Jordan Klepper, Jon Allen & Douglas Rushkoff

attending mcgarelli's. Then we'll talk to Douglas Rushkoff, author of the Survival of the Richest, about what the hell is going on with Elon Musk and Twitter. And trust me, you do not want to miss that because it's gonna tell you a lot about our politics today. But first discussed last night's election. We have the author of Lucky How Joe Biden barely won the presidency NBC News Digitals. John Allen, Welcome to Fast Politics. We are taping this minute before you are listening to it, so it's very

Fast Politics. I have brought on my friend, be very sleepless, John Allen. Welcome, John Allen. Hey, Molly John Fast. We're so giddy and punchy because none of us have slept very much. And Jesse is I think in a coma. Are you glive? Um? So, if you're hearing this, it means that Jesse was not in a coma. John Allen, good night for democracy, bad night for Donald J. Trump

discuss certainly a bad night for Donald J. Trump. I mean, he put up a bunch of candidates, a lot of them lost, particularly election deniers, people that he might have been able to put in place to help him try to steal a future election. And then you know, the sort of the cherry on top of the bad night for Donald Trump, uh Sunday is Rod de Santis, his main potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, winning by like twenty points in Florida. Rod Savus couldn't have looked

stronger last night. It's possible Donald Trump could have looked weaker, but not much would. By the way, the other piece of it, just a small sliver piece. It gets less attention because it doesn't it doesn't say Trump next to it. But Joe Biden walks out in better standing than he did going into the night. Oh yeah, I mean I was just reading Playbook this morning, and it was like

Joe Biden the comeback kid. Now there is a scenario where Joe Biden this is just a punditry fail, right, like the pundance and I and by pundance, I mean you and I too. Everybody gets together and it's so, you know, has a lot of thoughts and feelings, and then the polling we know is complete. Hohoeie. Though one of my poster friends wrote to me last night it was like a lot of polls were right. I was like, okay, um,

but I mean the polls were wrong. Yeah, I mean as a general matter, yes, and certainly like the thing the thing that we do is is to like aggregate the polls and then strapolate the aggregation. Like the further you get from actual polling, uh, the more likely you are to be often in some bad direction, you know. Obviously there were factors that played in the election last night that um that either weren't picked up by the polling or were ignored by polsters and the people who

read polsters, including people like you and me. Yeah, it's like one of the I am waking up this morning very happy to be wrong, but a lot of people are waking up this morning very mad. Which let's just have a moment to it in our sleeplessness and let us have a moment to enjoy. For example, does Dr Oz move back to New Jersey? I mean you're assuming that he ever moved Pennsylvania. I mean, what do you think are the top lines? Do I think is going

to be a Pennsylvania residents six months from now? Like? Absolutely not. I will be surprised if is there Pennsylvania residents six months from now, six days from an how or six hours from now. So here's a question for you. What are you What are the things that you really saw like I mean, I mean the things that like I okay, great, let's go abortion. Like we saw for months and months and months, all this polling that suggested that yes, abortion was among the issues that the voters

cared about a lot. And but but it was far behind the economy, inflation, other things that are similar to those things, jobs, um, and and so I think what we saw last night, and this bears out from the

exit polling. In fact, when I saw the exit polling the first time last night, I was like, Wow, our exit polling might be off because it was so foreign, odds with what would have made sense for what the polling on everything else shown, and I think it in fact turned out that the polling on that issue was much more accurate and uh, you know, in the exit polls and should have been like a good indication of

where things were headed last night. That basically all that energy that we anticipated there being, um, you know, after it became clear the Supreme Court was going to overturn versus Way. Uh, that energy actually appeared on election day, even though for a while it wasn't happening. So really

the Supreme Court and the jobs decision really did motivate voters. Yeah, I think the Supreme Court decision, you know, as much as anything else killed the red wave, killed the traditional mid term advantage that the out of power party has, and you know, I think to the extent that it continues to be a right that is in jeopardy. You

may see, um, you know, similar outcomes. This is and well, by the way, look, Republicans knew in a sort of abstract way that this was a problem for them, um, and went ahead and pushed forward anymore like they thought it was the right thing. You do. Put conservative justices on this report, have them overturned o versus Way, and then deal with the consequences of that when this consequence

has come. But I think, you know, throughout that process, I think at least smart Republican strategist knew that there was a risk that if they got the thing they wanted policy was um, then it would end up being a political albatross. You know. What's funny is like I keep thinking about that moment when they overturned Dobbs and they talked to Trump and Trump was like, oh, you know,

like he knew. I mean, and I don't want to give Trump any critic because he's absolute, abject more on, but speaking of Trump, I feel like this is the moment where Republicans start to distance themselves. But you may you may be right. But the reason I laugh at that is we say that what's the moment where the republic existence themselves from Domaldrup. So you may actually be right. I mean, there is there may could be an alternative Roger Santis. If rod De Santis decides that he's going

to run for president, there may be an alternative. And if Roda Santis says, uh, Donald Trump did some terrible stuff as president or was like really bad at getting things done, or um, whatever the set of things you right, run against someone essentially run into his right, Like, yes, the Republicans may like jump onto some other some other guy, but for the moment, I would say, always be a little bit wary of the copy idea that Republicans are

going to distance themselves from Trump because about thirty five percent of them love him and the rest of them will fall in live right right, But they're but they are making their parties smaller and smaller, you know again, like this is the thing they go to, you know, Republicans of a situation where they are stuck, which they did that, you know, they held themselves hostage and now they continue to throw away the keys to the handcuffs.

