Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist.
Uh.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. We're thrilled to be joining in our third seats by one of our favorite guests, a brilliant comedian, writer, journalist, activists you know from plays leg Al Jazeera at MSNBC Young Turks from the podcast Habituation Room.
It's Francesca Fiorentina.
I am nothing.
I don't want to sing.
Shit, I don't want to do a joke on my name. Everything's terrible, all right, I'm gonna roll up. I'm just like, I'm like when when when are the Pitch Street battles? Let's go Yeah, but no, I'm high may. I'm excited to have you use my like three week old cough to, uh to just scream about Democrats for the next hour.
Oh my god, what do you what do you think you're gonna? Are you gonna pivot, You're gonna try and get the Dems? Joe Rogan, dem dollars? Are you gonna keep doing your thing, or fully pivot to the right because everything's on the table, I think right now for everyone. You know what, wouldn't it.
Be so funny if I pivoted to the right but like no one cared. That would be so great if I staked at all and was like, you know what, I'm leaving the left. I left the left and everyone's like okay, bye, like and like who are you? Like sometimes I on Piers Morgan, but then I realized it is woke and that what like that would just like that's why I wouldn't pivot to the right, because like what if it wasn't you know, big enough to actually get me any sponsorships?
People were like cool, yeah, cool, Well now anyway, so here, we're gonna burn this cross in front of that house. You got a truck? Uh no, never mind.
I do feel like it's probably gonna be pretty full. I think there's a lot of.
Yeah, no, I'm gonna pivot to you know this. I'm just like, honestly, maybe podcasting is not the way we do the revolution, but no, so long as people still listen, I'm going to try and have you know, more activists and strategic thinkers on and and you know, actually just kind of get involved like locally too, Like if I if we can't change California, what the fuck? We're not a blue state worth at salt, you know, like what's
look of Minnesota. Tim Walls may have lost, but like the people of Minnesota.
Won, like they still get him.
Yeah, so but we got our own fucking freak job man, Gavin Newsome. And that's that's what we.
Is.
We need a thing as bad as their thing.
More homeless encampments.
Like, oh god, he did it himself. People are like, that's the kind of energy we need. I'm like, you are so unserious.
Please He's like next door Anderson Cooper, you know, just like going out there and rolling up his sleeves.
He's like, can I get a wheelbarrow? It's like no, No, this is someone's yard. I don't care.
I'm throwing this stuff away. Fuck fuck up? Yeah, how do we punch down better? Teach us that punches the right.
Yeah, we want to do a sick lower cut, not a topper cut undercut.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a magic punch. You've never what is.
Something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
This is going to double us a little promo, but my weirdest one I could find is Ectoplasm poppet. And I know I always bring this kind of content to you guys. Yeah, And the reason I was searching that is because Sarah Marshall from You're Wrong About and I and then my partner and our producer and You're Wrong About producer Miranda's Fleetwood Mac cover band, which is fun
that you guys were just talking about it. We're doing a live show on the West Coast in December and January, and it's all around spiritualism and seances and so we're kind of designing this whole show, and so one of the things we're doing is creating Ectoplasm puppets. And what these were is during seances and like the Turn of the century, you guys all know those like the tricks you lift the tables, things play on their own, right, Yeah,
you know that. I feel like that was like the trickle down the slumber part of the Yeah, but yeah, same, same kind.
Of I'm mostly familiar with slumber party culture, so I know.
You're always in the slumber.
Party every time and stuff.
Next guest, But yeah, Ectoplasm was this this trick that mediums would do when they'd go into trance, and they would like regurgitate cheese cloth and it would like look like some sort of spirit was exiting their body. And sometimes they would make puppets so it would like look like they'd do this illusion where this really wild looking and disgusting looking puppet would kind of rise out of But listen, guys, any orifice.
Wow.
Sunces were a lot weirder and more sexual than we talk about or think about, because why would we really even think about sances from the turn of the century. But yeah, they would, like there were all of these tricks that they would do. Houdini was super involved in bringing down this woman who had all this these ecdoplasm tricks that she did, and a lot of times they'd paste from like a newspaper or magazine just a face on the puppet and be like, look, it's Abraham Lincoln.
So yeah, we're kind of building a puppet of our own for the show. So it's definitely like.
And you're and you'll be able to like exercise this spirit from out of your corpse and maybe.
Yeah, wow, maybe maybe not.
You'll have to see i mean talent on the stage. I'm like Okay, that's a Camus show. But now we're talking about spiritual puppet and I'm not going.
Yeah, it's scared.
We got all kinds of tricks. We got burlesque in the show. It's going to be like it's a it's kind of a theater. It's gonna be fun.
There's sexual liberation.
The show is cheese cloth, the very light cloth that kind of looks like it like flows in the Is that kind of what the.
Idea was matched you know, it's like really thin and you use it. I don't even really know, but yeah, it's just this. It was like a very common material.
Was always use it in the making of cheese.
But I just well, I don't realize you could around with it.
There are no rules when it comes to cheese cloth.
What is something you think is underrated?
Myself?
Underrated?
Is uh being in a good mood right now? Everyone seems to be so gloom and doom, doom scrolling, all sad in their feelings, and I just I have keep having to remind people. I'm going to remind listeners because I know some or you are doing it as well, but like he's not president yet. I keep telling people think of it as New Year's Day, like it's New Year's Eve right now, you fucking get your groove on right now and celebrate right now.
Be happy right now.
Well, you know, things are a little more chill, and you know, donate money if you can to whatever wherever. Even fucking a person, a homeless person, gim an extra five spot, you know, do do something. But this gloom and doom shit.
Is not helping anybody.
It's not funny.
I mean, I also understand not wanting to walk around smiling, especially if you're a white person, because then people are just gonna want to punch you. But also and people are gonna want to punch you no matter what.
