From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission control decand most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Before we begin our exploration this evening. If you have some time, if the spirit so moves you, why not drop us a kind review on your podcast platform of choice. It's a way to vote for us. It's a free vote, and as we'll learn, elections are important.
Free and fair election in iTunes review form. Yes, thank you for your service.
That's why Steve Jobs did the whole thing. I mean, elections are kind of a hot topic, to say the least about it, and in some places they can be downright dangerous. One of the things that human society has always quarreled with is what we call the peaceful transition of power. And you know, here in the United States, it seems like we're continually in one campaign cycle or another.
You know, anybody listening you probably have received crazy cold call text messages proliferating in recent months that just say something in all caps and then also donate money to us.
I had a lovely lady knock on my door on behalf of her husband who's campaigning for state senate here in Georgia, and I can't remember the tagline, but she left. She signed off with his like campaign slogan, and I thought it was very charming, and I, you know what, I saved the handbill and I'll probably vote for him just because she was so nice.
You know.
I'm into that somehow too. If there's somebody I could see around town that I voted for, I feel like, I don't know, I did something for real.
I love that, you guys, know I without disclosing too much personal info, I live walking distance to a library where elections are held, and it's always cool because this is just between us and the millions of us listening along tonight. Those before and also immediately after elections, those candidates just find excuses to hang out at the Library's just so like to your point, Matt, so that they can be seen as a member of the community.
And you know, and to be fair, some of them very much are, especially in these local, smaller elections, Like you know, they make a point of being community boosters and showing face and going to those kinds of events.
And thanks to a fantastic message from our fellow conspiracy realist Tay Gray, we have been exploring some strange stuff about elections abroad. When everything works as it should, elections are powerful and positive. They give the public agency. They help us decide how we will be represented domestically and abroad. So with all this power on the table, it's not really surprising that elections are always a ripe subject for conspiracies.
In tonight's episode, we're traveling the world to learn why some people are convinced elections have become a tool of war. Here are the facts, all right, let's put on our nerd policy walk hats. Yeah, of course I love the term boffin. So to be a policy walk first off, you have to have a garish bow tie every time you're on CNN or Fox News or whatever.
Must I That's not really my style though, can I just I don't know where like a.
You can still wear the hat and you just have to also wear the bow tie.
You could also do a bolo I do, thank you. I was looking for alternatives. I love a bolo. I've recently become a nolo bolo.
What would you wear, Matt as a policy walk.
I would just be completely naked to show.
I've got nothing to hide.
Just don't let them stand up on the zoom call or do or do? Let's really speak to the public. Episode is about elections. Ten minutes off air that we subjected our long suffering super producer to all of our election jokes. But voting, though, Why is voting important?
Right?
Well, in democracies, the only way things done is if there's a big old vote.
Or the appearance thereof Hey, now, let's not be cynical here.
Democracy works as intended on paper every single time.
Right, Look, we've nailed it there. It sounds like an obvious question, but the answer is quite important. It's mission critical, especially in a functioning democracy. If imagine a world in which for some reason, every eligible voter in the United States decided to abstain, just no one voted for president, including the presidential candidates. It was zero to zero. That has never happened in an election. And if that did happen, modern society could not move forward. There would be a
crisis point. It's such a weird hypothetical that the founding fathers, you know, found themselves in a found themselves in a prisoner's dilemma. Right. People feel like they have to vote even if they don't want to, because if they don't, then someone else will.
Yeah, well, we talked about this before. In the previous presidential election in the United States, only sixty six percent of eligible voters.
Voted, which is why I was so tight.
I mean, it makes sense, and that seems to be what's happening right now as well. Although we do have the potential for maybe some folks that abstained last time to maybe get out, you know, to the polls because of some sort of new excitement around particular candidate and party or what have you. But it is interesting that we're seeing these tight margins and that largely has to do with folks just kind of not making time for it.
Well, I mean, guys, I didn't realize. This is from the Pew Research Center. By the way, in the twenty eighteen what they call midterm elections here in the US, where if you don't live here that's when most of the time there are votes for the Senate and the House of Representatives, there's only a turnout of forty nine percent.
Right, because most people in the United States only vote when it's time to vote for the US president, which is wild. But part of that is, we could argue by insidious design here in this country, and indeed in many other countries, there are a lot of powerful people who for some reason or another would prefer that you not vote at all. And in the US it is entirely legal to just not do it, to just not participate, because we don't have mandatory voting. Twenty one countries do.
Though.
Well, it's just interesting too, how of that sixty percent issue said in the main election or in the main election Excuse me, I'm adding to the problem. The presidential election last cycle, it's about fifty to fifty split down the middle in terms of like you know who those people support, which.
Just makes it really, really difficult.
And you see these I'm sorry I'm repeating myself, but it's astonishing how you have like margins of thousands of votes that can like make all the difference.
Yeah, and sometimes those chats that's hang, that's not.
