Trae Crowder, The Liberal Redneck - podcast episode cover

Trae Crowder, The Liberal Redneck

Feb 23, 202542 minSeason 4Ep. 9
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Episode description

Comedian Trae Crowder is from a tiny town in Tennessee, so he has a unique point of view on conservative, liberals, MAGA and especially J.D. Vance… what’s the deal with that guy?? Well, Trae knows a thing or two.

Transcript

Speaker 1

I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.

Speaker 2

And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.

Speaker 1

Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy theories large and small.

Speaker 2

Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?

Speaker 1

This is mission implausible. Today's guest is Trey Crowder. He's the liberal redneck. He's a comedian with a big following on YouTube and social media and the author of several books. He's from rural Tennessee, and you can see the dates for his nationwide.

Speaker 2

Comedy tour on his website.

Speaker 1

So welcome Trey.

Speaker 3

The website and questions try Crowder dot com. By the way, thanks for the Introy, and thanks for having me.

Speaker 1

First question I've had for you is can you explain JD Vance?

Speaker 2

No, not really, only a forty minute show.

Speaker 3

I have a weird miniature, Heytory with j D Actually, because his I first went viral and started gaining my online following that you mentioned in the spring of twenty sixteen. I had been doing stand up in anonymity for like six years already at that point, but then I made these videos and they one of them took off really big, and then I could just snowball from there, which was great.

But it started in twenty sixteen and I started going all these meetings, Hollywood meetings and stuff like this, and people started asking me, oh, you must love have you read that new book? Have you read He'll Billy Eligy? If you read that, you know about that. And that's how I found out about it. And I looked it up and they were all any type of remotely fancy person intelligentsia or any type of artist to have whether they were like salivating over this book, right, they loved it.

So I found out about that way. And then I was like going on TV at the time, like CNN and MSNBC and Bill marsh Show and stuff like that, and usually I was being brought on there relevant to the first question you asked to, like explain He'llbilly's to people because there was a big narrative of them about them Trump. Then that's what happened with Trump is he reached these specific people it's like, you're one of these people, what's up with that? Explain to us what that's all about.

And jay D was doing the same thing at the same time, and we like met and started talking and stuff. He brought his wife, who was pregnant at the time, to my comedy show that I did in Columbus. We hung out afterwards, went to a bar, hung out for a few hours talking about stuff. Now at that time, and he was still calling Trump Hitler and everything. So

I was like, this guy's all right. Stayed in touch sort of over the years, a little bit, texting here and there, and then as his rise became more evident and took the trajectory it did, you know. I haven't talked to him forever at this point, But like I even when I read the book, though, there were parts in it where because we had we do have, if everything in the book is to be believed, we have a very similar upbringing and background in a lot of ways. My mom was also a drug addict. I'm from very

very rural, poverty stricken Tennessee. Now, he would like go there. He like grew up in Ohio, really, but he would go there in the summers and be immersed in He'll billy shit for a while. I was in it all the time, not bragging, but uh, and so I definitely related to a lot of it. But there were a lot of angles he took in that book and things that he said that even at the very beginning of even knowing who he was, I was like, it just struck me odd or weird. I was like, that's I

don't I'm not down with that. Like one of the big ones I remember is here he makes his whole case into the book for payday loan places, right about how people like demonize those as being predatory, but what they don't understand is those places really are lifelines to poor rural people and all this stuff. Okay, because I got to that part and I was like, what fuck those places? What are you serious?

Speaker 2

You know?

Speaker 3

And then I hear later after the fact that I purportedly he had whatever investment stakes or something like that and some company and had some payday loan places, was that type of thing, and I was like, Oh, that's pretty greasy. And then his whole central thesis the way I read it in that book, which was basically just like, yeah, listen, you know, uh, these poor white people, they're just like

they're just fundamentally lazy. There's something broken in them, like culturally, like they it's their own They could blame everybody else all they want, but it's it's their own fault at the end of the day. But I just never looked at like that because I've seen too many people very close to me that I feel like there're no fault of their own been you know, turned to shit by uh, completely external factors. Ironically to a lot of those people love JD's boss, Donald Trump and that type of thing,

you know, because of all that that happened. But I don't know how he you know, how we had basically the same experiences and landed on such different outcomes the way that we did. But I think that, you know, you know, I don't know, I'm a conspiratorial it is, But I think that he's I very much believe that he's been that he's backed by Peter Thiel and his and shepherded into this position that he's in now for

a very strategic reason on their part. He was identified early on by them, I think, as someone who's like to be used for this purpose and has been more than happy to allow that to happen. That's what I think has happened with j D.

