The Tucker Carlson Problem (with Naomi Klein)

The fascist job is to take that anger, acknowledge it, and redirect it, right? Redirect it at the scapegoats and at at the left. why Tucker's never gonna be our friend. But I, you know, I think that this is the vision that he that he represents. And it's a it's a really bleak vision. It's a really grim vision. And, you know, I think people can make short-term alliances that will end up backfiring on them very, very badly.

A bit fruity. I'm Matt Bernstein. I'm so happy that you're here. I was at a talk the other night about Palestine and the art world when during the QA section, someone asked the panelists what they thought about Tucker Carlson. Most people in the room nervously laughed and shifted in their chairs. Tucker Carlson, who when I started this podcast three years ago, was on Fox News complaining about how the green MM is no longer sexy.

The green Eminem, you will notice, is no longer wearing sexy boots. Now she's wearing sensible sneakers. Leading women do not wear sexy boots. Leading women wear frumpy shoes, the frumpier the better. That's the rule. The other big change is that the Brown Eminem has quote transitioned from high stilettos to lower block heels. Also less sexy. That's progress.

Tucker has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of the US relationship with Israel, though not of Israel in and of itself, but let's put a pin in that.

Why does this tiny country have so much control over our government? How do you break the stranglehold of the Israeli lobby on the US government? Why is a country of nine million people? Able to dictate terms to a country of three hundred and fifty million people. The government of Israel is promoting the largest pride event in the history of the region this June in the Dead Sea, very close to, by the way, Sodom and Gomorrah.

He's broken with Donald Trump, who he's campaigned for three separate times over this issue, and his opposition to the USAID for Israel. has made him a tempting and contentious and confusing figure on the left, where we've been attempting for long before I was born, frankly, to build power around the Palestinian cause. And to find something that looks like power in Tucker Carlson, one of the conservative movement's most formidable figures is, at least to me.

Thank you so much, Matt. It's great to be with you.

No me I don't wanna be like a a weirdo. But I really am so excited to have you here. And I'm sure many young people on the left have told you this. You are just a very important figure to me and my growth and my ideas. Um, I did a a slate of live shows last summer for this podcast and one time during the Q and A section at one of my shows, someone asked me, like, who's your dream guest? And I was like, Well

That is really beautiful to hear. Um I wish we were talking about something a little more fun. What we're gonna be talking about today. But it's still gonna be fun.

But we o yeah, we on this podcast we always make it.

And I appreciate I I really appr I'm here because I I really appreciate your voice and and all the work that you do and it gives me great hope and inspiration. So it's mutual. Thanks for having me.

I'm gonna leave that in though.

Naomi, I feel like everyone and their mother lately has been opining about what exactly is the new role of Tucker Carlson. The New York Times just put out a two hour long interview with him. Titled What Does Tucker Carlson Really Believe? accompanied by an editorial photo shoot.

Well, I I do think he makes it a little deliberately ambiguous. where he is politically because he is a smart entrepreneur and he is appealing to different audiences simultaneously and and I think signaling to different audiences and also because We live in this age where most people don't subject themselves to like an hour and a half podcast, but just see the little clip. You can put out little clips that are very carefully edited.

Of Tucker Carlson?

Yeah, didn't you? Did you do your homework?

I mean, I have listened to a lot of Tucker Carlson over time, but like the fact that I subjected you to that research beforehand I feel a little badly.

No, I mean you know I have this weird thing, right? Like where I've listened to hundreds of hours of Steve Bannon, so it's good for me to diversify it.

That's it.

I've been researching the right for a really long time. But I I I was struck you know just last week he interviewed somebody for an episode the the headline was Somali fraud expose, right? So I'm like, he's still doing that. Like'cause the in the clips that we see, he's often just he'll often say something like, Well, I believe all people are equal. That's what conservatism is. I'm like, is it? Is that what like

As a Catholic, I could not agree more with you. Yes. In what you're saying. I love all people, even the ones that don't like us. We have to love them all, and we have to recognize that.

We're required to be able to do that.

Yeah.

And then it's like, okay, so does is that what Tucker now thinks? But no, he's still you know smearing entire groups of people by their ethnicity with headlines like Somali fraud expose. And he also was Getting talking about the Great Replacement again. You know, it was talking about Somali fraud in the context of the Great Replacement in that episode.

I was taught from the Bible. Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of it.

Of the g those who bless the government of Israel?

Those who bless Israel is what it says. It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel. So that's in the Bible. I as a Christian, I believe.

Where is that?

I'd better be able to do that.

I can find it to you.

It's in Genesis, but so you're quoting a a Bible phrase. You don't have context for it and you don't know where in the Bible it is, but that's like your theology? I'm confused. What does that even mean?

Yeah. Tucker.

I'm a Christian, I want to know what you're talking about.

Like he got him on record on some really important things that nobody had gotten him on record before. Same thing with Mike Huckabee, where it was like if we're using the Bible as the real estate deed, where does that start?