And I love to see it. Boy, I'm, I'm. That's like the most lovely mixed metaphor what they're holding themselves hostage. But listen, man, I got not much that is art. I think like the things that I was the most worried about as a you know, are these, like, um, the seats where the sort of vote counter would be an election denialist, the people where Trump was putting them in office for his race. Those people have either all

lost or about to lose. Can we go through those Yeah, it's like a big suite, right, Like, I mean, I think the ones that, uh that you would look at Tutor Dixon, everyone's favorite actress. Tutor Dixon loses, um, you know, Carrylas having trouble on your Zona, some secretary states and there in these very states around probably of course the one interesting place where the Republicans did very well. Uh in Georgia you have Governor Brian Kemp winning re election,

which makes a lot of Democrats unhappy. But Brian Kemp did stand up to Donald Trump last time round, and Brad Rathisburger winning re election after standing up to Trump. So you know, I mean, I think it was a bad night for an election deniers and a good night for people who say that we should have free and fair elections and then, which is honestly quite good. So let's talk about the places where Democrats really got Jesse wants us to talk about the places in which Democrats

got the did not do well. Um, Florida is the most glaring, Like Florida is no longer a purple state. Yeah, I mean, it's like one might even argue that there was a red wave it just washed over Florida and didn't hit the rest of the country. UM, So Florida, I would say vance. I mean Ryan ran a really good campaign. I mean it wasn't I think an unwell winnable seat, but like Ryan did really show how Democrat can run in those states. Maybe running to lose, I

mean I don't know. I mean shared Brown can show you how to run and yeah, that's right. So I don't think I don't think Tim Ryan's is good at a candidate Brown, it's like just fought out. Um and and the Democrats have of weight been able to fall in love with candidates who can come kind of like within a few points statewide, UM, in various states Texas, Georgia, Ohio, UM,

its stead of the ones that can win. And you know, there are Democratic candidates that can win competitive states Steve Fetterman, Toma John you know, like so I think even even Iver's I mean in Wisconsin he won again. He got re elected, you know, and that was supposed to be a tough race. Yeah, and that was good. I mean, I we did have the state party Democratic state Party chair from Wisconsin on the podcast, Ben Whickler, and um,

they've worked really hard at their state party. I wonder how much like I know Florida has had some real problems with their state party and Nevada has also had some state party problems. So I wonder if this is connected to you know, I think this is an important point here. Yeah, I think it's um. It's absolutely true that having a party organization is helpful to winning elections. I mean, what are elections? What our elections by getting people to vote, and if you have a disorganized party

makes a lot harder to do that. If you have an organized party, it makes it easier to do that. Of course, you still have to have a good product to sell, right. Sometimes maybe you sell OUTBO and people buy it. But for the most part, if you're going to um, you know, if you're gonna win racist, you need sort of both things to be true. You need a good product to your candidate and also a good party organization or non party organization that functions in that

same way. And uh and you know can a network for you so they can get people out of the polls. I mean that said Val Demmings was a great candidate and Charlie Chris was not, and Charlie Chris lost by twenty points, and Charlie Chris is lost now as an independent Republican and a Democrat. Congratulations, maybe it's time to retire. But the other thing that I want to, like take a second to talk about is that there was towards the end of this pundentry cycle, before everyone was proved

wrong to varying degrees. Uh, they we did see a lot of chunky, gop leaning polls which may have goosed the averages. Can you talk about that for a minute. Yeah, I mean it's a pretty simple, uh strategy, right. Uh, if you put out a bunch of bogus poles or poles that lean in one direction, you'll affect what the averages for the pollsters that do straight averages, And a lot of people use the real clear politics average of poles, um,

something I've long used. What you can see is actually, you know, the very easy potential for manipulation of the average of polls by you know, bad faith actors. I would be reluctant to point to a specific case and say this was a bad faith poll. What I would say in general is that, you know, we saw that average point move towards the end, and a bunch of these races and moved to places where it wasn't actually true. So interesting, all right, So let's just we're gonna go

through before we both go back to bed. The GOP gubernatorial candidates who are reflecting election deniers who lost. Okay, you ready, these are the people who turned on democracy. Lee's Eldon, Everyone's favorite little buddy in New York State, Dan Cox in Maryland, Darren Bailey in Illinois, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Tutor Dixon in Michigan, and Tim Michael's in Wisconsin. And then we're still waiting on Carry Lake in Arizona. Isn't l losing and we'll probably lose. Bad night for