Speaker 2

I think two or three different times.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's definitely weird and all everything that's going on there, and then he still like sucks up to people, the types of people who will be openly racist towards some other his children to his face or to his digital face on Twitter anyway, and that type of thing, which I also just find very wild. The whole thing is wild. But you know, I mean it's worked very well for him. He's the freaking vice president. He's in the White House right now, Like he can't

argue with the results. If that's you know, those are things you value, money and power and all that. It's he's definitely getting what he wanted out of it so far, and it could only just be beginning, so we'll see.

Speaker 2

I'm not a hillbilly here my accent, but I did up in a small town, one of ten kids. Everybody's working for Kodak up in that area, and then Kodak went bust. Everybody lost their jobs, and right, yeah, yeah, I get that kind of thing. That was like taking your date to the town dump to watch the Bears shooting yeah, but I'll tell you where I come from too.

Trump is fuller with a lot of my family and a lot of former friends from high school and everything like that, and I have not had really the chance to sit down and talk with them about what's in their best interest. And not that you represent all Hillbillies everywhere, but one thing I struggled with is sort of this cult light adherence to something that that maybe appeals to their pride, but is it always in their best.

Speaker 3

Interest early on from the beginning. And that's alluded to this a little bit. And so did you. So I my hometown also, So my hometown, I think is an interesting case study. It's called Salina, Tennessee. It's in Klay County. It's very rural. We don't have any traffic lights or McDonald's or anything. There a big lot bragg and I

that's enough. I get it you, Francy. But in every general election up to like two thousand and four, Lay County was a Democratic county and was blue like win for al Gore in two thousand and then Clinton before that, and had been Democrat previously, and then now it's like one of the strongest for Trump counties in Tennessee, like by percentage again it's very small, but percentage wise, and in the nineties, for years and years, the whole, the beating heart of the town's economy was a fact of

textile factory from your way, Midwive, because I assume they're from actual oshkosh Oshkosh Bagosh is what they're called, you know, the most whimsically named company to ever destroy an entire community. But they made and make a little cute, little baby overalls and stuff, and that was like, there's a big factory in Solina for years and years and the nineties that left it went to Mexico. Nothing ever replaced it.

My family and a bunch of other people. You either worked at the factory or you did something that kind of service people that worked at the factory that my dad ran the only video store in we like. He had a converted single white trailer called Crowder's Video, and my grandpa had a car lot, my other grandma had a country cafe like a diner, and then my openly gay uncle and his partner had a deli on the

town square and all of which were doing great. And then that factory left, and within ten years all of those businesses were closed. Half those people were dead. My mom was hooked on pills, and that was the norm. That happened to everybody there pretty much, or almost everybody, or at least that were adjacent to It just devastated

the town and they've never to this day recovered. And I felt like at twenty sixteen, like Trump showed up and like was the first person to even really pretend to give a shit about them or any of that, because he had been famous for years before that as a rich douchebag that I never liked him. For the record, I didn't know any redneck, especially redneck dude who liked him.

You know. He was like a you know, a blue blood Yankee son of a bitch who thinks she's better than everybody else, you know, and needs ass whipped type of thing. Is how nobody liked him, and I did either. So when he showed up and he was doing that, I was like, Okay, but he's full of shit. That he's clearly full of shit. Shouldn't that part matter? But I just think they were just so desperate for anyone

to care that they latched onto it. And he blamed a lot of the same people like the swamp and that sort of thing, and then yes, the racist aspect of it too that he fed into. But I always used to tell people, I just thought the racism part was just the icing on the fuck you cake that he baked for them, for the establishment that they had seen as having ruined their lives and left them behind.

So I was sympathetic to it the first time around. Again, I felt like I saw through it and I was like, you guys are getting sold bad bill of goods here. This is bullshit. But I did get where they were coming from or why they felt that way. All these years later, after everything that has happened, on the stuff that he's done, and how nothing has really changed in my hometown for the better for sure, and they're even more die hard now than ever. It's hard for me

to try to reconcile with that. But I guess it's a you know, I mean, you called it a cult. I think you know, it's some kind of you get dug in and it becomes part of your identity, your personality, whatever, and then you just like it's hard to break people out of that. And then now lately, all the stuff

that's happening lately in this country like scaring me. But if your hardcore maga or whatever, I mean, they have got to be loving all this shit, I imagine, like so far because there's no been there's no long term effects of any of it. Yet it's just all they see is Trump just doing all the things he told them he would do, because that's why, I mean, that's what he's doing. Like in a way, I'm like morbidly impressed by it because I've never seen an American politician

do that. Almost all the time, they just say a bunch of shit and don't do much of nothing on both sides for most of my life. But he's doing stuff, and it's stuff that I really am not in favor of, but they love it and think it's a great idea, And so you know, they're not jumping off the Trump train anytime soon, I don't think. And the real question to me is when the receipts come in for a lot of these things that I think are going to have disastrous long term result, you know, sex When that

when those consequences arrived, what happens then? And I'd like to think they'll find some of them will finally shake it off, But I don't know if I'm actually not that optimistic though at the end of the day.

