Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Joe Biden says it's time fascism is called fascism and Americans know exactly what they're voting for. He's right. We have such a great show for you today. Author Ben Mesick stops by to talk about his new book, Breaking Twitter, Elon Musk and the most controversial corporate takeover
in history. Oh, by the way, it's gotten worse. Then we'll talk to the editor of the Nevada Independent, John Ralston. But first we have the host of the Time of Monsters, the Nation's git here. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics. Jed here.
Good to be back on the program.
You are my favorite. I am so excited that we have you. It is, you know, the run ups of Thanksgiving. I wanted you back here for any number of reasons you're might go to in all things Canada. Just kidding. I'm sorry, that's like the meanest thing. No, Canada is great and we love it and it matters a lot in the world, but just not right now. But I want to talk to you about where we are right now in this like I feel like we're at the end of primary season, except there were no primaries.
Discuss Yeah, on both sides, there were no primaries. I mean on the Republican side, you kind of have this like farcical situation where Trump is just so far ahead, you know, he doesn't even need to debate, and that turned out to be a smart strategy on his part. It's a snow white in the Seven Dwarves. Snow White is the star. That's Trump, and the little seven Dwarves bottom ercs themselves and they all lost, and they all lost,
they all lost. I mean, there's a big push now to say, well, Nikki Haley is on the rise and she's a credible opponent to Trump, and their best palling is in New Hampshia, where she's like thirty points behind Trump, right like she's a toy. And then New Upter is like exceptional among Republicans because it's a more liberal state and her and Chris Christia are doing well there. But
that's not the Republican electorate like anywhere else. Certainly in Iowa she's not getting anywhere at But conversely, I mean, the one reason she's on the rise is that you know Ron DeSantis is going down. He's actually like fourth in New Hampshire, which is like amazing. All the seven dwarves are basically candidates put up forward by some billionaire thinking you'd be lice to own a president, and then
maybe Trump won't get it, and they're all faltering. There's really no contest on the Republican side except maybe the contest for being Vice president viiic Ramaswami might be an interesting kind of picked just because he has some of that Trump energy and he had a brief bubble which is already bursted. So yeah, I don't actually see anyone on the Tim Scott got a girlfriend where a few days just photographed with a live.
Human with a lady.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, and this will be the only achievement of these want to be Trump said, you know Tim Scott's very brief flirtation with human sexuality. Now on the Democratic side, I mean, the same thing has kind of happened. I mean, like, on the one hand, there's a considerable number of Democrats who actually are not that enthusiastic about Biden being the nominee. But the one thing that keeps them going is that, like there's no credible alternative, right.
There's no way.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like William said, I know, friend of the family.
Pause the tape here, we're gonna this a low blow from get here. My first cousin who I haven't spoken to in years and years and years, Peter daw was briefly her campaign manager. Thank you, friend of the Family's cheat.
Sorry about that, Peter Daw. How many people as even campaign manager as far so we both like campaign manager. We believe where Cornell was.
Yes, everyone who can hurt Biden has it one time employed my first cousin, Peter.
Da No, No, I'd have to say this is my ga because we're dad had worked for Hillary Clinton, another winning candidate. So I have to say that my working theory is that he is actually the greatest sleepers hell agent in the history of American politics.
I'm only laughing to keep from crying. But yes, I think that's for sure true.
So yeah, no, no, Williams, it isn't happening. Cornell was like, you know, jump from party to party, like you know that a French party moved to the Greens. He's not throwing the Greens. He's gonna run some sort of campaign where like there's no chance he'll be on any ballad and RFK Junior, like, you know, he's running a great campaign if you want to be a Republican, he actually could have. I think if he had actually run as a Republican, he actually might have had the best shot
against Trump. Like I think he has some of that like celebrity wacko energy, and there's enough sort of like boomers that types have some memory of, like Kennedy, it had been Democrats and there is some of that, like you know, old counterculture crowd that has moved because of qan On and because of COVID has moved to the top. He could have had a credible run. But in any case, who the hell knows what he's doing?
Is he so wary as a Democrat he'smoothed into being an independent, But the reality is he will act as a spoiler. Maybe he knows this, maybe he doesn't care. As someone who had the experience of being on the wrong side of him in Austin when he tried to hackle my interview with doctor Peter hot has the TLDR I got from seeing him and the way he acted towards me and towards doctor hoo does is that he's basically a member of the al right at this point.
That's right, that's right as such. I mean, I mean, I mean, the one interesting thing about him is he might actually be a spoiler, but maybe a spoiler for the Republican right.
They're getting nervous now.
There are people in the Trump camp that are worried that he's going to take more votes from them than Biden. And I think that that seemed very plausible. But in any case, on the democratics idea, no plausible opposition has emerged. I mean, like what could if very think that something could happen, just because usually if you have a Democrat that's unpopular, like Linda Johnson sixty eight or Jimmy Carter and Edie, you do have some opposition figure within the
party that emerges. But in both those cases that ended up like electing Republicans. And I actually think that the Democrats, the actual plausible Democrats who could have run against Joe Biden, none of them have. That's pretty significant, I mean.
Kind of an endorsement of Joe Biden in a lot of ways.
Well see a year from now whether the wisdom of that, but it is the fact that the party, the elected officials, and anyone who's a plausible Democratic candidate has not run against Joe Biden, that there is no primary on that end either.