Stop you've appealed to Genesis. Genesis fifteen. says it's Abram receives from God the news that his descendants will inherit the land. And you tell me as the as the theologian if I'm getting this wrong, but from the Euphrates to the Nile. And that would include like basically the entire Middle East. Christian Zionism, I want to go back'cause that's where we started. What does that mean? Does Israel have the right

You know, for this book that Astra Taylor and I have been working on for a year now on anti fascism, you know, we use those quotes because nobody else got these guys on record, right?

Uh-huh.

I wanna acknowledge that he's do like i he's doing some journalism that's really important. But what's the broader end goal for Tucker Carlson as a political figure, which is where this gets really complicated and he h he his name comes up as a possible presidential candidate, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I think that the the goal is to break the Judeo-Christian fusion, right? This idea that the US is a Judeo-Christian nation. No, he says it's a Christian nation. Right. And this idea that the sort of theological duty is linked to creating a greater Israel. He's trying to break that and basically throwing his lot in with the idea that the New Jerusalem is the United States.

Mm-hmm. You just covered So many amazing bases that we're gonna get into in a little bit more depth, but I first wanted to show you a very bizarre clip that was my first exposure to right wing in heavy air quotes anti-Zionism. And this came from uh Jubilee. Are you familiar with Jubilee? Yeah. Oh you are.

Well I I saw s the one Medi did, the gang up thing.

You you have been in the weeds with political slop content. It's nice to know that we're all there together. Jubilee, for those who don't know, it's a YouTube content farm that purports to foster honest dialogue and inspire human connection. but in practice makes videos like this one called Is Being Fat a Choice? Fit Men versus Fat Men? In it, Myron Gaines, a far right podcaster who's representing the Fit Men side, says the following

Unfortunately, some people have emotional stuff that happened, um, traumatic stuff that's happened, so you can't discount and just say, Oh, because they're fat.

Woohoo man. Like it there's way worse stuff going out in the world versus people saying, Oh my god, I'm sad, I'm gonna eat some f ice cream. It's like, no, dude, it's like you're fat, you made that decision.

Yeah. That's so interesting.

It is so interesting. And the first time I heard that, I was like Wait, okay. So this is like this this guy is just like straightforwardly like bullying a fat person. Okay, like dime a dozen. We've seen this. And then at the end where he's like, Boo hoo, people are being bombed in Gaza. I'm like, wait a minute.

Well look, this is this is where I think the Democrats liberalism generally left a Texas sized vacuum that now the far right is moving into and it's intersecting with kind of edgelord culture, troll culture, whatever you want to call it, right? Where you create a taboo, you create an unspeakable thing, right? And maybe that's just saying fat people deserve to be bullied.

Okay. Nice to know that you have a line.

But I did watch that that Netflix documentary. And that was that that was all over it. Like all these guys were like they they they would just suddenly, all of a sudden, at the same sort of time, they all just Started doing this a similar line crossing using the genocide. And that's when I realized we were well and truly. I don't think that's why you had me on the show. You probably wanted hope from me.

We'll find hope. I promise we'll find hope. At least I'll find hope by the end. But you're so right. And the way Something that looks like anti-Zionism has infiltrated these manosphere spaces. And you saw it bizarrely at the Kevin Hart roast that just happened a couple nights ago. Where Shane Shane Gillis Gillis, someone tell me how it's pronounced, it's fine. I don't really care much about the man, to be honest. But he called out Chelsea Handler for being a Zionist.

I'm not saying that's good or bad. Speaking of dead kids, she's a big fan of abortion.

Now, if that came from like a left-wing figure, I'd be like, yes, I I I as a celebrity political person would love to talk about Chelsea Handler being a Zionist, but Shane Gillis is Like his whole thing is that he's a racist. And so it just seemed like such a strange thing, but also I think something that we're gonna get into here. Is that the far right has a long history of sort of ping ponging around between scapegoats. And I think what they are doing, while again on the surface, it can look

It's brutal, right? Because you find yourself, as you pointed out, I'm significantly older than you and I have been getting called a self-hating Jew and facing people who who equate criticism of the state of Israel, criticism of Zionism with anti Semitism. and accusing me of being an anti therefore an anti Semite for since I was in college, which was a really long time ago, you know.

Steve Bannon is talking about fascism and othering, right? You're like, well well, what words are left, right?

Uh-huh.

I think that's what you're talking about.

I want to tell the story of the five years. Tucker Carlson um arriving at this moment, which involves a lot of other people. And I think inherent to that story is the MAGA civil war. Naomi, for those out of the loop, can you explain this sort of conservative civil war eruption that I think has accelerated a lot in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death. I know you also wrote about this in your book.

Well, I think it has a lot to do with what with this sort of economy that we're talking about.'Cause it is an economy. The influencer economy is is a huge one and it's part of broader economy that is sort of feeding off of instability and crisis and It accelerated during the pandemic when people were everything was mediated through screens, lost their in-person communities, were frightened, you know, are finding their parasocial relationship. I'm not going to explain the internet to you. And so

You could explain anything to me. I would be very excited about it.