Chad Chad loves to hang. Yeah.
Look, voting laws vary from country to country, but generally speaking, if you want to vote in a country, you are required to be an adult and a citizen in good legal standing. You have to be registered most times, and you have to have documentation to prove it. That's a very that's something that becomes incredibly important when we look at the ideas of election interference. I mean, look, also, there are a lot of people in the US who can't vote, children, felons, depending on the state.
Well, and not to mention many felons quote unquote, we're not able to vote under laws that have since been changed. Right, Like, so people had their their were disenfranchised for years because maybe a very small margin that led to a felony marijuana possession, and now those laws have been changed, but those people don't really get any recompense for that time
that they were not allowed to vote. I'm sorry, it's just very interesting to me, like how that led to so many people not being able to vote, so many people largely affected who.
Maybe would have voted in a particular direction.
Let's sure think back to the horrors of polling tests. Right, how on earth is somebody going to be expected to know Mandarin In the rural South, there are insidious attempts, conspiracies to prevent people from voting. And before this sounds to partisan, that runs across American history, that is an inarguable, inextricable piece of the American experiment and as part of
why voting is so controversial. The practice of elections often falls short of the theory of elections sometimes honest mistakes, like especially back before there were more robust methods of accounting for votes, people just might mess up. They might carry the wrong number across the equation.
Can I ask you, guys real quick, how do you feel about the idea of mandatory voting? I think, based on what we've said thus far, probably would never happen here, just because by design, like you said, some folks don't want.
People to vote. But how do you feel about that?
I mean, we're required to, like pay taxes, we're required to do certain municipal things as a result of being a citizen, and yet we're not required to exercise that most important you know, right.
If you could somehow make it simple and easy and secure enough, then yeah, I mean, that would be awesome. There's just a button. There are two buttons you got to push a couple of times, you know, every four years or whatever, every two years. Sure, but I don't I don't know.
I don't think the still see it happening.
I have been on a record I am one hundred percent on board with mandatory voting so long as it could be simple and seamless and transparent. And I think answering those three factors is what makes it so difficult for those in power in the US to ever co
sign something like this. I mean, you know, it's strange because, especially if you're a conspiracy realist of a certain age, it's strange because you can see this increasingly divisive political climate right to the point where not too long ago people were concerned there might be a second Civil war.
Right now, when someone's candidate, you know, their chosen person doesn't win an election, whether it's for president or whether it's for like local city council person or cog catcher, right right then, many people, we would say, will immediately allege conspiracy. It's not that the public has spoken, it's not that someone has been honestly outvoted. It's that the
system is rigged. And the weirdest thing is people often do have legitimate grievances here, and part of those grievances come from the fact that the US has a weird voting system. They're actually, if you're not from the US, we got it to just spend a little bit of time, make a little bit of space for this thing. There are two types of voting in presidential elections in specific, there's the popular vote, that's the one Jane and John
Q Blue Jeans can actually participate in. And then there's the electoral college, which is its own thing, and it's supposed to be informed by the popular vote, but unless you are an elector for your state, you know, get to choose.
Another weird thing.
I mentioned this guy a lot, and he's been on
Daily Zeitgeist before, Jason Pargin. He makes these really great short Instagram videos, and he pointed out that, like what's going on right now in the US presidential election, with Kamala Harris getting that kind of last minute, you know, switcheroo, the amount of time that she has to campaign is much more along the lead lines of what happens in other countries that the election campaigning cycle in the US is really really bizarrely long, and that you don't see
that in other countries. That hadn't really occurred to me, but apparently that's the case.
Yeah, back to the electoral college, guys, do you remember that Key and Peel like a mini sketch basically that they did where they're playing basketball and Keegan Michael Key is like, yeah, you gotta make sure you vote, and Jordan Peele's.
Like, yeah, okay, I'll vote.
Yeah.
He's like, cause you know, we're gonna have our fake vote, the public vote, and then it goes to the real vote. He's like, wait what And then they explained the electoral college somewhat, so we know.
That the electoral college, it's just it's a it's what we would call in entertainment, a choice. And I hope you can hear the italics there.
It is.
It is a thing that remains controversial for good reason. And we often forget here in the United States that the US is not the world entire If you travel across the globe and witness the many other elections and the many other countries, you will find disturbing accusations of conspiracy and corruption on pretty much every single continent. Other
than Antarctica. And the only reason I'm saying other than Antarctica is because we don't have transparency or visibility into you know, whatever those scientists are voting for that like they might have accusations of corruption when it comes to you know, voting on that month's menu, right, and someone's like you are burying the mac and cheese candidate. We don't know possible. So as a result, there's this huge industry of people, a rotating ensemble cast, dedicated to election monitoring.
