries across all sectors in our society, except students. And also the loans, I just want people to understand that Biden was forgiving were largely loans that are taken out by people of color in this country. And so, again, the Supreme Court, not only with a decision on affirmative action that says, fuck you, you shouldn't be able to be led into this, you know, predominantly white institution, your race and how hard you fought and whatever obstacles you had to overcome in order to make it to said place is now no longer going to be an admissible reason for you to be admitted into this school.
Now they also say, and if you have gotten into this university, you should then be crushed underneath this debt. Again, people of color. So it is very clear with that piece of shit, Clarence Thomas, who is the token of all tokens, and I will say it until I am dead, that sits on the Supreme Court that was able to rise to his station because of affirmative action to then, as many have said on social media, burn the ladder and the bridge from which he crossed and climbed behind him. This Supreme Court, these black robes are very clear about continuing, lifting up, solidifying and legalizing white supremacy in this country.
And every avenue that we have been told which education is that path to move yourself out of these invisible cast here, they have now taken away. I tweeted this out and I said, you know, I don't know why we are all just casually taking these laws and just like, okay, I guess we'll get them next time from this grifting ass criminal Supreme Court. Like, we're just saying like, oh, okay, because people in France, they take to the streets. Women in Iran, they've been taken to the streets.
And I'm very confused about why here in America, we're just like, oh, well, we know the Supreme Court is corrupt. They have a 20% approval rating, but I guess what they say goes. And I am one to say, maybe we should rethink that. Danielle, can we agree that the fact that it seems like a whole lot of this stuff of these cases and these decisions disproportionately affects people of color?
Can we agree that that's a coincidence and nothing more? Yes, because that would help bring my blood pressure down. Let's contort ourselves and make up any other reason as to why these decisions are being made. Let's pretend we're cable news.
Yeah. We have to talk about why all these decisions do disproportionately affect people of color. Unfortunately, that involves looking at U.S. history.
And we're not supposed to do that, I guess, in Ron DeSantis' America. Andy, we banned those books. What are you talking about? I know.
Exactly. Exactly. Also, I misspoke. It's Rob DeSantis.
That's my bad. Correct. All right. Let's talk about, I think, maybe the other big Supreme Court decision on Friday.
This was a case in Colorado. It's a very weird case because it's a woman who was thinking of opening, I guess, like a wedding planning website, but she didn't want to open it because she doesn't want to provide services for gay weddings. And she was afraid that that would run afoul of Colorado law. So she decided to take this case to the Supreme Court for something that hadn't happened yet.
And apparently, according to the New Republic, the actual facts of the case aren't even right because her whole thing was, in her case, she referenced a guy named Stewart, one half of a gay couple who inquired about a website for their wedding. And according to the New Republic, they got ahold of Stewart and he says, I'm straight and married and never made that request. So this is a phony case from everything that it appears to be. And my understanding is the Supreme Court is not supposed to take phony cases.
So that's A. But I guess let's set that aside because they took it and they gave a ruling saying that this woman could start this business and she could refuse to design weddings for gay people. Danielle, your thoughts? I, too, thought that the Supreme Court didn't take on phony cases.
I, too, thought that discriminating against people based on sexual orientation was something that we had discussed in this country and decided it was a terrible idea. But here's the reality. This opens the door to so much. I made the comment before we started taping, and I'll say it again, that as a black queer woman, I'm wondering now if I go into said restaurant and sit down and happen to, you know, well, as Andy points out, I am black and I'm obviously queer, but I'm black.
And that's obvious. So I may just be turned away on principle. But if I were to go into a restaurant and hold the hand of my girlfriend, I'm wondering now if the owner of the restaurant or the manager will take great offense to that and because of the Supreme Court ruling, be able to just kick me out because it's a private restaurant, privately owned. This opens the door to so much discrimination that it is wild.
It is wild to believe having the power that Chief Justice Roberts has to be able to do good, to transform the lives of people, to create true equity in this country. And your response is, nah, I like the way that things are. Or rather, I like the way that they were in 1953. That seemed like a really great time where people were in the closet, where black people were used and abused and needed to move off sidewalks so that white people could walk past seen and not heard.
And we couldn't aspire to higher education, let alone have student loan debt because we weren't allowed in the first fucking place. So I just, you know, it is wild. It is a wild, it is a wild country. I don't know what the fuck people are celebrating today.
To be honest, I guess if you were white and you were mediocre and you're heterosexual, this is your day. You know, go ham, but make sure it's not woke. I don't know. But for the rest of us, I'm like, drink.
I don't know what else to tell you to soothe your pain. I will agree. This is absolutely my day. You are not mediocre, my friend.
You are not mediocre. I said white mediocrity. As a Jew, I will not go ham. Anyway, all right.
So look, this is a weird case for me because I can sort of see both sides. And Danielle, I hope we can have a civil discussion about this without you shouting me down and calling me names for once. Am I Ron DeSantis? It would just be nice if I could get through an explanation for once.
