Labor Pains

Jaredy eight Sexton is, in my humble opinion, absolutely beyond. He's a political analyst. He is the co host of the Muckerak podcast. He is the author of the upcoming book that will be available January twenty twenty three, The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia and the Coming Crisis. I had an amazing time in this jam packed close to forty minute conversation with Jared where we really unpack the crises that are at hand and what our future

looks like. And frankly, you know, it's not often I mean, you guys know that I am a person that is ye of little hope, but it isn't often that I honestly get to get into the nitty gritty as to why I am of little faith as to why we need to understand that what we are fighting for is a future that we may not see right, and that is actually the responsibility of each generation to fight so that the generations that come behind us don't have to

remake the wheel. But in the fight that is impending, the fight for our democracy, the fight for our bodily autonomy, the fight for our civil liberties, we may be just at the precipice of the darkness, and we may not see the light again, but that should not stop us from doing everything that is within our power to make it so that there is another side, right, that some generation does get to the other side, and that sometimes, folks, it is necessary to break shit down, to break it apart,

to have a breakdown, in order to have a breakthrough. So Jared and I pull absolutely no punches in this conversation. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. Coming up next, my conversation with political analysts, co host of the muck Rake Podcast, an author of the upcoming book The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia, and

the Coming crisis. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to okay f Daily for the first time author all Around Badass jaredy eight Sexton, who has a new book that will be coming out in January twenty twenty three, The Midnight Kingdom, The History of Power, Paranoia and the Coming Crisis. He is also author of the twenty twenty book American Rule, How a nation configure conquered the world

but failed its people. Jared, thank you so much for making the time to join woke F. I want to talk about what we have been seeing over the course of the last several months, which is the normalization of dehumanization and brutality and cruelty as it pertains to the migrant crisis in this country, and what both Governor Abbott in Texas and Governor Descantis in Florida have been doing when they have decided to either bus or most recently,

charter planes to bamboozo migrants into believing desperate people into believing that there is work, housing, food, a better life on the other side of this transit. And then they arrive and they're dropped off on a tarmac or abandon in front of a building, and there are photo ops, and you know, they get to replay this humiliation and dehumanization on Fox News for political points. But what's worse is that our media is complicit in the continuation of this.

And so I want to get your thoughts on how this level of normalization is really getting to the core of the destruction of the values, most values this country was actually built on. Yeah, this stunt. We were talking a little bit about this before, like just how repulsive this thing was, And I want to call it what it is because a lot of the time we get caught up in the idea that this is a stunt or a game or some sort of political move, which

is what our media is portrayed. As we're talking about living, breathing human beings. We're talking about some of the most vulnerable people on the face of the earth right now, Families, children, months old babies who were being used by some of those powerful people in the United States as part of this stunts, as part of this giant manipulation. And I want to point out that what does that show us. It shows us that these people do not see these living,

breathing human beings as human beings. They're treating them like trash. It's literally the equivalent of a political stunt where there's some sort of I don't know, trash strike and as a result, you throw your garbage bags on like the lawns of the people in charge. What this is and it reveals like the deep, deep, corrosive white supremacy that is at the heart of not only the Republican Party

but also the powerful in this country. Because what is happening at this point is that the Republican Party is not just a worsening political project. They're representing a lot of forces and a momentum that's taking place in this country. We obviously have seen for years now these people have been put in camps. This is one of the stories. Hardly, it hardly rose up to the public consciousness. There were

four sterilizations. The amount of abuse that took place in these camps like this was for years and years and years, and it was not limited to just the Trump administration. This has been a continual abuse of these people who have been dehumanized and brutalized constantly. Occasionally, you know, we'll talk about it and there will be a moment where politically we'll talk about who's winning here, who's winning there?

Our media class and our political class have shared that view that these are not actual human beings that you necessarily need to treat humanely. It just so happens that the Republican Party says it out loud. These types of stunts are open expressions of that. The fact that our media is normalizing this, that they're calling this a protest, that they're saying it was a political move. Some people are criticizing it. Notice how the headlines sort of treat this.

What we're watching is this immigration quote unquote crisis, which is what they always call it, right, which is actually a humanitarian crisis. It's just being treated as what do you do with all of these people because we in the United States, we don't have enough resources to take care of them, which is absolute hogwash. It's absolutely absurd.

So we're reaching this point in our political environment where so called liberals, people who are supposed to care about these people, they're saying, listen, I wish we could treat them better, but we just we can't. We just don't

have the resources. We don't have the things, and you and I both know things are going to get worse as climate change starts to knockout resources starts to actually like corrode away of land, and this immigration crisis that everybody keeps talking about, this humanitarian crisis, is only going

to grow and grow. So what we're seeing from Abbot, what we're seeing from the Santis, this is an early preview of where all of this is going unless the United States of America has an actual reckoning with first of all, where we come from, who we are, what we've done, and how we treat people who are not considered,

you know, worthy human beings. So this is actually an expression of something that is latent within the American character and culture, and it just so happens that now it's coming to the forefront because this crisis grows and grows and grows, and we're sort of we're sprinting towards a cliff right now. So this type of cruelty, it's only