And the idea is that with election monitoring, you send a group of independent, third party observers to a country to watch the vote happen, starting you know before, like when they're in their version of a campaign season, and staying afterwards. And they're supposed to ensure again in theory that a given election is legitimate. Votes are counted accurately, Voters are not intimidated, nor threatened, nor prevented from accessing the polls. They vote their conscience. This is a beautiful thing,
it's a beautiful idea. We also know that there are tons of ways to influence elections that are perhaps unethical but technically legal. The great dark art of electioneering. You know, lobbying groups. We got super packs here, which is a crazy thing. And then, weirdly enough, you guys, I was thinking about this, How bonkers is it that in the United States celebrity endorsements have become such a big deal.
People who are not qualified as you know, as policy wonks or experts, people who are not super read up you know, on geopolitical concerns, but they made your favorite album of the past year. So yeah, the way they say you should vote.
You might.
You might just do it because hey, if they like it, maybe I should. There's maybe there's something I'm not seeing, but are there are other ways to mess with elections too, And a lot of it has to do with once you get in power, what other influence can you have on the power mechanism? So the other leavers of government that exist in whatever country you are currently running, which is a big part of what we're going to be talking about today.
Yeah, hunt the nerds, hunt the judges right, control the means of production voting wise, And this is our question. Could a country weaponize another country's voting process? If so, what does that look like, What could it mean for the future? What exactly are zombie monitors.
Oh, I certainly want to know, and we're all gonna find out together when we get back from a quick break.
Here's where it gets crazy, all right, let's get in front of it. Sadly, zombie monitors are not, in fact undead lizards boom.
Yes.
And before we get into that, let's kind of define what zombie zombie election monitors are. According to the National Endowment for Democracy, these are monitoring organizations that look like they're legitimate, but they actually are not. And they're willing to quote ignore internationally accepted norms about what constitutes free and fair democratic elections in order to create confusion about the authenticity of an election.
Yeah, i'd agree with that, well said, And we've got to dive in, and to do that we have to learn the larger context at play here. Right, goes back to what we're talking about, the idea of election interference. You might not know this, folks. The founding fathers of the United States a super like, a supergroup of absolutely imperfect dudes. One of their primary concerns about threats to
the American experiment was that foreign countries would interfere. That foreign powers, and let's be honest, they were mainly worried about European powers. They would that those powers might interfere with the vote. And they were so worried about this that it influenced how they wrote the constitution. That's why we've got that one line that sounds kind of un American without context. You can't be president unless you're a natural born citizen, like you have to be born on US.
Soil, just to like head off at the pass any threat of you know, like some sleeper agents or something like that.
Right, it's acting on the behalf of other interests.
Thankfully we've gone around that because you can have as many advisors from any other country you want to.
Mm hmmm, you love to see it. Yeah, you can also, of course, be bored on a US military installation abroad. That still counts for people who were following these kind of stories earlier. You know that it sometimes comes up as an idea that people float during an election. I think most notably, or one I remember was when the
actor and later politician Arnold Schwarzenegger not Norman Schwarzkraft. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to serve as governor right of California, and people wanted him to run for president so much so that they floated the idea of changing the constitution, which is a super ambitious concept.
Well, floating and getting it done are two very different things.
I sincerely doubt that would get bipartisans isn't there Also, doesn't this have to do with that emolument's clause that we've been hearing a lot about in the news over the last handful of years, The idea of not being allowed to accept gifts and you know, kind of from foreign powers. And I know it's bigger than that, but isn't that the just.
Yeah, that was one of the other things they were really concerned about. They were concerned that there was vulnerability to bribery that are very powerful foreign hostile force would be able to essentially buy out the courts, or buy
out Congress, or own a president. And it turns out they were prescient about at least they were prescient in their concern about foreign interference, because research has proven beyond a shadow of doubt that other countries have spent a lot of time and money attempting to influence elections in the United States, and not always for the reasons we might assume. Because we have to realize that these countries exercise this asymmetric warfare. They don't think of themselves as
the bad guys. They think of themselves as what we would call solution oriented. So Russia and China both waged information war in previous elections, and just this year, as we're recording, in the evening of August thirtieth, twenty twenty four, it appears that hackers in Iran, operating under the auspice of the Revolutionary Guard, targeted the Trump campaign. I gotta tell you, you know, I think we can all agree people, especially here in the US, often tend to have a
knee jerk reaction to this stuff. Like if you're a fan of the Hillary Clinton campaign, you would dismiss accusations of corruption as fake news. If you're a fan of her opponent, Donald Trump in that campaign, you would tend to do the same. You would be like this, these are the other guys trying to muddy the water. You know what I mean.
I know what's what.
I'm an informed voter, and this is fertile ground for conspiracies of foreign election interference. I think it's important for us to note that the countries who are doing this again, they don't see themselves as the bad guys. They don't have the same set of desires or interest as domestic citizens. They're trying to put their finger on the scale for
whichever candidate might best suit their geopolitical goals. And that's a very different thing from let's say a voter who is worried about inflation or is worried about education, things like that. That doesn't matter to these guys. What matters
to them is a much larger horizon of concerns. And so if they have, you know, if they have a candidate that they're kind of working against, and that candidate cracks a deal with them and switches sides, then they'll switch sides too, because they just want it to get done, you know what I mean.