I think that Trump came back to power really using the right wing influencer sphere to his benefit, as we know. I mean he he sidestepped a lot of of mainstream media and did the podcast tour and it all worked fantastically well for him, then it started to fall apart because for them, for for for the people you know, who who are making a living off of this and are building empires around it.

Oh my god, right? Because my whole life I've heard especially from like the center liberals who are like, Why don't we especially recently where it's like, Why don't we just fall in line? Why don't we just fall in line behind this candidate or that candidate, Boat Blue, no matter who, yada yada, yada, yada. Leftist purity testing. You never stop hearing about leftist purity testing.

so and this is one of the like I mean there's so many things that social media has given us that are terrible, but when it comes but they have also destroyed the right. It has also destroyed the right. And it it it is and I love it. Like I I love the MAGA Civil War.

Yeah.

I think it is it is a tremendous gift. They have created a vacuum that if there was a functioning left party in the United States, it would be having a field day right now. Because they as you know, I mean, they are so messy. They are accusing each other of being feds. They're accusing each other of being trans. They're accusing each other of all kinds of things.

Ha ha ha.

Look, Tucker, that's why I'm sitting here, you know? Right. I mean because we had a contentious dialogue for

I thought you were a fed.

And I thought you were a fad.

It was a

Yeah.

Yeah.

mentioned Charlie Kirk. I mean Charlie Kirk was very much sort of a part of this. Things got very ugly between him and Nick Fuentes. And it was really like who is gonna be the most powerful influencer on the right. And to get your piece of the action, you've got to attack each other, then you have to have a collab, come back together, make peace. You know, they're just playing the game.

I remember that. They were all like the left killed Charlie Kirk, which like

It was very scary.

Yeah. It was very scary. And also like whether or not the left even killed Charlie Kirk, whether the individual shooter I mean, jury's still out. We haven't even gotten a trial yet. But it was it was very scary. I was like, oh no, like I mean, people were genuinely concerned there could be like a broader civil war over some of the rhetoric that the Trump administration was using over Charlie Kirk's death.

wasn't just rhetoric. They were also saying we're gonna go after the funders. We're gonna I mean they were using it yeah as a political tool to try to destroy the the funding infrastructure for the left and to try to criminalize specific groups. And they were starting to arrest people over it. I mean, it was not and people were losing their jobs. I mean it was a very serious campaign. And if this si MAGA civil war had not happened.

Yeah.

Let's not lose sight of the big

picture. That whole I remember like Charlie's Murderers dot com. It was like anyone who posted Like anything less than sympathetic about Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death had was doxxed on this website. Yeah, that lasted all of two days and then the the right started to eat itself. Ideologically, where we are now with the MAGA Civil War, for those who uh aren't Super tuned in, there are basically these two major warring factions. There is MAGA, right? Trump, Vance, people like Ben Shapiro.

I mean, I think that they are the the ground zero of the transgression culture that we were talking about earlier. The name itself speaks to the the kind of rebranding of what used to just be called neo Nazi culture with something that maybe it's a joke, maybe it's not a joke. Can we take any of it seriously? Is it all said with a wink? So it's it's a it's a little bit harder to pin down. But I think you'd probably explain it way better than me.

The Grupers are I mean, first and foremost, they're fans of the influencer streamer Nick Fuentes. But they're much more than that. Uh the the Grupers, the ideological backbone of the group is ultra, ultra, ultra nativist. They are very explicitly white Christian nationalists. They want to build an America that is full of white Christians and only white Christians.

Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson. And so while the Gripers they are first and foremost fans of Nick Fuentes. I think they are also sort of ground zero and perhaps the most extreme version of this emerging America First movement that seeks to go a lot further than MAGA. So I just wanna add here that like while I love to see that Ben Shapiro's media company is currently falling apart, fired potentially half of its employees.

Yeah, well absolutely. Absolutely. I mean this is why I said, you know, I love I love when the when the right splinters, because it's an opportunity for the left to put forward a vision that explains Some of the main issues that there are being tapped into, but with an actual systemic analysis that talks about capitalism, that talks about

Yeah, and and Tucker can articulate sort of a more polite version of this, whereas Nick Fuentes is more bombastic. Nick Fuentes uh has said of his movement, quote, there are basically two things going on, white genocide and Jewish subversion. So it doesn't really get more bald faced than that. He's also said, quote, My problem with Trump is not that he's Hitler. My problem with Trump is that he is not Hitler.

Right. And I think a lot of the people who are angry at Trump are angry because he hasn't deported enough people or that he's just kind of making a show of it and not then the numbers aren't there. They want the numbers because this is their economic policy. This is, you know, if you are willing to almost go there in terms of diagnosing the problem, it is genuinely very dangerous, right? If you're willing to talk about the Epstein class, but you're not willing to talk about capitalism.

the market crash of nineteen twenty nine and people are really, really hurting and socialism is rising, right? You have the Russian Revolution, you have a socialist worldview that says this has to spread to every country. You have elites who are terrified that it is going to happen in Germany, in Italy. And that's why they go after the communists and they go after the scapegoats, right? The the vulnerable scapegoats. It's always a twin project.