Speaker 1

So, well, that's the thing is, I think you based on your humor stuff, I think you can see a lot of this is just built on lies, right, And I think a lot of what populist politicians do is they create enemies, they create false narratives, someone to blame the elites or for us, the deep state is where we worked, right, right. I think that the real people hurting the rural population and eventually will see this are their representatives that lie to them.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

The people are telling them these lies, but they actually aren't going to fix things. They feed them information to keep them angry. Why they hop why they hob now with the super rich people and get yes breaks. But so I don't know when it will come and how much damage would be done before before everybody figures it out. But it's a real problem that being lied to all the time.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And I really felt like when I was a kid in that town, because I tell people too, it's like again, not only did it like vote blue in most elections, but most people when I was growing up there, I would have described as outwardly a political like people didn't talk about the general the general consensus, and almost everybody there back then was basically like, I'll fuck them. They're all full of shit and none of them really give a damn about you know. The Yeah, right, I know,

I know. And that's like the sort of context I was raised in there. And then now there's Trump signs all over the place or anything, and it's just it's changed.

I mean, yeah, you're right, I mean, yes, they feed them things to make them angry and turn people against each other and make, you know, turn people into enemies that aren't really while hiding the fact that the real enemies are the masters that they're representatives serving all that stuff that they don't say, get mad at, like Mexicans and shit, instead of welfare queens and stuff, and the serial boogeymen that they're terrified of, instead of like the

people that are actually screwing them over, sometimes right in front of their face, like Elon Musk. And then he turns around and talks house Elon that is like through out there the idea of we've been saving all this money, and uh, we might give everybody a dividend for it, you know, And he said, like five thousand dollars, and

I don't think that'll ever happen, but it's funny. It's funny to me that it's like, these people have been decrying anything that seems we can't have health care whatever. That's socialism. It's not fair. People's tax pa taxpayer tax money can't pay for other people's stuff, and that's not how it should be. Socialism's bad, you know, all this stuff. And then Elon's like, I think we should take this big sum of taxpayer money and just distribute it evenly

to the people, unconditionally. And they're like, oh, that's a great idea. That sounds awesome, that's totally what we should do. Again, I don't I think it'll be called dan help where that actually even happens. But it's the whole thing is just kind of upside down.

Speaker 2

Yeah, feral boogeyman. I like that.

Speaker 3

You guys should know all about those. I would imagine probably that.

Speaker 2

We are ongoing. So I want to take you, so we insport yourself back to your hometown and Selena, and you're sitting in so my hometown, the local dinter is

called the Greeks. You sit there and you have a cup of coffee, everybody talks after the church and things, and so you're back at the Greeks and you tick me in and we sit down at the table of your local cafe and you introduce me to your friends and go, this guy's the deep State, and John's there too, right, so the true deep state guys, well, questions would they ask us?

Speaker 3

It's funny you say that, because I actually have a question that I was wanting to ask you guys. But it's not this questions coming from me. It's not it's actually coming from a friend of mine. So this is not exactly what you're asking. I'm not channeling a hometown person. This is my own question I already wanted to ask you.

But my friend that I co host a podcast with is and saying recently, he's been positing that if these things that the current administration is doing really does lead to truly disastrous results, like things start to crumble apart, and it's heading in that direction, at what point does anybody or can anybody step in and then do something about it to whether it's like a coup or an Operation Valkyrie type sign or whatever it is, is there

a point where to keep this country from collapse? Would the deep snit ever do some deep state stuff in this scenario, And because he's starting to route for that the end.

Speaker 2

I wish there was a deep state. The deep state is just a it's just a shitty name they throw at people like us who Congress and the president. They make the laws and the rule, they don't always know what they are right we carry them out. So like for even at CIA, the first thing we do when we're gonna have an operation is we go to a lawyer and we're like, is this legal? Is this conspiracial? Can we do it? And you know, if the answer

is no, we don't do it. Regardless, even if the president says I want you to do something, and I think this is one of Trump's problems, He's like, I give an order, nobody carries it out like because they're like, maybe it's against the law, or maybe it's against the rules,

or maybe it's unethical. People won't do it. To know these and as least as bad as it is now, Nope, the only thing I think you'll find is people of goodwill will basically say I'm just gonna like keep my head down and try to wait out four years and I'll do what I need to do. But no, the answer is no.