All right. So it depends on whether you look at this as a free speech case or a discrimination case. If you look at it as a discrimination case, then yes, once you open yourself up to the public by starting a business, the question is, can you discriminate against people and refuse to provide service to them simply because you don't like their beliefs or agree with what they're doing or how they look, I guess. And as you said, like in that sense, is this any different than refusing to serve food to black people, to queer people, to Jews, to Muslims, whatever in your restaurant?
And I would think that in that case, the answer would be no. This is no different at all. The most vile Republicans come to you and say, we want you to design a website for our wedding. Can you say no?
What if a Nazi couple comes in and says, we want a Nazi themed wedding? Do you have to provide that service? Are you compelled by the government to do that, even if these are things that you despise with every fiber of your being? And look, I hope it's obvious that I'm not comparing LGBTQ people to Nazis.
I'm using an extreme example, which is kind of what you do in a free speech case. It's an interesting thing. Like we went through this a little bit with the Master Peaks cake shop, where the people didn't want to put a message on a wedding cake for a gay couple. And it's sort of the same thing.
And look, I think it is vile bigotry to be opposed to gay marriage. That's simply how I feel. Do you have to make a cake that says Heil Hitler on it? Do you have to make a cake that has some message on it that you are completely opposed to?
Or do you have the freedom of speech to say, I am not going to use that speech? So I do sort of see both sides on this. I think ultimately we've been through too much in this country with regards to discrimination to let this one go. And I think I disagree with the Supreme Court ruling on this one.
But am I wrong to be conflicted, Danielle? Please tell me. I am. And explain why.
The pendulum should be able to swing both ways. That's what you're saying. That if you are a business owner and you're a progressive or you're a person with sense and a brain in your head and a white supremacist comes in or a rabid MAGA person comes in and says, I want you to make a cake or design, you know, my I love Nazis website, then you should have the right to say, no, I don't. If we're reading the law that they have declared to be true, that that is your first amendment right to be able to say, well, I don't want to do said business with you, then it should go both ways.
But something tells me that they don't give a fuck about both ways. And if a MAGA Republican were to now bring a lawsuit because I didn't want to make the I love Trump cake or the I love Trump website because it goes against my beliefs and values, something tells me that I wouldn't win that court case with the Supreme Court. So you make a valid point, but we're not living in valid or even normal times or even on Earth one anymore. The rationale that we try to part and parcel from these decisions only work with a legitimate court.
We live in neither of those places. So I'm pretty sure that the pendulum will not swing in both ways. But I dare somebody to do it. Let's see.
Let it rise to the occasion. Just like I tweeted, I would love to see a court case being brought by students of color that are pushing back against legacy students that are let into these institutions that don't meet the qualifications, right? Because here's the thing, as I think it was Michael Harriot, who is a journalist and writer said like, oh, don't get it twisted. And let me pull it up real quick, because again, super important to be clear about what was actually decided.
And he said, before you begin your think piece, the Supreme Court did not strike down affirmative action. Admission preferences for legacies, donors, employee families and special recommendations are still allowed. So I would love to see a lawsuit brought by students of color from marginalized backgrounds against universities for admitting in all of these groups, because they still have affirmative action. Affirmative action based on gender is still a-okay to protect white women, who is the group that was able to benefit from affirmative action more than any other fucking group.
So let's be clear that there isn't both sides here, because I'm pretty sure if we saw those court cases where they were hurt, they would lose. Yeah. The other thing is, I just want to say that I left this out for sort of rhetorical reasons, but sexual orientation is a protected class in this country. And being MAGA and being a Nazi, not so much.
I'd like to differ. There are good people on both sides. Fair point. And there are good people on both sides.
Fair point. But the point is, you could argue that, yes, you could refuse service to Nazis, but not to gay people for a gay wedding, because sexual orientation is a protected class in this country. Ultimately, I think I... with you and i think the court ruled wrongly on this i do think it's a more interesting case that maybe isn't as i hate to use the phrase black and white but ultimately i think i agree with you and also just to end i think if there was a lawsuit brought by people of color against universities for the unbelievable amount of legacies uh that they allow in i wouldn't be surprised if you get bunch of amicus produced from poor white people because they're hurt by that too whether they realize it or not and the only people not hurt by legacy admissions are obviously children and grandchildren of legacies who probably already have all the money they'll ever need for the rest of their life folks i am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal for the very first time ali busmanti who is the deputy director at roosevelt institute specializing in worker power and economic security things that are incredibly incredibly important ali we are living in a really i want to say precarious economic climate where over the last year plus one day the headlines are all about gas prices the next day the headlines are all about inflation and yet at the backdrop of both of these things we see an administration that has added more jobs than any other president at this time so while they want to be able the biden administration to hail we're making economic progress i don't think that they've done a good enough job of being able to tell the story of what it is we've had to dig out of in the prior administration and frankly how much covid had also disrupted our economic stability so can you talk about kind of give us a 50 000 foot view as to how two things can be true at the same time yeah absolutely the first thing that folks obviously have to understand is that our economy is not functioning in any kind of democratic way and it hasn't been doing that for many many years for many decades by now and so what we're actually seeing right now are these two counter forces an economy that is really stacked in a way that is benefiting just a selective view while we're actually seeing for the first time in a very long time these very concrete set of policies that are really oriented toward broad prosperity towards really building out economic growth in a way that doesn't just benefit you know the folks on the wall street but actually benefits folks who are actually earning a paycheck which is just the great majority of americans so seeing these two forces collide is really providing us with this really unique opportunity of one seeing what's possible as you mentioned you know a lot of these investments that have happened over the past couple of years we're talking about massive reductions in poverty thanks to the child tax credits we're talking about folks receiving actual direct financial assistance from the government in an unconditional way and we're also talking about investments being made in american