Apologies to miss Williamson.
One of the things I want to talk to you about, which I think is so relevant and important here I have this theory I want to sort of talk to you about because you and I I think of us as Internet people. Right, we live there, you know, we live in our homes with our spouses, but we also really live on the Internet. One of the things with these bad polls is that we see that the person who kills it in these polls is the generic D. Right,
they are the person who kills it. And in twenty fifteen, the person who got the nomination was the generic D Joe Biden. Joe Biden's his favorability numbers are low, very low, Hillary Clinton level low. Do you think that part of what happened and part of what Biden World needs to do is they need to fill the vacuum. So, for example, Hunter Biden is on the cover of the New York
Post every day for two weeks. Right, Hunter's laptop, Hunters, this, Hunters, Hookers, Hunters, this hunter's that, and there's no one in Biden world going like, look, Avanka's husband, Jared manages two billion dollars for Mohammed ben Salmon. How did he meet Mohammad bin Salmon. Let us take a moment and pause. Oh, when he brought peace to the Middle East. Here's what's not happening peace in the Middle East. Here's what is happening. Jared carried interest on two billion dollars.
Discuss It is absolutely the case that Biden as president, you know, like, is not able to command the stage. And that's like give were for a bunch of reasons. I think partially it's also like a decision on their end. Likely, you know, like I think that they did buy the theory that you know, like Biden won because he was banal, because he would allow people to have brunch and he would restore calmness to politics and not be like, you know, tweeting all the time. He would be the anti Trump, right.
I don't know if that's why he won, And I certainly think that the Democrats will won since Biden haven't won on the strategy of like keeping things calm and like being invisible, Like I think Democrats have like as they had a lot of success in the both the mid terms and the slash elections, and it usually comes from being sort of fear sleep partisan. But I mean, I think said that the thing is it'll come down. I think if it's like Trump versus Biden, there, you know,
might be an issue. And I have to remind people like twenty twenty was close. It was not close in the popular vote, but actually in the terms of the electoral college victory, it was closer than twenty sixteen. Well, like you know, like forty thousand votes in three states would have given us like a second Trump presidency. Now, but on the generic question, Democrats are better and so there are ways in which this can become and I think it is going to become not Biden versus Trump,
but Democrats versus Republicans. First of all, the Democrats actually, I think have a great bench. People don't realize this, but I mean, like there's just a lot of good Democratic talent instead of the governors and also among this senators.
So like if you make it, if you bring out there, you know, all the heavy hitters, which I think actually also happened in twenty twenty, Like if you actually saw who was campaigning, like you know, like Obama and Ernie, and you know they were kept I think as much as Videns.
Right.
Okay, So we imagine a scenario next year where there's indications the White House Watson were in a front porch campaign not have biding out there a lot, but you could have, you know, if you have Obama, Bernie Elizabeth, Warren, Whitmore, Warnock, Newsome, like put everyone, the whole team out there and make it like the key issues, you know, domestically are abortion.
Like a vote for Trump is a vote for a party that you know, like actually is still committed to like a federal abortion ban, which is like hugely unpopular. I think that gets you a lot of the way there. And I have to say, you know, like we don't want to talk about form folacy, but look, I think a lot of ways the foreign policy, whatever else you can say about it, is a bit of a distraction because you know, the more time that takes up on
the front page of the headlines. I think one piece of bad luck is like the foreign policy dominates, and then like everything that's happened to Trump in terms of all the court cases and all the information that's come out about Trump in the last few weeks. It hasn't been in the headline, it hasn't circulated. I mean it's when the headlines like in the back of the newspaper.
It hasn't been something that's been really taken up. And so I mean, I think a lot will depend on if there's like some of these like foreign pality crises. I diffused. I think Biden will be in a much better place because it will then become you know, Democrats versus Republicans, or even Democrats versus Trump. It is that said, it'll be a Trump viized GOP. I think you can win on that.
Yeah, And it's interesting. I mean the idea here though, the importance here is that if you allow a vacuum, a news vacuum, then it gets filled, and it gets filled with people like Jack Pasopiak and the Breitbart crew. This is the brave new, completely unregulated world of social media. There is no one coming to tell the truth, right. The truth is whatever people are seeing in a headline. I mean, this is the really sad state of things.
And I think what's really scary to me, as a person who really dwells there is that we're seeing there is no fact check what Elon Musk has done very successfully. It may have been intentional, it may not have been intentional, but he has removed all of the fact checks. You know, they do have community notes, but again you can get noted for things that may or may not be true.
Right, Yeah, it's a very mixed thing. Well, I mean in terms of well, whether Musk was deliberate, I mean, I think he's just an idiot to shut off his mouth but ended up in controlling Twitter. But you know, once he controls twueter, he wants to make it his own end. But there are other people. I mean, we're seeing a huge sort of right wing push to build on the brief fire model. Yeah, they're creating all these
like faked news sites. They're buying Univision, you know, like one of the main outlets with Spanish speaking Americans get their news, you know, like is now controlled by the right.
And you need those voters, Well.
