Is MAGA Falling Apart? - Michael Malice

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You came dressed the park'cause we want to talk about North Korea. There's also another thing you wrote a great book about which is the new right. What do you you know techno anarchists and Christian nationalists and race realists.

And other groups have in common and now, you know, they're kind of turning on each other. And I don't know where this goes, but I do know it'll be entertaining. There will be a lot of people on the right going, We voted for Trump because he promised to keep us out of wars.

I didn't want any of this, this isn't what I voted for. The idea like you're gonna kill the Ayatollah and the sun is gonna be more moderate after that. Well you kill the sun, uh okay, like are you just gonna keep going? Yeah this is what doesn't make sense to me. Who is gonna be the one who's doing the surrendering? I don't think it's at all

uh factual to say that Iran is an imminent threat to the US. The idea that Iran is gonna shoot drones in Cali at California, I mean obviously God God let's hope so. My God, I mean someone could just save us. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out the incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger.

Michael Malice, welcome back to trigonometry. Thank you so much. It's great. But there's also another thing you wrote a great book about, which is the new right, which is obviously what's going on now. uh what's going on now my

Well I think you have to be a little bit more specific, don't you think? W well I I don't know what's going on. Well my plans are some of them are doing well. Well, you wrote a book a while ago predicting that there would be a kind of realignment and a fracturing on the right. And that is what I think is fair to say.

Oh, very much so. Especially in Europe. It's even more kind of realigning than here in the States. I've been following European politics very closely and it's very interesting how it plays out in different uh uh uh nations. Czech Republic just had this party called Motorist for Ourselves. And one of the guys is kind of accused of being this closet griper and now he's in cabinet. So they're the first ones to kind of break that barrier.

Okay, but w we go back to the big picture. Wha wha what did you say in your book and what did you predict in your book? Uh I think well, I think that is the big picture. The big picture is that, you know, this so called conservative movement of, you know, recent decades has largely fallen away. In polls in the UK, for example, the tort You both just looked down simultaneously. I don't know what the hell that was.

Yeah, the Tories in many polls are in fourth place, something which has never happened before and is regarded as largely unthinkable, although now Labour is giving them run for their money and coming in f in uh um Fourth place. You have uh the Swedish Democrats in Sweden, George uh Georgina Maloney is the PM in Italy, the party was considered the furthest right party as of five minutes ago.

Uh the national rally came in first in terms of votes in the French legislative elections, formerly the National Front, Marine Le Pen's organization. In Norway, the Liberal Party, which rector the Christian Democrats, are in first place in the polls.

So wherever you Spain, uh the party's called Vox, which is regarded as the so-called far-right party, and there's that coordinate sanitaire, they're not going to work with them. They're in third and they're spiking really heavily in the polls at the expense of the main two parties.

And the US, you know, the premise of my book, The New Write, is the question was on the dust jacket, what do, you know, techno anarchists and Christian nationalists and race realists and uh um other groups have in common and I said nothing other than their opposition to Well they hate the left, right? Thanks for stepping on the punch block. Nothing other than their opposition to progressivism. Okay, thanks for the spoiler. So I was gonna get there, Constantine. Don't worry. Forgive me. No. So

Point being, human beings. Premature interjection. Human beings define themselves by opposition. We see this in non-political context because you have a party and there's adults and kids. The kids view themselves as kids as opposed to adults. But when the adults leave, it becomes boys and girls. So people, this is why negative uh attack ads are often more effective. It's much easier to be like I'm against Francis than I'm for Constantin.

So with the heavy defeat of leftism in the twenty twenty-four uh Republican election. Yeah, it people are kind of a bit surprised that this Trumpian coalition has fallen apart, but you shouldn't really be surprised because what they're against. uh although they're making a bit of resurgence in in in recent days, has fallen away as a common enemy. And now, you know, they're kind of turning on each other. And I don't know where this goes, but I do know it'll be entertaining.

And Israel seems to have bef become like the focal point. I I I've tracked the same thing and I kind of thought that it would all start to break down for the exact reason that you describe. Um, but Israel has served as a kind of

single explanatory point in a lot of people's minds. And that seems in s in a weird way, that's what the battle is about, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me because um the one thing that I you know, the narrative that, you know, President Trump is controlled by Israel. Just doesn't seem to me to stack with the personality type.

That he is. You know what I mean? Like the idea that he's being puppeteered by someone like of all the things you might c say about him that are critical, the idea that Like he can be used by other people seems quite unlikely. Well used and controlled are separate concepts. Um I don't like this puppeteer metaphor because I'm not going to absolve George W. Bush and Tony Blair and Dick Cheney of what they did. I don't think that

they had to have much pressure in order to launch, you know, the Iraq war, which was, you know, obviously in retrospect an enormous disaster. The other point is human beings, and let's get into this to some extent, human beings aren't truth seeking animals, they're narrative seeking animals, right? So It's been a week now as a record of the Iran war. I don't know where this is going or when the end goal is.

Uh, I certainly feel solidarity as I think most of your viewers do, uh all decent people do, with the Persian people and hope that everything works out well for them, although I'm not exactly confident that it will. But the point is this isn't the Iraq war. Like It's it's like a weekend's like, oh, it's the Iraq war. Well the Iraq war was Vietnam, but the Iraq when it started, but it didn't end the same way as the Vietnam War. So as for the Israel thing, I I I can steel man that argument.

pretty well because Trump campaigned on, you know, not getting us into war like Woodrow Wilson had. Uh it's hard to make the case that the Iranian war is in America's interest. I don't think it's at all

factual to say that Iran is an imminent threat to the US or or Israel, which I think a lot of people have been claiming. uh this idea that Iran's you know minutes away away from getting a nuke. If Saddam had had nukes, he'd still be in power. You know, I i if you look at Pakistan, they harbored Osama bin Laden and that country's name never comes out of President Trump's mouth. So I think also it's easy to have I not easy, sorry.

it it's important for people to have and this something I hate, this kind of uh uh one factor. It's it's all the trans people or it's Israel or it's Trump. If you get rid of this, everything, you know, goes away. In my view, and I think this is basic kind of liberty analysis, if Israel vanished today, if every Jewish person vanished today, I don't think the American war machine would pause for one minute. Uh I remember not that long ago there was a big concern in some conservative circles.

that there are too many black people who are getting food stamps. Right. And it then the response was oh

you know, you it's the majority of people on food stamps are white and then the people were like, oh well, what what what do you call per capita? And then you know black people actually became majority and then everyone stopped talking about it. My contention is if every black person in America got off food stamps or if they all vanished, the food stamp budget would not increase by one dollar.

Uh there's always a rationalization for a budget. It is never based on reality. And it's the job of every bureaucrat or general or secretary of whatever to maintain and grow his budget. And we even saw this explicitly uh not that long ago. The Pentagon asked for however many trillion and Congress gave them even more than they had asked for.

So the point of anyone running an organization is to maintain its strength and control. And as long as you have a military, especially kind of an interventionist military like we have, they are going to find excuses to stick their nose where they don't.

So you think the Iran war is the military industrial complex basically finding another target to make more money? To some extent. To some extent obviously this is something that Israel wants and it Ben Benjamin Yany Nanyao and Trump have an extremely close relationship. I don't think the puppeteering thing is true true because he's a seventy nine year old guy from New York whose whose daughter converted to Judaism. Like this is the textbook demographic for being a Zionist. So

But the same time, i it's very hard for me to understand his logic because he hasn't laid out an end goal. Like what does the win condition look like? My biggest fear with Iran. And I haven't heard people say this, and I think about it all the time, because this has happened a bit with Afghanistan, is Trump is very explicitly telling the people, rise up, take over your country, and my

Fear is that they're gonna do that and he's gonna be like, all right, good luck, deuces, and leave and they're all be slaughtered. We saw what happened in Afghanistan where all those people who work with us with the US for all those years, they were left to the Taliban and the Tal w there was a reporter I saw an interview asking a member of the Taliban, Can you guarantee those people won't be killed and tortured? He's basically like, sorry.