jobs that have very clear good job quality standards however what we're also seeing at the same time is this vast network of forces that are really pushing against that they're trying to take back the focus of the government to benefit them in the way that it has and if you find something we see that one with the courts right trying to undermine a lot of the administrative policies we're seeing that just across the board we're thinking of you know the price markups that a lot of the corporations we're doing during the pandemic really in many ways trying to counteract the inflation reduction policies of the administration so we're seeing these very very clear examples of one what government working for the people looks like at the same time that there are these real forces who don't want that who actually want to maintain the status quo where policies are just really benefiting us like this i feel like we know this like those of us that are in this work and go through policy with a fine tooth comb and understand the larger goal which is that the wealthy stay wealthy and that the poor stay poor and the middle class continues to shrink and i feel like there is a narrative ali that is not being spread out to the actual workers because then you have folks that end up voting against their best interest and so what do you think needs to be said as it pertains to economics which is such a huge vast industry field that a lot of people can't wrap their minds around it they can wrap their mind around their paycheck they can wrap their mind around in the taxes that are taken out but like you said during the pandemic we actually got to see the taxes that are taken out were given back to us in the ways that we needed them so how do we have conversations that the one percent want to make really complicated and it's really not you're absolutely right it's really not you know the difficulty here and i always like to think of you know directly from the declaration of independence that governments are instituted among men and deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed which is to your point you know it's us it's the people of america who have actually enabled a system to be the way it is and it's not because folks don't know the difference it's because there has been a very well-sold lie for many decades now for generations that has really figured economic status to effort diligence or some other personal trade while this missing the structural factors that actually prevent people from having opportunity in the first place let alone them having access to the things that would ultimately provide them with better lives this ideology justifies poverty and ultra wealth in a way that seems attainable for most americans as you mentioned we know it's not we know that in order to do well in this country and in the world you need support you need not just support from individual folks in your community or your family but you actually need a functioning society that provides folks with voice that provides folks with power and that's the key idea here that we're told that we have a democracy but it's really not a functioning democracy and we see that spillover directly into our economy and the policies that shape that economy in terms of who benefits and who doesn't and when we look at things like income wealth inequality climate change poverty these are all symptoms of this false narrative that has really limited and curbed our government's ability to provide us with that voice and opportunity and so folks look at the government and say well it's not doing anything for us and it's because it's been constrained in such a way that that's what folks are meant to see but this is really again a really unique opportunity now that we see and it really does matter in terms of how folks see those payments that arrived at their door money they were able to use to pay for child care expenses even on the other side folks were able to keep their jobs during the time they continuously get a paycheck first paid basically for the first time in any way for many folks across the country there are these really really tangible policies that really materially improve people's lives now what's missing is this broader frame i think as you mentioned that really puts all this together and says hey government can work for you government is not the problem government in fact is just shaped by the policies and the ideologies by the people who are in it who are controlling it and this is where i think the more and i think the administration has actually done this rather successfully again this idea that there is a that there is a set of government policies that can deliver broadcast variety and really contrasting that to these very clear sources of pushback of sources that are really actively trying to limit you know either more checks going out or poverty saying low we see that with you know snap and worker partners for example we're looking at all these many examples of some sources within government trying to infringe on the administration's ability to actually deliver for folks and that is what folks need to see and then secondly what we need to actually create a very clear and cohesive narrative around here's my trouble with this which is that one we know that the biden administration and democrats want to do this we're working against an entire political party the republican party that wants to dismantle government from the inside out that the whole point is to make people feel like government is not working so that you can take it apart and so i think that a part of the narrative isn't just about this is how we can create policies like we have we always have the tools to create what it is that we want what we don't have is the will what we don't have is the desire and the only way to get the will and desire is for the masses to push those that they are electing to represent them to make the changes that they need that are actually going to better their lives but when you're being fed a steady stream of lies that are about how government has failed you how government is trying to control you and take over your life in ways and how everything is socialism how do we work around that because to me that's the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about that's the hurdle there is no longer going to lobby the five republican senators that we think are going to actually leave side with us if you tell them the right story or deliver the right message those days are gone how do we bypass what we know to be one of the biggest hurdles to actually creating a democratic economy and a functioning democracy to boot yeah i think there's a very key opportunity right now that the administration has it knows that it doesn't have the legislative majority it knows that a lot of the groundbreaking legislation that was possible over the past years isn't possible anymore and that's where there is now really a very clear attempt to make agencies much more robust in serving their actual missions you know just thinking about more recently the nomination of julie sue to be the secretary of the department of labor that is a very clear microcosm of what's happening here you know the administration is actually trying to put somebody in power of this agency that is meant to serve workers with somebody who has this great experience of representing worker right representing not just in her capacity as the secretary of labor in california but even before that in terms of representing textile workers and other exploited marginalized workers it's this kind of building in the capacity of government to be able to actually fulfill its mission that is really a key opportunity this idea right that personnel is policy i mean that is what is happening right now and what is really i think a tectonic shift in the way government is currently operating and hopefully continues