They just.
They just want to control the microchips and so on.
Careful, careful, you're saying politicians don't always believe everything they talk about.
Whoa whoa FBI here he is. It's just what you're right, though, nol. I mean, we also know that countries will conspire behind the scenes with each other. A great example of this would be the nineteen seventeen Zimmerman Telegram, where in the Foreign Minister of Germany at the time, he had his ambassador.
He was trying to be slick. He had his ambassador to Mexico send a pitch letter and they said, hey, if you ally with us, with Germany against the United States, then you know, we'll just we'll give you a bunch of land that used to be the United States. We're on your side, so help influence opinions. Right, And this is I don't know, I think this is the part where we also have to note, Paul, if we could get a wamp wamp perfect, the US is not a
paragon of good behavior in this respect. The US in fact skips past a lot of the tame election interference methods and they just straight up have killed people and overthrown governments.
Yeah, search our feeds for School of the Americas if you will, especially on YouTube and watch the old video there really explains that stuff.
Yeah.
Democratically elected leaders too. Yeah, they just went for it. There aren't really good guys in geopolitics. And yeah, the Founding fathers had no idea how much of a role twenty first century technology will play in elections, but they were pretty on point to be worried about all the things that could go wrong. I mean, this is a question, right, do we think that technology has empowered citizens of countries to vote? Or has it made it easier for bad faith actors to interfere? Or is it both?
I don't know.
Well, I mean, I know there's always kind of a reluctance to go full online, like full technology for elections. You know, at least over here, there's always some analog kind of hand counted aspects, you know. To your point, Matt about like how in this country it probably would be difficult to have mandatory voting because I don't think they're ever.
Going to just make it online where you don't have to leave the house.
There always needs to be some aspect of the process that is monitored by humans or at the very least double checked by humans, or some paper ballot aspect.
Let's go back to that sixty six percent of American
citizens voted in the previous presidential election. If you know that over thirty percent of voters pretty much aren't going to vote, and now you're implementing technology pretty heavily and gaviring as much information about that thirty percent of voters that isn't going to vote couldn't you somehow, behind the scenes, through some backdoor, make it look as though at least a percentage of that thirty percent did vote, maybe in favor of your candidate.
How so, like how I had one implement that are you talking about through like hacks or through you know, bad acting Like.
What I'm saying, with technology, you are gathering more and more information on the voter.
So that's I'm glad you brought that up, because that's going back to that question I had just asked, Right, is it empowering people with information or is it empowering bad faith actors with information? Would be another way to phrase this. We know that cyber attacks, info war, well timed leaks, shout out to WikiLeaks. All this stuff is super affordable for a state actor, and when you deploy it successfully, it yields a huge bang for your buck. Right,
and people are also I would argue. I would argue to that point, people are more vulnerable now to disinformation than they are empowered.
Like if you read if you read.
Arguments from US citizens going back decades, just decades, then you'll see that the average person seemed to at least appear to give in depth answers about public policy stuff that no offense. I certainly couldn't answer if someone had a man on the street interview with me and they were like, what do you find to be the most troubling and or promising things about the new idea of stepping away from the gold standard?
I mean, of course knowledge is power in theory, but when you know you have access to so much, yeah, admittedly good information, there almost is this like pushback of flooding that good information with bad information and misleading information.
So it's almost like a zero sum game in a way, where like, yes, we do have access to all this great stuff, but it's also so muddied by all these bad actors flooding it so that it's almost like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes to get the good information guys.
I would argue that with the technology, and as that is increased, the usage of different forms of technology, as that's increased, we've seen an increase in the set of talking points that is simply aimed at the other candidate, rather than on those actual policies that we're talking about the things that could be changed or that a populace may want to have changed By having a new person in office, it's altered now to just oh, well, you can't vote for that person because of X. Right, And
at least those are the conversations that I've been engaged in where I'm just meeting somebody new and the subject comes up and it's all about, well, don't vote for that person because of whatever thing.
Yeah, because they're a crooked comptroller. The idea the idea too, and I love that we're pointing this out. The idea is weaponization of headlines, right, and the discourse becomes a lot more bread and circuses, a lot more theatrical. Let me you know, I have taught you this phrase, and this phrase is now going to be used as a thought terminating cliche. So when I say this phrase, you will respond, as programmed right, to either go yay or to go boo.
No more new taxes, read my lips.
And what he meant. Of course, as we said a previous episode was no comma more taxes, So because you sure put them in. But I think we're on the same page. There's no reason to assume that these technological trends will do anything but continue you as time goes on, and by this point, it's more or less common knowledge. But before we go to our next break, there is another aspect of election interference that does not get as
much attention in the West, and it really should. What if you could pretend to monitor elections in other countries throughout the world as a cover for downright evil things. That's what a zombie monitor does.
