Trae Crowder, The Liberal Redneck

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.