So yeah, right now everybody's looking at white min as well. Get a high five while you're doing it. Hey, but the top, or you can buy our blue bracelets that you go rock with. Let people know you're one of the safe ones.
Is that a real thing that's happening.
Yeah, it's a.
White woman thing. Yeah.
I don't want to get lumped in with the.
It's weird. It's all girl.
We can tell if we go on your Instagram, we can tell who you are. I I used to have a bit I mean, I should still do it, but it's like, you know, nobody knows who's actually racist, who's actually not racist, Like you only you know, like only you know what your goes through your mind when you're on an elevator with a black guy white lady. Okay, so like that's who you really are and like just
accept that. But like the whole blue bracelet shits like lady get I also feel like your listeners wouldn't do that.
No, no, no, an advertiser Marcella. So, yeah, white lady is important movement.
We got to meet them where they're at.
I can. I can just see people like doing the opposite of like the purse clutch and actually like rolling up their sleeve to be like see not like just you know, itching the side of their face with their bay.
I'm with the status quo. I just want to let you know we're going to be all right. We're gonna be all right. Oh my god.
There was a white was I was judging a roast battle and this white boy was wearing like, uh it was like in the sound of Lakers, like it said, they're not there?
What is it?
What is the Kendrick song? Amlready, I'm fucking blinking. They're not like us, They're not like us.
He has it.
It says they not like us, but it's like Lakers, you know, they're not like us, right like us. But it didn't. It didn't say Lakers. It says they they're not like us. And I was like, oh, judging him, and I was like so distracted. I was like, you're white, they are not like you take that shirt off. And it always cracked me up anyway.
I mean, look, it always it's it's it's inevitable. Everything does get hijacked by white culture eventually. Like there was a clip of like those people. I don't know what it was. It's some kind of business convention where all those white people are on stage, like celebrating their company, and they're like, they're not like us, They're not like oh everybody.
And you're like, oh, he's speaking of the super Bowl. Is gonna be fire? Yeah because of Kendrick, Like that performance is gonna be interesting no matter what. Now what's going on, He's definitely he.
Won't let it not be interesting, is what you need, because there's gonna be a lot of pressure to make it not interesting.
Yeah, he's gonna be pushing. He's gonna be pushing for sure. That's that's what's cool about him. So now now everyone should be happy that he is a super Bowl performer.
Cut to him, cut to him doing something really fucking just ship. He's like, we need unity, y'all, we need to come together. Like what the fuck?
Just white woman in booty Shorts's a bunch of them. It's like, oh, which is it?
I don't know what I believe? What?
Uh what?
Some of your things overrated?
The Democrat ads woke quote unquote woke agenda.
Yeah, okay, brother, dude.
People can't stop talking about how fucking quote unquote woke the Democratic Party was. Kamala Harris was basically doing an interviewser She's like, my pronouns.
Are border and wall and.
It's like, come on, man, this is ridiculous. I don't you know.
I'm not the one to do an autopsy on a political campaign because I'm stupid, but this is stupider than me. The fact that people are going.
Well, Democrats talk too much about trans people, and it's like, well, what do you mean by that? Well, the Republicans put out a lot of ads about how much I hate trans people and it's like you got got dummy own up it.
That's what happens. So who was talking about it? A bunch, right, who was talking and who?
And it's I think the Democrats personally, I would have loved if they were talking about talked about it more. Things they would do for people more, of course. And I just think it's like such a people are going on TV just saying shit, like going on first the Fumes of Vibes from twenty twenty and they're and they're going, oh uh too woke, And it's like, no, you're just saying the thing that Trump's ads are saying.
It is, right, right, yeah, yea yeah, because you've basically internalized the messaging from the Trump campaign. And then this is why they won because of whatever they're saying. No, no, no, it's so stupid. I just like can't hear. I can't see another headline. I don't read the columns because I don't. I'm dumb enough without actively making myself dumber. But I can't read one more headline from a column.
That's like, if the Democrats use a single pronoun, if the next person who uses a plural pronoun for any reason will doom that political party for generations to come shut up, loser.
Yeah, and that's like we keep saying this, this is the fight that's happening right now because you have a lot of these establishment figures who don't want to own the fact that they're attacked to the right was the thing that fucked everything up, and now they're just going for just we just need to acknowledge, man, like obviously, like the trans thing is like a thing we need to just like bele you.
Know, like, and yet you should have been clear about that about how like trans people are people and deserve dignity and rights and not like you can't let the Republicans who are like they shouldn't exist dictate the terms of conversation.
It's humiliating, Yes.
And also when you change your answer on something, it looks bad for you when you're like, psych, we actually don't care about that. We care about border security, and we're running away from that.
Yeah.
It's it's so wild that so the people who ran the campaign that lost ran the campaign as though this was their biggest problem and then lost despite like having a wildly defensive, like hyper focused on this angle campaign and that them and they're like, you know, advisor class is coming out and being like they lost because of this thing that they were clearly acutely aware of and ran the entire can pain around brutal.
It's also I think, you know, I have my own disagreements with the Harris Whiles campaign on policy. You know, I wish they had taken a stronger stand about a weapons embargo to Israel. Yeah, that was a big one for me. But I do think Kamala Harris spoke significantly better than Ben folks about abortion. I think she really spoke effectively and clearly and without hedging.
I thought Tim Walls on issues like trans students spoke really plainly and clearly and compassionately, like didn't play the rhetorical games and was just like, yeah, their kids and we should support them, and you're being gross to want to like look up their assholes every time they think of shit, and it is I just think that's they had these strengths and then pretty immediately like tamp down at least the second.
You know, I think I think they spoke well about reproductive health throughout, but yeah, just like ran away, like you said, ran away from some of the stronger points, and it was frustrating, not just from an op Dickson and polling standpoint, but it's somebody who's like, yeah, this is like you're saying things that are correct and compassionate. Yeah, and this is a direction we should be moving in.