I just Not to interrupt you, I just kind of think that Tucker Carlson is happy being like a rich podcaster. That is my reason why I don't right now think he's gonna run for president, but I am very willing to be wrong.

I I don't know. I I really don't know. I mean, you could have said the same thing about Trump.

That's true.

He will certainly play a role in US politics that is pushing this ideology, whether it's him or or some surrogate. I mean it could be Vance, right? I mean they're they're pretty close and it it remains to be seen.

Something that you talked about in Doppelganger that really stayed with me, which I would tell people to go read that book, but and and they should, but I have also recommended that book, like in six different episodes of this podcast. So, you know.

Get the new one. It's almost

So get the new one.

It's the sequel.

I was so excited to see you were writing a book because I was like, A, I'm excited to read another Naomi Klein book and B, when people are releasing their books, they are more susceptible to taking the bait on podcast invitations.

We'll be back with Astra in September.

But one thing that you wrote about in Doppelganger is how fascists are very good at taking large groups of people, correctly helping them identify the problem, and then giving them the wrong solution. And in the context of that book, you were talking about how it's like we don't have guaranteed healthcare in this country, among a lot of other things. And so it's very tempting to then buy into what like a a a Nazi wellness influencer is selling you.

Yeah, I mean I just because of you, I listened to Tucker's episode with Thomas Massey, which was really an interesting episode. And what's happening to Thomas Massey is extraordinary.

For those who don't know, he's a a Republican congressperson who did help uh unite with Rokana, who's a Democrat, to uh force the release of half of the Epstein files.

I fully back that that kind of bipartisanship. They got the Epstein files released and now he is facing how much money is being spent against him? Ten million dollars. It's a lot for for for for this race. And he said the same people that are in the Epstein files are funding the campaign against him, are funding the ballroom, are funding the arch, right? And

I can we'll circle back to that.

Okay, we'll come back. Sorry. I got ahead of the plan.

No, please, please, please, please.

But I I guess just just that point, right? That going almost there but not going all the all the way there is is a pretty dangerous place to be, especially if you're Jewish.

And it's also, I mean, if you're someone like Tucker, if you're someone like Thomas Massey and you are looking for a way to accrue power and tap into people's real desires and real disillusionment without actually challenging power. Then this sort of, as you say, making it almost all the way there, and then at the last minute, like pivoting right, is a great way to do that. Because the hard thing about being on the left.

Well let's talk about the Epstein files for a minute because um thanks to Thomas Massey and Rokana and most especially the women who were abused by Epstein and refused to be silenced and came together and you know, built this movement and the journalists who covered it when nobody else would. We don't have all the Epstein files, but we have some of them, including After the Brexit referendum, this was actually an email from Epstein to Peter Thiel.

The most evil gay guy.

Where he um said, as we were ta saying in your office, pivot to tribalism. The basically they saw the Brexit referendum as the beginning of an age of collapse, right? This is why Astro and I call it end times fascism, because they're sort of celebrating that this is all going down and they're all gonna whether they're gonna colonize Mars or have the AI singularity or just have their sort of corporate city states.

Right, according to them.

According to them. But what how do you answer this? You answer this with a vision of the world of the future rooted in solidarity, which where everybody everybody has a place, right? Everybody's included. sacrificed or thrown out. But I you know, I think that this is the vision that he that he represents and it's a it's a really bleak vision, it's a really grim vision. And, you know, I think people can make short term alliances that will end up backfiring on them very, very badly.

Short-term alliance. That is uh is something that I think uh should stay with everyone. The New Yorker published a great piece about the Grupers called How the Internet Fringe Infiltrated Republican Politics. where they interviewed a young female groper. They exist. She encapsulated the Gruper ideology well when she said, quote, The administration will post TikTok videos of ice raids, but it's performative cruelty.

You know what's interesting about that is they are out of step. with most Republicans even. And they've come to understand this. Like after Minneapolis, there was a directive to the Republican Party ahead of the midterms not to talk about mass deportations, just to talk about criminal immigrants. Because there was such a significant backlash after the Minnesota uprising against ICE. And people saw like it's one thing to cheer for like a cool meme or something that like look

to see, you know, everyday Americans stand up and be heroic. I think that that moment really revealed that this isn't actually mass politics. It's for it is still fringe politics. And a lot, I don't know if it's a lot, but enough. Some Republicans spoke out, right? And said this is not what we want, you know, joined the protests in Minneapolis. And so this is another kind of fracturing that we're seeing on the right. And it's also it's an opportunity for coalition.

Okay.

Uh it was a quote from a a c a comedian who who used that line. It's such a good line. The the article described how these people who had blocked each other on Facebook over protests against trans brunches or or like or like sorry drag brunches.

Oh, there we go. There we go. It's like trans Brunch.