to operate into the future this idea that for the first time ever we are actually putting folks in positions of power who are on the same page who do believe on this same kind of shift of making government work for people now in terms of how that actually moves forward it's very clear that to the extent that folks are actually seeing all these attempts at shifting government in a new direction that at the same time they see where these kind of pressure points of economic stress are coming from you know i mentioned before that this idea of like price markups during the pandemic this idea that there were these very specific corporations who were on these several calls just bloating about the idea that they were able to overcharge you know all their customers because they couldn't just because they had that power that ability to do so and so that really shines a light on this ability of power this idea that if we let the powerful do what they want they can continue to just exploit they can continue to extract now that we you know there's a lot of folks who know about the price gouge and what's happened the profiteering is now you know moving towards a child labor we're seeing that throughout the country we're seeing instead of trying to exploit the consumer now you know as much because you know now they're looking bad in the public now they're shifting their strategies to another uh way to to profiteer also of americans and that children this idea that the tight labor market the hot labor market that we have right now that instead of paying folks more to enter the labor market instead of paying you know being actually competitive in attracting workers to their particular company instead they want this shortcut of employing children 13 year olds 14 year olds doing work that is oftentimes dangerous that it's putting them in very precarious situations and there's not necessarily this very clear understanding that this is part of this broader strategy that it's not just about you know again increasing labor supply no it's about how corporations and how others in power are really trying to double down on their ability to continue to extract to continue to pull as much wealth and as much power from away from the government away from americans like the fact that we are in a place where you had the state of arkansas decide to roll back child labor laws i want folks to understand that the reasoning behind this is not because they think that white children are going to be the ones that are going to be in factories or at fast food places it is because of the influx of undocumented latino and hispanic children that they want the ability to be able to exploit so race racism plays a major role in a lot of these policies again another elephant in the room that we don't address and don't talk about and connect the dots because when we're talking about child labor laws we have to talk about whose child whose child we're speaking of and it is those children that were ripped away from their families trying to get a better life during the trump administration that we have yet to be reunited with their families and now they're saying oh well don't be a burden on the state you can come and work here doesn't matter if you lose a limb so long as the factory keeps going you know it makes me so disgusted because during the pandemic i felt like we saw government working in the way that government is supposed to actually work where our money is actually going to what it needs to go to and i thought foolishly that we were going to continue past the crisis to see how government can actually work for the people the people that are actually putting in their tax dollars every single pay period in order to be able to uplift it but here we are again and i feel like we have made a considerable a considerable taken a million steps backwards where we're having conversations about you know those that are privileged enough to work at desk to go back into the offices and for no other reason no companies lost money during the pandemic but because of the corporate real estate leases that they have this is why you need to go back into work and so when you pull back the curtain i just realized that the decisions that are made are not about people we don't live in a people-centered country capitalism isn't people-centered and i'm wondering for you is there a way that capitalism becomes people-centered or is that just something else entirely you know when thinking of government we're thinking about the economy or capitalism you know i like to think of it as a blank slate as i mentioned you know it's government can work for everyone or can work for a select few the economy can work for everyone or can work for a select a few as well when we're thinking about you know who the economy is and who's driving the economy forward who's driving our government forward this is where power matters this is where who is represented matters we know that with true democracy we would be a very very different country we wouldn't be a country that is trying to take away voting rights away from african americans across the country we know that we wouldn't be a country where we will again focus on child labor as a solution to increasing our labor pool these these aren't as you mentioned people-centered policies these aren't policies that if you were to pull americans across the country that they would support because they're insane what ultimately needs to happen is that we really need to have this very huge shift in the way that we're actually structuring our economy the way that we're actually structuring our democracy and it's really not until we actually make these very sweeping changes to these institutions that we'll actually have this people-centered economy that we should have this true democracy that i think many folks really really want and that hope in many ways that they can live long enough to experience the big issue here is how do you push at the you know these kind of changes here and there wherever you can whether they're marginal whether they actually have large scale how do you actually push all of these in a coordinated way that is trying to really from all sides right from across the board have this this shift into into a new direction and that's the part where you know the administration that get through changing you know who's who's leading these agencies that's been part of it by having you know unions and workers you know as we see like a huge movement towards you know unionization whether you're looking at starbucks whether you're looking at rei whether you're looking at five or 15 all these kinds of movements they're all trying to push towards the same goal which is a much more democratic society a much more democratic economy are all these folks working together they're really not are all these folks do they have a cohesive goal in mind the answer is no and so to the extent that we have the you know black lives matter movement the post the wave movement to the extent that we have all these kinds of you know the labor to the extent we have all these movements doing things separately in a way that isn't creating again this broader picture of what is possible of what should be in the american economy and in the american government as long as we don't have this cohesion it's really allowing to get these forces of pushback to be much more successful than perhaps they ought to be oh so much work still left to do dr ali busante thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal we will have to leave it there today but we will surely pick it up another day to continue the conversation really appreciate you thank you so much for having david roth is an editor at and corner of defector and co-host of the distraction podcast jen london is a journalist whose writing has appeared in such places as the guardian vice rolling stone Hawker and the New Republic.