Speaker 3

Well, even on that last note you said, I remember thinking the first time around the first Trump administration, people were like, this guy's in charge of the nukes. That's terrifying. And I was like, surely there's people around high high levels in the military and stuff. I got to have been there for a long time. They're legit, they're not insane, and hopefully they would be able to keep something truly

wild like that from happening. And I feel like after the first administration, you got we've got reports during like January sixth, committees and all that of the way things were inside at the time, and it seemed like that was sort of the case. I had. It broke down and like there was team Saying and team crazy, and it's like saying, like longtime bureaucrats who were like actually reasonable people were trying hard every day to keep Team

Crazy from doing a bunch of crazy shit. And that's really what was happening by the scenes the first time around. And it's like part of the whole plan this time around is to not have any of the same people there. And so you know, you said you were saying, people have been there a long time and are not down

with all this, just like keep their head down. But do you think there's because I used to work for I used to work for the Department of Energy, and I was just like a pencil pushure of the desk. But I that's another thing I used to think because I worked my whole time in twenty ten, the two thousand, middle of twenty sixteen, six and a half years I was. That was all Obama administration, So the Secretary of THEDE was like the head of Physics and Energy at MIT.

And then after I left and Trump came in, it was fucking Rick Perry right, who couldn't even remember the name of the agency, And that was that was all freaking me out. But because I'd worked there, I was like I knew. I was like that people doing the things there every day are longter like life. First, they're people that have been working for the de for a long long time, through all kinds of different administrations with different politics, and they keep the mission going and the

trains running on time and all that. So it's even with all this craziness, people all still be there and that's the thing that gives me comfort. But again, what they're part of what they're doing right now is they're excising a lot of that. They're saying to.

Speaker 2

All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back. So John and I John is speak himself, but he's worked against Russia, the Soviet Union, And you know, I've done a lot of time counterterrorism. I spent time in Rock Afghanistan pushing back against like really some evil ideologies and some nasty people. But if Trump comes along and says, and this isn't like, this isn't crazy anymore, he says, I want us to, I want you say, work against our real enemies, Canada. And then I guess it's not

illegal to run operations against the Native Ali. I mean, it would be stupid and unethical and foolish and short sighted. But I think they'd find a couple of people who do it, and a couple of people who Yeah, if you make me do it, I'll do a shitty job. I don't know, Chuck, what do you think I.

Speaker 1

Will get that question a lot of time when you guys gonna come in and take care of this kind of thing. You see, hey, guys, and essentially you have experienced in Dee it's the same thing people are. Our public servants are focused on their mission, which is collecting foreign intelligence, where we're not focused on domestic politics and try it. In fact, we're very much inculcated to stay away from that.

Speaker 3

You know, you don't want.

Speaker 1

A powerful agency that steals thing and does things like that working domestically, right, and so we'll pretty much stay out of domestic politics. So what Jerry said first is most likely is there isn't really a means for people to step in or do something or stop something. You know, half the country it most would blame them for getting

involved in something they shouldn't get involved in. But like Jerry said too, I think most people are going to focus on trying to do their job or keep their head down, or if they do give these kind of orders that are crazy, a certain percentage of people will quit. Another group will try to explain is best and try the best they can to push back and explain, and some of them get fired. And then there'll be a small group of people who will do it and probably

do it poorly. And then maybe if Trump's in long enough, he'll bring in enough todies to try to come in and do it. But it's a very difficult job to just do on the fly. It takes a long time to go through training and get experience and get languages and learn how to do these things. I mean, he'll be dead long before anybody he brings in from the outside is trained and ready to do this effectively. So possibly Justice Department, possibly in the courts, possibly an FBI.

At some point there'll be a group of people who can more effectively push back, but it's pushed back, probably trying their best to explain what's happening.

Speaker 2

Is illegal, right for the Republican Party from his own ail.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Congress is where it's supposed to happen.

Speaker 3

Yeah, the rest there answer. Yeah, I mean, that's that thing. I was thinking just because this week he had a new executive order basically it was like, you know, expanding executive authority even further and basically telling the courts like, actually, we're we're the ones who are going to interpret the law. And it's like, you know, even on the constitution, like says that's what judicial just for it, and he's like, now we're not really doing that whole constitution thing anymore.