election deniers, good night for democracy. Absolutely a bad night for election deniers. I would say it's a good night for democracy anytime people are at the vote and there aren't huge fights over over the truth. And what we didn't see a lot of is is people claiming that they had won when they lost. So that's kind of democracy. Uh So, Still, so how does it end now? John Allen tell us the future. It's still seems like McCarthy will eke out the speakership, right, I think we're way

too early to tell how mcar speakership. No I mean, the Republicans will eke out winning. Right, It seems very like that the Republicans will have the House and maybe even have some pad um in terms of their numbers, But it's not gonna be a situation where they're you know, they've got like a majority. So you know, this will be very difficult for Kevin McCarthy to make himself speaker in the first place, and if he gets to be

speakers to actually manage that confidence. It's I love to see it, and there's gonna be and you think they'll definitely be a leadership kerfuffle at best. I think it will be painful for Kevin McCarthy to get the votes that he needs to become speaker. Not I'm not saying you can't do it. I think it'll be painful. Mary, Mary. We're gonna leave it with this quote from Ben Collins, the Monitor of the Many Maladies of the Art. All right, this is true. Trump cannot fail in the bat in universe.

He can only be failed. I'm not even sure what that needs. There you go. Jordan Clipper is a correspondent on the Daily Show and the host of an American follows Democracy. Welcome to Fast politics Jordan Clepper, Well, thanks for having me. Oh my god, I just watched your special, which is wait, tell us what this specialist? God, did it make you happy? To give you hope? What the what the funk is happening out there? It's the feel good special of the year. It's it's a weird time. Yeah,

you have. People's brains are melting across the country and luckily the only thing we have to stop it is a referendum where we have to utilize those brains. So it's an interesting time to stay the least. I feel like another title for your special could be democracy dies in stupid. That's not bad. You should have been around a couple of weeks ago. We went with America unfollowed democracy because you know, we're trying to get the kids.

We're trying to get them. We want to get all the young kids on their social media is But I think you're You're not wrong. You could feel our democracy quickly slipping away, and if we had a little bit more engagement, a little better information, we might be in a better place. But wish is where horses beggars would ride, right, I don't know. There were so many destinations and so many people you interviewed, and all of them seem to have the medical diagnosis is brain worms. My favorite were

the pole watchers. Sure I did not know that Mark Fincham, who is running for Secretary of State and could very well win, was actually an oathkeeper. Yeah, Fincham's got quite the backstory. I think that was part of what we wanted to jump into, is those Secretary of State races. It shows you how desperate things are when Comedy Central and comedians are covering Secretary of State races during the

mid term election. It's this is all heads on deck everyone. Um. I actually want to push into that a little bit because so you're a comedian, but you're covering what's actually happening in a way And I actually was thinking about that when I was watching. In a way that seems like almost a little more accurate than a sort of more straight news. Like straight news will come into that and be like, well, Mark Fincham is an oathkeeper. But Democrats want to, you know, give view free glasses. So

basically they're the same. The question is are you better suited to cover the state of American decay than a more traditional news program because you don't have to two sides. What seems like the death of democracy. It feels like we're living in a force. So you see where comedians serve a purpose. You understand where we're coming from. I've always said that this idea that there's any kind of unbiased information that we get is in and of itself

a illusion. And so when people would come to the Daily Show, they would understand, like I understand, this is a comedy show. It has the bias of a comedy. Hopefully the comedy bias is looking for bs, having your own point of view and bringing that to something. I think that allows us to go into the field. And yeah,

it's we bring logic into the field. We we we try to counteract some of these narratives and try to get down to why these people believe certain things, or just try to see what the word on the ground is. And more often than that, you're wasting time and you yourself are full of bs if you're both sidering so wild stuff like should we fight for democracy or not? Or should votes count or not? Or should we trust

an election that has been adjudicated or not? And yeah, I think I think we don't waste time trying to put on this veil of an unbiased perspective where in many cases the biases just coming through the facts of the realities that we're in. And so that gives us a good spot as a comedian, as a comedy show of approaching these things. I'm curious it seems like this Denish Just Susan movie has had a huge influence on a lot of these people. Can you talk about that

for sure? You know what I found is we go out into the field and we try to sense what narrative people are holding onto. How do they push back against some some pretty incontrovertible evidence. Something like January six was one where you quickly saw there didn't have to be a cohesive narrative for people to push back against wanting to accept the reality of January six. People would say it was Antifa, some people would say it didn't happen. Some people would say it was a good thing. There

wasn't a coherent narrative, but you didn't need one. And then you fast forward to this election and there isn't a good coherent narrative for people to bat down the fact that Donald Trump lost so many lawsuits that there hasn't been really clear, incontrovertible evidence of election fraud. And then Denisia SUSA does this documentary which is cleverly titled It's Got Scary Music. It's called two thousand Mules, and you don't even have to watch it to be given

a tool to push back against someone. And so it's not as if we even get into the details of what is claimed in Denisia SUSS two thousand mules, which has been knocked down by many of folks, many including those inside the Trump administration, but it does give you a catch phrase. And so this last time out, I've had discussions with people about what happened this past election,

and people didn't have great answers. Now they can easily just say two thousand mules, and then you give them information, they're like, well, two thousand mules, and so that's almost all you need. What is the catch phrase? What is the simple idea that we can boil down to it, something that's clean that you can put in the face of uncomfortable information. So I have to move on to something else, then what I just wait, stop for one second?