Yeah, we'll take a quick break here away from our sponsor and then jump right into that.
All right, let's go to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. And of course you're gonna hear a lot of fancy, innocuous names here, so please check into all the controlling powers of the institutions we mentioned. There was an excellent article by a guy named Joseph Siegel that references a book by a guy named Samuel run Manny and Romani writes about Russia in Africa Resurgent great power or bellicos pretender. And I want to point out I love the word bellicos.
You don't see it used often outside of you know, United Nations diplomacy stuff, But if you're ever in an argument with one of your friends, accuse them of being bellicos.
It just means like it's like belligerent, inflammatory in the pot right, ready to fight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, belligerent agro. You could also say provocative. It's basically warlike and it's just a fancy word that that people in the international set prefer to use over hater. Yeah.
Man, these bars in Buckhead are feeling really bellicos around two am.
There it is there, it is. So what what's brilliant about this argument is that they depict how desperation puts Russia as a foreign power to pursue unorthodox methods of influencing the African continent. And I don't know about you guys, but I learned a lot about this. I think we had together been doing more and more research when we were learning about the Wagner group and their adventurism on that continent.
But uh oh yeah, and.
I love that term, right, It's like, yeah, it's like conquest basically, is what it means.
Well, we were also learning a lot about the influence that China was exerting in many countries on the African continent, and you know, for different purposes, but utilizing some of the same methods to make sure they've got people in the right positions to say, Okay.
Mm hm exactly. We'd love for you to have a base of operations here. And you know what, that's a great point. We don't need to take this to the UN I mean yeah, like I don't. I don't need to call my senator just because someone's crashing my house. Let's came out, bro.
But in China is one of the countries that, at least for my money, I would say, is a big financial player in many countries on the African continent. What is Russia's role there? How is it different?
It's interesting because Russia as a state power is not a big financial player in the region in comparison to you know, your US or your colonial European powers or China of course, which is actually China is kind of winning if you're talking about foreign influence. And check out our earlier episode on that a few years ago, which unfortunately remains relevant. Russia was in a pickle. They have
a ton of trade prospects. It was interesting to learn that this country is the source of less than one percent of what we call foreign direct investment in Africa overall. So while Russia has a very big shadow militarily and a very big political shadow, a very big energy production shadow. They don't have a big financial shadow in Africa, at least not officially. So what they decided to do they were thinking, all right, we got to pitch these these leaders,
these king makers in this collection of countries. We got to pitch them on being friends with us and letting us explore their resources quote unquote, letting us also base our military there for more force projection. We're going to do a different We're going to take a different path. We're going to be the disruptors. We're going to stick up for any African dictator, and we're going to legitimize whatever the hell they're doing.
Dude, well, what does that mean. That means that if you ever see, let's say, a coup that occurs on the African content in any country, pick your country, because there have been so many over the past decade, Russia puts its hand up and says, hey, we got your back, no problem. What do you need, what do you need? You guys need some help, We're there for you, exactly.
It does make you wonder a little bit, at least it makes me wonder when you hear a former president, you know, in an official capacity, just making off andder remarks about, oh well, I actually think you know that one leader of this dictatorship is a strong leader or something like that, and that leader is being propped up by Russia in this way. And then there are also accusations that that same president is being in some way meddled with right by Russia. It's just it makes you think.
It doesn't mean it's true necessarily, it just feels.
Off to me, right, And a big part of this, a big part of these conspiracies does depend on feeling right. What appears to be the case, How does this seem? And this is where Russia went into deep narrative war. Essentially, their argument was any time someone might criticize Russia or co signing of corrupt government functions, Russia would pop back in and they would clap back really and they would say, hey, you know what, though the West shouldn't run everything, we're
here to help. We support African solutions to African problems. And guess what, you guys, we're not old school colonial powers on this continent. Remember Belgium, remember France, And then you know you can't blame it. Like obviously, that message resonates deeply with many people in these countries who survived colonialism, right, that wasn't too long ago, and it's scary, scary stuff.
So that, I think is a point well made. And if we're exercising empathy, I could totally understand being someone in a postcolonial African country and saying, hey, yeah, I know Russia doesn't get everything right, but at least they're not letting themselves be trod upon by the expansionist West, or yeah.
Or it doesn't appear as though they're trying to control us outright.
Right, right, unless you check out things like the Russia Sphere network, or to be fair, things like Voice of America.
Well it's that, no, just look it up.
Let's leave those coughs in that silence in yeah, look it up. So now we get to zombie election monitoring. The emergent tool that's become quite popular is the idea of sending in what are sometimes euphemistically called low quality election monitors, or more controversially, zombie monitors. And we have a great quote about this from a paper that's free to read online.