going to get worse, you know. It's I want to stay with this for a moment because I think that what has happened, and obviously we saw it magnify during the Trump administration, but it is the acceptance of a certain level of cruelty, right it is, you know, we went from revering and applauding essential workers at the height of COVID nineteen, to beating teachers up for wanting to have mask mandates, to sending in bomb threats to hospitals that are caring for people and saying that this is

a hoax and you're killing these people. This all does stem from a part of what your upcoming book is about, which is paranoia and the politics of paranoia and how when we're able to set it as well as the Republican Party has that the only thing that grows from there, as far as I can see as a student of history,

is violence, right, is authoritarianism, is fascism. So I want you to speak about the politics of paranoia and the how the insidiousness in which we are trying to defund our public education system and stop the learning of our history as a way to continue fueling that reality that they want us to believe, that alternate reality of their coming for us. Yeah, and to go ahead. I think public education is a really really troubling but perfect way

to look at all of this. So, on one hand, the attack on public education is absolutely about trying to push a curriculum which all these people are that goes ahead and whitewashes America's history of inequality, America's history of white supremacy, misogyny, you name it. This is about going ahead and sort of repairing a break in the dam.

Like as we're talking about what actual history is, they see that is like incredibly dangerous, right because it reveals what has actually happened and what this entire American project, how we've arrived at this point. Because if you start putting things together all of a sudden, you can have mass politics, you can actually push for change and and you know, some sort of course correction. So on one hand, it's absolutely about controlling information. And if you look at history,

reactionary causes always go after education first. That's the first thing that they do. They call teachers traders, they call them, you know, enemies of the people, they call them, you know, dangerous threats. That's always what happens. But there's a twin

part of this that reveals a larger thing. All of these sort of quote unquote grassroots groups that are going after CRT or you know, groomers in public education, they're all being funded by wealthy, wealthy donors and their their constellation of think tanks and institutes and the reason that they're doing that is not in order to control history and information. It's also to destroy public education in totality.

They want to go ahead and privatize it because and I'm getting ready to say trillion with a T, this is a potential trillion dollar industry privatizing public education. So what's happening in the middle of all of this. You can't have a Koke brother who comes out and says, my plans are to destroy public education and make billions

of dollars. That doesn't work right because people are going to hear, oh wait a second, you want to make sure that my child not only doesn't get an education, but also that they're going to make less money, which is part of this. Like, if you think this is going to stop at Roe v. Wade, it's going to We're talking about gay marriage, but we're also talking about things like minimum wage, we're talking about workplace regulations. An oversight like it's the rolling back of all of the

progress of the twentieth century. So you can't go out and say this is what I'm doing for my own profit, for my own empowerment and basically to finish off my takeover of government and public industries, so you have to create a story. And what this group always does, and again this is historical, is it's the playbook. And it's really kind of disturbing how predictable it is. What you do is you make up a story that explains why things are the way they are, why people are suffering,

but you take your blame and you transfer it over. So, for instance, you'll notice that in all of these stories, and I'm talking about in the New York Times and the Washington Post, all of them, they all talk about there's something happening in the country. We don't know why, there's some sort of anti democratic crisis that's taking place, and people who have just been paid millions of dollars

to diagnose the problems. And by the way, the problems are always a moral crisis, right, it's always the nuclear family has fallen off. People. Aren't you going to church enough? These people who've been paid millions of dollars to know everything, they just can't figure out what's going on, Like, who knows what's happening. It's a democratic crisis, but they can't

figure it out. And the reason is this, all of these stories, all of these conspiracy theories they take the onus off of the wealthy who have just not only become historically wealthy as they've created inequality, but they've started to take over the government. They've corrupted the government with special interests. They've basically bought off members of both parties. The Republican Party is only a pr front for these

people at this point. It goes ahead and it takes the spotlight off of this unequal capitalist system that they have completely run rough shot over, and it says, no, it's not economic inequality. The problem is satanic cabals, right, And it's always this supernatural evil capital evil, right. And what it does is it basically says that there are people who are serving Satan, who are serving and you know with Alex Jones, Q yeah, Q and on, it's

extra dimensional stuff. They're they're abusing children, they're doing all this. And you'll notice in all of this what always gets lost is the simplest explanation, which is this is because wealthy people want to agree more wealthy, Yeah, And it always is a detour that goes around it. So all of this paranoia, all of these conspiracy theories, they are intentional weapons. They go ahead and hide what's happening. And I'll tell you this, they always grow and grow and grow.

Whenever people get sick of this, they say, I'm so tired of working this hard, of being treated this way. The government obviously doesn't serve me. And then the wealth they say, hey, by the way, let's tell you some stories.