Yeah that's our problem. Oh sorry, what was the last thing he said? That was the direction?
But yeah, all those like post mortems are definitely like I think you should leave hot dog suit sketch, you know what I mean, where they're like they're like, why am I hearing from you right now? They're like, we got to figure out who what?
Yeah, anyways, let's take and well that's the sound of the sound of my soul escaping.
We'll be right by and we're back.
I'm still spooky. I'm still spooky. I can't get the spooky as if.
Deal with it, however you got out of us.
Yeah, deal, motherfuckers. I'm still feeling spooky. Okay, it's a bad world. So this is a trend that I've noticed is people being like, why is everybody?
I feel like this was happening before, but they oh yeah, but it works a fresh round of maga victim hud.
Yeah.
I think they.
Really had built up in their mind that they were going to actually get to drink our liberal tears out of their liberal tear coffee mugs.
Yeah. Yeah, that there'd be like Eyemilking stations for you to just put your mug under and be like great fantastic movie.
Yeah, but yeah, I think people are more angry than anything right now.
Well, yeah, obviously, I think the twenty sixteen was absolutely just a shock because it completely went against all accepted wisdom in terms of how campaigns or politics work. Time people knew what was at stake, and we're just like, oh, okay, so we're truly like this white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that just will be like what are the options? First of all, hold on, you say black, No, so what are my other options? Okay, I'm I'm I'm fine with this other stuff.
But yeah, like I'm sure all of us we've read articles, seen tiktoks, seen anecdotes on social media about how people have cut off Trump voting family members this election, especially, Like you have stuff where there's like the grandmother's like why won't you come to Thanksgiving? It's like your grandchildren are gay? Do you understand what you are doing? And they're like but that's not why I voted for him.
And they're like, you mother, you don't what And you see these like really frustrating exchanges happen, you know, and they're all being posted everywhere, but they're like, you're also seeing things like searches for divorce have gone up, searches about child support have gone like increased, like how much
could I owe child support? And I'm not saying there's a tidal wave of divorces like like on the horizon or anything, but it's clear that as people have made their political choices clear, there has certainly been a lot of soul searching, and I think a lot of conservatives. There's like a lot less celebrating from conservatives, I think because the reaction has been so angry and been like this place is fucking cooked. It's not like, oh I'm so afraid from it's like this, holy shit, dude, this
thing is cooked fully. And they thought it was going to be like the crying like liberal meme from you know, twenty sixteen outside like a Trump protest, and they just seem to be totally caught off guard that people are just telling them. Their response is like hey Trump won. It's like yeah, good. I hope you get a front row seat to all the bullshit that's going to inevitably
hit everyone. They're like huh huh, whoa. And I think, because you know, a lot of the true MAGA supporters, all they all they know is like the sadistic pursuit of inflicting pain on your political rivals. That's it. They know nothing of actual governance. The whole thing is pain is pain. And now people so like when so when people don't offer up the face water and instead they're just like saying stuff like, yeah, do you know what
the fuck you've done? Now they're like confused and doing stuff like like like searching tariffs or you know what is denaturalization, And they're just kind of now acting like a confused dog that has been scolded for like shitting
all over the house. No, yeah, yeah, And I think, you know, it's just it's just interesting to see this sort of energetic exchange happen because I think it really does reveal what it's like again that this was purely about being like, yeah, man, but like let's get Trump a win just to see how like how shit goes for everyone else, completely ignoring the fact that this is everyone is on the same is in the same but well most of it, aside from like the top like one percent are in the same boat here.
Yeah, there was definitely think added to that. Fuck the system, like haha, look at the tri the triggered mainstream media,
look at the triggered libs. Like whenever Trump says something that makes people like laugh and point and you know, he's kind of quiet right now, and it does feel and the mainstream media has just gone into a mode where they're like, we're wrong, We're sorry, we actually think he's smart now, and so yeah, I feel like they don't quite know what to do with it until he starts fucking shit up again, but.
Right till the pain is really tangible in that way.
What a weird thing to go through your life just being like, oh, I hope I see someone fucking cry today. I just desire that so much. It's just such a like it must be. It must feel really bad to be in that body of like a person that is just hoping for tears every day.
Like I like, yeah, if your like life force is restored by watching others suffer, like purely for like the sport of it, Like we're just in such a bad way in a black how our society is working and where empathy goes or just doesn't even come up at all. Jesse Waters on his show admitted that his Trump support has also affected him too, and this is him on his show on Jesse Yeah, yeah.
People are taking some space in the Water's household.
I'll have you know that I was not invited to my mother's house for Thanksgiving.
Apparently there wasn't enough room. She said it was a scheduling situation, and then at the last second invited me to come over on Black Friday. I told her, no, thanks, I'll be at best Buy.
All right.
At least he got that, you know, at least he got that he'll be at best Buy? Will you? Will you?
That's cool that he gets to like go on and say the insult he wished he had thought of to his mother. Yeah about it, like I And then I told my mom, I'm like, actually, you know what, fuck you, mom, Like, that's thanks for nothing giving.