Drag drag brunch. It was a drag brunch and it was like somebody who ran like a it was a Christian Facebook group and they they had been at war over a drag brunch. Simply to say that the last issue that brought this many people to like local community meetings were like it's the culture it's the culture wars. It's what books to ban, it's vaccines, it's mask mandates, it's all the things I wrote about in dopp doppelganger.

Well, I I wanna talk a little bit about the Israel of it all because I led with that and I think a lot of people are still like, But he's good on Israel, right? And it's like It's a hard kind of. Right. I told you beforehand, I was like, I'm making a Venn diagram. I'm not having Naomi Klein on my podcast and not making a Venn diagram. So, you know, just because someone's belief could look like yours.

You made a nice craft. Did you make it yourself or did you use AI?

No, I made it myself. I just like I like I I went to like vennediagram.com and I like put in Ha ha ha

Okay.

On the Groper right side, uh unique to the Groiper right, I wrote there America first, anti immigrant, anti LGBT, white supremacist, uh, you know, very steeped in social conservatism, especially so with gender roles. anti-Semitism, and I wrote that they are billionaire friendly. And on the left, of course, pro-LGBT, pro-immigrant, racial equity, feminism, pro-worker, wealth redistribution, market regulation, stuff like that. What do these groups have in common?

Well... They are against money going to Israel because they are isolationist. They are, I think, again pro Israel lobbying has done to US politics in that they believe Israel has pulled the US into all kinds of wars and they

Yeah, I think that's right. I think what you highlighted is so important that they are much more against the US relationship with Israel than Israel itself. If Israel continued to function as like an apartheid segregated ethnostate. I don't think Tucker would have a problem as long as our money was not going towards it.

I've always thought I have the most world's most moderate position on Israel. Don't hate Israel. Just don't want to get involved in their wars. Don't want to pay for this. Don't want to pay for abortion on demand in a foreign country. Sorry. When we're cutting food stamps on our own, like that's outrageous. It's not America first.

So I think that illustrates what I'm saying pretty clearly.

I think it's important to understand that that also doesn't preclude being anti Semitic and that there's a long history of fascists supporting Israel because they think that that's actually where all Jews belong. that they can have their ethno ethnostate so that we can have our ethnostate, uh you know, our pure ethnostate. But also that dumping all of the ills of capitalism onto a Jewish elite is a is a very old trick and a very useful one in terms of protecting capitalism.

And like Tucker Carlson, among a lot of other things, he supported gutting USAID, which Elon did with Doge, and he supported gutting USAID. USAID for the same reason, I would argue, that he is broadly anti-Israel, which is that he just thinks that US money shouldn't go anywhere except The US. Like you know, one might ask of Tucker Carlson, why is one of the United States' most prominent critics of Israel not organizing for Palestine?

Mm-hmm.

The reality of a multi ethnic country requires you to sort of set aside community or group interests in favor of national interests. And you have to do that or else it doesn't work. I don't think well I'll speak for myself. I'm I don't feel like I'm at war with the neocons or Israel. It's much bigger than that. It's like you want to restore America. To a place where your grandchildren would enjoy growing up. That's it. Yeah.

He might be, you know, slightly concerned about the genocide in Gaza, but not enough to like do anything material about it or like advocate for Palestinians, which he doesn't.

I mean he got he started to get concerned when churches were targeted.

And that tells you everything. Everything that he only started caring about, like the genocide, really, and talking about it when churches in Gaza were targets.

On Sunday, one of the weirdest images of recent times, and there are a lot of weird images, appeared on the internet. It appeared to show an Israeli soldier, an IDF soldier, using a sledgehammer to smash the face of a

Of

A statue of Jesus. So then you think, Well, this just can't be real. And of course, that's what they told you right off the bat. This is not real. But very quickly it emerged, No. This actually was real. Why would an Israeli soldier want to smash the face of Jesus? This is a country, we're often told, that is a safe haven for Christians in the region. How free are Christians to practice Christianity in Israel? American Christians need to reassess their support for Israel.

And like so the genocide, it might be a secondary concern of Tucker's or even a tertiary concern, but his main concern is the opposite of humanitarian.

Yeah. The point I just was making before w I got distracted around, you know, whether or not he's running for president or whether what role he's gonna play in the next e electoral cycle or the next few electoral cycles. It's simply that people should remember that when that that when politicians are cobbling together an electoral coalition.

Uh-huh.

Or pro Palestine as you're

A another thing that Tucker says a lot is that Trump is controlled by Israel. This is sort of one of his central critiques of Israel. And I wonder what you make of that.

I mean, I think it's a story that exonerates US power, right? I I think anybody on the left who's aligning themselves with an ideology of American firstism should think hard about the role of US foreign policy in the world and what it means to say that actually it's been, you know, Israel all along that is responsible for everything.