Are there two thousand mules? Are there two thousand Where does that even come from I did not see the movie. You got it downloaded. For God's sakes. Yeah, I want to. I want to give Janesse disus of my money boat somehow. I mean, I think the basic theory around it is there are two thousand people at least I believe, is what he claims, traveling around their voting districts, dumping piles

and piles of votes in drop boxes. He uses cell phone technology to place certain people in different places, which has been pushed back upon because the cell phone technology is nowhere near as precise. Is what he claims. He has anecdotal evidence, He has greeny footage and sort of this narrative that we have cell phone technology, again a loose technology, but it sounds fancy if you're watching quickly,

that puts certain people in locations of drop boxes. Hilariously, guess where drop boxes tend to be located around people, so you can see where there might be overlap in this conspiracy. But with a little bit of footage of people near drop boxes, it shows this doubt. People are wondering, okay exactly and when I go and I talked to the oathkeepers in Arizona who are armed outside of ballot boxes.

They reference this, They references images of people carrying fifty to a hundred ballots in their hands, and that's what they're on the lookout for. I used to go to Seapack all the time before they would like just come over and scream at me. I found it very valuable and super fascinating because what they're doing here is kind of outside of the purview of many of our like ideas about reality, which is what you see when you do these interviews. Sometimes they're like weirdly proud, and sometimes

they're mad at. You do find them mad at. You do have people screaming at you. Are now at rallies, I get my fair share of people who will scream at me, partially because from the Daily Show, but also just because I have a camera with me and the media are bad news. I went to see Pack and I had the opposite reaction. Though I had dozens of folks wanting to take selfies with me. I had young Republican candidates eager to do interviews, handing me their business

cards waiting in line. And I had super Trump fans trying to get selfies and pictures and talk to me, which sort of melted my brain because it was a mix of thirsty Republicans who don't care about ideology and are just want to talk about the game of politics. There were assistance to prominent Republicans who were just like, oh yeah, we love your videos around the office and like oh interesting. And then there were people who are just the Trump fanboys who saw me as part of

the MAGA universe. And even if they didn't necessary like some of the things that I put on television, the fact that I was part of the narrative that they were so invested in was exciting to them. I don't wonder how much of this is about fame too, Like Trump got so famous speak because he was famous already, right, I mean they loved him, Like do they sort of love you because you're famous? If that makes any sense. Yes, it is at sea Pack. It was all just a game.

Seapack was nauseating because there's no discussion of governing. It was the show and this is show business. The more the deeper I go into it, I see the show business of it all. I only see the show business of it all. And the fact that Marjorie Taylor Green is walking through Seapack and she has twenty people behind her with cell phone footage trying to just get pictures of her because she's famous because she says the wildest things.

And then I'm talking to moderate Republicans who can't get anybody to pay attention to them because they're not famous, because they don't say wild things that travel. And they're

talking to me because I'm part of this narrative. I'm the bad guy, I'm the heel, I'm the villain, and therefore they want a selfie with me there too, And so it is just this big show, and and the deeper farther I go into, it's like, oh, this is the only way to compete in this is get your fame, get your brand, get as high as you can, and then rile up the true who want to turn on and watch the most exciting television show they can. It's funny because you are in a situation where there are

people who really believe this stuff. Who are the people in the special right you interview them, they believe it, but the Sea Pack folks are are really just using them, right, Oh yes, And Seepack had a mix of the super fans, the super fans who do believe it, but again believing it is it's let's it's not the issues. The Trump fans are just Trump fans. They're a fan of the fame, the brand, and they want it to be it's it's about win loss. They identify with Donald Trump and therefore

they want him to win at all costs. That's what they're excited about. And then you see the second tier of people in the MAGA universe who do know better and see this and just see the only way to find success in that platform is to utilize this to play it up. You know, I go out and I see Carrie Lake utilizing this. I see all of these major candidates utilizing this narrative. Okay, I'll use election denialism as a way to to people, to rile them up, to get them excited, and from that I will find

my own success. So you know this group pretty wow? Where do you think they go? Now? They follow everything that Trump does, and so it's easy for them to jump on board. And Trump's going to give them a destination in a week. It sounds like social media is where they're going to converse, and so whoever can make the most noise there they will follow. I don't see other candidates that have the same as Donald Trump did

if he extricates himself from the conversation. I went to a Dug Mastriano rally in Pennsylvania and jazz it was like, oh, here is Maga is m without Donald Trump, And it's that people are talking, talking to talk, but they're not showing up. Mastriano is not as compelling, and like you said, he's not as famous. He's not a big famous guy that they want to take a selfie with, And so even though the ideas are there, the energy isn't. So it's very curious. I think Trump can have little Maga,