That's right in their article Zombies Ahead, explaining the rise of low quality election monitoring. The authors Sarah soun Bush, Christina Catcierro and Laura Praether make the argument that this is in their words, the number of organizations engaged in high quality election monitoring has plateaued, but the number of low quality monitors, commonly known as zombie monitors, has continued to grow.
And again, these are monitors that just kind they appear to have the same function as what would be a legitimate election monitoring group, but really they've got ulterior motives.
M Yeah, And in full disclosure, we are friends with people who work or have worked in Western election monitoring, folks from the Carter Center, which is based here in the United States, and I was personally surprised when I was talking with some of those folks about it, and I said, well, do you think this is another one of our crazy conspiracy things, And they said, no, it is absolutely true. Those people are getting sent on the ground. And as we'll find, there is a cold and brutal
logic to doing this. These authoritarian regimes will they're sometimes called the Big Five, These countries will send a group like we're describing into another country to look at their voting process and claim it is legitimate no matter what happens. So someone gets you know, one hundred and ten percent of the votes, and then these people are literally paid to go. This is amazing, guys, democracy, This is what
the people want. You can see examples of this in a lot of places that are sometimes described as vassal states like Southeast Asia and Central Asia are struggling with this.
Yeah, they really are, and there is I think we just have to point out here there is still space here for election monitoring groups to have influence. Even the ones that are super above board or appear that way, there is space for them to have some kind of minor meddling where it is that same deal makes something look legitimate. I think of it like a fixer, right, like the wolf, like sending in the wolf to make sure this election goes the way we want it or need it to go.
Right.
But I'm not saying that's what they do every time. I'm saying there's space for that, because anytime you have a third party entering in, like a new challenger, approaching kind of deal, you have to be at least moderately skeptical of their intentions.
Yeah, one hundred percent, and there's nothing wrong with that. Dare I say trust but verify?
Hmm?
About that old quote because it is I think it is applicable here. It's apropos. We see that countries like Cambodia and Myanmar, or obviously Venezuela, and a lot of the stands Uzbekistan as are by John Tajikistan, they're vulnerable to this kind of stuff. And I love that you're pointing out that we should also question the motives of the generally accepted election monitors. Sometimes they have a horse
in the race too. It's weird because, and said with great affection, the nerds have been trying to warn the public about this for quite some time. We mentioned the National Endowment for Democracy a little bit earlier, they published basically a banger mixtape, like an academic version of a mixtape about this problem.
Yeah, yeah, they did, Yeah they did. And I'm just going to point here before we get to that mixtape. It's an argument that we've made on this show many a time. In any of these situations, when one of these election monitoring groups is being deployed, you have to keep in mind, no matter who's deploying it, that person believes that they are fighting in some way for the
greater good. Yes, it might be the greater good is if our team is running things or if our team make sure the other team doesn't get into power, and it's gonna be that way every time, in every situation.
Can we just say too that?
Then the mixtape in question also has a banger of a mixtape esque name. It's called Authoritarianism Goes Global subtitle the Challenge to Democracy. But no doubt I could see that as actually being the name of a mixtape. But the authors argue that the Big Five we mentioned, China, Russia, around Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are all united by this desire to contain the global advance of democracy, which.
Just side note, folks, this has nothing to do with domestic US politics. This has nothing to do with the name of political parties like Republicans or Democrats. This is the concept of a remember of the public being able to vote.
Dude, it's Cold war stuff.
It is very much the Cold War. Also never ended.
No, that's why it's cold.
That's why it's the cold.
Steal in the fridge might be heated up though.
I mean this. I love that we're mentioning this because there are other things that are unfamiliar to the public. Something I propose we call our term of the evening Gongs.
That could be the name of the rap group that releases the mixtape there it is, yeah, kind of like migos. I don't know, gong Goos just sounds like a really sick like like like a group. You know, everyone's got their own style and this those we don't have enough of those, and we need more of those.
We need more of those.
It's like multiple gone girls, but they're a group.
Yeah, and they go and uh.
Or it could be a set of bongos you order from Timu.
Never never gets a stolen set of bongos Anti bongos.
So these are this lovely little portman comes to us from the idea of NGOs non governmental organizations things like the Red Cross or things like you know, Greenpeace. It's supposed to be an institution centered on some aspect of humanitarian activity. Right, we want to give people medical treatment.
On their surface, pretty non controversial because they're not they're not governmental.
They are not a part of the government. But what happens when a government makes an NGO.
Right, So in geo, let's remember the end term there and then where's the GEO come from? Gongo is a term meaning government organized non governmental organizations.
Surrealism there, Dudengo has already had such problems, and now now we're just reverse engineering them again.
Oh no, yeah, and you'll love to see it, right. Zombie election monitors are part of this toolbox. Sometimes they are from GONGOs themselves, and it can be quit pretty difficult for the average person to suss out the ultimate providence of these GONGOs, who actually controls something like, you know, the Organization for Health and Safety and Elections. We may we freestyled that name, but as like, what's an example of one, just so people can see how innocuous these outen.