So part of me even wonders if that was part of the deal that they were handed over as part of the America's escape from the Taliban. So That is my biggest concern at the moment, not to mention the more obvious concerns, which is, you know, international cataclysm and a escalation. I think it's very odd. That uh

Iran was bombing all these Muslim majority countries in their region who otherwise would have been at least putting the pressure on Israel and the US to some extent. The, you know, the conflict between Saudi and Iran is obviously nothing revelatory for me to point out. Uh it's curious that Putin is seems to be helping uh uh Iran in the background to some extent, but China's basically kept their mouth shut. And that's an interesting one.

Well uh I actually made the very same point I think on dire SEO before the conflict started because Stephen Bartlett was asking me, you know, y are you excited about the possibil the Iranian people are protesting? I was like, Well

The the purpose of encouraging people to rise up is that you are gonna back them to the hilt so that then you know it's like in Ukraine, it's like go, go, go, Ukraine, but then you don't actually provide the support. Well why why were you encouraging them? Yeah, you're you should have been honest with them and said we're not actually gonna help you.

Right. Or and and and you saw this also happen in Venezuela when Chavez was in power, they would have protests and the people I think his goons would just stand their machine gun everybody. Yeah. Uh so there's thousands of people already dead in Iran. Uh I it and I this is what I foresee happening and I'm very, very worried about.

The the worry is also as well when it comes to strategy, when you look at the actual logistics of what's happening on the ground in Iran and you think to yourself, You have the IRGC, which is effectively an army. They number around two hundred thousand. Not only are they an army who are military trained, they're also fanatic. How are you going to deal with that? How are you going to deal with the secret police? How are you going to deal with the supporters of the regime?

All of these are the same thing. You're looking at and going, Do you actually have a plan for how to Not only get rid of that, but also install something else in its place. Right. And and it seems like uh Pavlave is someone who's been kind of making a lot of noise and Trump's. very obviously uncomfortable with him kind of reinst reinstating the the son of Shah. So I to your point, no one has articulated an end game, but uh it wasn't at all clear that he was just gonna I was on Roseanne Barr.

Right. And Roseanne Barr is like, yeah, in two days we're gonna be bombing Iran. I'm like, okay, crazy lady. And then two days later we're bombing Iran. So maybe we should ask Roseanne Barr how this is gonna end.

But it's gonna be interesting as well to see what the effect of the Iran war is on the right. Because you have a lot of isolationists in America, particularly on the right, who did not want to be part of a war. Correct. Can't blame them. Yeah, but you can't blame them. You can fully understand it. And if this war goes south, And not only that, it then has a spike on oil. Which has yes happened already. That th that in turn affects the cost of living, food, whatever else.

There will be a lot of people on the right going, we voted for Trump, because he promised to keep us out of wars. Not only did he k not only did he get us involved in an unnecessary war where bodies have been flown home, on top of that, it's made my life worse. I didn't want any of this. This isn't what I voted for. Do you know who this is really screwing over, right? जाइब

So JD Vance is trying to walk like two tightropes simultaneously, which is literally impossible. Or maybe not literally, but I I don't think any of us could even do one. Um, because he has to You haven't seen me, mate. That's true. I said that's fair point taken. He is, you know, trying to be Trump Junior, you know, as kind of his heir to take over the nomination in in 2028.

And at the same time, he was clearly uncomfortable with this sort of thing. He was being very explicit, you know, about it in years past, as had Trump in himself. So I think it's gonna be very hard for J D to figure out a lane because on one hand he's close with Tucker. Tucker's son works for him and Tucker's obviously extremely against this and quite understandably so. On the other hand, Trump is this is the best thing ever.

It's just done in a week. We just won. Uh and he we just get so sick of winning. So I don't know how he navigates this. uh in terms and i of getting the nomination because what can easily happen is he's trying to do what Hillary tried to do in 2008, where she was regarded as the presumptive nominee. Don't bother running, she's gotten the bag, she's gonna be the nominee, less word but the general.

If his numbers if there's the thing is there's plenty of people in the Republican Party who are sociopaths and narcissists.

So it's going to be very easy for someone to run just for the sake of improving their platform, getting speaking fees, getting book deals. They don't run for the intention of getting the nomination. They just run to be like, okay, like now everyone knows my name and I can parlay this in something bigger. This happened in British politics all the time. It's called the stalking horse. But if that stalking horse gets any sort of traction

Then the gates will be wide open and there'll be room for somebody else to kind of come in and you know put their hat in the ring. So I Don't think twenty twenty eight is a lock.

For JD as it looks two years out. Because if you looked at twenty fourteen for their fucking party, no one's even mentioning. That was not even a an option. Well, V Vance is uh whether you agree with his politics or disagree, he's clearly very smart. And if you if you understand public communication and have been watching what he's been saying. Every time President Trump has gone into Iran, 12 day war, or now. It's very clever positioning from Vance because he always says.

the pres I tr you know, the president is the greatest president in the history of presidents and I you know, I trust the president. The president knows what he's doing, which kind of puts him in a position to later say, Well, look, I voiced my opposition internally. But, you know.

I'm a team guy, but privately, you know, I w I was I was not in favor of this. That I I I I understand why you're shaking your head, because that is a difficult line to No, that's not why I'm shaking my head. I'm shaking my head because I think the way you're saying is impossible. Because President Trump in his second administration, the only thing he chose for was loyalty.

Right. And he's if I don't think there's anyone left, maybe Stephen Miller, like two I actually Googled it. I said, who from the first administration is around the second administration? There are three people. Every other bridge has been burned. Uh the guy from uh uh Alabama, I forget Jeff Sessions, you had Bannon is gone, you had Bill uh Bill Bill or Bob Barry always get their names confused, Omarosa They all turned on each other. Right. So he is very hypersensitive to people

speaking out against him and if JD Vance starts trying to do this thing, oh I supported Trump, but I'm a different person, I don't think Trump with his ego is just gonna be like, say what you throw me under the bus in order to get ahead. He's not gonna keep his mouth shut. Yeah. Can anyone imagine a scenario? So your point is this isn't gonna work. I don't th I I don't know how I think JV Vance is extremely smart in all the ways that don't matter in politics.

So Trump, I think JD thinks Trump is in many ways a buffoon. And in many ways he is from the perspective of Yale or Harvard, although he obviously went to an ID league himself. But when it comes to politics itself, Trump is extremely sad. It is the fact that you that he took out I think it was fourteen Republican candidates twenty sixteen, that he took out Hillary Clinton, who's had the biggest juggernaut behind her in terms of culture of any candidate certainly in my lifetime, maybe since FDR.

Uh that is no mean feat. The fact that you are Your approval ratings were in the toilet after January 6th. You were guarded as a complete pariah. During the midterms, most of the candidates or all of them that you endorse. who were in kind of uh uh swing races, they all lost, to recapture the nomination and to recapture the presidency. This is something that's historically unprecedented and is a testament to many in many ways this political acumen.

I he was the one who's like, let me go on the podcast circuit and put myself in front of that firing line for three hours at a time on Rogan. That was and this guy's again, no spring chicken. So I think JD thinks like Elon did. I'm gonna work with this guy. I'm gonna use him to further my agenda. But Trump is really, really crafty with stuff like that. And I think he's gonna be very sensitive to any of these machinations. And he's doing it very publicly.

He's playing tr uh Vance against Rubio. There's all these articles about like, oh, Trump doesn't know which one to choose. And a lot of that's legal. When you buy seafood, what do you worry about most? Nutrition, sustainability, taste? I've asked all of those questions. This is why Wild Alaskan Company caught my attention. It is the best way to get wild caught, perfectly portioned, nutrient dense seafood delivered to your door. You have not tasted fish this good.

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The thing is with Trump as well is that he's a once in a generation political figure. Yes. In this in the same way as Blair was, in that it's very rare for somebody to be able to unite a party and a political faction. Yes. That is incredibly rare because you're asking people to essentially put aside their differences and work together. That's hard. Yeah, and also I there's this argument online that like who is MAGA? Who isn't MAGA? MAGA is Trump.