Me a Best Buy, buying a Nintendo switch, like maybe two of them. Mom, I don't even care. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna buy iPad. Fuck you. Uh yeah, I mean I think it's again, so many conservatives just clearly thought that there their consequences of electing Trump were merely that just saying Trump won and not again the raft of policies that this brings. And it's just a
very I don't know. I mean, like I guess, like you know, a part of me has always wondered, like what is it gonna take for most American people to understand, like shit is bad and it needs to change, and like whatever insulation you think is protecting you is very tenuous. It is not. It is not gonna hold forever. And part of me is like I think, just like anything, especially American people, it's like we don't know until we've fully just fucking burned ourselves on the fucking fire that
were like, yeah, oh fire's bad. Ah, everybody said fire's bad. I'm like, I don't know. Man, my dad he was he's a fire guy, so I thought I could touch it, and now I'm burned that maybe that like I don't know, like and it's also it's just also fucked up to think them like, well, I guess maybe if enough of
us suffer that we can move past it. But I think that's what also makes me a little bit weary when you see people gloating over the fact that people are about to suffer for the ill informed decisions or fully informed decisions they've made, because that is just fully like when all bets are off like that, that's truly when the system won't change at all, and people are going to just fully go to their corners and be like, well, if I have to kind of change my beliefs in
this way to protect myself from that, as long as I'm not those fuckers getting completely beated down, then I'm fine. It's yeah, it's a very i don't know, yeah, very delicate balance that we have right now. And I totally get why people are fucking so angry because so many
people have been talking. But again, I think this also speaks to the kinds of like who watches the news who doesn't, And just because it's being said over and over on MSNBC or maybe sixty percent of the time on CNN or something like that, that doesn't mean everyone is hearing that message either, and just but I get the anger that because this is going to bring so much suffering to many people that you want to be able to sort of singularly be like, yeah, well, fuck you,
and it's going to be all you, or it's all going to be the people who decided to vote in solidarity with Palestinian people, or it's all the fault of people who just felt that trans rights were actual human rights and those kinds of things. It's completely ignores like the real the damage that has already been done that
we're not continuing to acknowledge. So I don't know, it's just precarious at the moment, and I hope, I hope that we're able to sort of yeah, fully understand that like the options' aren't going to be let's point and laugh, but we actually are going to have to like resist in a way and not the twenty sixteen way of resisting.
Like count the mainstream media to do. Yeah, like such a big part of it because they are badly weakened and also seemed to be very easy to knock off the message and just be like wait what, oh, I guess he's right. Yeah, Like I mean one of the historical presidents that what like was going through my head
is like should this give me hope? Is that Richard Nixon had just run for president for the third time in nineteen seventy two, his last election, he won five hundred and twenty electoral votes out of five hundred and thirty eight. He won five hundred and twenty electoral votes, sixty percent of the popular vote, and like just an all time like destruction. He was running on like a racist message, like back then he called it the Silent Majority,
but it was just very racist messaging. But people like also he was very like kind of personally. People were suspicious of him. He resigned in disgrace about like two years after being sworn at like less than two years, about a year and a half. I think things are much different now because we don't have a strong media and we don't have a media that anyone's going to listen to. I've also been thinking about two thousand and four and just how demoralizing it was to have George W.
Bush reelected after like the Iraq War was happening. We knew there were no w we knew that it was a disaster, and he had lied to get in, and like the fact that he's still won like fairly decisively was incredibly demoralizing.
I just it.
I think if this loss can be clarifying to people who aren't Republicans. I think that's the only thing that's actually because those historical precedents I think we're are just two different. Things are too kind of fucked right now, the information economy, like how people are getting their information,
who like the weakness of the mainstream media. But like just the Democratic Party completely cratered in this election, and like maybe it needed to, and like it feels like there are clear and learnable lessons for whoever is going to come next, whether it be the Democratic leadership or not. But I and like one of the lessons is, like you need to target, not like Trump can't just be
the target. In fact, like it might be helpful to not make Trump the main target and instead focus on the mainstream Democratic Party, the billionaires who fund it, the mainstream media, because like those are all, truthfully the structural things that are standing in the way of getting like making any progress.
Right, things that have kind of started to swing right anyway.
Yeah, exactly, you know, So I don't know, it's just it's really bad right now. I've heard people say it's been bad before. I don't think it's ever been this bad. But you know, when things are bad, like things can swing in a hurry. And I think this party, like this Trump presidency is going to be an absolute shit show, you know of like billionaires like just grabbing everything that they possibly can, and we just need people who are
willing to stay focused and what work locally. But also I don't think it's like and we give up now because Trump won this one election kind of convincingly. I think there are just like very a handful of very clear messages that you could run on, and like the Democratic Party completely fucking up in the last election might actually have like lit the way for like a future of like what not to do if anybody's willing to learn that lesson.
But I feel like looking at the historical precedence is really comforting, even though it's you can't really draw a conclusion decisively, But like that's I think on American hysteria, that's kind of what we do as we go into past and we say, okay, how is the past, how these through lines continued on? How do we then take these through lines and try to understand how they affect
the present moment? And I mean what comes to mind too with like Nixon and Bush is that so much of their platform was like against protesting and against Vietnam protesters, student protesters, and Bush against Iraq war protesters and just using that. And now of course we're seeing that obviously with pro Palestine protests, and I think that that's like just that just came to mind as like a very clear thing that was happening in each of those and it's just that's demoralizing, right.
But again, that was the Democrats this past time that was running like the most clear like quote, the quote that they were fucking putting on T shirts is I'm talking now or like whatever she said when somebody tried to interrupt her speech, Like that was what they were fucking rallying around. I mean, the Cheney like focusing on having like a Cheney endorsement was not like an accident. It wasn't like they it was part of their overall thing, which was, you know that they were going to be
what neo conservatives were. They were like, yeah, we're going to be the old your grand you know, Trump swept to power on this, not your grandpa's Republican Party. We're going to be your grandpa's Republican Party. And it just again like seems like very learnable, huge swings and misses that in like retrospect of a week a week and a half are like what the fuck? We we could think yeah, yeah, well.
And Democrats did the same thing. Was the you know with Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam. It's like there it's a by war as a bipartisan issue, I think, And so it's kind of like just not right.