But but I was thinking because of that, I was like it's wild that that's the idea, that one thing, like an example, something is completely bipotterson and just unquestioned my whole life until recently, was that, like, you know, checks and balances, which is the thing you get told over and over again as a kid growing up in this country. It's like one of the principles were founded on is the idea of checks and balances, and that that is good right whoever it has the power at

any given time. The fact that we have that is a good thing, right. And that's one of those types of things, like fundamental precepts that I just never thought I would see questioned by anybody like regular people. I mean, And now they're actively trying to dismantle checks and balances and they're being cheered on for it, and that's it's all just it's all pretty wild. But since you asked me that question, the two I thought of, what's the

deal with the weather machine? Right, who actually controls that? And Uh, why didn't they send to her kind of put the fires out in LA when we had that problem out here, because it's this is liberal haven out here, so you'd think they want to take care of us. And then uh, and then what's the real story with COVID. What were you guys really doing there trying to put five G and everybody or were sterilized smart people?

Speaker 1

I don't know and I had retired, so we can't be blamed for either of those.

Speaker 2

Yeah, So yeah, the conspiracy crazies, they've got their team in there now, all the people Louderie, Taylor Green her parties are in it. It's time to expose the Jewish space laser, right, I mean they well, now let's wheel out, get the gurneyes out, and wheel out the aliens that the CIA has hit all this time, Right, Let's do the Kennedy assassination. Let's do his people in charge.

Speaker 3

They can do all that.

Speaker 2

So yeah, let's bring it all out there.

Speaker 1

Let's show everybody to find out there's nothing there.

Speaker 3

But they still That's another thing that I don't get is like I was just in Kentucky doing shows and it was flooding there at the time. I saw people these people like on Twitter they were talking about so Elin had been saying, you know, we need to audit Fort Knox, right, because we don't even know if all that gold is there anymore. It could be just standing

empty who knows, you know. And it's like my buddy pointed out, He's like, well, if it's been empty for a while, that feels like that's been fine.

Speaker 1

Like it's like I don't like that hasn't really affected. We don't know this, We don't know that. What they're saying is that they don't know. They for the government, they actually do know if they ask people.

Speaker 3

So they had been saying that we need to audit Fort Knox and these people, and it caught up at a little traction on like Twitter and stuff between the conspiracy theories are like very funny that they're talking about auditing Fort Knox and all of a sudden it's flooding there and it's because they're saying, you know, they we employed the weather machine again. And my thing is like, okay, but that but that I thought that was like a Biden administration deep like they you guys have taken care

of that, haven't you. Like you've won, You've pushed those people out right, So where are they? What are they do? And there's some like secret.

Speaker 1

There's always got to be an enemy. So I have a question for you, Tray, do you get threats? There was recently a Vanity Fair article called They're Scared Shitless, and it talked about how North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis, who was claiming that he was going to vote against Pete Haygesith for Secretary of Defense, that the FBI went to and warned him about a series of credible death threats against him because he was going to vote against

the presidents. Now, do you get threats from people who really don't like what you're doing?

Speaker 3

Early on, when I first popped, first became a thing, and I was kind of all over the place briefly, like on the Internet. I got a lot of messages from people and dms and stuff that a lot of them are just like Colin at gay in various ways or whatever, or having conspiracy theories about me. It's like, I'm a secret Jewish actor from New York Who's been installed by the Obama administration to like propagate liberal propaganda in rural America. Right, that was a conspiracy theory, right,

So stuff like that. But I would get some that were like threatening violence, you know, and however ways, and I got a few death threats and that type of thing, But they were like here and there, and I mostly just like laughed them off or ignored it. Over the years, they've gotten much less and less because those people are not generally what you know, their algorithms, not showing them my stuff. For the most part, it's mostly just it'll

be hateful comments or whatever. And I have known people who are like, don't have as large of a following as me, but have gotten on the radar of some of these guys. Right, I don't know how or why I have not gotten that kind of attention so far. Maybe I'm just again, I'm just either not on their radar or they don't. They think I'm just a silly thing that's not serious, which is fine with me because

I am a comedian. So I ask myself sometimes like if that does happen, if I start getting that type of attention the way you hear all these stories about all the time, what am I gonna do, Because like I said, I am married, I do have kids, and it would you know, that shit would be freaky. I'm not you know, you were about these people, even that one guy, like even people on their side like that that guy who was like a big he was like

a big sort of leader. In the process of January sixth on the day of and then later they decided that he actually was one of your people who worked for the deep state. Right then he was installed there and this guy Maga and loves Trump. They just decided he was that secret deep state and then he had to like go into hiding and shit with his wife and like leave there out because of you know, the

threats they were getting, how harassed they got. So it's like, yeah, I don't know, it's like a list you get you find yourself on at some point and they'll like do everything they can and make your life hell. And thankfully that hasn't happened to me yet and I'm hoping obviously that it doesn't.