MAGA means that which Trumps like. It's not a ideological, you know, Aristotelian worldview. It's just basically a series of vague uh uh preferences. Uh most of which I think are good ones. But it's not this kind of

well thought out, coherent, you know, national review uh philosophy. And you see that with the support for the war because for all the chatters ninety percent I saw in a one call. For all the chatter online, MAGA Republicans are just like, Well, Trump said it's good, so it's good. I I I don't mean to s satirize too much their position. But but given the level of

uh inconsistency between his stated policy positions before the election and what he's doing now, whether you like that or not, it's still quite remarkable to have that level of support. And I can also steal me on that case because I think Trump for many of these people

Is the first time in their lives they feel seen by a politician. They feel this guy understands me, this guy speaks for me. You can say positive things about the Bushes if you like. It's very hard to make the case that George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush. is kind of this like w you're not gonna see them at McDonald's.

Right. And Trump eats McDonald's ironically but also not ironically. He actually likes it. And I think that speaks and being a New Yorker, like a real New Yorker, I think that speaks to a certain level of uh character on his story. And what do you make of the the idea that, you know

Venezuela, Iran, now Iran too. This is all part of a big five D chess. strategy and you know, the m the the rabbit will be pulled out of the hat and the magic of this anti Russia, anti China thing will be revealed in all its glory down. Well, I play seven D chess if you follow me. Uh uh let's talk Venezuela. Because this is uh y you're I've been to Venezuela as a kid twice. I have enormous sympathy and appreciation for that country. It is uh

It it's such a case study of how something which is just this jewel of South America and amazing people. If you ever meet any Venezuelans, God bless you, they're just Ex with one exception, they're smart, uh highly educated, great people. And what was amazing about what happened with Maduro, when I woke, when I saw that photo of Maduro with the blindfolds and handcuffs, I thought it was AI.

Because I'm like, wait, wait, this is really it. But we tele basically teleported in. They used United States teleported in, grabbed the leader, teleported out. It's like, okay, bye. And the Democrats were like We what what do we do? Like you can't say oh you went in there and killed everybody. You can't say it's in chaos because it was in chaos before the regime's

I don't even understand really the point. Now there's several conspiracy theories and I don't use the term derisively, one of which is they told Maduro, do you want to go uh get arrested and go on a nice vacation or do you want to get shot? And he's like, uh vacation please. The deeper uh uh argument is that he's gonna reveal something about the voting machines in 2020, because Venezuela's somehow involved.

Uh the third situation is okay, we got your guy, so the number two person is now going to have to play ball. I But I I was discussing something, you know, in Rogan a couple a couple weeks ago. We just kind of stopped talking about it. And this is something that's never happened before. We just go in and snatch a leader and vanish. And I mean, of course my hopes are for the Villiers Million people but

I don't know where this is going. And I don't and and know where anyone else knows where it's going. I well, I don't think most people know where this is going. Venezuelan people are very hopeful, but that comes more from a sense of desperation than anything else. That's right. Because we've been under uh a totalitarian leadership for twenty six years. I think what ha what they want to do is effectively Venezuela is a de facto colony of the United States.

So we're gonna see the oil companies come back, we're gonna see the oil infrastructure be repaired, oil's gonna start pumping. And what we're going to have is a leadership which is going to hold Venezuela, make sure it doesn't crumble, but also going to be answerable to the gringo. And I think if you asked a lot of Venezuelans after not only Chavez uh Maduro but then Chavez but also our own disastrous flirtations with democracy, which have been

simply haven't worked, let's be honest about it. They almost prefer that op Oh yeah, you can't blame him, but here's the other one, Cuba. Like as we speak, Huber's about to run out of water. enormous blockade. Marco Rubio is, you know, can I say this on a nightly basis, rubbing one out to the idea of a free Cuba. You can't blame him. No. Uh Cubans are amazing based people. Cuba was like the Las Vegas of the Caribbean in the nineteen fifties until you know it all went to hell. And

I I o I think a transition from Cuba to a free country would not be that difficult and I think the people are hungry for it and their standard of living is so low and horrific. And needless of obviously just function of the government. I mean they're very entrepreneurial, they would very quickly re-establish themselves as uh the crown jewel of the Caribbean that they were. Uh who knows where that's gonna go. Also, but come back come back with me to this four D chess idea, which is uh some people

have argued that the reason the Trump administration is doing this is in part Monroe doctrine, which is don't fuck around in our backyard, China, Russia, which they were in Venezuela. Sure. Right. Sure. Um and then the Iran thing is about, look, I think you're

based on my understanding, I mean I obviously don't have access to the secret information, but you know, we talked to a lot of people about it. Um, Iran didn't have a functioning nuclear weapon or a program. But they were enriching uranium to levels which are not remotely necessary for civilian use. And um, you know, there's some debate about Because I don't think we in the West really are capable of processing intellectually'cause it's not an intellectual thing. Are they these

uh jihadi uh extremists who are waiting for the end of the the world, for the for their messiah to come back, which they will happily bring about using nuclear weapons? Or are they more interested in having the threat of nuclear weapons so that they can dominate the region? Which is a much more Or the third one, which is if they have nuclear weapons they know they're not gonna be attacked, like Pakistan. Right.

Um yeah. So those options are on on the table and the the Trump administration is like, Well, you can't have nuclear weapons. We can't have more nuclear proliferation, not least because and I'm sure North Korea, which we're gonna come to eventually. is different, right? North Korea doesn't have proxies all over the place, is not attacking other countries. It's not uh shooting missiles into South Korea every three days, et cetera, right?

Uh and so the s the four D chess explanation is, well, Trump is basically trying to rearrange the world to the benefit of the United States. Um and that is why he's doing this. I don't I I would disagree slightly. I don't know that he is doing it to the benefit of the United States. I think Trump knows he's got four years. And I think Trump's like, I've got a big stick and I'm gonna use it. And I'm gonna do what I can in The White House in the time I've left.

to kind of make the world from in his perspective the sort of Pax Americana. Well that's what I'm saying. That's literally what I mean. Right. He's he's using the time he has. And uh I don't have to give a shit anymore attitude that he has to try and remake the world in the best interest of in what he perceives America's best interest to be. Sure. Perfect. Yes. And I think that's also one of the reasons why North Korea was basically his first issue in

uh uh uh the first term because it's kind of the lowest hanging fruit in terms of it's gonna take theoretically not that much effort and you could have maximum increase of freedom. So that does seem to be the case that you know he The i extreme I The fact that we are sitting here having a conversation about the US getting Greenland, I I think at a certain point I it's very difficult to have a mental model for what is going through.

Sure, but I think the explanation I gave seems to me to be the most logical. But the problem is with that, and I think it's the one you identified as earlier, is I have no idea how that is compatible with regime change in Iran. If he just went in and destroyed more nuclear facilities, I'd be like that makes perfect sense. If he went in and destroyed the drone factories, which

Iran uses to produce drones to send to Russia to use in Ukraine makes sense. If he bombs Iran so they can't supply oil to China or anything. Makes sense to me. But regime change? I mean like the i like the idea like you're gonna kill the ayatollah and the sun is gonna be more moderate after that. Well you kill the sun, uh okay, like are you just gonna keep going? Yeah, this is what doesn't make sense to me because

You know, when people who are anarchists like myself advocate for like political violence, it's like, you know, if you kill a senator, there's gonna be another senator. It's not like you kill the office. Oh, now we're down to ninety nine senators or like block and load. So if you kill the Ayatollah, it's not like, all right, it's not chess. It's not 2D chess where you take the king, it's like, I win, checkmate.

The other point is if he's saying they want complete unconditional surrender, how are you gonna have anyone surrender if you keep killing the leaders? Who is gonna be the one who's doing the surrendering? Um I think I think it's it's hard. First of all, I don't doubt that someone in the White House sat him down and had some sort of plan. Uh if not him, they they game this out.