We need those words. Yeah, Unfortunately. I mean the thing is, if we're talking about the the big media outlets, like you know, the Democrats are outgunned simply by the fact that you know, they're more Republican billionaires they're more invested in creating this media for a start care yeah case something like if you remember aar America from like twenty years ago, there's a casal due you know, but it's
it's nowhere near the same league. I do think that there's a lot of energy, you know, on the left, and we are creating their own media spaces. They're not like these big corporations, and I think that if you have a leader that's charismatic enough, they can override that. I mean, I think the one thing with Trump is it's, you know, like he got a lot of earned media media, you know, like because he.
Just yeah, was a celebrity, free media, different media.
But you could say that listening about Obama, like Obama became a genuine celebrity, and they very cleverly like they went on things that were political. Obama would go on sports podcasts, right listen to like tons of people, uh not people who like you know, normally pay attention to headlines or news. But you know, like people got the impression like, you know, Obama is this guy. Now I don't know if Biden this is you know, partially who he is, but it's also partially who he's chosen to be.
He's chosen to try to be like the old style politician, you know, who tries to do backroom deals and work Washington. He can't do that, But I don't know if it's just on him. Like, I actually think this is like democracy depends on where they one person, And I do think that the Democrats have a strategy where they're putting their people like on these new media outlets and trying to reach people, you know, that can even the field a little bit.
Yeah, I mean that is a really good point. I think about that a lot and just how important it is to sort of adjust that way. So what you're saying is a really good point about how really Democrats need to fill this vacuum. They need to focus on getting their guy out there. I do think that January one, people are going to wake up and be like, holy shit. I mean, the thing is Trump is tweeting about Vermin. I mean, thank god Trump is not Ron DeSantis, thank god?
Right, Yeah, I mean, well this is the thing. This is like the whole media vacuum that we're talking about. I mean, Trump it is like, you know, much more openly fascist than he's.
Ever been than anyone, Right.
Yeah, he's sort of like, you know, hinting at you know, he'll like execute the top brass of the Pentagon. You know, it's really wild stuff. And I gotta say, my whole sense is it's not circulating. It's not you know, certainly the Republican media is a lot picking up on it. But the more you know, neutral or democratic media, it's not what people are talking about. All the polling would indicate it's not resonating, and you have to figure out a way to make that the top issue and make
it resonate. I feel like it's all going to tighten up a lot when it is, you know, Biden versus Trump, that's what it is. I think, you know, like a front ports campaign is not going to work just and I know there are reports like in political and elsewhere like this is what the White House is thinking. You know, It's like that's not the reality. That's certainly how Democrats
have won elections over the last three years. And I think the only hope I can see is if you bring out the whole team, Like if you just bring out everyone who's like a heavy hitter, just put them out there all the time.
Yeah, jid, here we're going to be doing this a lot, so please forgive me. Thanks for coming on. Can't wait to have you back.
Okay, always a pleasure.
Ben Mazick is the author of Breaking Twitter, Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover and History. Welcome Ben to Fast Politics.
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
So the book is called Breaking Twitter and Elon Musk and the most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History, which it really is. Talk to me about how you decided to write this book.
I try and write stories that are about big moments in either cultural history or technological history. Things that you know, the world is changing, and these are those moments, those origins of some big change. And obviously Elon taking over Twitter became a very, very big story. I got interested in it. On the one hand, I was a big fan of Elon Musk in that I thought he's someone
who's trying to push us forward. Previous to him taking Twitter, he was, you know, the genius behind Tesla and SpaceX. He was whenever you talked about him, he was, you know, in the same sentence as like Edison or one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. And then he dove into Twitter, and it just spiraled out of control. In my opinion, and from a cinematic point of view, it was just kind of a movie being written in front of me, and I'm always looking for very cinematic stories.
And then a lot of people just started coming to me who had either been just fired or were still working with him, or people even on his team, who were just saying, this is so crazy. Someone should write about it. And I started to hear the stories, and then someone from Hollywood reached out, so it kind of all came together and I dove in and started writing it.
You know, it's funny because I was at Twitter before it happened. You know, he like made the offer, and then there were a couple of months where I was like, will here or won't he right? And I was there and I was talking to them and everyone. The consensus was it was not going to happen, right, And it seemed like it was not going to happen, and he was going to have to pay this wildly enormous kill fee. And then one day it did happen. So what happened there?
Yeah, you know, he went in for a couple reasons, and so in my view and from all the research I've done. He really felt like he was going in for the right reasons, where there was this woke mind virus sweeping across Twitter and it was moderating conservative voices and free speech was dying, and he believed that there had to be this organ of free speech for us
to get to Mars. It's kind of a convoluted theory, but the idea is that we have this window open in which we can get to Mars and become interplanetary and save us from some sort of civilization ending doom. And to do that, he needed to save Twitter. So that was his initial reasons for getting in, but he
wasn't taking it all that seriously. He made a crazy offer which was way too much money, and very quickly he started getting pushed back from Tesla insiders who saw that he was going to have to sell shares and divide his attention. And this was the first time this kind of group of faithful people pushed back at him, and that, combined with the idea that he realized he was paying way too much for it, made him change his mind and he decided to get out of it,
and he claimed it was all about bots. He didn't know, there were so many bots of it. You know, there were a lot of bots. But then they sued him. They came to him and said, you have to take us over, and it became this battle between their lawyers and him and his lawyers, and he would have to pay this crazy fee to get out, which he should have done, probably.