Because yeah, the people who are objecting to the Iraq war fair few and far between you and those a few people who have been like I actually knew that back then this was some bullshit. But again, the yeah, it's when you're you're going against machines that have been fully in like just running at full tilt for decades now, and to just like one person is just going to get crushed by it, unless you know, we have a more of a plurality of people that first of all,
can articulate. I think that's the biggest thing is being able to articulate what the danger is, what the evil is, because right now you have a lot of these establishment liberals offering all kinds of differ for explanations that are avoiding a clearly articulating what where the rot is coming from? And it's a lot of stuff, Like, I mean, do we acknowledge that sex is a biological truth, but we also respect how other people want to like no, no, no,
like get off that shit. It doesn't like we don't need to be so bothered by these kinds of things, or not that I'm bothered, but like the idea to think that other people are gonna be so bothered, because guess what if your bills are paid and if your grandma doesn't have to toil till she's nobody to give fucking years old, they're not gonna give a fuck If other people have their rights, like or getting gender affirming care,
that won't matter to one person. But when you are, when you are lacking so much, you start looking at what other people Why are they talking about these people? What are we talking about? My grandma has to work till she's eighty, Like how often are we seeing elderly people working so much? And you're this happens all the time. You see this everywhere you go into stringle. Oh my god, I cannot like I can't believe this person is working. Can't believe that this person has to work, And we
don't we're not taking care of our people. These kinds of these are the things that people see and reinforce
these ideas that there's something has to change. But if you're coming in and because in this vacuum, because clearly the parties on its knees, you have these people trying to either prop up the same neoliberal nonsense that doesn't get to the heart of the matter, or trying to dismiss people who are actually clearly trying to articulate it because that's truly going to upset the balance of power.
And in terms of what is the quote left or whatever you want to describe this, And that's kind of the stage we're at because you see, you have like the Matthew Iglesiases of the world who are like these reporters who are all in on this centrist shit, and they're like, I have a new I've behold my new manifesto that's like that's like so broad, but still filled with these things like still kind of like you know,
bowing to the things that irk conservatives. And they're trying to thread the needle without like properly getting like to the heart of the matter, because so much of the stuff is about like we need to have like a better social safety net, but not one of these points says that we need to tax the fuck out of the wealthy, right, like exactly, that's fine, that's fine as an idea, But if we're not, if we don't actually buy in on how we get there, then that shit is just words.
Yeah, it needs to be. You need to have a villain. You need to That's what I'm saying. Like the thing that trust like the first villain that Trump like killed, and I think it's the base that his entire movement is built on was the mainstream Republican Party as it existed in twenty sixteen. He talked shit about Cheney, he talked about Bush, he did he went against the mainstream Republican orthodoxy, and then from there was able to build
his movement. Like the Democrats' brand right now is to change what they say based on what they think is going to be popular, Like that is what their brand is.
Somebody needs to come forward and say that and fucking attack, attack, and be the person who is opposing Trump, who is built on, like, you know, tearing the Democratic Party as it exists to the ground, Like they change their position on whether racism is bad, they change their position on whether immigration is bad, like based on what they think people are going to think about that, and that sends the exact opposite message from what people are responding to
with Trump, which is like with Trump, the thing, like the free media that everybody talks about is the mainstream media saying how could he say that? Saying that is against the rules, but by god, he's saying it anyways, and that makes him look like principled and like he
believes in something. The thing he believes in is fucking horrifying, But it does end a message of like authenticity at a time when like politics prior to this was defined by just like bullshit and obfuscation and like playing this game that everybody knew was a game, but they were playing it like they like we didn't know it was a game, so like it just there can't be like we we It's not just like we need somebody who
focuses on economic populism. We also need somebody who focuses on how broken the Democratic Party has been up to this point and is willing to like say that out loud. The Democrats are still suffering from the fact that, like the last time they had a successful candidate who actually like touched on economic populism. That candidate then went and like bailed out the Wall Street banks in like during the financial crisis.
That's like a people remember that shit too.
People remember that and like you can't just come out and be like, well this this policy here, it reflects like we could you know, and like come forward with more. It's complicated policies. You need a central message that is fuck what those people were talking about. Yes, like fuck what Obama is talking about, because what he did was said hope and change and then poisoned the words hope and change by bailing out Wall Street and like doing
the same shit that Clinton was doing. Like you need somebody who's willing to fucking stand on that.
Yeah, because right now everyone who's been like you know, holding the banner up for the Democratic Party, they are not gonna they're not gonna let go no, So they're they're gonna do whatever they can to say the right mix of words to make it seem like they're like, well, look, I'm Chris, I'm Senator Chris Murphy, right, you know, like I and I do get what's happening, and I'm gonna say I get what's happening. But it's like, no, motherfucker,
you are a fucking ghoul. You are also a creature of this political machinery that operates in DC, and you've done it faithfully, and there's no way that we can trust you because you've already compromised that, like any values you've had, Because the thing is, any if you have, if your values are negotiable, you have no values, right, That's plain and simple. If they're negotiable, you have none.
You have none then. Because anyway, so I think I'm I'm looking forward to whatever this fight is going to be within the Democratic Party because it will be into because that's also going to say a lot about what our future, like what our stakes are for the future. If it's someone coming with that weak ass shit again, it's like, oh boy, yeah, just something.
That I find myself wanting to say. Like Democrats tried with Bernie, they wouldn't let Bernie win. Yeah that was a start, but like it's like we need to do better, we need to learn from that and move forward, Like it can't just be and that's the end.
Sorry, Chelsea, No, I was just going to say, it's like I love all of this and I just don't know how anyone breaks through the brick wall of the Democratic Party to actually run.
Yeah, I don't know.
And that's how like maybe that's four years of whatever we're going to try to figure out.
I mean, it's it's I mean, at this point, it's like you just have to outright be like, I'm not gonna fucking buy whatever the fuck you put in front of me. I don't give a fuck what it says. If it's if it's coming from the same fucking place, I don't get a no no.