it's that grow up underneath him. But I've definitely seen failures of that and failures of charisma that start to populate the Hoplican Party. So I would say, like the sort of errors to Trump is um are the carry legs right and the de Santis is though I mean again, there's this possibility that there's going to be a de Santis Trump face off, right, m M. Yeah. When I talked to people out there, these rallies, people are showing

up sea Donald Trump. Sometimes they can't even name the other people who the rallies are for that that's more often than that, and they really have They seem to have no idea who. Then Tutor Dixon is now even the even the Trump fans, she's like she was their third choice. But it doesn't matter. Trump is gonna be there. So they show up. And then De Santis his name

pops up because he loves to make noise. He's becoming more famous in that world, and he's openly cruel just snanctimonius as we call him now, and that's yes, the sanctimonius as he now is. So I think I think there are people like him who if he runs against Trump, I don't think there's a space for him. But if Trump leaves an opening, he has the playbook. He has

the actionable cruel moves that people get excited about. And sadly, that is something that is out there that is is not talked enough about, is the cruelty and the excitement around the cruelty. There is palpable and can be weaponized, and I see a couple of those big stars they're

figuring out how to do it. One of the things I think that we in the sane media industrial complex whatever that means, have always sort of made a mistake with Trump is that there's a lot of us feel like there's a moment where Trump will be like, oh this I can't deal with anymore. That's never gonna happen, right, I mean, he just keeps going until he hits the you know, until he hits sort of someone who will

stop him, which is no one. So he is he is attempting to flush our democracy down the toilet because he was embarrassed he lost an election. He is willing to do that. Yeah, it goes no further than that that comment, I'm embarrassed that I lost, So what do I need to do? We'll burn it all down. So will he go away quietly? No, He'll never go away.

If there's an ounce of embarrassment that the narrative around him is turning, he will do everything in his power to continue to push whatever lies make him a hero and people will buy that. And he's already set up the blueprint for it all. And that's where like even these mid terms and what's happened in the future, people are already don't believe the results. They haven't happened yet,

and people don't believe it. They don't believe it. People already don't believe what happened in four And I think the ship is in the pool. It's hard to get the ship back out of the pool. And I think as long as there's ship in the pool, that's the pool that Donald Trump feels most comfortable. And that's both disgusting and also yeah, yeah, yeah, so I I I don't see a clean pool in the near future. And I do think I don't see a world where he's not a part of the conversation, if not attempting to

make himself the central focus. What is stuff you saw that you couldn't put in the show because you were like, oh, we can't put that in. Sadly, some of the stuff goes darker, stranger and Saturday, Yeah, I think we we. In Michigan, I ran into a woman who was openly anti Semitic and talked about the Rothschild's and the banking system. She was really forceful that it was there. There was a glimpse of her there, but you could tell there's there was There was a lot of hate that was

out there. There was another man who went into depth about Nancy Pelosi and drinking the blood. I think there's also a little clip of him, but it went to a very dark place, and sadly, Mike Lindell kept popping up at rallies trying to interrupt our interviews and and frankly we were like, Mike, we just don't have the time, man, I'm sorry. So there's sadly no Mike Lindell in this,

and not without him trying. By the way, Mike Gondell, he has really worked hard to like mimic Trump is um, but he can't do it because he's just too uncharismatic. He is a celebrities rallies it is. He shows up early.

There was I don't think I don't think he's technically invited to some of the inside events, right I saw a video of him outdoors, right, Yes, he's And two of the events we went to, he would show up literally seven hours before Trump spoke, and he would speak on a ramshackle stage outdoors for the people who are waiting.

And there's part of it like he might not technically be invited, but they're like, if you want to stand on the stage in between us playing Y M C A by the village people for the hundredth time, you can get up there and say whatever you want and people will take selfies. And frankly, he travels. He gets in his big car and he drives to that stage and he likes to talk. Is the brick wall guy still there, the guy in the brick wall suit. Have

you seen him or now I haven't seen brick wall Guy. No, Sadly, I hope, I hope he's all right. Although some of them are already up front. I mean they get there sometimes days ahead of time, So there's a chance either he's no longer part of the movement or he's so part of the movement he's way ahead of even where we have access to him. I have one last question, which is jfk Jr Guy. This is a guy who claims he's the reincarnation. No, he's he's actually jfk Jr.

Who faked his own death. This guy looks nothing like one thing. He's several inches shorter than jfk Jr. Is that guy still around? I saw him at Yeah, he's handing out cards at sea pack. He's it's all a show. It's all the show guy right there, the guy who the Internet randomly said is actually jfk Jr. Was like, I can use this and frankly, he did. He's using it. He's taking pictures with people who may or may not think he's JFK Jr. But he's he's part of the

model world. Congratulations. It's so grim because it's like it is hilarious and it's so stupid, but it actually is. These people do really believe what is happening, and they really are being ruined by it. You know what breaks my heart about that? And it's true, the JFK Junior one specifically, because it's so absurd, but it's gaining momentum to the point that I was in Wisconsin a few months ago and I'm talking to the sweet old Midwestern ladies and I'm from the Midwest, and so I see