Right, which still would have saved him forty billion dollars or something.
Well worse than that. And the whole concept of my book is that, you know, Elon must didn't break Twitter. Twitter broke Elon Musk. It ruined his reputation, It ruined him for half the country. You know, it was not worth it at all. This this is a horrible move, but at that point it became a thing of pride and he decided to take it, and he took it angrily, and that's why he sort of crashed through the gate reluctantly. But once he was there, he just started burning it down.
How does he service this debt? I mean wildly overpaid, probably about twice maybe three times what it was really worth. I mean, doesn't he have to service like a billion dollars a debt every month?
Yeah, it's crazy. They're trying to rewrite history and saying that Twitter was already on its last legs. And the reality was financially Twitter was doing fine. It was very close to break even, if not break even. I mean, it wasn't making tons of money, but you know, nothing is. And then he came in and because of the debt structure, it's suddenly losing money from the minute he walks in the doors and then he chases all the advertisers away.
So not only did he overpay, but he cut their revenue so enormously that they themselves now value it at eighteen billion dollars, which is probably an inflated valuation, and so it's more than half declined from where he started. So yes, he has to keep sort of it alive. All the banks are looking at a huge write off on this, and that's why he's doing all these crazy
things to try and make it profitable. So even though he came in with these intentions of noble reasons, it becomes an effort just how do we monetize all of this? And so you can see him lashing out in ways trying to monetize, trying to monetize, which is just making the situation worse and worse.
I have so much trouble imagining that he came in for noble reasons. But what do you think of the sort of theory of the case that he came in because he was mad that he had a trans kid.
Yeah, I mean that's definitely part of it. It was the Babylon be tweet where you know, the Babylon being made a joke about the trans Health Department person, and Elon has a child who is trans and has a bad relationship with that child, and so I think there's something to that for sure. I mean, I think that was the thing that pushed him over the edge. I think I'm more generous to Elon maybe that you are,
certainly that some people are. I really really did formally drink the kool aid in that I really thought that his general intentions are good because of his worldview. I think he really thinks the world is one big simulation, that he's the main player. He's there to save the world. He's a hero of the story, and none of us even exist, we're all non playing characters.
Will you say more on that, because you told me about this the other night and I'm just totally traumatized by it.
Yeah, so simulation theory, you know, is the basic idea that mathematically it actually makes sense that the world is not real because if you take into account that as we develop as a technology and as a civilization, we make video games that are more and more realistic. And because of the way video games work, you don't just make one playing field, but you make billions, and it actually trends towards infinite. As technology gets better, you make more and more and more of these fake worlds, and
they're more and more and more realistic. And so the idea is, as civilization progresses, you actually reach a point where the odds are what you're doing right now is playing an incredibly sophisticated video game. Because there are billions of these, the idea that you're in base reality becomes infinitely smaller and smaller possibility. So Elon buys into this theory. So the theory is that everything around us is just
one big simulation. But not only that, he actually believes that he's the player in this game, because when you play a video game, most of the people you see in it are fake and only one person is real. But if you have an infinite number of video games and an infinite number of players in it, the odds that you're real become infinitely small. That's the math behind it. He believes he's the only real person.
So he is real, But none of us are real.
None of us are real. We're all just pixels, you know, when we think we're real, just like an advanced you know, AI like thing would think it was real, but we're just sort of being rendered in the video game of Elon Musk's life. I really think he buys into this. And I will say that, having interviewed and been and talked to many incredibly wealthy, successful people, everyone has this a little bit of a suspicion that the world is designed around them, because the more successfully are, you think
to yourself, well, how could have gotten here? This is so unlikely when you start to think of the world as being designed around you. But I think Elon takes it to another level.
This is incredibly stupid time to be alive. And I would like to weigh in that that is to play stupid, like shockingly impressively stupid thing to think. Obviously, Elon Musk is smart. Is he as smart as we think he is discussed?
I think he's brilliant in a certain way. I think he's a guy who who walks into sort of Tesla or SpaceX. He dreams incredibly big, but because he believes everything's faked that he can get there. So his optimism is part of it, and a little bit is delusion. But he truly is smart and he makes good decisions often when there's engineering problems by going for it. You know, he's willing to blow things up to get to where
he's going. It's less that he's a genius in that he's incredibly good at getting really smart people to do smart things. Him in a room full of engineers can come out with an incredible outcome. It's not that he's necessarily making the thing, but he has this incredible ability to get a room full of engineers to do something they didn't think they could do. So I mean that's a form of genius. It's definitely something very impressive in
the tech space. You know, he could have fled out many many times along the way, but somehow he gets the people around him to work beyond where they normally thought they could go. So it's a mix of sort of genius and just the ability to carve a path forward and the people around him follow him in that past.
So he had been sort of flirting with the far right. Yesterday he sort of got married to them, went full anti Semi has a family history of anti Semitism, which again doesn't mean you'll be an anti semi, but it certainly doesn't help. What do you think about that.