I think it needs to come from outside, like I did, And I know it seems unlikely at this time, but so has so did you know the strength of the Sanders campaign, so did the strength of the Trump campaign. Like people like the system. The people are like begging for this message, and it might be that the Democratic Party is not gonna be willing to deliver it, but somebody needs to and I.
Should be someone younger. I mean, like, you know, Bernie definitely helped crack the door open. But at the same time, he also did the thing that people doing Capitol Hill, which is like let me duck low real quick, like was Biden doing. Okay, I'm not gonna really speak up too much. Okay, oh y'all took an l I got something to say. No, Like that is just how shit
moves in DC. And but at the same time, I think that the other, the other disconnect really comes generationally where it's like people need to really understand what people have been through and seen and what what their prospects look like on the horizon, rather than octogenarians who are like, I don't know, fuck, I'm probably gonna die in five years anyway, so whatever that that doesn't help.
Yeah, I mean, my part of the thing that is making me like giving me not even a glimmer of hope, like a shard, like a little like a sparkle, a single sparkle of hope, is how weak the Democratic Party is right now and how definitive and clarifying this loss could be two people if like the messaging just starts coming consistently, like this is what the people are saying, this is what the Democratic Party isn't as currently constitute, isn't willing to say, and I don't know, hopefully hopefully
something catches, but yeah, we should make a break and come back and make fun of wheel of fortune. All right, and we're back we're and so we actually the episode that we recorded the day of the election, before we knew the results. One of the stories that we focused on was, you know, the upcoming big news that we still didn't have access to. And it makes it so hard to record those episodes. We still didn't know who People's Sexiest Man Alive was, And.
You're sourced up over there.
You're like the Woodward in Bernstein of People magazine.
And I got fucked by the sources, to be honest, a lot of them, especially the one who are you know sheep dipped. CIA agents were telling me it was going to be Jim from the Office, and I just.
Now that guy. Have you seen how Powell? Whatever the exactly he's sexy, he's alive?
Yeah, I do, what's wrong?
I do?
Like the people who have the energy to be outraged about this just like another another one where I had all my hopes, right, It's just like just another rake to the face, just going through the media landscape catching rakes to the face. But yeah, some people. It was announced on Tuesday that Jim Halpert from the Office is the Sexiest Man Alive. His photo on the cover looks almost apologetic.
He's like sorry, Yeah, I didn't mean to be all sick.
That's kind of Jim Helper.
Look, yeah, totally is a breaking the fourth wall of sexy Jim Look.
Yeah.
Yeah, we only bring it up because people really seem to not like it. Because he's also a character that I have like for a while now been hot, like been keeping one eye strongly on ever since he just like started being openly pro ci as his like positive news show came out during like at a time when everybody was really pissed off.
He was like, what if flick, I don't know, it's kind of fun. Like I sold immediately, like this was all just kind of.
For like one hundred million dollars, and nothing ever came out.
People continued to die of a rampant pandemic.
Yeah, and yeah, he just he has he has weird takes and takes so weird in fact, that he has become people's sexiest man the mainstream enough. He's like the j Leno of sexy guys.
Yeah, he's kind of like but he is like a perfect encapsulation of like in America, where on the surface things seem like okay, but like.
On the service he seems calm and steady yeah, but deep Yeah, and he's weak or mom spaghetti, but another's mom Spaghetti's.
I think everyone knows what people underneath the mom spaghetti.
Yeah yeah, his vomit.
Jim vomit down spaghetti looks like that that's the look of the picture.
He's like, Oh, I don't know, I just had this swetter. I guess I just puked on it his mom spaghetti. But hey, I'm his American is eating mom spaghetti, you know. But like again, but underneath, it's like this guy it's like constantly winking at the right wing while also kind of pretend like doing any is.
Like, but I'm like not that kind of guy. Also like I'm Jim. It's just this very yeah, off putting thing. But it's it is wild for how much people fucking hate this announcement because I don't know, I think it's probably partially like a lightning rod for everyone's election angst. Yes, but it's truly being like, yep, this is the perfect guy to fucking get angry about it.
It's also like there's so many years that People Magazine Sexiest is like not someone as Victor pointed out, that it's not someone who's like super in the zeitgeist. It's not someone who you think of necessarily as sexy like Blake.
Shelton one, you know, and people like fully like left their bodies with rage.
And it's also like, not it's the sexiest famous guy alive, right, that's the thing. The sexiest guy alive is some broke dude who like lives on his friend's couch and has like slept his way through an entire friend group and know.
One's mad at him.
They're like, oh, nice, you slept with him, too cool. Yeah, It's also there's an interesting pr thing that happens with this increasingly, uh these past two years, Like this year, I think everyone was like there's an obvious choice, Like there's a guy who is famous for being the sexiest guy and he was in like the biggest blockbusters of
the summer. Glenn Powell was like seemed like, yeah, this in a world like where this had some like editorial integrity, Like I think when it's when it started, it was like, yeah, they're like, you know, I guess it's Brad Pitt again, or you know a guy who's most famous for like people you know, jacking off to how hot they are, and that then like I think starting I don't know exactly when it started, but I think because it's like viewed as like, I don't know that do I want
to do? I want that it has to be somebody whose team thinks it's a good branding move for them to be considered sexy. And so last year with Patrick Dempsey, it was like, what if we gave them a reminder that this guy was sexy.
Because he's got a movie coming up?
Yeah, and also like jumped on the Golden Bachelor wave, And this year with fucking god, I can't John Krasinski not Jim fuck the fuck is he whatever? This fucking guy's name.
Jim the thinking Man's Mark Wahlberg.
Yeah, it's like we don't really think of him that way, but what if you did?
You know.
I think there's also backlash for understandable reasons against kind of puffy comedy guys that are like, but what if it was fucking hot like him and Chris Pratt, Like if it were Chris Pratt, I think there would be riots in the streets right now.