these sweet old ladies. They look like relatives of mine, and we're talking about Roe v. Wade, and out of nowhere, they bring up this JFK Junior conspiracy and they're consumed by it. And I saw them as people who don't need to be consumed by this. They don't have to waste their time and their energy and their anger on this Bonker's idea that the Internet has shoved in their faces. But yet here we are and now they're paranoid beyond belief about these absurdities, and it's pulling them and it's

being manipulated by other people who know how to manipulate them. Jesus. So hilarious, but also incredibly soul crushing, Lee, sad and depression. That's comedy. Two baby, Thanks so much, Jordan, Thanks for having me. Douglas Rushcoff is the author of Survival of the Richest. Welcome to Fast Politics. Doug Rushcoff, What a week? What a week? So? I feel like, is this the dystopian end times that I've read about before or now? Well, if we're over the lip of the event horizon, for sure.

But this is the easy slope part, the easy slope down. This is not you know, we're not in the cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers haven't emerged yet. We're still good. We're still good. What do you think about what we're seeing here with this? Elon musk bies Twitter go to cut to the chase. I mean, the punchline of this for me is I feel like this is the third level of something that started with Charlie Sheen. Whatever that means.

Let's go. That sounds great. Well, remember when Charlie Sheen got in trouble or fired from Six and a half Men or whatever, he was on for something, and then he told people that he had aids that he didn't tell people whatever something right, then he went tiger blood right. So Charlie Sheen was, for my money, the first person who kind of jumped into the cultural standing wave created by Twitter, and he just embodied. He wrote it for everything.

It was worth right, winning, winning, and and and we saw what happens to someone when they jump into that standing wave is it kills them right, finally destroys them. So he was the first test case. And then I feel like Donald Trump was the second. He goes I can do it, and he jumps in there and decides to look, Charlie Sheen, he just used the standing wave to maybe get laid and get some attention. I'm going to use it to become president. So he work and

it worked, right, It worked. That was one thing real quick. So I can get a little bit more clarity here. What is a standing wave? A standing wave is like when you see the water in the ocean and there's a big wave coming at you. There's two things about that wave. There's the water in the wave, right, the molecules of water. But then there's like the wave itself, that thing, that dynamical system of of energy that's just moving right, so you can sort of jump in that

wave and become part of that wave. So I look at culture as that it's this big wave moving forward, and you've got guys like Bannon who can say, ah, I am the wizard moving these wig waves around. It's like, no, no, you're just riding these waves like that rays about the crash. So but these folks, these almost like uh dominator masochists, kind of jump into the wave to ride it for everything it's worth and try to maintain some uh controller

coherence over it. But it's I feel like what Donald Trump was to Charlie Sheen, Alon Musk is to Trump. He's like the next level of this. So he's using the same Trumpian trolling techniques on Twitter, but it's bigger. He's a bigger troll than Trump because he owns the platform itself, and I feel like he's showing that, yeah, yeah, you did this, Trump, but your politics that was just kind of a a sub category, a little subset of

the digital society that I own. You know, if if Trump has a real competitor in the social attention landscape, it is not you know, Hillary or Biden, it is Musk, right. And then Musk even does it like when the advertisers start start jumping ship it's so TRUMPI and he goes, oh, Twitter had this, this is called Twitter had a massive drop in revenue, you know, because of activist groups pressuring

advertisers even though nothing changed. And then he says, what does he say, I'm gonna do thermonuclear name and shame on brands that drop out of Twitter? What is that? That is Trump? So when a politician says, I think Biden really won the election, You're gonna get Thermo nuclear shade. So now what Musk is doing is taking that Trump technique. I'm going to use my swarm of Twitter people to ruin your career, ruin your political career, to to to

bring you down. Now Musk is using that same kind of of power, and what it's showing, I think, more than anything, there's been a drive among a lot of the big tech bros, like Musk and Teal towards what they're calling techno monarchism. You know, it's like they're sort of brand of fascism. They believe that, you know, the world should just be run by a really smart tech bro ceo and now we don't need voting or anything, but get a good one like Deal or like Musk,

and they can just run things. And I think what we're getting is a preview of what actually look like. This is a very bad advertisement for the techno solutionist monarchy running our society. God, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, everything you're saying makes total sense. I want to know what you how you think Ellen Twitter drama plays out. I mean, it seems like to me from what I'm seeing as a person who's very online, is

that he's just decompensating rapidly. Right, But I could be wrong. I mean again, do you think there's some I mean, do you think this? You know he's super leveraged, but is there some way that he wins at this? I mean, there's some way he wins at it. I mean, but I think then everybody loses if that happens. I Mean. The weird thing is we know that Elon Musk had time to think about what he wanted to do. He

really had time. They were weeks and weeks leading up to this, and now we see that when he gets in the seat, his decision making process is is imperious, right like this, like this strange little child king. It's it's whimsical, and that he improvises minute to minute, like he's careening around in a game of you know, deathmatch or something. He's got no strategy and seemingly no awareness of the kind of second or third order effects of

any decision he makes. He's like, all right, I'm gonna fire everybody, and then oh there's nobody, all right, hire them all back. It's like, yeah, when you fire people, the thing stops working. You gotta It's like and with his decision, he's got no reluctance to externalize harm to other people, just to fire and hire at will. He's doing it in front of everybody, almost like performance art

or reality television. And he's gathered this sort of group of of sick of fants, you know, who used to be somewhat respected tech investors who are now just these sycathantic hangars on this entourage, tweeting suggestions around him like the would be first circle around the new cult leader.