Oh, here's a real one, the i f EES or International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Oh type all right, above board, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So we also know that and in the same step that you would, you would create GONGOs and deploy them, and deployment is the right word. At the same time, you might target actual in geos as foreign agents, which is you know, going back to the great debate of things like the Peace Corps and the CIA, You know what I mean.
Dude, two, yes, I'm going to read this to you guys. This is directly from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems website and it's just to back up that point you made Ben. Here it says about IFES advances democracy for a better future. We collaborate with civil society, public institutions, and the private sector to build resilient democracies that deliver for everyone. This is the part as a global leader
in the promotion and protection of democracy. Our technical assistance and applied research develop trusted electoral bodies capable of conducting credible elections, effective and accountable governing stakeholders. And it just goes on and on, and which they could be great, and you're probably man. You might work for them, and you might be an amazing human being and do a good work. It just feels it feels.
Like that thing.
Yeah, And we should also remember to that brilliant point. A lot of times folks might not know the ultimate you know, the ultimate boardroom as it were, for an organization that employs them or has them. Do you know
their volunteer gap year or whatever. These these groups when they arrive, the weird thing is often they seem to have little or no track record of election monitoring, at least in the beginning, sort of like in the Terminator franchise, the original androids were very easy to differentiate from humans, and they just got better and better and better. They're legitimizing corrupt elections. That's the conspiracy. And the tricky part is we're talking about this a little bit off air.
I always say, if podcasting doesn't work out for us, maybe this could be our new gig. They will straight up higher Western like West folks as operatives. And this is where we go to a great quote from The Diplomat written by Casey Michelle.
Right Westerners brought credence supposedly hailing from democratic nations themselves. It didn't matter whether or not they actually had any experience observing elections. All that mattered was their citizenship. If they had prior political background, all the better. Elections served as one more avenue for these governments to utilize their methods of caviar diplomacy, to whine and dine current and former Western politicians into overlooking the electoral shortcomings and cite
the progress and transition apparent Caviard diplomacy. Guys, this seems to fit in with that emolument's clause A little bit done then I mean, isn't it interesting though, how it doesn't apply to some people that definitely should, Like we know, Supreme Court justices who arguably or even more powerful than the president. I mean, the president puts them there, but then they really guide the you know, the course of
policy and laws at least in this country. And yet they are able to take all kinds of crazy gifts that aren't referred to as bribes.
Right, and the guy at publics can't even take a tip, you know, no tips.
Yeah, it's definitely. It's definitely a concept that has this like pleasant saltiness, but ultimately it tastes fishy to me.
Like caviar, Like caviar. You ever had cavard, Guys, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's okay, it's not for everybody.
It is overrated, but I had some black caviar once and then actually it's it's nice on a on a cracker with a little crimp.
Fre dude, did you have it on a cutting board? I'm just joking.
Sorry, Yeah, Okay, i'm cutting board, rich, guys, I'm cutting How many do you have?
Well, I've got I've got.
Two really nice wooden ones, one quite bespoke that I bought at an art market and then I have, you know, a bunch of plastic ones that I use for my day to day cutting, my daily cutter.
Sorry, no, this is too late, Matt.
We're down. We're already down the yellbrig road here.
Over the guys. Also, just so you know, a lot of the h a lot of the idea of caviar is,
oh gosh, we should do an episode on caviar. Quite honestly, the the idea of caviar diplomacy is it's a real thing, and it's something that to our earlier point kind of skirt skirts around the idea of these these clauses preventing the gift giving right or the potential for bribery, especially when we're talking about a former Western politician, because then you get back into the revolving door private and public industry.
And also, yeah, people in the West objected to this, and they were saying, rightly, I don't know, man, I think this election's rigged. There's not any real election where one person gets ninety eight percent of the vote or whatever. But the country trees doing this, both in the country sending the zombie monitors and the countries that are engaging in that farce. They don't give a tinker's damn about what the West thinks. This is not this is a performance.
It is not a performance meant for you in the global West. It is meant instead to further oppress the people living under these authoritarian regimes. This way you can say, hey, citizens of this country, that I'm the strong man over for you know, insert this number of years. Look, we're legit, We're what the people want. Everybody voted this way, you know, because we listen to you. And just for one case here,
let's look at the twenty fifteen election in Kazakhstan. The zombie monitors there, the president at the time, claimed he did get literally ninety eight percent of the vote, and he did this while he threw all of his opponents in jail and crushed any independent media except for a couple Western journalists who happened to monitor the election, and they said it was aces.
Cool. Case closed.
Go Nur Sultan Nazerbayev. That's the guy who won the election. I'm just mentioning his name because I think he has a really fun name.
And to ninety eight percent of the voters there voted for him, so he must be popular.