A hundred percent. And you know, I was just explaining like one of Tucker Carlson's big critiques of Israel is that it's like People who have like American Zionists who have dual loyalty to Israel. They're like sort of breaking apart the American nationalists. project. And I want to mention here where someone like Nick Fuentes takes that a step further or at least is more explicit, is Nick Fuentes will say this is a Jewish problem.

idea that neoconservatism and in Israel has nothing to do with Jewishness, Jewish identity, the Jewish religion.

Clearly, the state of Israel and the neocons are deeply motivated by that ethnic identity. And their allegiance to Israel proceeds from that. There's like a natural affinity that Jews have for Israel.

And he will say that to someone like Tucker Carlson virtually unchallenged. I wanna also mention, insofar as Tucker Carlson is tactically useful in the short term. I was talking, I was talking with my Palestinian friend about this, and he mentioned, you know, like the largest pro-Israel coalition in the United States is the Christian Zionist base.

Yeah, and I think coming back to what we were talking about earlier. This could be good. Like it it just depends on whether there is a left that can take advantage of that splintering, right? Um it's it's very important to break apart that coalition. I mean, that's something else that he's done very well on the show. You know, some people want to argue that this just it's just anti Semitic to even talk about this.

Sort of like the greater Israel people.

I mean they're beyond Greater Israel. They want Greater Israel is only a piece of it. What they're they're Messianic Zionists. This is where Christian Zionism and Jewish Messianic Zionism come together. In their own strategic alliance, right? Because in the Christian version of this story, you need all the Jews to go back to Israel to

Once we start getting into the Bible of it all, I like have such a hard

God is a real estate agent. I listen, I have been studying this now for more than a year and I I always say to my friends like I'm getting stupider. Like the more I learn, the dumber I get. Like I used to feel smart when I did research, and now I'm just like, what

It's so hocus pocus.

need to continue. So once you yeah, did you ever watch any of the left behind movies? The left behind movies? No. This is the rapture. This is the story of the rapture.

I know a little bit about like did Christian Zionists want the Jews to go to Israel so that like they can be saved and all the Jews can like burn in hell or something.

That's basically the story. So but so a certain things need to happen in order for th those conditions to be met. So you have to Jews have to go to Israel and then they have to rebuild the third temple.

Literally about to say your your poor brain. Oh my god.

Okay, but the thing is it's like, you know, I have a line in Doppelganger um quoting Philip Ross saying it's too ridiculous to take seriously and too serious to be ridiculous. And I feel like that is the slogan of our age because it is it is so ridiculous that you want to ignore it, but it's too serious to be ridiculous because there are people with power who used to be quite marginal. Now, you know, they have positions in the Israeli government that put them in charge of the whole police.

Yeah, yes, yes, yes, do it, do it.

Right, you you you you you set it up the way you want to do it. I know I went on for a long time and I got to the red heifers which I shouldn't have, you know? But look, there are people who go on podcasts shaking little bits of ash of burned red cows in America, you know? Huge podcast of millions of listeners.

Next time we do this, you have to tell me which like religious props to bring.

Do bring a dime bag of ashes.

Later you'll explain to me why. Okay. I'd like to take a quick break from the show to give a shout out to Blueland for sponsoring today's episode. Plastic, as you might be aware, doesn't just disappear, it breaks down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces of what you might know as microplastics that stay in our environments, in our homes, all around us. Blue Land is a home cleaning company that is taking the microplastics out of the products you use every day to clean your

I care about results. Now there are certain places where certain areas where I don't think That we should ignore. Some folks' record on some of these issues, right? we trust intent where we trust where those outcomes are going. I personally Do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Green, a proven bigot and anti Semite, on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

I don't think that it's a little bit more than a little bit

benefits our movement in that instance to align the left with white nationalists. I don't think it serves us. And so I think it's about looking at The context, the place, the results, the outcomes, intentions, and where we think that train would go.

Now, this comment and the discourse that ensued will keep the lights on at Blue Sky for some time. Marjorie Taylor Green is, if you're out of the loop, someone who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2021 as sort of a Trump sycophant. And perhaps his strongest soldier, and over the last year became vocally disillusioned with Trump's cover-up of the Epstein files.

Yeah, I I mean I don't particularly want to weigh in on the whether or not to trust Marjorie Taylor Green or not. You know, I think I've said before, she's been on a journey. I don't know her. I don't know exactly what she believes.

It's also just like a moot point in my opinion,'cause it's like she's not in the government anymore. But sorry, continue. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think she wanted to run for the Senate in Georgia. I you know, I don't know. But I do do know that unlike some of the people we've been talking about, she does talk about the corruption within the Trump administration, like that just the unbelievable level of self enrichment and donors and so on.

Ja. Sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. I I I'm with you. I'm with you. That that was the line, right? J like Marjorie Taylor Green sacrificed her political career to like stand up for what she thought was right. I just want to say Marjorie Taylor Green did not sacrifice her political career. She quit. As soon as her views shifted and she would have had any leverage to actually enact change according to her new views.