And he's so willing, it's so trump he's so willing just to destroy norms in order to yield this vision of a world of total equality, you know, where you use this kind of scorched earth tactic to wipe away every institutional governance or or hesitation or roadblock to this. Not even anarchy, it's something. It's something worse. And the only people I knew who used to talk about this, let's wipe away all regulations, all restrictions were libertarians who

happened to be starting with wealth. It's like, yeah, if you've got a billion dollars take away, I'm gonna do just a yeah, sure you are, you know, And that he was so out of the gate with fake news showed that he really just wants a tench. He's trying to get attention while demonstrating that this kind of rambunctious, chaotic, free form, impulsive explosion will just accelerate us to this next phase of totally free, total self expression, perfect self

sovereignty without restriction. The thing I've been like stripped by is like, and maybe this is because they want us to be struck by this, but like how much it feels like ancient Greece, you know, like a white guy ruling over, you know, the sort of lesser women and manure, you know, like we're sort of not we're you know, not this sort of thing. You know. They have their sort of inner circle and they I mean, you don't see any women in this inner circle and just men.

It's just tech guys. They're all white. I mean, you know what I'm saying, I do. And the odd thing is they keep talking about no censorship, no rules, no regulation. Yet when you do that, at least in this landscape, you end up with just wealthy, white tech bros. Now why is that? It's because the landscape itself is tilted toward them, right. This is Twitter is the loving environment for trolls, right, and it's gonna favor the troll and

the wealthy troll. And uh, it's uh. I'm hoping, although you know, I always overestimate people's awareness, but I was hoping that this raw Twitter thing, this this Charlie Sheen like public meltdown of the world's richest man, would somehow make this more transparent, would make people go, oh, this

doesn't work. I Mean, the whole reason I wrote the last book I did, the Survival of the Richest Book, was I thought I'm gonna make these tech bros look so silly in an almost Swiftian way that people are gonna laugh them and then discard it. Yet, people who interviewed me about the book, we're like, okay, so where should I put my bunker? And what I've heard people say, well, Ellen thinks that he can scale back, make it profitable, and take a public next year. That in my mind

seems completely improbable. Not just improbable, but it's the opposite of what is in theory philosophically behind what he's doing anyway. You know, what he's in theory, what he is trying to do is to build the open protocol system through which human civilization organizes itself in the next century. You know if there is pretty ambitious. Yeah, but it's it's that's what he's that's the thing. So you start with a social network and then you turn that into a PayPal, venmo, banking, crypto,

blockchain thing. You know, it's Twitter is Musk's way of trying to do meta. And you're right, the guy behind meta, Mark Zuckerberg, what does he model He models himself after Augustus Caesar, Right, so I guess Musk could do Caligula. You know, and then Bezos can go for good old Julius, right, yeah, yeah, But I feel like a more likely scenario with Muskie is that Tesla stock continues to go down, Lender's calling

the dead, and the bank owns Twitter in two years. Yeah, because the problem for him is Musk's crowd is different than Bannon's crowd. You know, if Musk really had like the Trump world behind him, then there'd be enough, there'd be a different Tesla buying audience, right, and all the red state maga you get maga Tesla or whatever, it could be a whole thing, but the Maga people, they're actually they're the people who are most afraid of these

tech guys. Know you listen to Steve Bann, and they're afraid of the techno elite and the techno solutionists and Bill Gates putting nanobots in their vaccines and there they look at all this as taking us away from you know, good oil, piston whatever is that those horrible So I couldn't imagine any of my friends buying a Tesla at this point, no matter how good they are for the environment, even if they were, just because it's like, you're gonna do that it's like, you know, it's kind of like

buying a Ford right after we published Protocols of the Elders of Zion's not a not a good moment for that brand. There are the kids, you know, the gamer Gate kind of kids, and the kids are gonna do meme stocks and some of the some of the crypto people who do think that Musk is realizing Jack Dorsey's vision When they talked about this thing called Blue Sky, can you explain to us what blue Sky is? Because there's been a lot of subjecture about it, but it

doesn't seem like people really know. I mean, I don't think Blue Guys is so real. That seems like an important data point. It's kind of like blue Sky is trying to imagine what if we did social networks the way that the original Internet worked, in this wonderful decentralized way with open standards, and it's not a no monopolist can come and own the platform, you know, and then create all these choke points that prevent people from leaving.