I talk about this a fair amount, and I never really see him personally as anti Semitic or racist, but I think he's very tolerant of anti semitic and racist memes, tweets and people. I think for him, he loves drama. I mean that's obvious. He loves controversy. He's turned Twitter into this outrage engine. I mean it's all about engagement and outrage, not about truth, not about journalism, not about anything that he came in saying it was going to
be about. So I do think he pushes these buttons purposefully. It's a performative form of anti semitism more than it is you know, I hate Jews. I think he's one of those people who sees himself as being friends with many Jews, working well with many Jews, and is not personally anti Semitic. But when someone tweets something that is too many people obviously anti Semitic. He's willing to push that tweet forwards because either he thinks it's funny or he thinks it has a piece of truth to it.
It doesn't affect him personally, so he doesn't see it that way. It's a hard for me anyways to look at him and say, okay, Elon Musk is anti Semitic, because I don't really think he is. But I do look at him and say, okay, he's completely tolerant of a lot of anti Semitic voices. And Twitter's become full and full. It's full on Nazism going on there. I mean I have seen more acause thedial at full on. Hitler is great on Twitter than I've ever seen on
any website in my life. I mean, going all the way back to Reddit, four chan and the world stays there. It's kind of amazing that he's taken something that was so much a part of our lives in terms of news. And he used to go on Twitter and get the day's news from really smart people. And you know, if there was a hurricane going on, you could be on a rooftop tweeting help save me, and someone would come
save you. And now you look at Twitter and it's just full on garbage dump and this wasn't the goal. I really really don't believe that Elon came in with these intentions. I think it got out of his control.
So play this out for me, what happens next.
I really do believe this has affected Elon personally. I mean, he reached such a low point that he locked himself in his office for a while and basically the people at Twitter was so concerned for his welfare they were going to call in a wellness check on him because they thought he was going to kill himself. This was after he tweeted that poll asking should I still be CEO, and to his shock, people said no. He really thought everyone loves him and he got booed on stage with Chappelle.
So I know he knows that it's reached a point where his reputation has been destroyed. Half the country doesn't like him. He leans into it on the one side with a lot of right wing voices, with a lot of conspiracy theories and things like that and anti Semitism, But at the same time he's trying to resuscitate himself by bringing in Linda yak Garino, who's supposed to be the adult in the room with all the advertisers, but she has no power, she has no control, and she's
just there because it's an opportunistic situation for her. And I believe she'll be gone, you know, within the next six to twelve months, she'll be gone. And then he gets, you know, Walter Isaacs in to write the big glowing biography of him, which sort of was part of this one two punch of reputational resuscitation. But I really think that Twitter is X as it's called now, is really spiraling down to something that's pretty much garbage. And I
don't see advertisers coming back. I think engagement is going to continue to spiral down and the only people are they going to be on it are going to be people who are there for the entertainment or to try and sell something, but not for conversation because you get
shouted out by all of the awful voices. So it becomes a subscription based site, it becomes a much smaller site that's probably the chat room of an everything app which he's trying to build, which is a dating website, which is a money website, which is payment structure that only a few.
You know, does anyone want that?
Just his fan base? I can't imagine anyone outside of his you know, cult, wanting to put their finances through Elon, someone who has, you know, acted very mercurially. I guess, yeah, yeah, I think it would be crazy. Honestly, we trust Zuckerberg more than we trust Elon now, which is kind of a spectacular thing. So no, I don't think it will succeed,
but I do think that's the direction it's going. And it's sad because I think that Twitter we knew is becoming less and less usable by the day, and we'll drift away, It'll be gone.
You think he builds an everything app for his people. They are happy to have it because they love him so much.
And then why I think what happens is Elon has to claim victory in some way and then walk away from it. I mean, I really think the best thing that could.
Happen thanks take it out.
Yeah, he leaves.
He gives it back to Jack Dorsey or something like that, who tries to rebuild what Twitter used to be. You know, none of the clones in my mind have succeeded in any way yet. I think at some point, hopefully someone will make something that was equivalent to old Twitter, but more likely Elon will claim victory and either spin it off and it'll rebuild itself, or it'll disappear, or it'll
just be much smaller. But I don't think it can it can succeed with him running it the way he's running it, and I think he'd have to step away from it for it to succeed.
So you think he'll make it look like he succeeded and then leave.
Well, I mean that's I think. I think he'll turn it into this everything app of some sort and then he'll essentially step away from it and Twitter. There will always be this kind of voice box running around, full of conspiracy theories and hate and him making his random tweet now and again, but the engagement will continue to dwindle downward. There's not going to be any journalists on there, there's not going to be any news sources on there, there's not going to be any real celebrities on there.
The devastation of what the brand was will continue to the point where people will forget what the brand was. I mean, he used to go on there and there would be you know, you'd be talking to someone who knew what they was talking about, right, And now you can't find that anymore. So either that'll migrate somewhere else, or that'll just be gone in a way, and everything's getting siloed. What was interesting about Twitter was it was the one place that wasn't siloed, where everyone kind of
did interact with each other. But now it's more, you know, one person with his fans and another person with his fans, which is kind of how Instagram works. And I think that maybe there comes another place where everyone can interact with each other, or maybe he spins it off and allows it to come back to life.
It is weird the idea that you would have a site that was both a bank a dating WhatsApp when you don't have like the very basic user trust.
Yeah, he's not going to be able to succeed because he's chased everyone off. That would have, you know, been the reason it worked.
I don't know.