Speaker 2

Is Trump good for you? So I've got friends who are journalists now I never had when it was on the inside, And after their third drink, they'll say, at least people are like animated now Trump hate and releiveled. But it's he's an animating character and he's like in the headlines all the time, and he's journalists are building their career years off of either opposing him or digging shit up or lick spittling him and praising him. So, well, how do you see you yourself in this in this biasphere.

Speaker 3

Yeah. People were bringing it up to me too or asking me about that the first time around, also in twenty sixteen. That's like what I said then, and I

think it's still true this time around too. Is like I would as somebody who lives in this country and as kids and all this stuff like, it's this is not worth it to me, But it would be disingenuous of me to not acknowledge that this probably is like a quote unquote good thing for me professionally considering what I do, like I probably do benefit from this ultimately,

and did the first time around as well. But on the other hand, in the run up went Biden won in twenty twenty and everything, everybody naively thought, you know, now that all that's over forever, what are you know? What are you What are you gonna do now? What are you gonna talk? When I was always like, it'll be fine. I've been this country long enough to know, especially now at this point, there's always going to be dumb shit happening that it needs to be made fun of,

regardless of who's in charge. So I think I'll be fine, And I was, I mean I had, you know, I was in I didn't like go back to my old job during the Biden administration, just crawl back out of my internet hole when Trump got re elected, like I was still doing it all the that whole time. But no, but yeah, it's been you know, my numbers will have gone up recently and probably will continue to do so.

And that means ticket sales and all that stuff, probably, and it's because of you know, the current state of things politically. But again, if I could snap my fingers and be doing somewhat less well but feel better about the future of the country, I would take that trade

in a heartbeat. But yeah, it probably does help me a little bit for now, up until a point like when the like water wars start or whatever, or I don't know, people are gonna going to comedy shows in the after times or during the Second Civil War or whatever, so we'll see it. I had thought and planning that if Harris Walls had won, my plan was to gradually drift away from heavy politics stuff in the more just

regular stand up clips. And I even started making like cooking videos and stuff like that, just it's like regular funny stuff and not have to talk about politics all the time, because I've been thinking if they had won, then maybe we can all try to put some of this behind us as a people. Obviously didn't work out that way, and when that when what happened happened, I was like, well, Okay, I guess I'm still doing my thing for a while's.

Speaker 2

Cause perception, we'll be right back.

Speaker 1

Talking about conspiracy theories. Do you think there's a greater tendency towards conspiracy theories on the right wing or in rural communities. And one of the things that leads me to ask that is I recall a few years ago there was a journalist that had been coming back from cover civil wars and poverty in the Third World for a long time, and he was getting interviewed on one of these podcasts, New York Times podcasts, and they asked him, do you see a similar breakdown here that's going to

lead to a civil war or whatever? And I was expecting to say, oh, yes, and he said no, because in the places where he was they had real problems, like they were really poor, they couldn't eat, they were actually killing each other, right, And here it seems like it's middle class board white guys so do you think there's a regional piece to this, or a rural peace to this, or what is it?

Speaker 3

Well, first of all, the thing that that journalist said is like a version of a thing that I like try to tell myself to sleep at night or whatever. So I've heard other people say it to Americans don't really realize how like we look around, like, oh god, the sky's following, this is horrible and everything, and it's like, as compared to a lot so many places in the world and the shit that goes on there, it's like it's still it's still pretty nice here, you know, and

we don't know how good we got it. And I try to remind myself of that, but I didn't. I would not used to. I would not have thought that it necessarily was the right leaning thing. Conspiracy theories. It's like, that's one thing I've lamented is like I used to, I was ever really into them. I've always liked aliens and stuff and UFO stuff and that type of thing. I like Oliver Stone's JFK movie and listening to podcasts about that stuff and whatever else. And it was always

kind of a silly, fun thing to me. Conspiracy theories you know, I smoked a little bit too much weed one time in college and watched the wrong YouTube video, and for a couple hours after that, I was like, Damn Bush did nine to eleven, you know, like that type of thing. Then I shook it off later, but and like that's another good example. I feel like that was a dull like nine to eleven being an inside job and something that Bush did, like that conspiracy theory was.