But I don't I feel like the underpants gnomes from South Park. You know, step one, you steal the underpants, step two, step three, profit. And it's like what's step what's step two, right? So I don't know what their win like I said earlier, what their win condition is going to look like. I think it's gonna be almost impossible to if you start killing and bombing, this isn't Japan. uh this idea of unconditional surrender, the thing that that happens with these countries, as Gaddafi found out,

is when they let down their guard, they leave the people at top are personally murdered. And if you had a free uh uh uh Iran or Persia or whatever, I don't think all these people at the top are just gonna go to Club Med if that still exists. they're going to face prison sentences. So there's every incentive for them to dig their heels in. Uh obviously the Saudis are a big problem for them as well. And many other Arab countries in the area are not particularly happy with Iran. So

I I don't see how this and as we said earlier, it's every day it seems like he's ready to be like, All right, mission he said I think mission accomplished, which was that infamous banner that George W. Bush stood in front of, uh, you know, during his administration. I mean it's very plausible he's just gonna be like, all right, just we bombed them, now we're gonna go home. It's like okay, what did that accomplish?

Absolutely. And then you factor in the ideolog the ideology, which is neg a radical version of Islamism. Sure. So you go, how are you going to de radicalize a huge swath of the population? Because all if you kill them, then surely you're not you're gonna radicalize their famil their family, their friends, other members of the population. Right. If you if someone, God forbid, came to the US

and took a foreign uh uh entity and took out the president, Americans would rally very heavily behind whoever the vice president was. We saw this in after nine eleven, I think George W. Bush had ninety-eight or ninety one percent approval rating. Everyone's like, right. you know, the kind of rally behind the flag. So the same thing certainly is happening with Iran where if

The in in Tehran, the buildings were shaking. It sounded like the doors of hell had been opened. I saw uh someone a citizen there, you know, gave that quote. You're not gonna be like, I'm in favor of the guys who are bombing us to oblivion. And it's also you look at they were talking about arming the Kurds. Right. So then you st my my my mind went back to Iraq when essentially Iraq collapsed. And you s you look at Iran and you go, Well this could be a civil war, couldn't it? Because

The Kurds want their own nation, that has been clear for a long time. Right. They and if the you arm them, they are going to want to take it by force and that's further gonna destabilise the country which is on the brink as we speak. And we America also has a history of arming people and then trying to fight them. It it's just really this kind of we laugh, but it's just like, you know, we're shaking hands with the Taliban one day, the next day we're invading Afghanistan, so

We are th there's this fear in the states right now that Iran is activating all these sleeper cells. So supposedly. That's what we're doing there. Like if we're arming the courage and saying rise up, that's we're calling out our sleeper cells. And are you worried about that, Michael? Because I've seen some news stories. I mean the idea that Iran is gonna shoot drones in Cali at California, I mean obviously Godho let's hope so. My God. I mean someone should save us.

I mean imagine if they got it. How would you know? I mean they might set the whole city the whole city on fire, right? It'd be terrible. Yeah. Uh but it just seems implausible to me, right? It seems like a bunch of bullshit. But, you know, individual people doing crazy shit and killing people doesn't seem that difficult at all in a country with millions of guns and and whatever, right? Are you I do you think there's a real worry now in America that that could happen?

I th I I I'm going to give an answer that sounds like a joke, but it's not. We're at the point now where there's so many daily mass shootings. that the only difference would be that they speak farsi instead of, you know, being trans. Right. So I don't think that that's a big concern. Uh I think if they were going to be smart, they would all have it all done on one day.

Like a day of terror. That would really shake America and that would really move the needle in one direction or another. I don't think it moved the needle in a direction that they would want. Right.

But so I I don't Because if that happened you would get I well we were talking about this last night actually'cause obviously there's a very strong anti-war sentiment and there will be lots of people who say Trump did this. Yeah, correctly. But but I think there will also be lots of people who say America's been attacked. Right.

But I I that's a dangerous card to play uh on their part. And I also think then you're gonna have some a lot of solidarity from Europe who's had to deal with this sort of terrorism and a lot of them are gonna you know, maybe their spines will get a little stiff and maybe not Sir Kir, but maybe Germany or or certainly France.

Well we obviously hope that doesn't happen. Do you think part of the problem is is that we in the West simply don't understand other mindsets, but particularly other ideologies? Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean, my God, it is Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question. Because one of the things I've been focusing on recently, one of the things I'm trying to defeat is this idea of universalism.

And we're taught this in school since we're very young, that everyone is basically the same under our skin. Now in certain contexts it's absolutely true. Everyone feels pain, everyone loves their family, you know, everyone mourns when someone passes away. But in this, I think all of us are in the same kind of tier in terms of intellect, meaning I don't think there's anything I believe that I would not be able to explain to the two of you or vice versa.

Maybe there'd be some follow-up questions, but we'll be able to understand each other. I also think if the three of us sat with a nuclear physicist and he tried to understand, explain nuclear physics to us, it would be just gibbering. at a certain point be like, uh okay, I can maybe I can follow these analogies, but I'm really not understanding it in the same way you're understanding it. But that also applies to people who are dumb.

So uh if you look at sitcoms, you people think dumber people just have fewer facts or are they're slower to understand things. That's not the case. Unintelligent people think, process data in ways that are completely different from other people. And this is something that's very deleterious to democracy. Uh and you see it all over one of the great things about social media is a people who in times past,

Great example is Lawrence Tribe, who's like a dean at Harvard Law. In times past, they would be on a pedestal. This guy's at Harvard Law. He must be amazing. You look at his feed and this old lesbian is tweeting like your grandma on on Facebook. It's an embarrassment. At the same time when unintelligent people express themselves, you realize, holy crap. This person's Kathy Newman.

And if you sit down and explain to them, they still don't pick up what you're saying. And they just regard nouns and verbs as basically a soup and connect things in ways that are complete gibberish to other people. So one of the other things that happens is. People cannot understand things outside their framework. So everyone is Farage is the Trump of England and in the Philippines, he's the Trump of the Philippines, and the Trump of Brazil, Bolsonaro, and this one's the Trump.

Maybe they're roughly analogous in that they're like a populist loudmouth, but these are not all the same phenomenon. And if you ask any American about some other country, they they would say, who are the Republicans and who are the Democrats? Well, it doesn't always parse out that way.

And in fact, in America, Jeb and Trump are not the same phenomenon. They're both, you know, Republicans and Bernie Sanders, all these independent or let's say AOC and Hillary Clinton, they're also not the same phenomenon, although they're both Democrats. So Human beings, broadly speaking, not only have no empathy, which is an ability to see things from other points of view, they're violent.

In I always say that people don't run a true-false filter. They run an us-them filter. You see it every time on social media. If you say something, oh, you sound like a Democrat. And the implication is therefore you're wrong. It's it's it's deranged, but that is how unintelligent people process.

And it's such a good point. And then you put in an ideology as extreme as Islamism. And we in the West simply can't get our heads around it because we value life. What is that word I I hate that that's I hate that word. What do you mean by extreme? AI adoption isn't the challenge anymore. Knowing whether your AI investment is actually working, that's a real problem. And right now, most enterprise leaders genuinely cannot answer that question.

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What do I mean by extreme? A a version of Islam that wants to s establish a global Islamic caliphate? That doesn't want there to be sovereign nations and it will kill, maim, and destroy as many people, countries in order to achieve its aims. But if you think you're here serving Allah and you think that that's the correct

uh course of affairs, wouldn't that be the correct thing to do? Within that framework, yes. But the rest of us can look at that and say if you want to kill millions of people in the name of Allah, you're extreme, right? But I I I n I would just say your principle.

Uh sure. But those two things don't have to go against each other. You can be principled and extreme because the principles you adhere to are extreme. But I don't know will lead to extreme consequences. Sure, but I don't uh there's this there's this negative connotation to the word extreme that I'm not. uh w well the extremism I I mean

Uh Gandhi was also very principled, but I and and in some ways quite extreme too. But I guess the violent nature of what Islamists do in reality seems quite extreme to uh to those of us who are not part of that framework.