I mean, I think he's got a group of faithful fans, as you know, you see, as I see, who are a lot of angry people who I don't know can make a site like that very successful because either there's not enough of them, or or they just seem to do whatever it is he tells him to do. So it seems weird, but you know, he's got a cult of celebrity, he's got people who love him, so he might be able to pull off some sort of everything
app among that group. But yes, it seems like the wrong way to go about it would be to chase everybody away and turn it into this conspiracy laid and crap fest and then try and get everyone's credit card. It seems like that's not the best way to go about it, but that seems to be the direction he's going.
What do you think about the next thing? Is this truck?
Yeah?
The cyber truck?
Yeah? I mean is there a lot riding on this? It seems like there is.
I have mixed feelings about this stripcheck. I'll confess. I put my name on the list when the when it was first announced to see if I could get one. I don't think I'm moving high on that list, but I keep watching the different videos of it. I would
this is the elon that I like. We probably differ on this, but I love the science fiction elon Who's you know, trying to get to space in some giant stainless steel rocket ship who's making a ridiculous truck that will drive itself around and you can shoot machine guns at it? Like I like that Elon.
I love the.
Drama of that Elon and the fun of that Elon.
Who is that for?
Okay, that's a great question. What's really intriguing about Elon is the electric car movement would be playing to the base that now dislikes Elon. Right right, the cyber truck, the truck side of it plays to the base that loves Elon, but the electric part of it still plays to the original base. So it's a question of, honestly, you know, you have to see it on the street and see how ridiculous it looks. Does it look ridiculous or is it gonna look cool?
I really don't know.
I've only seen videos so far, so you know, it's hard for me to make a statement about that. I think the idea of automatic driving cars is so powerful that if he succeeds in that, Tesla is the trillion dollar company and everything else kind of is dwarfed by that. Because the automatic cars that actually work and are great and everyone can to have, you know, that's a huge game changer. But whether it's this truck or just the regular tesla, I don't know. I'm intrigued by the truck.
I actually do think it will probably have an audience for it. I mean, there's a lot of people who want them, and even if it's just a novelty, it will do well for a while. But it's got to work and it's got to be automatic for it to become a big game changer.
This is so interesting. I can't wait to read the book. Ben, Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. I know I feel like there's like a rebellion corner of twitter x trying to keep it alive and then everyone leaving. I really do think that he broke it and it broke him, but I don't think it's irredeemable. I'd love to see Elon go back to who he was and step away from this morass. But we'll see what happens.
John Rolston is the editor of the Nevada Independent. Welcome back. You've been here before, too fast politics.
John, either so.
Great to have you. I wanted you to come on because I think Democrats have a real problem in your state. And I'm hoping you could talk about what the hell is happening in Nevada.
Well, the thing is is that Democrats here, smart Democrats,
are very, very worried. They see the trends that have been happening here since twenty sixteen, and even though they've been relatively small, you've seen slight moves to the right on the part of the Nevada electorate, and you've seen a loss of the Democratic lead over the Republicans by a few percentage points, especially in Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is, as you know, and where the Democrats have been dominant and had double digit registration leads.
It's now under nine percent and going towards eight percent. Every little bit's going to matter in a presidential race that has been decided here the last two cycles by about two and a half points, and so they are very very concerned. Republicans think that the Biden is a slight fadeword here, but they think of certain things happen, then he can win Trump.
Yes, it seems to me like your state is a perfect storm Democratic Party. So talk to me about the state of the Democratic Party in Nevada.
So it's still pretty good. People think that the Red Machine, which is, you know, the house that Harry Reid belt Beltway fifteen years ago, and there's been a formidable force in Nevada politics and a model for others to follow. They think that now that Harry Reid has passed away, that it's just not there anymore.
And that's just not true.
And they believe that in twenty twenty two, when the Democrats won a lot and narrowly missed re electing a very very troubled incumbent who had been hit by by COVID and some other issues, so the Red Machine is alive, and well, they know what they're doing. They know how to find some real Democratic voters among this absolutely ocean of independent voters that have sprouted here in Nevada. But I have to say, Molly, I have been making fun
of the Republican Party here for a long time. They are a real, you know, on gaggle of clowns and unprofessionals, and so it hasn't been a fair fight. But the team that Joe Lombardo, the new governor, the new Republican governor, has put together that helped him squeak by in twenty twenty two is still around and they know what they're doing. A lot of this is copycat stuff right from the read machine, but they have done it and they are going to be a force next year.
What you're saying is that the Republican Party has really gotten it shit together in your state.
Well, the Republican Party is still pretty much as an institution in this day, a clown show, but the governor and his people have been smart enough to bring some of those people inside the tent and neutralize them while building an actually an actual professional political machine, which has not been seen here on the Republican side in a long time.
So that's one thing. And then you have the demographic change in Nevada, which I think is really important and that's why this state should be a source of so much anxiety to all of us. But let's be honest. Everything is a source of anxiety.
But yes, continue, yeah, I mean, listen, you know Nevada a lot of people and I'm sure you're not this way, Molly, think that Nevada some kind of alien world where people are not normal and there's bookers and slot machines on every corner, and it's it's a state that doesn't behave as others do.