He's also the co-host of the Quaid in Full podcast. And when they fist bump each other and say one to twin powers activate, they are the super co-hosts of the It's Christmastown podcast and my next guests, Jeb, Dave, welcome. Hello. Thanks for having us.
Absolutely. Okay, so this is our special All-Star July 4th episode. A little later, we've got Chuck Norris live in studio, and John Mellencamp is going to stop by and do a song for us. I'm happy to be a part of this Star-Spangled celebration.
Absolutely. Thanks to both of you, the great Americans, for being here, which gets me to my point. I'm going to ask both of you a series of questions, and then at the end, I will announce who is the greater American. Wow.
All right. My choice will be completely objective, and as always, I will be guided by the principles of Aristotelian logic and non-Euclidean geometry, as well as the weird sexual mores of science fiction grandmaster Robert Heinlein. I will start by asking each of you, what is your favorite thing about America, Jeb? Why don't you go first?
Personally, whenever I'm in a foreign country, and I'm driving down a residential street, and I'm going less than 50, I'm like, why are these so narrow? And that's one of the things that I appreciate as a parent, that I can take my kid out on any street in America and put him right next to a highway. Yeah, wide lanes for easy cruising is a good answer there. Dave, can you top it?
I kind of like that you can get so many different kinds of weird things from all over the world here in kind of a weird, flattened-out, denatured version designed to flatter our palates. So that's like both an earnest answer and an attempt to be cynical, because Jeb made it sound so cool. I was talking about this with Jeremy Dary for the discussion, and I think that actually, really, I do like the fact that you can get all kinds of different foods from different cultures here. Like, I love Italy, but Italians in Italy eat Italian food every night.
And while I myself am, you know, certainly open to doing that for the rest of my life, it's cool that there's so many different experiences to have here, all of which are, like, subtly dialed down so as not to scandalize me too much. Okay. What is your least favorite thing about America? Probably how stupid and mean things are at baseline, culturally.
And then, obviously, we have this sort of hegemonic effect in the whole rest of the world. Like, I don't necessarily know what cable news is like in Hungary, but I can't imagine that it's good, and I have to imagine that we have a lot to do with the ways in which it's bad. So I think that Americans have this, it's the habit of just getting upset about stuff as a leisure time activity. I don't know that we invented that.
I do think that we've done a lot to perfect it, and then to sort of export that very unappealing tendency to the rest of the world. Interesting. Jeff? Yeah, I think mine's going to be an export as well.
I mean, maybe it's on my mind because, you know, this happened at the morning of the recording, but I do dislike the fact that, like, every, you know, 10 to 20 years, we take, like, an established truth, and then we run it through the five most corrupt robe wearers in the country, who are actually not even good at the completely fake academic discipline that they invented within my lifespan. The idea that we're just going to have this we're going to be cruising ontologically in, you know, the ontology car at, you know, 50, because we're on a residential street, and then we're just going to throw it in reverse. And, like, well, whatever happens to the machine at that point, you figure it out. Not a big fan.
Okay. So a lot of people you know, you see arguments all the time, what was the best year for movies? And, you know, people say 1999, or they'll say some other year and be wrong. And so I want to sort of expand on that.
I want to ask each of you, what would you say was the best year in American history? Jim, you're trying to go first. Oh, jeez. You kind of can't go wrong with 1865.
Like, this idea that, you know, albeit birthed in blood, that we would have forced a reckoning with the promises that we made to ourselves and to our posterity, and then, you know, actually follow through on it. And, I mean, admittedly, as is our want, almost immediately begin backsliding. But for one shining anim there, you know, we kind of felt like maybe we were a little bit committed to it. Okay.
That's a good answer, for sure. I mean, I think if you wanted to take the question seriously and give it some thought. I went immediately to 1986. I was eight.
I was having a blast. Mets win the World Series. Obviously, some other things probably happened in 1986. That might have been the year of a stock market crash.
I don't remember. There was a big one that happened there. As you said, all right, yeah. Well, by that point, obviously, that's the hangover season.
You can't blame the Mets for that, though. Right. Just taunting God. I mean, obviously, it helped when I was eight.
But that was the moment when I think the full promise of American life unfolded before me, in the sense that there was Huey Lewis in the news was on the radio, and as an eight-year-old, you're kind of like, being a grown-up sounds awesome. You're just, like, going to work and, like, dieting, I guess. Maybe there's a song about that. Naming major cities?
New York? Ugh. Exactly. If you look at 1986, at that point, indisputably, the heart of rock and roll was still beating.
So true. And that was what I thought being a cool grown-up was like. Like, you win two out of every three baseball games you play. You get in a fight with off-duty cops at a bar called Cooters in Houston.
You don't even get in trouble for it. We need to get back to that. We need to return to that, in my opinion. Every third locker you open just spills cocaine.