But I think your what happens is when you have that mindset, you end up with Roderham and you end up with where the UK is right now. Which mindset? This fear of extremism and this idea that we're gonna vote ourselves free.

Um, I don't follow how those two things are connected. Can you Sure because if you have this this if you're if you have this idea that like, you know, violence in the service of your ideology is something that's really kind of off the table and something only people who are really out there would do. Uh when violence

might otherwise be necessary, it's not regarded as part of of the of the um overtoned window. Well the violence is I mean, violence is the state, right? This the state, which I know you're not a fan of, but the state is controlled, organized, and legislated violence. And I think the counter argument, well otherwise you get Rotherham is uh I don't I wouldn't advocate for the response to Rotherham being uh

a mirror image of what Islamists are doing, I would say that's where the state has to do its fucking job. Well that's where you and I differ, I think. That's exactly the crux of the point. Right. And and my argument would be there's we have a police force for a reason and we have laws for a reason. Yeah, the police force is there to protect the the perpetrators of Russia.

I don't know what that means. If they just well, because their job, as officially stated, is to enforce the law. What these people did was against the law. But as officially stated, it's a nonsense term. It doesn't mean anything. It's like if I tell you I've got a car and it flies officially and it doesn't fly, who cares?

W no, I hear you, but the police do do their job in most instances of enforcing the laws. Right. So let's worry about the n the times when they don't. Yeah, yeah. And what what and but but that wasn't a police issue. What that was is Uh what a that what that was is a failure to enforce the law because they were prioritizing other concerns, right, which they were effectively encouraged to do by the society in which they lived, which is you place

social cohesion. They weren't encouraged by their overlords to do what they did? They did this un unilaterally? Uh we from the evidence that we've seen, a lot of it was quite low level. sensitivity about social cohesion. Right. So a person at a fairly low level was worried about investigating something because it would mean that they'd be called racist. Right. Right. It wasn't necessarily it wasn't as far as we know. the people at the top going don't invest

I don't think that's statistically possible. There's just these few outliers because it was so pervasive. Right. What I'm saying is I'm not certain in fact I'm quite confident based on what we've We've talked to lots of people about this, who know, right?

that this was not a top down this is what you're supposed to do or not supposed to do. It was actually something that happened because there was a pervasive culture at the lower levels of social workers, of police officers and others who just thought Um A the sensitivity is about what would you mean for community cohesion and all this other bullshit.

And also, you know, we had Maggie Oliver, who was a police whistle blower who who blew the whistle on this stuff, who just said that because of the the the social background of a lot of the victims that was just like, Oh, d they don't matter. Right. Which which also unfortunately does happen. You know I don't think uh my point is I don't think uh it's necessarily the dynamic you're presenting, which is

Either you tolerate this or you engage in extremism or or the use of violence in an unorganized way on your own side. Well it could be organized, that's not the unorganized, but my point is But that's what I mean, that's what the state is for. But th this case the state is not for that. Uh none of these people who are accomplices, state agents or accomplices in these atrocities had any consequences, as far as I know. Certainly not the kind of consequence I would like to see them have happened.

And what any organization, if it faces no pushback, it will continue in perpetuity to try to maintain and increase its power. So until there are and one the great things that Trump did when he came into office is people faced consequences for the first time for the crap that they tried to pull.

So unless they until and unless there are c none of all of the governors uh in New York in America during COVID who sent in uh diseased people into nursing homes, killing elderly people, they all got reelected. They had no consequences for the murders that they they committed. Keir Starmer was a barrister defending some of these people, if I'm not mistaken. So until and unless or he had some involvement legally with uh uh he was a director of public prosecution. He wasn't

personally defending these people and or doing it out of choice. You know, criminals are entitled to legal representation. Sure. But he also made it a point uh uh in early twenty twenty-five to try to put a kibosh for them. Yeah and it's despicable. And they will if they if they fail electorally, uh and if unless we get a a red green alliance at the next election, they will be

Yeah. I I don't think Kastama will go to prison though, but you know that's not yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that it's a totally fair point. But I we we started this. Everything you're saying is perfectly legitimate, but we started this with your quibble over Francis' use of the term extremism. Right. And I think the point he's trying to make is

Uh I mean in America y this is easier for you guys to relate to because you have some of your own religious people who are kind of on on that end of things, but not our guns. Yeah. Yeah, true. Um but for I think for the Western mind broadly speaking it it has become quite difficult to relate empathetically as you were talking about earlier to people who are willing to blow themselves up among a bunch of innocent girls at a Ariana Grand Con.

Can we talk about that for a second, that concert? Yeah. Because that was one of the greatest moments, in my opinion, of British history. Do you know what Queen Elizabeth did after the concert? Did we talk about this? No. This is gonna sound like a troll, and I want everyone who's watching this to assume I'm lying and look up the footage for themselves.

After that Ariana Grande concert, where people were blown to smithereens and many of us were injured, Queen Elizabeth, God rest her soul, went to the hospital and visited many of the victims. And they were very honored to see Queen Elizabeth. She had a beautiful hat on. And as she went from bed to bed, she's like, Oh so

Did you enjoy the did you enjoy the concert? Well, you know, other than seeing my friend's head blown off, you know, that encore was really something, Ms. Uh Your Majesty. So it was really a a crazy moment. So just come back to the point. Okay. Well sorry, I'm like, eh, I want to get to the end of the argument. Uh So the the point being that we struggle to understand the mindset of somebody who's willing to do that because we in our we would never do that.

I can understand it very easily. And I can explain it to you very easily. Um, and I cover this in uh uh my book, The White Pill and The Anarchist Handbook. In the 1800s, when Nobel invented dynamite, This was the first time for people who believed in workers' revolution that they felt that they had a sense of equality. And there was an essay in Emma Goldman's magazine, Mother Earth. uh talking about how the ruling class has navies, armies, police, military, the workers have diagnosed.

And the point being they can c they, the ruling class, could come at us with everything they have. Now we can blum to smitherings. And there was someone named Johann Most who from Germany moved to the States. He published uh a pamphlet. Which basically taught people how to make it. And this was a big kind of crucial moment in terms of free speech. Are you going to allow this pamphlet to become a public? Uh in the late eighteen hundreds there was a meeting in the Haymarket Square in Chicago.

Uh someone we still don't know to this day threw a bomb. Uh several people anarchists were put on trial, some of whom weren't even there. Uh and the and one of the defendants, Louis Ling, who's on the cover of the anarchist handbook, his lawyer said not in so many words, my client couldn't have thrown the bomb because he was at home making bombs.

So several of them hanged, they're posthumously pardoned. There's a memorial to them in Waldheim Cemetery in in Chicago. Point being When people, especially young men, feel a sense of desperation. when they feel that they have no hope of achieving anything, that there's no upward mobility for them, and they have an opportunity to make their name and to and same reason people join the military.

A lot of people join the military, you know, for positive reasons, thinking, okay, I'm gonna fight for my country, I'm gonna do what's right, and it might cost me something, but at least I'll go out heroically instead of pushing pencils behind some desk. So the idea is, look, yeah, I might martyr myself, but I'm doing it in the sense in the hope of pursuing the goal of something greater than myself in terms of my principles. But what about killing civilians?

Same thing happens in the military, right? You bomb people, you're gonna be bombing civilians. Not deliberately. Sure, but in this I think their argument is you ha you c uh you can make an ominous without breaking a few eggs. And it's easier in their argument, this is not me, their argument is if it's easier to kill a few civilians and get someone to bend the knee than to have full blown war.

Which they would lose. Which they would lose, right. And it worked. In Spain during the um Iraq war, Spain was part of the Iraq War. They bombed, I think, a train station or something. There was an election, the leftists came in and Spain pulled their troops right out. So it worked in that. But it's also the way what the Islamists target

For instance, the Ariana Grande concert where it's little girls. Sure. And we've seen with the bombing of the school in Iran, the girls' school, that has become a national scandal in the way that it simply wouldn't in an Islamist country. Sure. I I obviously think there is few things more important than killing children, especially deliberately. I mean this is as bad as it gets. But I'm just trying to explain kind of their Thought process. But I that's not what we're arguing.