We're getting a big interoperable thing. So isn't that Mastodon? Yes, right now, that is Mastodon, And it is interesting. I feel like that things are bad enough in the monopoly Internet for people to finally learn like the twenty minutes of stuff that you have to learn in order to use the Internet properly barrier to entry, you have to read on this works, Yeah, exactly. I mean that's my feeling is like I funked around with Masodon. I was like,

this doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense, and and I just like, you know, Adam Davidson, who who used to write for The New Yorker and is very tech savvy, started a server. So I just went on that and it was pretty easy, right, it actually is. Yeah. The thing is it's easier than you think. All it really is is it works like email. Right, you're on you might be on Gmail. I might be on proton Mail.

He might be on a o L. But magically I can send an email to you, and and a o L knows how to read the same protocol of email. That's all it is. You create certain standards so that you can have little servers all over the place. You belong to a server, you do all your social media functioning through that server, and if you want to leave that server, you move to another one, take all your data with you. And all your friends and all your links and all your everything, and now you're there, and

so there's no big one place. Everybody has their own little servers with their own little rules and it it's you know, it's genuinely decentralized. What Musk would need to do if he wants to make money off Twitter, and I know he he knows this is Twitter, right is turn it into and everything is to look at the Chinese and you think about like we chat, so you do everything on that. You do your banking on there, and your socializing and your credit score and your education

and your linked in qualifications. That everything's there. Your your identity which is on some blockchain, it's all right there. But why would you do it right there on a platform where, in his first week of running it, the guy who runs the platform says, if you take your ads off this, I'm gonna have all my followers do Thermo nuclear shame on your company. It's like, uh, that's worse than I mean, it's worse than China. At that point,

it's just like, oh my god. I mean, That's what I don't understand too, is like, what do you think the thinking there is that he's so powerful. He doesn't need advertisers or that. I mean, because like, if if we've learned anything from the my Pillow guy, it's that there's not enough off of this sort of non advertisers, the non woke advertisers, so to speak, Well, he thinks he's got the power to de woke ify them. In other words, are you really willing to turn against me

and Twitter? I don't think it's a bluff, but I don't think it works. I don't think he does have that power because all he could do, I mean, yes, he could get you know, maybe himself for Jason Callicanis and you know, you know a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, you know, doche coin people too, then turn against Nike because they left Twitter, and it's like, come on, this is not about free speech or anything else. It's about do I want my ads? Vengeance were right? For him,

it's vengeance and for the company's leaving. It's not that they're against free speech. It's that Wait a minute. On the first day, you said that Nancy Pelosi's husband got hit in the head by a gay lover or something, and it's part of it. Really, do you really want to do that on your first day as CEO of the what you're trying to call where a public square most truthful. Yeah, there's so much talk about algorithms and anxiety almost about algorithms, like what do they do and

how do they work? And you know, the right is always like the algorithms are against us big tech is can you just explain a little bit about what Elon can do with the algorithm? I mean, can he really sort of shadow band people? Is that a real thing? And it's sort of a little bit of an algorithm explainer for us. Yeah, algorithms simply choose what stories and ideas and tweets and things are put in front of

you based on what you've done before. So a benevolent algorithm might just keep trying to bring you stuff that you're going to read and like and engage with. Very often, even if it just does that, what it brings you is going to get more and more salacious because we

can't help but click on worse up. But uh, algorithm can also decide, oh, I'm gonna amplify these kinds of messages to make you I'm going to amplify news stories about crime to get you more scared of crime in the streets, so you're more likely to vote, you know, Republican, which we found as those people who are afraid of crime in cities vote Republican. Or we're gonna show you more of this or more of that, so you can

tweak it. Where it gets the most interesting and the most dangerous, though, is when the folks who are tuning the algorithms are also getting deeply entrenched in what's called behavioral finance. Where behavioral finance is sort of a psychological study of how do you get people to act against

their own best interests. It's the kind of stuff that you know, credit card companies figure out when they're giving you offers to try to get you to pick things that where you'll pay more interest and and and get worser worser conditions. So when you have algorithms using behavioral finance techniques basically psychological ninja to get people to think differently,

it's kind of sad. It's kind of dangerous. And I don't trust people at Facebook either, But the people at any for profit private company looking to establish a monopoly, they're gonna do first whatever they can to get you dependent on their on their platform. But if they are political, which is what Musk is basically saying. He is right. If they are political, you've got more control over the over the national psyche than the people who are producing

reality television shows, you know. And that's really what we're looking at. We're looking at Musk as trying to establish himself as the true dictator. It's not that little reality star President Trump. It's the person who owns the platform capitalism right and can figure out where you spend your money. It's so interesting that this was so interesting. I ran too long. Jesse is mad at me. Please please please come back, Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. So Trump's doing

this like mega media tour today. He's hitting all the networks. I'm shocked he's not cuddling Mike Wilendell right now. Networks. I think we should use the word networks and quote yes, yes, that's that's true. Rag tag operations. Trump told the News Nation you may have heard of News Nation, but you also may not this, which is like a sort of Trump and fortune cookie. About tonight's results, well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit. If

they lose, I should not be blamed at all. Very trumpy and for that, Donald Trump, you continue to be our moment of that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to her 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. Mm hm.