Yeah. And I I I think it's politically smart within Ma MAGA to see that the sort of Trump train is crashing and there's gonna be another wave and we'll see what she does, right? Um, but being able to be like I was one of the courageous ones, you know, if you're running in kind of a purple state is not a bad thing to be. So we'll see.

Yeah, she she carried water for Kamala's line about like we're working tirelessly for a ceasefire.

In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class.

Yeah.

She is working tirelessly. To secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

That was not true.

I think she was she was in her mode of w you know, which is a mode that Bernie gets into as well of just like doing everything we we need to stop Trump, you know. And looking at the way the world works now, you can see why people get into that mode, but it doesn't forgive a line like that in the middle of a genocide and in in in the context of a convention where Palestinians were being blocked from from even having a speaker.

Were you there? In twenty twenty three.

Yeah.

Naomi, I honestly wasn't not only was I not there, like I wasn't there yet.

Yeah, I mean

Yeah. Which I think is important to name. Like my political evolution happened in the wake of October seventh and I I I was not there yet.

No, and you know, Bernie wasn't there yet. I mean it would be six months before Rokana called for a ceasefire. It w she was early. So I'm just saying that. I just wanna say because a lot of people have been lying. She was early and sh d she did take some risks and she also, you know, was The the the the voice of the Green New Deal in Congress. And that is the kind of a vision that we actually need to get us out of this fascist house of mirrors that we're in right now.

Far from being lambs led to the slaughter. Israel's soldiers have fought back with incredible courage.

Reiterating this idea of blaming the victims and the story that m that Molly tells in the book is really that it was a failure of solidarity on every level. Um, it was a failure of, you know, multiracial movements to stick together and um and also failures of solidarity in the United States and Canada and all the countries that that shut their doors to to Jews um so that Palestine seemed to be the only safe place, right?

Hmm. also with respect to Marjorie Taylor Green, just want to point out that like it's not even really a transformation. Marjorie Taylor Green isn't uh necessarily a groper. I think she would probably say she's like too old for that. She's graper adjacent in her politics and even in her opposition to Israel. I mean, she she's a little better than some of the others. She does seem to have a genuine humanitarian concern.

Insane.

Horrifying, but she's still extremely anti-immigrant. She's still anti-vaccine. I think she's on Twitter right now recommending like ivermectin for the Henta Hunt Hunta virus. She is very anti-abortion, very anti-trans in her resignation letter. She was like, I join this to get the men out of women's sports. You know, it's

It's like she's also very proud of her work with Doge and says that, you know, that things started to go bad when they didn't go far enough with Doge.

Mm. So I think we're sensing a pattern among these people that it's like These beliefs that have the aesthetic of some sort of thing that looks like some of what we practice on the left are not. And uh, you know, as recently as last summer when Zoran won the primary, Marjorie Taylor Greene posted, did you see this? She posted an AI-generated image of the Statue of Liberty covered in like a burqa.

Yeah, I I think you're right what you said before that why are we talking about her? She's not she's she's not in politics right now. She's now an influencer. We can't read her mind. You know, she said some good stuff. She said some absolutely atrocious stuff. Why would we speculate about whether she's really changed or not changed?

Um

There's no there there is no nostalgia for 20th century fascism, but it was a kind of affordist fascism that had an offer to its base. If you were part of the in-group, you got material benefits, right? It wasn't all memes. You got like a nice home that they stole from the Jews or the Slavs, right? Um you got social programs, you got big public works, whether we're talking about Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler.

I mean look at even what Israel by their land theft has given Israelis.

And that's what Tucker's mad about, right? That's what made me think about it, right? It made me realize that I think that the next stage of this will make more serious social welfare offers, right? And that will be called a bipartisan coalition because we'll all agree, right? It'll seem like we can agree. We agree that Israel is a genocidal state and we also agree that people should have health care and social security. And it's gonna be really important to understand this history.

Could I play you one more video to react to?

I just

want to really make light of something that we've mentioned, which is the way that like liberal Zionist institutions have paved the way for Tucker's rise and Nick Fuentes's rise and Marjorie Taylor Green to look like a reasonable person. And I think nothing uh represents that better than this viral clip from an interview that Tucker did with the editor-in-chief of The Economist, wherein she asks him the following.

Do you

are critical of the government of Israel. Do you believe in the Israel's right to exist? Would you consider yourself a Zionist in that narrow definition? The existence of the political state of Israel as it is.

It has a right, what does that mean?

But you don't d you think it should continue in its existence as a state right now. So you you are the you do not agree with the state.

the rod.

For example.

Well let me just ask since you asked me the question it's fair for me to get you to define the term so I can answer You've asked two questions. The first was, do you believe Israel is a right to exist? And the second question was, do you believe Israel should continue to go on as a nation? And those are very different questions. So I often hear that.

Having been created as a political entity in nineteen forty eight, does that state

To exist. Is that what you're asking?

Should it continue to exist? That's what that's how I define narrowly designed.

Because the phrase you used was devised by the Israeli government. Of course. Does it have a right to exist? And so my question to you would be, what is that? What's your question is? exist or do I want it to exist? Do I seek its destruction?