As a general, as a society, the average person in our society struggles to understand the mindset of an Islamist because you could not get a bunch of Americans to strap bombs to themselves and go and blow up a children's concept. Sure. I but I think right, but I think the point also is this is a their argument is it's a way to break down a country because at a certain point if enough people's kids are killed, you just give up and you're like, you know what?

Fine, well we're put on the hijab. It's it's a lot easier that way. I think most people would rather go with where they feel safe and where the power is than any kind of you know ideology one way or another.

I it's a good point. And I think one of the things that we come to now is talking about, you know, authoritarianism. Sure. And I Oh there's the segue. Good point. And when we're gonna talk about Korea, but it's also I don't think Americans really understand what it's like to live in under a totalitarian regime. Oh yeah. And we see this all the time. Like I walk past buildings in Austin and I I see things like this is a fascist state.

you know, fascist police, you know, w authoritarian regime. And you just think to yourself, you literally do not understand the meaning of the word. Or maybe I don't. I don't know. Well I I can't speak for whether you're not sure. Maybe there is no truth, but here's my truth.

of my book, The White Pill. It starts with Ayn Rand testifying in front of the House of American Activities Committee post-World War II. And, you know, she's talking to a congressman. She'd be the, she was the only witness who had lived under what became the Soviet Union. And he's like You know,

The way you talk about you know Soviet Russia, he's like, you know, don't people have picnics and visit their mothers-in-law? She and she goes, it is almost impossible to convey to a free people what it's like to live under a totalitarian dictatorship. I can give you a lot of details. Sure, they visit their mothers-in-law, they have picnics, but you understand it's impossible for you to wrap your head around it. And in a way it's good that you can't even conceive what it's like.

Try to imagine what it's like to live from in constant terror from morning till night. And at night you're waiting for the door for the doorbell to ring or someone to knock at your door. To live in a country where human life means nothing, less than nothing, and you know it. You we cannot wrap their heads around. Uh because one of the things in a even largely free country is you can get away from the politics.

Like people complain that there's too much woke in movies or music. There are infinite choices. If you want to read a non-woke book, even anti-woke book, anti non-woke music, every form of media you like. But when you are in a totalitarian country, total, it is everywhere. And the other thing that Americans cannot wrap their heads around, although you saw it during COVID, the first creep, is what it's like having to wonder

What happens if Francis betrays me or Constantine betrays me? Am I safe telling him this? this, this, until I was like in my 30s. And I don't know how this got in my head because my parents never sat me down. Whenever I said something to someone, I ran a scan to be like, all right, if this person turns on me, is it safe for them to know this? Later, I I stopped doing that and it kind of backfired at me, but that's fine. Point being, it's a mindset that and also knowing.

that everything in public life is dishonest. You had this system of public lies, private truths. You would you put you go outside, you put on your pin, you smile and nod. And when you're behind closed doors, you know, you kind of whisper, but the expression North Korea is, you know, the walls have ears kind of. So it's we cannot wrap our heads.

Well, we're starting to in a way because a lot of people, but I I think also what's happened is increasing I mean, you see it with the Epstein files, right?'Cause there's obviously terrible uh wrongdoing within that. But then there's like a guy who who sent an email that that had nothing to do with it. But like

Every single email you ever sent can now be used against you if something then later turns out to do you see what I'm getting at? Yeah, but hold on. You you're you're Russian also, you know not to put in writing. Come on. This I don't have to tell you this. Yeah, I'm just saying if someone w the i the average person Uh if someone was to hack their phone, they would not have a job online.

Uh I don't know that that that tag their phone and publish it on the internet. The jokes you make with your friends, the stuff you say in confidence to your wife, like all of this stuff. Maybe I'm being pedantic. I don't think the average person is very controversial. So I don't know that that that's true. But there's certain things that they would be embarrassed about.

You know, certain Yeah. Well that's what I'm saying. Sure. I just don't know if they'd be fired. I don't think everyone's dropping end bombs private. Maybe it's different what you're speaking for yourself, mate. Maybe it's different than your employees. Join our WhatsApp group. But one of the things when we talk about authoritarian regimes, which I find very interesting, and and I'm I'm really interested to hear your opinion on this is We can't understand them, particularly dictators.

So we frame them as crazy. Oh good, yes. So right. So the prem right the reason I wrote my book, Dear Reader, was because it was drive I'm sorry I didn't cut you off. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was driving me crazy. He's written a lot of books, yes, yes. Um He's that right? It's it's uh dro it drove me crazy how people regarded North Korea as the sort of carnival. And I was like, there is a com they've outlasted everybody else except for Cuba.

There's a reason they're still there. This isn't an accident, given the pressures that they're facing. And the story in Dear Reader is a step-by-step. you know, description from Kim Jong-yo's perspective of how North Korea went from a Japanese colony, you know, pre-World War two.

to this totalitarian dictatorship that they are today. This didn't happen overnight and this didn't happen by accident. It was like a jigsaw puzzle piece by piece as more and more uh elements of freedom were taken away from the North Korean people. It's you know and here we are now. You know how at the beginning of every year people say this is a year things change. Then by February, everything looks the same. If you've been sitting on a business idea for months or even years,

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Can you tell us the story of North Korea, like assuming that the uh people listening, by the way, including myself, literally know fuck all about North Korea and its history. Can you just give us first before we delve into the details the big picture of it? How did North Korea even came to ex come to exist and and what was the process for that? So do you want to t their perspective or the truth?

Uh. Well why don't you give us the truth first? Okay. And then we'll and I think telling their perspective will then be actually very informative. That's very offensive there. Yeah. Tell us that truth. All right. I I think I the indigenous truth. Many centuries. Uh Japan conquered it and colonized it. Uh the Japanese tried to exterminate Korean this in the sense that they were trying to uh uh um diminish use of the language, encouraging Korean people to take uh Japanese names.

uh there the propaganda is like Japan's the big brother Korea's the little brother and I don't need to tell British people when you're the colony it's it's not always so great for you. I mean yes they bring they build railroads and infrastructure but at the same time it's it's it's heavily exploitation. Uh come world and the c here's the thing.

It's kind of fascinating that people understand the depravity of the Nazi regime, but we don't really talk about how bad the Japanese were before World War II. Yeah, we've talked about that on the show. It's crazy, man. It's they're really dark. They experiment on a people, they call them logs. uh you know, uh the what was done to women and sex slaves. Yeah, this is just and and th they were really

Uh the the horror of the Nazi war uh uh not extermination effort it was it was very German. It was like all it's it's organized and it destructs whereas these guys just basically stabbed sh millions of people to death. Bayonets shovels. Yeah, it's it's it was really and it's funny because when you go to North Korea, which I I don't I can't right now because it's no longer legal, but they hate the Americans, but they hate

Like they think you know the Americans are their enemy, American government, and you know, they think every American is a spy. But the the level of hatred for the Japanese is just. It just it's something uh almost supernatural and understandably. So at the outbreak of World War Two they're they're a Japanese colony, right? I I yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah. So just trying to help you along. I I I know how to reave a narrative.

Uh after the defeat of World War II, the US and the Soviet Union were basically trying to divide up, you know, Germany and Japan Japan, specially's former colonies. So we got the Philippines, I forget who they get. And then it's like, what are we gonna do with Korea? So basically they sat down and drew a line uh betw just north of Seoul, because we wanted Seoul. And the premise was. Uh Soviet Union is gonna demilitarize the north half?