It would be like any hockey team won any hockey game.
Yeah, but I think this is just all this tells us is that Chris Pratt turned down the opportunity to be people sexiest man. I think that's the only thing this says is like, yeah.
He retreated from being sexy for a while where he's like, no, I'm Mario and Garfield.
Now right, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't look at me as sexy, look at me as Garfield sexiest man alive. Guards just such a weird like the idea of the sexiest man alive just like evokes like some kind of freak show thing. Or it's like step right up, ladies and behold the sexiest man alive and it's just some white guy again and buckets of cold water too, sensuary and seven fainting couches. Be careful, ladies, like it's just all right. And again the lack of just like it's who are the like,
only the people of color to win? This have been what how many Dwayne Okay, the Rock Indrice, Oh you know what they did. They probably did this moral licensing thing where they went three years of black men. They're like it was in John Legend, Michael B. Jordan and now.
We're electing Trump and now we will never have to do that again, right right.
It's also like, did someone lap Michael B.
Jordan?
That's ridiculous.
Like in the past year we've tallied the votes, Patrick Dempsey got sexier.
Than Michael B.
Jordan's.
He should just keep the crown.
Yeah, yeah, it would be like a King of the Hill. Thing is like, is anyone ready to dethrone a sexiest Okay I guess just.
Yeah, kind of a runway walk off the window style.
If there was like an independent media media ecosystem, it would be like really low hang for someone to actually do like a rigorous version of this story and just be like actual sexiest man at Glen Powell.
I feel like even you do a Armie Allen White as those.
Are the two hotel people are so.
To lose Miles Sorry, man, this.
Is Trump's America Hotel. Can't be sexiest?
Sorry, yeah, bad want to get down in the election. Jesse Waters, that's.
I mean in nightmare future universe, like we could be headed that way. I think he's going to be running the Department of Education.
I think probably before.
Yeah, every host from form really of the Five is going to have their own department and then and then.
Yesterday's training like Trump did name just a Fox News host to be Department of Defense Sexuary of Defense.
Yeah, I do think to wash his hands.
I do think we should do what was that guy?
Is that guy?
It's his hands, his hands pete, mm hmm.
I do think that we should have a sex this dead guy every year. Yeah, we don't have to show a current picture, but I feel like if a new sexy guy dies, maybe they're the sexiest dead guy or.
They're like that's fun.
Yeah.
Just coming back around to it, you're like, oh yeah, I mean like, have you seen the photos?
And we're talking peak peak right, right right, because when you're dead, that's that's how you should be remembered.
Yeah, peak Marlon Brando, not like Islander, Doctor Moreau, Marlon Brando. Have you seen those pictures of the Billy Zame as Marlon Brando and that biopic that's coming out later this year. It's bro this motherfucker looks like Marlon Brando.
Yeah.
Anyway, I hate to just commandeer the segment like that, but it just hit me because I saw a recent pick of it and I was like, holy shit, dude, this is this is prestige casting in terms of finding someone that looks like Marlon Brando.
Are gonna eat like they haven't since Titanic the X maybe.
But yeah, I don't know. Everybody can go check out some cool pictures of John Krasinski leaning against various things. Photo shoot has him leaning against a doorway in the meatpacking district, leaning against an old timey cab, multiple old timey cabs. He might have an inner ear situation because he's really off balance in all these pictures.
But disability representation is so important.
He's stealing Keith Morrison from Datelines whole fucking thing, which is leaning on ship, you know what I mean. So there's nothing at rithen about this, y'all, just move on, move on from him.
That was a big Instagram was like the lean is so hot, and it was just like people like guys leaning against doorways.
People online, but it's like people are just so into engagement. They'll be like, like food just hits different when you're hungry.
You don't need to say that, just think it.
Right, just hits different when you're hungry.
John on Krazinski thing is so funny too, because like even with this like action hero glow up, he's not someone that I hear people being horny for. And at his peak right as Jim Halpert. When people were like he's dreamy. It would be like people's marriage materialist man of.
Man alive, right right, right, right right.
Yeah, you know you have to issue a statement like you just found out about this, like something they called you on Tuesday morning and we're like, hey, you won the because he's like I guys that. For me, this is like so weird, so wide. I don't sit around being like, oh I hope I'm people's sexiest man alive today. You know, like it's just it was like phrased in a way that was like you should have written this
out ahead of time. It looks like you did, but like you did a you should have had somebody else write this out ahead of time. It seems like because it's not it's not selling. I'm not I'm not buying that. John Krazinski. This was not part of an aggressive campaign to be like what if we tried to like say, I know the last like movies we've tried. People are like, oh no, probably not, but like what if he was sexy? Have we tried that?
Yeah?
It's also to be like faux humble. It's like when you're a person who's the best again still best known for the office. Do have a little fun with it, you know what I mean?
Like since I was a boy, I always knew I would achieve this honor, and it's it's beautiful to be recognized for the sensuous man I've always been. And I look forward to making love to each American individually.
Now that is my prerogative.
Could have Josh Gondleman right for you. Oh my god, it's been a dream to write for.
Write releases.
I am that unemployed. I'm going to put some poor lady named Kelsey out of work.
Yeah, all right.
And finally KFC is suing somebody again around the phrase original recipe. Just the concept of the original recipe seems to make them go crazy at KFC because churches.
Deigned to say that they our original recipe is back. Oh you fucked up, because now KFC's lawyers are coming for your ass.
Yeah. Original recipe only refers to KFC's original recipe. We have trademark that and U OUs so much chicken.
The KFC has declared they the concept of the original recipe, as if the original recipe, the first recipe ever was fried chicken and not potatoes over an open flame.
Right, Yeah, so they actually say that they're not doing this for themselves. The lawsuit is actually on behalf of all Fried chicken lover is out there.
I can't figure out.