But really Las Vegas, which is you know, has Clark County has two thirds or more of the population, is a microcosm of the country. The demographic changes here. It's a real melting pot. The Hispanic vote has become usually important here, but they've been losing the Democrats, that is, incrementally on the Hispanic vote every cycle since twenty sixteen,
and so the Democrats are concerned about that. Now. A lot of people think this is you know, it's a year out, this is the usual bed wedding that goes on, and Adam Lax always claiming it fifty percent of Hispanic vote in twenty twenty two, and Catherine Cortes Maasto still did quite well, although not quite as well as for instance, Obama and then Hillary did here among the Hispanics. So they have concerns, and listen, they are still a formidable force.
The Red machine is still run by the same people, Molly, who know what they're doing. But they're worried about the demographic changes that are going on across the country and are making Democrats very very anxious.
And that's young Hispanic voters.
It is mostly yet.
Which again is not a monolist. Hispanic voters can be from Cuba, they can be from Puerto Rico. They have different needs, they have different wants. That's not a block, now, that's absolutely right.
I think we in the political analysis field often describe these demographic groups as monolists, and they're not. And Hispanics are perfect example of that. You know, most of the ones here are Mexican immigrants, but there are Cubans here and they tend to be a little bit more conservative. But let me just give you a perfect example of
what I'm talking about. With the Republican governor's team. They've essentially co opted one of the most prominent Hispanic leaders in this state, a guy named Peter Guzman, who is the head of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and it wants to be a political player.
And the governor.
He is on the governor's team essentially, and then is in some small way, how small, how marginal, I don't know, going to help them.
I think that's a really good point. So let me ask you, if you're in Biden world right now, what are young Hispanic voters in Nevada? What do they need? What do they want? What are they looking for? Democrats to provide for them.
Well, I don't think it's that different than any other place. They're looking for an improvement in their economic lot. Even though as you know, there's been a lot of negative media coverage of the economy in this country. It is rebounded pretty well on a lot of the indicators.
Yeah, pretty good.
But Nevada was crushed by the COVID epidemic because we're essentially a one trick pony, right Like, our entire economy is dependent on this little strip of land called the Las Vegas Strip, and it's shut down for a few months, and so our unemployment rate went way up into into like fifteen eighteen percent range. It's way down now, but it's still the highest in the country. And a lot of Hispanics are workers in the casinos. Not all of them have gotten their jobs back, younger Hispanics, and so
they're not thrilled about what's happened. Well, you've been around long enough. It's not fair to blame presidents for the economy, but they do. They point at who's the most prominent figure they can, whether it's a governor or president, depending on the cycle, and that person either gets the credit maybe, but definitely gets the blame.
Some of the things that voters have really voted on in the last couple elections have been abortion right, have been government overreach when it comes to the social issues, Like if you look at Florida, you have Desanta's like don't say a gay deciding what books people can read, what is taught in schools. I mean, do you think that message resonates in your state?
I do, And especially on abortion. I think you could make a pretty convincing argument that abortion of that issue saved Catherine Cortes Massto in twenty twenty two. Now, it's not often that you're going to have a candidate as dumb as Adam Laxel to say on take Roe versus weight was always a joke, and they have that audio
and they can play that over and over again. But whoever the Republicans nominate in that Senate race, which is going to be a marquee Senate race because Jackie Rosen is considered a target, is going to be very much pro life and this is a pro choice state. That's another thing people don't realize about.
In Nevad.
We have had a referendum here more and more than thirty years ago in which they cemented the twenty four week statute in place. It can only be changed by referendum, and the Democrats aren't going to rest on that. They're going to try to get a referendum up again in twenty twenty four to put those protections in the state constitution.
I think they think that if it's not a silver bullet for them, it is going to help push very close races in their favor, and if history is a guide, they may be right now again all the caveats that go with it being, you know, in November of twenty twenty three. I think they're banking on that based on what their messaging has been so far.
So it sounds like to me what is really important right now with Nevada is that it's not taken for granted. The Democrats focus on registering voters, speaking to young Hispanic voters, trying to get ahead of what does seem like a real demographic shift.
I think all of that is true, and I think they are helped by if the Lombardo machine is the
competitor to the read machine. The Lombardo machine is much more focused on state legislative races than they are on the Senate race or the presidential race, because the governor is facing potential supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, so they will be distracted, they will not be as invested in that, and I think that helps the Democrats to some extent because they're just focused on isolated districts.
Doesn't mean they can't be effective, but they care much more about making sure that there are no supermajorities in the legislature because that makes the governor essentially irrelevant, as you know, because they can they can override any veto. So that's their main focus and so that is in some intangible way an advantage for the Democrats as well. But you know, listen, they got to get their base out. They've got they've got to make sure that the Hispanics
still are voting in great numbers for their candidates. And that means you're right, young Hispanics, but young voters in general too. They are trying to mobilize in different ways.
That's not that easy to do these days.
As you know, what does this state look like demographically, Well, I mean I'm not sure.
I mean, are you asking for you know, Democrats, Republicans, young, old, all of it.
Clark County is the sort of population center, and then the rest is rural and red or I mean, that's how most states are, but I'm just curious.