It comes out the fucking elevator doors in The Shining, but it just spills. I guess the stupid thing about this is, when I wrote this question, the first thing that popped into my head was, oh, it's 1986. And it was because the Mets won, and then I guess technically the Giants won the Super Bowl in 87, but it was the 86 season, so it was just, you know, but I'm trying to imagine because I'm a little bit older, but as an eight-year-old watching the Mets win the World Series, I'm thinking, oh, there's going to be so many more of these in my lifetime. I think I've got to give my dad some credit on that, because he woke me up to, like, I saw the ball go through Bill Buckner's legs.
I was wearing, like, footy pajamas, probably, when it happened. My dad got me out of bed, and in later years, he was like, it was important to me that you see that, because you never know. I think maybe what he didn't have the heart to say was that you do actually know. You know that this is like, you get one of these in a lifetime, and if you let your child sleep through it, because he's ever got a big day in third grade the next day, he would never forgive you.
I just want to say, I think it's a little bit disappointing that the two of you displayed typical East Coast media bias here. You know, we're talking about the United States and history, and what do we get? The Mets, baby. The Mets.
Love the Mets. That was the preparation I did for the show. I didn't know we were going to be doing Patriotic stuff. I was just ready to break down bullpen options in the back half of the season.
Absolutely. Yeah, well, you should have, I mean, the fact that Jeb didn't expect that speaks volumes, really. I couldn't book an orthopedist in time to talk about the Mets. All right, let's move on, but I will say that, I think this is probably obvious to the listeners, Dave has built up a commanding lead.
Suspended habeas corpus, put Americans in internment camps, slaver and rapists, obviously, and tried to impeach an associate justice of the Supreme Court, used journalism in a horribly, you know, weaponized way to, you know, smear and slander his enemies, and like, we have the most annoying cult of worship about this just absolute douchebag. Pick another one. Good writer, though. Yeah, that's a good answer, I think, in part because, and I know it's, like, unfair to steal the same one, but, like, Jefferson is the one that has the biggest mismatch, I think, like, the most, I think, like, Ben Franklin had been, like, personally annoying or whatever, but there was not anything in there where he enslaved hundreds of people and then, like, wrote a bunch of essays about how problematic it was when other people did stuff like that, and certainly there's this disconnect where there's still, you know, books being written about, like, his romance with Sally Hemings or whatever.
He's getting the benefit of the doubt after having been dead for, you know, a couple centuries and change. That's a very generous assessment of a guy who did not always earn such a generous assessment. And also, like, chief among our victims, right, like, probably the originator of the, I have, like, this almost total supremacy over the politics of this nation, right? He's inviting members of Congress to the White House.
He's basically coordinating legislation and messaging on it. He has a whole cadre of complicit journalists basically doing messaging for him, targeting his enemies, and what does he do? I am so assailed by these infamous scribblers. Bitch, you built that.
Yeah. Also, that is, like, in some ways, you've got to tip your cap. He was a little early on that. But if your legacy is, like, the speech that Samuel Alito is going to make over the summer to the Vlad Dracul Institute for Innovation, you know, where he's, like, they're very nasty to me, you know, they're very like that.
Congrats on that one. Yeah, I would go personally with, because I purposely framed the question as most annoying and not, you know, biggest asshole, I would actually go with Ben Franklin with his little sayings, and I just, like, I picture him on Twitter and just, like, instant block. Instant block. He's like Jordan Peterson.
He's like, well, you need a bed made as a day earned. God damn it. How does this have 50,000 retweets? Yeah, I think it's like, it's not the account of the writer G here is a good account.
The little image on that account is the vibe that Ben Franklin would have in real life. Like, that is not what you want. I always thought that there should be the worst conversation you could possibly walk into would be his avatar and the New Yorker's avatar. Just you guys saying quite back and forth?
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. To industry. Okay.
On a scale of Rob DeSantis to AOC, how woke will each of your 4th of July barbecues be? And what will be the most woke food you have there? Bonus question, what will be the least woke food? Mayonnaise is off the table.
It's sort of like the vowels in the bonus round of Wheel of Fortune. It's a given. Jeff's going to blow me out of the water on this one. The man is literally in Florida as he joins his home.
I don't have a fucking prayer. So, alright, I'll lay the baseline then. Here's what I think is probably going to happen, is that maybe I will go see my sister and her family. She's a vegetarian, my wife is a pescatarian.
Can't grill, they don't allow that in the backyard area of their home. Obviously, we have no outdoor space of our own because we live in Manhattan. So, there's a chance that it's like a field roast brand veggie sausages cooked on a Foreman grill and then put on some sort of possibly multi-grain bun type thing. That's how much I'm going to the gulag if a Republican president is like, this is why they hate us.
I mean, I love all that bullshit. And as a kid, it was July 4th was going to my friend the Marola's house and there'd just be like sausage and peppers all day coming off the grill while like some uncle I didn't know was like, no kidding, no matter what it was, I told him. That to me is America. I'd love to get back to that.
I just live in a city so I don't have the space to do any of that shit. Okay, I can see that. In my case, you know, as somebody who worked at the highest levels of journalism, my answer is going to be right down the middle, irrespective of what the polls say. So, I mean, obviously we're going to begin with a land acknowledgement.