Fine, answer it that way.

Well of course I don't seek its destruction. I've already said, as you know, because I said it to you, I don't want Israel to be destroyed or how

Actually.

We've we've got to do that.

We've established that you are in that narrow terms of Zionism.

I am in no sense a Zionist. I don't want any country to be destroyed and I d at all, and I don't want people to die, particularly ones who committed no crime, because I don't believe in killing innocents. Period. That's the basis of Western civilization. Eastern civilizations with a whole different view, they believe in collective punishment, I don't.

So you're no senses on.

I don't even know what that means. Why don't you ask define the the term and then I'll tell you whether I am?

Find it.

What's his idea?

A Zionist in my narrow term, this definition is that the state of Israel, the political state of Israel, has the right to continue existing.

The right. Where does that right come from? What what do you mean? These are like I'm not being a lawyer about it. I just want to know what you're asking.

Good job.

Yeah.

I don't know what you're asking. No, no, no, I think it's a lot. You don't want to define your question. And I don't know why.

I mean, insane Tucker Carlson laugh aside, he's running laps around this person. She can't be honest what she means about things like Zionism or the right to exist or whatever.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and he said that's what s Western civilization stands for. Like that was one of the things that stood out to me. That Western civilization stands for that. I mean there's I'm not so sure it does. Like I'm not so sure that that's what the history of Western civilization Shows us because genocide has been committed in the name of Western civilization many times. And what he's actually describing is

Yeah.

I wanna ask him if he thinks the UN has a right to exist. You know, the genocide convention is a product. post-Second World War II infrastructure that was a response to genocide committed in the name of Western civilization, in the name of Western values, against pollutants. So yeah, he can run lab.

Yeah, and and I don't say that he's running laps around her to like do some crazy Tucker Carlson praise. I think it's very easy, uh like you said, to just get around this question with like a normal answer of like I believe in international law.

States don't have rights. Yeah, there's lots of ways to get around it.

Yes, fr uh Francesca Albanese Albanese has also done an incredible an incredible answer to this. So has Tanahasse Coates, ones that are based in human rights framework. But what kills me, what drives me crazy as someone on the left, is that the dishonesty.

these institutions that are like sort of like Zionist first because they are whatever, allegiant to these systems and capital and all of that other stuff. They have left the lane wide open for these people to swoop in and look like the rational ones in the situation. When as we've described over this episode, they are leading people to a much worse place. You know, if you look at what someone like Nick Fuentes believes,

I think they have. I think this has been a a group project and I you know, we like we are more than two and a half years into a genocide. that coalitions of the left have failed to stop. And I think we are now in a moment where people are looking around, going Are there other alliances we can make? That might be and and I think from the beginning there have been people who who who have had that perspective.

It's not all bleak. And, you know, j just to conclude, a lot of people do ask me there, you know, cause the the adage has always gone in these like mainstream Jewish institutions like the ADL, where they're like the best way that you can you know, s stand up against anti Semitism is like be louder about your support for Israel and like wear like more necklaces about it or whatever. I think like I I would really just like to argue again that like the best thing that

That was really good. It was really good. No, I mean I you know, I just I was just thinking and I was just thinking about how to say this because it's so fucking complicated, but thinking about the nineteen thirties in the United States. Um, you know, fascism was rising and figures like the ones we've been talking to, America Firstism was rising, and it was you know, a moment when the US could have gone could have gone fascist itself, right? Um

Mm-hmm.

And the U has gone fascist itself, right? I mean it's like this thing of could it happen here? It did happen. I mean, the Nazis learned studied the Jim Crow laws to write the Nuremberg laws. They didn't invent fascism, even if they gave it a proper name. Uh it existed in the colonies, it existed in under settler colonialism.

There's the optimism. All right. Naomi Klein Thank you so so much for being here today. It really it really is a dream uh and an honor. So thank you for allowing me to help you promote your book. Where can

We're gonna be back and talking about end times fascism um with Astra because my my brain is still a little bit the the book is still in its in its final stages, so There's this thing that happens like before it comes out where like we get really organized with our talking points and I'm not there yet. So forgive me for being a little rambler than usual. And please have me an Astroback to really blow your mind.

Yeah.

I can't wait. For now, where uh can people find more of you?

Oh. Um no, actually this is the only interview I've done. 'Cause we've been so locked down in the with the book. No, I I I um I don't know. I'm not really anywhere. I stopped posting on X.

Yeah.

Don't really understand Instagram as you know.

You're the first person who's answered this question with nowhere. You can find Naomi at the bookstore

I'm I'm platformless.

Yeah.

Ha ha

Well, I'm so grateful that you came here for this episode. I know it was like sort of like more advanced, complicated, like political unpacking of what's going on, but You know, sometimes we just have to do episodes like this. We can't always talk about celebrities, but uh in two weeks we probably will again. I love you so much. Thank you for listening today and until next time, stay fruity. That's my little outro.