The US is gonna demilitarize the South half and we'll worry about what's gonna happen later after that. Can I have a guess? They militarized both halves and then had a war. Uh but but point being the Korean North Koreans still to this day are very salty because they're like, We weren't antagonists in the war. The only two countries that got split was Germany and us. We didn't have anything to do with it. We were the property of Japan. Like what why are you splitting us in half? Um

So Stalin install installs the great leader Kim Mo-sung in the north. We install the Americans, excuse me, install our own strongman Sigmund Rhe in the South. Both of them eventually declare themselves the legitimate government. uh the great leader Kim Mo-sung launches the Korean War. It goes back and forth.

uh oh you know, the c the over a few years. Uh the US joins with the South, with the forces of the UN because Russia and somehow there's boycotting it. So we we got that resolution through. Stalin and Mao give back up to the North Koreans.

And, you know, in many ways, not many ways, in every way, the Korean people paid the price. Because you have these two rocks coming and they're in the middle and it was bombed oblivion. The only things left were like uh chimneys. You could just see these landscapes. Uh it was just complete desolation. At one point I think the North Koreans are like ninety percent or ninety five percent of the peninsula they almost won.

And it went to a stalemate. And it's been it's they're still technically at war. I know one of the things President Trump was hoping for is to have this, you know, kinda armistice signed into like a official uh uh a treaty. And in North Korea, they use lowercase N and lowercase S for North and South because they say Korea is one. That's their big slogan. And the South is not a different country. It's a region under American.

Now, they had this big monument of these two women holding the Korea over a highway and, you know, symbolizing Korean reunification. They recently destroyed that monument. So their hope, which of decades that the Korean people would one day be reunified, has now kind of fallen away. Uh if you want to uh Crystal.

I would encourage everyone watching this to go on YouTube and watch Korean reunification videos because these are families who are separated for decades uh because you can't communicate with foreigners in the north. seeing each other, you know, and and they're allowed one day and then they have to separate again, never to talk to you you're not gonna watch this and not cry because it's just the most heartbreaking thing imaginable. So that's the fact of history.

The North Korean argument history is this. Korea was the first country on earth. Korean was the first language spoken on earth. Korea was and remains the only genetically pure people on earth. So every other country intermarried or were invaded, whatever, Koreans are the only pure countries.

uh the I'm gonna use a slur, excuse me. They always when in their language, they or in their literature, they always say wicked Jap Devils or American imperialists. They'll never say Japanese. It's always used derogatorily. So the wicked Jap devils come in. uh conquer Korea, you know, devastate it. The people want to rise up. They don't know how to do so until because the masses need a leader.

So the great leader Kim Mul-sung emerges at a very young age, rallies the people, uh they're trying to get him and his uh guerrilla forces. There's something called the arduous march, where they're fighting their way through snow and and all these situations. Finally. Pretty much single-handedly, uh, the great leader Kim Il-sung drives the Japanese, the wicked Jap Devils from Korea, uh reclaims it according to their literature. And there's a book with this title, The US Imperialist.

uh started the Korean War. That's literally the title won their books. We invade them. Uh the great leader Kim Il-sung had a so-called strategic retreat during the Korean War. And eventually he kicked us out of the north. uh and now they're still occupying their brethren in the south. So that's kind of their version of how the two Koreas came. Now that is fascinating. And can I say well there's one more? No, don't go It's been said that when refugees

learn that the great leader Kim Il-sung starred the Korean War, it would be akin to one of us learning that we bombed the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Because it is the entire basis of their history. So when you learn it's the opposite, like your brain doesn't even know what to do.

And look. You come from originally from communist countries, both of you, I have mum from a communist country. There's different flavours of communism. You've got the OG, we've got the AIA flavor. That's racist. I know, but it's enjoyable, so no one cares. There's those n-bombs again.

What type of communism are they practicing in North Korea? Is it very similar to the Soviet style or is it their own thing? So I will this and I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm making a joke, but they no longer identify as So according to North Korea, there's something called the Juji idea, which is Kiml Sung's great revelation, which is man is the master of everything and creates everything, right? And what this means is

It's an ideology just for Korea for and for Koreans. And it's this idea of total nationalism and this total sense of we're gonna create everything originally and we're not gonna have take things from other uh nations, especially ideas. So for example, they have uh like a arc de triomphe.

um in in the middle of uh Pyongyang, which is where uh the great leader Kim Il Sung was sworn into office. And there's I think the same number of bricks as every day he was alive. The number of bricks is something significant. And Even though it looks exactly the one in Paris, it's actually based on a Korean medieval like four.

And they have this big obelisk, which just looks uh the tower of the Juji idea, which looks just like the Washington Monument. No, no, no, no, no. It's not based on that. It's based on some Korean thing. So their insistence is everything has to be from Korea, by Koreans, and and and for Koreans. Uh so they don't acknowledge dec especially decreasingly um uh anything to other countries. So in the Soviet Union, they have the hammer and sickle on their flag.

the symbol of the workers and the farmers, they added a writing brush, like a uh uh to for the intellectuals. So it's completely different. It has nothing to do with the hammer and stickle, it's just hammer, stickle, writing brush. So they increasingly downplay.

what role other people, other nations had to have. They'll mention Mao a little bit, helping in in the Korean War, they'll mention Stalin a little bit, but the argument is they did it pretty much themselves. And you they take pride, understandably. in that this small nation is taking on, you know, Japan and America and basically forcing us to our knees in their perspective. And uh the regime is effectively a hereditary monarchy at this point? So th this

What I learned from the North Korean literature, which I found extremely interesting, is they acknowledge foreign criticism and they reply to it. So when Kim Il sung, uh Kim Jong-il, the dear leader, the son of the great leader Kim Il sung was announced as the next leader, this was of course in communist circles the second world enormously controversial because we're against Kings, everyone's equal. And their argument is, no, no, no, no, no, you idiot.

He wasn't picked because he's the son. He was picked because he understands Kimel-sung and the Ju Shi idea better than anyone else.

And all of the propaganda post that was meant to kind of buttress this idea. And if you read their newspapers, uh it's interchange like like when I was in the plane, they gave me a newspaper two weeks ago. It doesn't matter because the news is all the same because i in it's not necessarily that the leaders are gods, it's the idea that everyone in the country is a major screw up.

So you'll have some factory, your glass factory, and when you read the propaganda, no one's named except for the leader. So say like Dear Leader Kim Jong il went to this glass factory.

and there's a problem with the machine and everyone's standing around and didn't know what to do and then the dealer saw that there's this dirt trapped in this crack and he popped it out and then the all the circuitry was working again everyone starts clapping and it's like okay great and then tomorrow we're gonna go to the box factory. So the idea is only he's basically competent. And but for the leader, uh everything's gonna go to hell. And that also applies militarily. Because the argument is

Just as the US imperialists invaded us during the Korean War, we are biding our time to reinvade. We have bases in South Korea, and but for now, Kim Jong-un, they will be here tomorrow and they will kill you all. And this national trauma of the nineteen fifties is still very much a part of their culture, and you can't blame them. I mean, um the blitz is obviously a part of British culture, and that was nothing compared to what the Korean people.

So what is life like for the average Korean? North Korean, you mean? North Korean, absolutely. Well they did something or Korean as an author would say. So they did something the thing that's beautiful about these totalitarian regimes is that is their language. Because everything is portrayed in great Right. So in North Korea, they did something called the Understanding People Project. It had several iterations that was

Sounds great. I want to understand people. You guys want to understand people. What they did, uh, they did this repeatedly, they interviewed every single person in North Korea. And they figured out what was your family background. Were you part of the great leader Kim O-Sung's you know uh um team of gorillas? Were you a priest or a capitalist landowner owner? And it went up to your second cousin. Based on this, you were assigned a Sungban score. Sungban is their cast.

And there's three broadcasts, favored, hostile, and wavering. And then there's subcasts. I think it's like 50 or 30. I don't even remember this. I mean, there it is. You're it's like a credit. The social credit score that China's trying to do. You're not told you're Songbun, but you can figure it out because your teacher will treat you a certain way. This determines every aspect of your life, including whether you can even step, you can't travel internally without permission.

You can't even st I've met refugees who had low Sungban and they're like You've been to Pyongyang. Is it amazing? I'm like, no. Like, don't you realize it's not amazing? But to even step foot in Pyongyang, you have to have high Sungban. If you're gonna be a guide, like you know, when I went on my tour, your Sungban has to be through the roof. You have to be very reputable.