Now, like, so I'm going to be going to a house with, you know, there'll be at least three different races represented in three different generations and we're going to cook a lot of panhandle down home, like, greens and stuff and ribs and just, like, really, just nuclearly fattening and dangerous food. We're going to blow up a small part of America. I think if we acknowledge America, it will probably be in the sense that, like, it is one of the top republics in North America. Oh, no question.
It's top three. Easy. Oh, well, America's America? Okay.
It's a hyper-commodation. It's what you want. So, yeah, we're going to have, like, I mean, what I would imagine to be, like, a very conservative spread and that it will be abundantly meated and fatty and there will be, you know, as many dishes as you can think of. But at the same time, like, I'm going to make a potato salad that has, like, 20 different moving parts in it.
It's going to be delicious and it's going to just, you know, put the manny on your health. But it is, like, very complicated. And so we're going to be a diverse group, but we're also going to do every series of the little fourth thing you can think of. I know when this episode is released that there's going to be patriotic music coming up under Jeb's answer there.
It's getting gradually louder and louder. I'm actually standing to do this entire podcast. I found myself saluting during that, especially the potato salad part. All right, moving on.
How do you imagine Donald Trump celebrates the Fourth of July? He's going to ride around in a golf cart for a little while and then he's going to go into a room where people eat, but the room is carpeted, except for a small dance floor area in the middle. Some of those people will be waiting to get food off the steam table. He will cut that line.
He'll take a yellow bag of Lay's potato chips and put it on a fancy plate. He will go up to a place where a man is sawing away at a kind of jarringly wet-looking haunch of beef. He'll ascertain how many flaps of that beef every other guest is getting, and then he'll ask for one more than that. And then he's going to pass by someone at a table that he doesn't know and say, have a great time.
It's also what he does every night of every week, but I feel like that's the way it's not going to be any different. There might be, like, a band where everybody's dressed like Uncle Sam and they're going to cover celebrate good times, come on, but that's more of what I anticipate. Dave did not leave a lot of the table. I was hoping he was going to forget the carving station.
I'm thinking, like, he's going to have a third scoop of ice cream for sure. Everyone else is permitted one. I'm thinking also maybe he might experiment with making a strictly cola-based suicide Pepsi into a Coke because that way you have red, white, and blue represented. Otherwise, yeah, I imagine some outdoor grass and golf cart-related sweating.
And yeah, probably like an extremely fucking overlooked hotel haunted-level Instagram story of him just sort of hovering near somebody who's having a bat mitzvah. Some realtor is getting remarried and he's going to show up and give a speech about what they weren't really documents, it was bravado, you know? I think that maybe, and this is not something you would necessarily think, given the substance of our two answers, that we might be being too generous to contemporary, present-day Trump, because I think we're still thinking about the bon vivant from, like, 2015 to, like, early in his presidency, where he was clearly having a blast being the most important guy at the party. He just looks, like, upset now.
He's, like, a jarringly different color every time you see him. He's, like, blinking a lot and really mad. So I don't know that he's even, I mean, obviously, yes, that's what the third scoop of ice cream is for, but I don't know that he's, this is going to be one of, I think, the unhappier July 4th for him, just because it's how he is. To be fair, he's being treated very badly.
And so nasty and very unfair. I believe he might grill up, uh, some documents. Okay, last question, and it's a hard one, and we are a little short on time, so I need short answers. It's a fuck, marry, kill.
And it's Tim Poole, Dave Rubin, and Ian Miles Chung, all great Americans. Wow. Very tough call. Can I point of order here that Ian Miles Chung has never been to the United States?
No, they're all great Americans. The Malaysian Kingpin. I'm asking for Jeff. You can't fuck all three of them, though, right?
No, you have to stick with the rules. Okay. Well, I'm going to change my answer. I, uh, yeah, I don't, hmm, this is tough.
Dave, help me out. I'd probably wipe up Dave Rubin, just because of the fact that he's, I mean, all those guys are bad, but he's kind of, like, the closest to being, you know, just, like, a gentle himbo, you know, like, I think he has, like, a pool at his house. Tim Poole lives in, like, the alt-right version of Kiwi's Playhouse. Like, I don't want to hang out with him at all.
I don't think that I would want to have a domestic experience with him. And Ian Miles Chung, as much as I would love to go to Malaysia, I don't even, like, looking at pictures of the guy makes me feel like I'm covered in bugs. Yeah, that would be the more unpleasant sexual experience, but I think you've got to go with him for that. We write about marrying Dave Rubin.
He's pliable. He's, like, very unctuous. Like, eventually you'd be able to wear him down, which is I think the strength of your worldview. He'd, like, migrate toward you.
Yeah. Or they'd be, like, if he does have a pool, just be, like, you want to go on the water slide again? You'd be, like, all right, you know, it's, like, kind of, you get a golden retriever to stop being stressed out. But you kill a pool, right, because he's beyond, he can't be helped, he can't be reached.