I just like. Okay, there was a journalist from Latvia a journalist from the United Kingdom. They both hailed the election as legitimate. And here's the kicker. Actual members of US Congress also participated in this grift, Steve Stockman and Robert Wexler particularly in this election, and Wexler himself had some pretty rich quotes. He said, the election is impressive and that the love and affection that people have for
this president is most remarkable. And then he could have stopped there, but he didn't.
Yeah. He also said, we export ninety eight percent of the world's potassium. Oh wait, no, that's something else.
He said, I don't know of anywhere else in the world today where there is such diversity, and yet there seems to be such harmony, no offense Kazakhstan. But that is not an entirely accurate statement. It sounds nice, though, it sounds great. You know, sell me a bridge while you're at it.
Okay, I don't understand that reference, man, I saw it in the outline. I just made you off by what do you mean? I don't. I think I just want to know because it sounds clever, but.
I feel it's referencing the old con artist move of finding someone like There are multiple real versions of this, but the American folk tale version would be someone arrives in a big city for the first time and they want to make their fortune and they run into a guy who says something like, oh, you like this Brooklyn Bridge, I happen to own it. I'll sell it to you right now, gotcha.
It's sort of a magic Beans kind of argument.
Like yeah, yeah, so I think we believe all that in because maybe other people have questions about this too and quickly.
So we're talking about using these very specific ways of election monitoring to legitimize elections that are not above board and ways for essentially authoritarian powers to either stay in power or to grasp power. Right, But it's usually a
staying in power thing. When you're using these election monitors, a lot of it goes back to intimidation, either through like warnings if my party loses, there's going to be a blood bath, which is something that Venezuelan president that was just re elected Maduro said basically warned everybody, you better reelect me or there's gonna be trouble. You can quell dissent by putting people in jail as the way we saw Russia do it right with navalny and who
ended up passing away while while incarcerated. In Syria, you can do it by quelling dissent through basically state sponsored violence against people who would vote against you or who would try and get you out of power.
But yeah, I mean, we're seeing those kinds of threats over here.
I mean just in terms of if I don't win the election, then it was rigged and there's gonna be a blood bath. Just saying that's that's something that was literally said in political discourse.
That's true. Paul Dekin did say that early he's a monster in an email he sent to the entire company.
Mm hmmm. Still wait to see how that one pans out.
But I'm just saying it's like, you know, what we have seen in the past has something that only happens in other countries. We're starting to see over here as well. So I mean, I'm just saying we're not special in some way.
No, for sure.
You can read in the New York Times. It's an article titled how authoritarian government's rig elections to stay in power and if you go through it you will find that there are all these little ways to manipulate. It doesn't have to be just a threat, right. You can do things like Paraguay, who actually goes and finds indigenous peoples that generally wouldn't just go out and vote on their own, and they will attempt to make large numbers of them vote for a particular person.
It's essentially cooping exactly when you used to conscript people in places like Chicago to vote.
Well, exactly, think about some of the stuff that happens in our country.
That's why I yeah, I think is one of the big things for us to take away from this exploration of a very real series of conspiracies. We're not talking about a glasshouse, a glasshouse environment. We're talking about a glass planet. These things are rigged in ways that the public is not meant to understand.
Ben I propose a new not portmanteau, but as squishing together of two aphorisms. Let's call it a glass house half full or glass house half empty scenario.
Love it, yes, don't know what it means, Write in and let us know what you think.
We also know that it's crucial to understand the importance of this bait and switch. It may sound academic, yes, it may sound like talking about something over the horizon that does not touch you, but it very much does no matter where you find yourself in this wide world.
Because of this. This is one key thing. When zombie election monitors come out and say an election was legitimate, and then legitimate election monitors come out and say there was something screwy afoot right, something's rotten in the state of Denmark, then the public is far less likely to protest. The public is going to tend to assume that there is respectability. That patina of legitimacy is dangerous in a very real way. This is gaslighting a nation entire right.
And that's something that should keep.
You up at night.
And it does, and it does, and it does. We're so fun at parties. We know this is still going to continue in the future. It's just such a cost effective tool of public control. It's such a successful conspiracy. And maybe we end on this. When you see those declarations about elections, this sound a little bit too good to be true. Oh, this guy's been in power for ten plus years and ninety plus percent of the people
keep voting for him. Who told us that? Who was saying that, and why is there some stuff they don't want you to know? The answer candidly is usually going to be yes, unless, of course, you are an authoritarian dictator who would like to contact us with your firsthand experience.
Have your people call our people. You can do that.
You can find this first of all, on the Internet and all the usual social media places of note at the handlic conspiracy stuff where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here is where it gets crazy, on YouTube, where we have video content galore for you to enjoy, and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are conspiracy stuff show.
We have a phone number. Call it and tell us what you think. One eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on the air. If you've got more to say and can fit in that message one instead, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence we receive, thanks to Big Shucks, in particular thanks to Darcy, thanks to everybody takes the time to write in. Be aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back play a game with us conspiracy at iHeartRadio.
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.