If you're a the thing is in the nineties when the famine hit, those cities, towns, which had a poor Sungban were the last ones to get food. And they were the first ones to starve. So it was explicitly genocidal in terms of using food distribution to maintain the regime and to kind of get rid of the people who you don't like. And Kim Jong-un explicitly said having too many people makes socialism.

And let's touch on the famine, because when I was reading about it, it was horrific, and I couldn't believe that it happened as comparatively recently as the 1990s. So the UN can't because the the thing is for people watching this need to understand famine is only an issue for political reasons.

There is enough food produced worldwide, I think, to feed everyone three or four times over. The only reason people go hungry i I I I was talking years ago to someone who's uh my friend was dating a communist girl and she said as many Americans starve as people in North Korea.

And I'm like, all right, let's look it up. And it turned out the only Americans who had starved were like people who had been like captives. You know, like someone kidnapped you and and killed you. It's not a thing. Um The UN went to North Korea to feed distribute food and they would take them to village one on

Monday and everything's fine. They took him to Village 2 on Tuesday. They went back to Village 1 on Wednesday and the people, he's like, we were here before. No, you weren't. They weren't allowed to have Korean speakers on the staff. And they Kim Jong-il said, if you have these foreigners giving them food, they're not gonna need us.

So this was a conscious decision on the part of the regime to allow the people to starve to maintain their hold on power. Eventually the UN gave up and went home. So this was a, I think 10% of the population starved. Sewage broke down, polio came back, and do you know what they called it?

The arduous march, the same thing that the great leader Kim Il-sung had to do when he was escaping the Wicked Jap Devils in the pre-World War II days. Now we as a nation, calling on that narrative, are walking around arduous march. We got to stay the course.

And we're gonna see things through till the end. And is North Korea now from a kind of Western and global perspective now effectively a contained issue? So it's terrible for the people who live there. But it's not a country unlike Iran or the Soviet Union that's gonna try and project its power externally and mess things up.

In terms of North Korea's biggest excursions internationally were with South Korea. You know, they blew up a South Korean airliner because then South Korea got the Olympics and Kim Jong-il was salty about it.

uh i talk about that in dear reader as well um but they're there's they're they're size like califor they're there's a small country their the idea of expansion is where they're gonna go their peninsula they're they don't have this huge navy to to go elsewhere china of course and them have a contentious but uh uh you know a strong relationship in many regards. So yeah, they're not

The Juji idea is for Koreans only. They and they say this explicitly you can't export it to China, and although the conceit is that all these countries around the world are you know very interested in Kim Il Kim Il-sung's teachings and their books are translated and oh we all care about him so much but the point is this is just for Korea.

And it's not like Iran. And did they pursue nuclear weapons so that regime change would be impossible? Right. So Kim Jong il explicitly said we are going to make North Korea like a hedgehog. Because a hedgehog is a small animal with spines on its back pointing every direction. And that could take on the American wolf and the Russian bear and the Chinese dragon.

And he's right. Well and what's the extent of the nuclear arsenal? Well I I we don't know necess uh exactly, but it's not minor. And the and they're expanding on it. But and the here's the thing, you don't need soul is I remember during Trump's first term. where he Trump named John Bolton as national security advisor. And John Bolton had written an editorial in the Wall Street Journal saying basically like, if we want to strike North Korea

I don't think we even need to tell Seoul or we need the approval. It's like Seoul is just across the DMZ. That's where the border was uh drawn between the two Koreas. They can hit Seoul with population of several million easily and quickly. So it is a very dangerous game to be provocative uh with North Korea. At the same time as you saw in Romania, as you saw in Libya, if that North Korean regime falls down, those people at the top are going to personally be hanged.

And they understand this very well. When Ceausescu was shot in Romania on Christmas Day, um Jim Jong il took that footage, played it every day for the party cadres and said, if we go down, this is what's gonna happen to all of us. And he's not wrong.

And one of the interesting stats about the the Chao Chescu demise is that two days before there was an opinion poll in Romania which said that he had ninety three percent approval rating. Uh how I mean, are are the people of North Korea basically oppressed slaves?

Or is there actual real support for the regime? Uh I spoke to someone who is fairly I can't whatever. They they know what they're talking about. I don't want to out them. The CIA. Obviously. His point is that the people at the top. Uh and especially in the cities, no it's all

Like they know that Kim Jong-un is not the greatest things in sliced bread. They know it's nonsense, but there's an enormous incentive for them to stay the course and do what they can to try to keep the machine running. Something I want people to appreciate is And this often is a problem when you talk about Asian countries. These aren't robots. These are human beings, and I said this for ye over a decade now. What surprised me the most is how great of a sense of humor the North Koreans.

They are fun people. And that is, in a sense, makes it more tragic. The way I ingratiated myself to the North Korean people, my guide, is I took every racist joke I knew and made the punchline Japanese. So how do you keep a Japanese man from drowning? Take your foot off his neck. What do you call a thousand Japanese at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. My guide was in tears. And for a week I was the funniest person in North Korea. So and

And they y what I did when I'm when I went there is I got in everyone's face and waved as a noxious American because I knew they would give me a real reaction. Because they're not gonna have those improv skills. And you see grandmothers with their grandkids and you wave with the grandkid and the grandma smiles, she's proud of her grandkid and you see the teenage boys in their Adidas tracksuits and they're all surly, chewing gum and looking you over.

and you see the girls laughing and giggling and you see we went to the um uh uh maternity hospital and in the lobby there's a military guy holding his baby and you give him a thumbs up and he's proud, you know? So you the humanity is pervasive there uh and shockingly normal, which makes it that much more tragic. There they also do have uh a much greater sense of community than we have in the

There really is this sense of, uh, and I think this happens in poor neighborhoods here too. Like I don't have a lot, you don't have a lot, like, okay, I'll do your dishes, you do this for me. They they do have this sense of community. I guess you have to, but it that is a positive. And w and one of the most interesting figures at the moment in the politics is Kim Jong un. Of course. So let's talk about him a little bit. Because one more thing. The the sense of community is so strong. I

This is gonna sound like a joke. When there's like a fire, people line up to donate their skin for skin grafts. That's commitment. That's commit I mean you you you laugh, but it's like that says something. Yeah, of course.

So very briefly, Kim Jong-un, madman, as people often say, or is he a brilliant strategist or something in between? I I can't think of one reason why you would call him a madman. I've I hear that word all the time. I can't think of one thing that you would say about him that makes him crazy. Uh executed his uncle, his half brother. Why is that crazy? I mean every monarch in history did that. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean you y we obviously know King Charles Queen killed Queen Elizabeth. I mean he wasn't getting away with Camilla's behest. I mean that's I mean I c tell me you're not Charles pilled, right? No, but I mean that's not crazy at all. Yeah. What else? Uh threatening threatening to bomb South Korea. No, I know. It's just what we're talking about. Oh, let's talk about the threatening, because that's a good one. So North Korea does this cycle and the West falls for it every time.

So they'll, oh my God, you did this and this. It's such a provocation. It's unforgivable. But if you give us some grain you know it will look the other way. So they give them food and it's like, oh thank you. And then they try to they try to be the dove and like, oh let's meet, let's have a conference, oh blah blah blah. And then five minutes later, oh I can't believe how you talk to me. I'm gonna build more nukes. It's it they just do it over and over and it's it's a it's a cycle.

All right Michael, it's been great having you back. Our time is up. That was holy crap, that was Sudden, okay. Our time is up. It is over. Um, we're gonna go to Substack where our audience are gonna ask you their questions. But before we do, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should

Um, my graphic novel, unwantedbook.com. I've been working on it for twenty-five years. It's the story of a band from the eighties, a bunch of freaks who shot for the stars and didn't quite land there. And I'm very excited, thanks to Eric July, to see it come to fruition. Awesome. Head on over to triggerpod dot co dot uk where Michael is gonna answer your questions.

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