Like, if nothing else, like, you know, Ian Miles Chung, you can just get somebody at the State Department to flag his password so he's not coming in. Okay, yeah. Is there, I mean, with that, I think, what's unfortunate here is that we're leaving, that basically, if we're going by the rules of this game, you just consented to fuck Ian Miles Chung. I think if there's a way to do that online, though, that doesn't require him going to Malaysia, or that requires us to go there very briefly, then that is clearly probably the right answer.
Yeah, if you wear some sort of, like, AI hen pie skin, you know, it's like, no, I'm a thousand years old, I know I look like I'm 15, but I'm a thousand, I swear. Okay, I would like to apologize to our listeners, not for Dave and Jeb, but for me, for asking that question. Yeah, we remember we were left. No, absolutely, you are blameless.
That one's on me. We gotta go, I guess I have to announce who's the greater American, and I think it's me. Nice, congrats. I think it's me, I think that's what we've learned here.
It's bias. Yeah. David Roth, Jed Lund, thank you so much for being here, and happy fourth to all who are listening. Yeah, thanks.
Yeah, thanks. Happy fourth. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody.
Who is your fuck that guy to start off this fantastic week in America? Oh, God, my fuck that guy is a bunch of Republicans, and this is what they do. And to his credit, President Biden kind of mocked them for this towards the end of last week. A bill will be passed.
A bill will be passed that Republicans vote again. And it will do things like, I don't know, bring billions of dollars in federal funding to individual states. And let's say for just as an example, a bill that would send one point four billion dollars in federal funding to Alabama for expanded broadband Internet access. If you were a Republican who voted against that and then the bill passed, would you then get up there and tell your constituents what a great job you're doing, bringing them all that money?
Well, if you're Tommy Tuberville, you would. Because that's exactly what he did. He voted against the bill in 2021. And now he's out there saying things like great to see Alabama receive crucial funding to boost ongoing broadband efforts.
I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable. John Cornyn did a similar thing in Texas. He voted against the law. And now Texas is getting three point three billion dollars from it.
You know, he tweets out a link to an article, Texas to receive three point three billion federal funds to boost broadband expansion efforts. Nowhere in the tweet does he note that he didn't vote for this. And Nancy Mace did a similar thing. And this is they do this time after time after time.
These are just the latest examples because they know that deep down they know that these are good bills and these are good laws. But they can't bring themselves to vote for them. But they know it's what their people want. So they will go out there and tout the bill and tout the law that they themselves voted against.
And they will sit there and basically, you know, they won't actually come out and say that they voted for it. I guess at least they have the intelligence not to so blatantly lie on something so easily checked. But they certainly will give every possible impression that they voted for it as opposed to against it. And I'm sick of seeing it.
And I'm glad that President Biden called him out and more people need to do it. And just fuck all of those guys forever. You know, it would be great if Democrats would decide to also weaponize the federal government when they're in control and decide, how about this? We're not giving money to red states.
Actually, your welfare time is done. And that if you don't change your policies or openly admit how you have voted, you're not getting these resources. And no, I don't want you standing up beside me to say mission accomplished when you did everything in your power to create obstacles to getting these policies that your actual constituents need and benefit from. So fuck them.
Like, I'm at a point where I'm just like, no, literally, fuck all of them. If you don't vote for these things, but your state still receives that funding. Nah, no, your constituents should know who the fuck you are. And you're a liar.
So fuck those guys. Yep. All right, Danielle, on this glorious July 4th, what segment of America do you want to highlight for your fuck that guy? Put down the potato salad, Karen.
Yeah. Here it comes. Here it comes. And put down your raisins.
But here is my thing. I am saying fuck that guy to the 53% of white women in this country who in 2016 decided to vote for patriarchy and vote for misogyny and vote for white supremacy and vote against one of their very own. We are in this fucking situation because 53% of white women in this country are fucking selfish. And would rather align themselves with white men in the hopes that their proximity to their maleness and their whiteness is going to save them at the end of the day.
And those motherfuckers are the same ones that turned around and stirred away Roe v. Wade. But they're like, oh, but our husbands, our boyfriends, our fathers, they'll protect us. No, the fuck they won't.
They want you chained to a fucking stove. They want your mouth closed. Right? My whole thing is I don't want the pussy hat marches.
I don't want white women to get away with being able to vote against their own interests. And we just kind of move along. We want to understand the pathology. We want to understand this.
I don't need to understand you. I need to understand that white women will put the power of white men above all else. 53% of white women looked at another white woman and said, no, not you. We'll go with the pussy grabber instead.
Imagine where we would be right now in this country if three of the Supreme Court justices had been appointed by Hillary Clinton. Like, give me a fucking break right now. And then to go ahead in the 2020 election and decide to bump it up from 53% of white women to 56%. What the fuck is wrong with y'all?
Honestly, I don't know if you were around in the 1950s as a housewife and you want that life back, but the rest of us don't fucking want it. But because of your selfishness, this is where the fuck we are. So for that, to white women who decided to put their man before everything else, fuck you all day long. And your fucking bad potato salad with raisins in it.
Yeah, if you are listening to this at a barbecue and you are a white woman and you are eating some plain ass potato salad, completely unseasoned, Danielle is talking to you. I'm talking to you. Hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.
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