Like how you even get to that logic, Like if churches stole your original recipe, how would that harm Fried Chicken lovers.
Out there again? Because they're trying to say that we are the protecting or that they as they are the standard bearer.
For their flying right, they're flooding the zone with original recipes, right, the Steve Bannones tactic right right to diminish trust in mainstream chicken media.
They employers, Yeah, we've kept so many people jobs. You guys should love us. They're like, if we go out of business, we're doing this on behalf of you guys.
I also love the phrase that they're doing it for the Fried Chicken lovers, which sounds like the like.
The spoken word intro to the grossest R and B song of all time.
Huh Yeah. So, just to give you a little background on how KFC does when it comes to the original recipe. In two thousand, couple bought Colonel Sanders's house and discovered a hamdwritten note that seemingly contained the recipe. They contacted KFC, the most good faith thing I could imagine a human being doing in that scenario. They contacted KFC to be like, hey, we found your wallet. Do you want it back with like extra money in it?
We found a wallet whose is it?
Honest? The wallet? You can have it. No, we're gonna fund it out. That's our wallet for sure.
So they sued this couple again. But just not to give you the wrong idea, they did say, we took it very seriously. We filed the lawsuit to protect the quality of our product and by extension, you the fried chicken.
Fried chicken.
Yes, exactly, absolutely.
They may have a claim to the term original recipe, but they actually don't have like just legally speaking, that is the argument they're making and in today's Supreme Court environment, but they actually don't have a patent on the actual recipe because that would require them to disclose the ingredients and they really like they just won't do that, or so they claim they won't do that. Yeah, So anyways, it's like a big show.
They make them the.
Funniest, the funniest reason do not want to go through Discovery is like they're going to find out how much human we here.
Yeah fuck fuck yeah exactly. I mean when the sad thing is like it's it's out there already.
Yeah, it's all bullshit. You can literally buy KFC season right now if you want, because Colonel Sanders himself got the company maryon Kay to recreate his spice blend, and then they still sell it under the name ninety nine X ninety nine dash X, which not great branding. Let they're less good at branding, but it feels more like Elon musk child name. But yeah, it feels like a very nineteen ninety nine naming convention, Like yes, ninety.
Nine X, dude.
Is like Mountain dew.
Oh buy that, Oh buy that?
That goes well with surge, But ninety nine X doesn't list its ingredients. However, Colonel sanders nephew leaked the recipe to the Chicago Tribune just a few years ago.
And he died of polonium poisoning.
They're making Boeing look real soft, right, that's right.
His nephew.
Yeah, it would be so embarrassing to get assassinated by KFC.
I hold on, I have a knock at my door.
One second, guy, the documentary JFKFC.
Incredible from Yeah. But I just like the thing that I love is that, like they the one thing they don't really cop to is the fact that.
They use MSG. Yeah.
You know, so they released the recipe minus the MSG, and somebody tried the recipe and was like, this doesn't work. Then they added MSG and they were like, oh, it's KFC that this is KFC that I'm holding my hand and they reached out and KFC was like, yeah, okay, we use them. Can't prove anything.
Kappa Yeah, MG is like fine, right, yeah, that's the word.
Which is so funny because they spent all this energy to like keep up this myth and like act like the secret isn't just looking using MSG, like that's really what it is, Like that's what I mean, Like you think about I just think about all this like Chinese restaurant syndrome, that shit that was happening in the middle
of the twentieth century. To be like these Asians are cheating with MSG kind of shit and maybe that's villains to use that that's all bad, only for them to hold onto it like it's their fucking holy grail to be like it's MSG though actually makes it a little bit. It's a little bit more steroids. Yeah, yeah, exactly, But yeah, I mean I do know people have like actual like you know, I think like it's a glutamate like allergy or whatever. But for the most part, like really it's fine.
It's naturally occurring too, but like try it on shit, you know. Little yeah, because most stuff, if you look at a lot of the seasonings that a lot of people use in the US, the stuff you're like, damn, that shit's good. It's like it's just look at the ingredients.
It's MSG in there.
It's because it's a secret thing. That's what's making stuff hit harder.
Yeah. Korean the Korean grocer next to my house, Like we have been shopping that. God damn. So much of these snacks are like so good. And it's because like MSG does not have as as bad a name in Korea as it does in the US.
No, in Japan, it's called the essence of flavor, that's what. That's what It's called a geno moto like the fucking basis of flavor. And that's like it's like that's where like because some food scientist is like, fucking how do we get this like umami kind of thing out of shit, and that research led them to this, and then for decades we were just racist against food tasting good r Yeah, exactly right.
Not fair. It's like it's this whole the food industry being like not fair essentially. But yeah, I mean they've the secrecy, Like the whole branding around the secrecy is like they regularly staged dumb pr stunts, like they had an armored car with a police escort transport the recipe to a vault and it was contained in a briefcase handcuffed to someone's wrist and it said KFC top secret on the outside. One time they had the recipe delivered to a Swedish nuclear bunker by RoboCop.
So yeah, is that even under Robocup's jurisdiction.
Yeah, I know in This New America.
In one of the sequels, I think so in the one where you can fly, Yeah, sure, I will go to Sweden. That's what a lot of people don't nuke. The drug from one of the RoboCop sequels was just but yeah, it's basically just like a lot of branding I feel like is just giving adults the thing they lost when they stopped believing in Santa Claus.
You know there's actually be some magic.
Yeah, so anyways, Yeah, the original recipe is closely guarded, like the nuclear football, and KFC will kill you if you find out about it.
And like the nuclear football, Donald Trump is desperate to re gain access to KFC's original recipe.
Yeah that might randomly be true.
Yeah, this is that's what motivated his run for just like, I need to.
Get this recipe, and he's going to open up a bunch of fried chicken places on his own.
All right, that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation. Folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.