There was plenty of people on the left tour all about that because it was an anti Bush thing. So used to know, but now I feel like it's undeniable that it's like right wing coded, and I think it's a combination of things where it's like the rise of Quanon and it begetting as big and mainstream as it did, and it kind of becoming like intrinsically linked with MAGA and Trump and the right, and also how all encompassing it is. It's like it will wrap up anything into itself,

do you know what I mean. It's like any kind of conspiracy theory can get connected back to this larger one type thing and it and there it's people on the right largely and then uh, and then I think a lot of like pied type stuff. You know, Like I'm not not blaming things on Joe Rogan, but I'm saying like that what realm of influence is tied to get you know, again like early Joe Rogan and that

there's like a crossover. He loved talking about conspiracy theories and aliens and all that shit that's used to be mostly all of what he did, and then you can see how they've got it's gotten mixed together with the politics of the right over the years, just by looking at his show as like a case study or an example. And that sucks because, like some again, sometimes I could think they're fun, right, but I don't want to be even jokingly part of the current version of the world

of variously theories. It's just another thing that's been co opted and ruined by the far right. As far as I'm concerned. We used to have fun with conspiracy theories in this country and now they're dangerous.

Speaker 2

But yeah, yeah, in high school there was like who really built the pyramids or space aliens? And you know, you can enjoy that on any any part of the political spectrum. But one of my things that I'm sort of gobsmack and still dealing with. But it was like where I come from, I think where you do too, you know, sort of like a small town. The military was always sacred sanc It was also a place where kids coming out of high school, we can get a

job and you can see the world. You can make something of yourself with a we had a pickle plant in town, right and it closed down, and kodaks like, you can always join the Marines, right, yes, yes, and a lot of people did. And if you didn't go to college. So with with the right now with Trump, what they've broken is really the military isn't sacre sanct anymore.

When Trump got up and said that John McCain is a fucking loser for getting and being tortured by the North Vietnamese, and people bought that, and people blought that in my tone too. You know, Trump's saying that generals are stupid and the military of a bunch of pussies. Right, what's your sense of, Like where you come from, is the military not being held in high regard anymore? I thought that was the bedrock thing me too.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's another thing, like I was saying earlier about checks and balances or whatever. The military is the type of thing that I thought would not everybody called into quest. That was one of the craziest things that I ever saw Trump do, is when he did the things like you're talking about. He got caught calling you know, dead soldiers losers and all this type of shit that he's done over the years. It's like, I can't believe that this is okay with everybody, because that was like the

one thing you could never ever do. And it's all this doze stuff. And they've just recently started talking about, oh, they're actually going to cut some of the defense budget. And this part is hard for me because I've spent years being like, we should cut some of the defense. It's just like, for most of my life it's like, God, I really wish we could cut some of the defense budget and focus more on space travel and going to Mars. And it's like without the monkey's Paul cur right, this

is the version of the world that's happening. But I think it's like I don't know for sure, but I think it's like they still have an idea, an idealized version of the military that is sacrosanct in their head, and it's like they think that the present day military, like so many things, has been like co opted and ruined by like wokeism and dei stuff and that type of thing. Or you know, the military is like gone

woke with military leadership. So the military has lost its way I think and gotten all woke and shit is how they justify being anti military right now? And it's like they just they want to they the real American military that they like, Remember, it's like it's still attainable and that's still like the gold standard and it is sacro sanc but it's just been bastardized in the current

version of it. That's why you can shit all over it is because of that, So you got to get it back to the old way or something.

Speaker 2

Well.

Speaker 1

The next one then is similar, is like how do we become pro Russian? Like for Christ's sake?

Speaker 3

Like yes, that's that one is nuh because again, growing up here am I whole you know how I mean,

they're the bad guys in every movie and everything. It's like the Cold War was such it ended when I was like a kid, but it was still just like such a huge part of everything, and it's I just never I don't know, Uh, it's a big part of like how so many people demonize the left overall a period or socialism being a dirty word is because they got associated with the evils of communism and Soviet Russia and that being the enemy and all that, and it

was just never questioned. It's communism is still evil and socialism by proxy and all that. But now Russia's awesome because of I don't know, Putin's.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we got to get people to watch Red Dawn again.

Speaker 3

That's the russ Yeah.

Speaker 1

I lived in Russia and I've been working on Russia things for a long time and it's not awesome. Yeah, but I you know what I think it is. And you what's so good about your comedy trade is you focus on what has happened I think in this country is we've defined our enemies as internal enemies rather than external enemies. Like when we grew up, it was like there was external enemies and we disagreed with each other.