So NOVED, I always say, is essentially three states when it comes to statewide elections and presidential elections. There is Las Vegas Clark County, which, as I said, is two thirds of the vote, which were Democrats have an advantage, not as great as it once was, but substantial. Eight and a half percent is still substantial. Then there are fifteen rural counties in between Las Vegas and the other
urban center, which is Reno. And those rural counties are all very red, some of them so red that you know, they want to name buildings after Donald Trump or streets after Donald Trump. That's how red they are. Then there's Reno, which is in wa r County, which is about fifteen percent of the vote, eighteen percent of the vote Walley and that's the swing county in Nevada. That is shit
that it used to be fairly reliably read. But you know, Killery one Washae County, Biden one Washoe County, even Catherine Courtes mass though one Washoe County, which is where Adam Laxall supposedly lives. I don't really think he lives very often in Nevada, but that's where he supposedly lives. Still,
she won that. So it's essentially three states. And the way you win a statewide election here if you're a Democrat, as you build up a big enough lead in Clark County because of the advantage there, to head off the twelve percent of the landslide the vote that you're going to lose in the rurals, and then hope you can break even in Washoe County. That's the prescription that's been used for decades. It almost didn't work for Catherine courtes Mass though, but it did by eight thousand votes.
So there's a Senate seat in this race that's up. It is really this map is a shit show. I mean it's actually it's not a shit show. I shouldn't say that. As long as Democrats can hold on to Montana and Ohio with shareon, they all be okay. But they really need to win that rosen Seed. Is rosen a better candidate than Cortez Mastow and will she suffer some of the same problems? I mean Cortez Masto again, she did get reelected.
So she did, you know what, I guess it depends how you define better. Catherine Court does mass have been in politics a lot longer than Jackie Rosen has. I mean, Jackie Rosen was like an accidental candidate for Congress when Harry Reid and his slops were looking through the phone book to find somebody, and they got Jackie Rose who then won and then ran for the Senate the very
next cycle and beat Dean Heller in twenty eighteen pretty decisively. Actually, she has less baggage per se than Catherine Court as Master did because she hasn't been in politics as long. She's put up a pretty organization around her. They know what they're doing. The real problem that even if people thought that Animal Assault was a great candidate because of the name and former attorney general and the rest of it,
he really wasn't. They have really struggled this time, the National Republicans to find someone, and they're putting all of their hopes in Sam Brown, who has never won a race either here or in Texas. And while he has a great story to tell us as this you know, scarred veteran hero, he has not been here very long. He's taken some contradictory positions, and he's got to win a primary where there is a you know, one of the most far right maga crazies who has a base
who almost want a statewide race. Frighteningly enough, last cycle, I think Sam Brown, if he gets out of that primary, has a chance against Jackie Rosen, just because of the demographics of the state and what we've been talking about. But there's no evidence that he's a very strong candidate. He's never won anything. Imagine in a key center race in the country, Republicans are banking on a guy who hasn't even been in the state very long and has never won a race.
Yeah, I mean, luckily, you know, it's not my problem, but that seems like a terrible plan for Republicans. But uh, let's not tell them though.
It's the only one they've got. That's the issue. Because of how successful the Democrats have been in this state over the last few cycles, the Republicans don't have much of a bench, and so this is what they're stuck with.
Yeah, and I mean Adam Laxaw was just an amazing candidate because he did seem so unhanded.
Yeah, he's a terrible candidate. He was an embarrassment to his family, which split and then endorsed Catherine Cortez mass All, just as they endorsed Si Silac before him. But yeah, I mean he did become increasingly unhandsive. He's just a right wing talking points machine, and once you get him off of that, he's going to say something like Roe
versus Wade was always a joke. Actually, the look on his campaign advisors when they heard that one Adam lack Salt was seen by the national media some kind of really great candidate.
He wasn't.
But don't forget even though he was not, he still almost won that race.
Yeah, back a court.
That's mass though, who is a good candidate and ran a good campaign.
I hope that Nevada can be on the national radar because treating it like a FETA complete is really a mistake.
Yeah, it's not that they're not even close to a FATA complete. If Sam Brown is out of the primary, it'll be it should be a real race because as you know, it doesn't matter how much money he can raise. It's the outside resources that are going to drive that race, and there'll be tens of millions of dollars poured in. But if Sam Brown does not win that primary by some chance, it's not remote either. He has a chance
to lose. The Republicans wording waste a dine year because none of their other candidate says any chance in the general election.
When is your primary in June? June, so we have a little time to obsess about this, John, I really appreciate you coming on. I really felt like it was an important story. That state is a nailbier. Democrats need to continue to focus on it. It really is the juggernaut of the problem with you Democrats appealing to Hispanic voters, and if they can't do that, they're going to eventually lose the country.
You're absolutely right, and I love talking about this and I love coming on with you, Molly.
It's always fun to talk to you.
Thanks for coming you bet they're no moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly jong Fest. You know there is a blast from the past. Yeah, many evil families in this country, but this one is it's almost like a sleeper cell at this point that they've been gone for a little while in the news, but they're back as a person with a very large forehead. Whenever she comes back into the news.
I'm very conflicted because she's evil, but she does also have a large forehead, so when I see her, I'm reminded of my own enormous forehead, the one, the only Rebecca Mercer. She's back. They are absolutely the most evil family. You may remember them from giving tons of money to Breitbart.
They are giving eighty eight point four million dollars. It's a little known eighty eight point four million dollar war chest that is going to have a sizable impact on the election, and they are going to give it to Donald J. Trump because well, a lot of voters don't like fascism. The Mercers their fans, and they are the return of the Mercers, putting back the Death Star. They are our moment of Fuckerray. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.