But we're on the same side against external I think one of the geniuses that Trump picked up on that was already out there was if I can make Hillary Clinton the enemy, then anything I say or do is okay because it's attacking that because they're the real enemy, not anybody else.

Speaker 2

So Treue, what's your favorite conspiracy theory? And I hope it has to do with CIA so we can maybe address it for you.

Speaker 3

My definitely the favorite genre of them, at least I guess, is all aliens and UFO stuff, anything from like Rosswelt through the drones or whatever, and all the stuff that people say, and then we can't talk about any of that, right, See, I have aliens inting in an underground bunker somewhere, or alien tech or whatever. It's like one of those things where it's like, basically, do I think that aliens probably exist somewhere in the universe? Yes, mathematically I think that

they probably do. Do I think that like the drones in New Jersey and shit, or like aliens surveillance or any of that stuff. No, I don't.

Speaker 1

There was a senator from Nevada, Reid, who was really was obsessed with this for years, obviously at Area fifty one is in Nevada and stuff, and so he pushed the Defense Apartment and the intelligence that needs to create some version of looking at things that we couldn't figure out. And there's been a Congress variety of hearings and this and that, and of course none of it really answers

any of this. And of course the thing is every time you try to answer these things, it just makes people go deeper and say ah, like they said, hey, let out all the JFK stuff, And essentially the intelligenent is let out all the JFK stuff. But the fact there's like two pieces of paper left, they're like, ah, that's where the real thing is. That you almost can't

win when you start down this thing. So I think there is an office or in the Defense Department, and probably in the intelligences or that try to do what they can to look at things that are unexplainable and see if they can't figure things out or if recover things that look that way. But in terms of actual alien stuff, I spent thirty years in net Cia.

Speaker 3

I never heard anything but anything.

Speaker 2

We hit an office on this. I think this is big in the seventies and eighties for a while that was looking at far seeing and we hired psychics and they would sit down and they would sit were a piece of paper and drink of coffee and they would like sketch something out and they go look for this in Atlanta, vous stock like a submarine pen and the only reason we had that was because and I can't

remember was here to read. But there was some influential senator who was convinced that this could and he like made us do it. He gave us the money. It said, fucking do this and it produced nothing. But we're still like CIA had an office that did this, yeah, because we were forced to.

Speaker 1

Like it's like mk Ultra, which is in the nineteen fifties, Yep. There was a concern that we were fighting the Soviet Union and there's all these public TV shows and movies suggests, and a number of people had come back from fighting in Korea and other places, and it seemed to become brainwashed. If you believe communism, it must because there must have been a drug or a brainwashing that the Soviets had

figured out. And so there was a small place at the CIA that was supposed to look into it and test drugs and things to see if this thing existed. I think they ruined a lot of people's minds, but they found out that there was no You could destroy some one's brain, but you can't really reprogram it very right. And it was a pretty sad experiment and.

Speaker 2

I have to say, if we just the way things work in the real world. So John and I are both we've been out for a long time and are measly pensions were not port but we're certainly not rich. We could hit the jackpot if we, like said, I know where the aliens are, right, And if there really was, why wouldn't people come out afterwards and say it, like, you know, just or sneak off to the Washington Post or the New York Times or Carlson and go, here's

the Yeah, the thousands of us. Why wouldn't wanted to know?

Speaker 3

That? Is the mind that because over I thought about it, I think really like the real conspiracy theory is that it's all way more boring than you think it is and also less effectual than you think of. Is not as all powerful as a lot of people think it is, and they couldn't don't have the capacity to do a lot of this stuff that people think that has been done. And also, as you just said, it's like the whole Moonland,

the Main Fight or whatever like that one. It's like the the sheer number of people that would have to be in something like that and never ever even up to it, including their deathbed say a single thing about it, or leak any information out or whatever. And it's like people just people can't do that, you know, it's human nature to it's just impossible. You can't keep a secret

like that with that many people. There's like two people maybe can keep a secret, and even when the third person gets involved, it's your danger of it getting out let alone thousands of people.

Speaker 1

So yeah, especially in this day and age, he could make some good money off of it.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah, they don't stay secret very long.

Speaker 1

It's been so fun to listen to you. I enjoy following on social media and I would suggest that people in our audience to look it up.

Speaker 3

Trey Crowder, thank you Trek Crowder dot com, trakt Crowder on all the socials and yeah, thanks for having me. It's a fun.

Speaker 1

Appreciate Troy is tr Ae, So Trey, thank you very much, really really appreciate it.

Speaker 4

Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Seipher, and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission Implausible It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures for iHeart Podcasts.

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