And those stories are always to that purpose. And I gotta tell you, the destruction of public education it makes it less possible to fight back against those conspiracy theories because they go ahead and they fill the vacuum of ignorance, and that superstition grows, and then you have the I was just talking on my podcast yesterday about the satanic panic when you have a conservative push, right when they take over the government and they take over power, all

of a sudden, you start talking about demons and possessions and evil spirits lurking in the dark. And what you're not talking about is the corruption by the wealthy of the government and the buying off of the public sphere. It's it's a perfect distraction and it's and it's worked for generations. You know what's so wild to me? I mean all of that like brilliant. It's like every alarm bell just went off. What is so wild to me

is how people fall for it all the time. Because I want to use again COVID nineteen as kind of the perfect model of what has happened to our idea and understanding of work and workers. Right, So we have twenty twenty, the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic. We shut down this country, and and you have only a handful of people who barely make minimum wage, if minimum

wage was even passed in their states. Right to be the ones that are going out to get you your groceries, that are bringing you your food to your house so that you can stay safe. But it was the poor and people of color that we said, here's this flimsy cloth mask, you go face the virus, so that I right, me, middle class and up people can stay wrapped in the safety of the cocoon of my home. Okay, we applaud those people. We don't call for an increase in minimum wage.

We don't call for, you know, a mandatory maximum of tipping. We do nothing. We just applaud them, We say thank you. Then after a little while we get annoyed with that many people who are privileged were able to continue to

work from home. Right, who then realized why the hell is I spending eight to ten hours a day in this cubicle, in this office, not being able to see my kids, not being able to cook my dinner, not being able to just live my life because I had these overlords that told me that if I wasn't in this space for eight to ten hours a day, the

entire society would collapse. Well it didn't, right, And now you have a younger generation of people who have graduated from school within this context of I actually don't need to be miserable. I don't need to bide my time for thirty forty years. So Jared, it seems really convenient then that we would find ourselves in this place where I have a president of the United States had just

said that the COVID nineteen pandemic was over. I got, you know, people telling me, well, you know, folks need to come back to work because you know, we need to have more community at work. Right, We're a family here.

Capitalism isn't about family, right, So I just it's so let us all tell these stories about how young people are so desperate for the community of the water cooler, so that then we all have to go back into this grind, into this machine because the higher the overlords are not going to be able to make as much money if people recognize that they actually don't need to

work as hard. So let me tell you the new narrative of quiet quitting, meaning I recognize my value as a human being and I'm no longer going to allow you to treat me like a mule. Yeah. And by the way, this is one of the reasons I Julie said, come on this show, because let's talk about some stuff to start with. What you just brought up in terms of like the lockdown is one of the most telling parts of recent American history, which is this. And by the way, I was one of those people. I was

a college professor who taught on zoom. I didn't have to leave my house. I could get DoorDash, I could get things delivered if I went out and exposed myself, like to get groceries and stuff. It was very, very rare. That privilege on my part was built on the backs of so called you know, essential workers, which was an incredible piece of rhetoric that we put out them right and basically and you're exactly right, not only did we not pay those people more, we have not advocated for

reform of our medical system. We haven't pushed for anything to actually help any of these people outside of like a couple of things that, by the way, Larry Summers had to go and tell Joe Mansion it was okay to vote on that. If you need to know how this stuff works, that's how it works. It's important to point this out. America is built not just on a class system, but on a very very rigid class system

that people don't want to admit. This is one of the reasons why you have a lot of people who are espoused liberals, right, they're like, listen, I care about people. I don't want people to be hurt. But guess what, A lot of your existence as a middle class white color work in this country is built and predicated on the suffering of poor people and people of color. I come from like a family of factory workers and labors. Let me tell you something. They didn't get to stay

at home, they didn't get to work on zoom. Every single day, they went out and put their lives on

the line. That cruelty. This is one of the reasons why we're facing a crisis in this country because the history shows us that as authoritarianism grows, and we have a bunch of myths about this, by the way, the myth that, oh, authoritarian dictators they're such good speakers, Like their speeches are so good, the words are so carefully chosen that it hypnotizes the masses, and the next thing you know, you're wearing an armband and goose stepping down

the avenue. That's not what it's about. The authoritarian dictators come in and say we're going to make this place work because there's a crisis in capitalism, and guess who lines up to support them. The middle class, particularly the white middle class. And this into everything that we're talking about. You have people in the media, you have a political class. They'll sit there and they'll say, I care about people,

I don't want them to be exploited. But meanwhile, down underneath it all, there's a conflict, right because they have power, they have wealth, they have influence. This is one of the reasons why our media class just can't see the problem.

What's everybody pulling their hair about it? Meanwhile, you know, some of us are yelling about it, and people have color been yelling about it their entire lives, right, because that contradiction has always been there, and this is one of the reasons why we see places like CNN and are like quote unquote liberal institutions that are normalizing this. They want a strong man, they want authoritarianism to an extent. They just they wish that it didn't come with the

vulgarity of Donald Trump. You know. They yeah, like, and that's why they love Ronda Santis because he's he's Trumpian, but he's not Donald Trump. He doesn't have those eccentricities, right. He just he makes the trains run on time. Right, That's what they want, That's what they love, and they will mainstream that. Meanwhile, we have come out of this pandemic, and pandemics throughout history they always lead to a realignment. There's always a moment. So like one of the most

major parts in history is the Bubonic plague. The Bubonic plague finished off feudalism. People all of a sudden, they looked up and they said, why am I working on your land and not getting paid anything? And they walked away and they went to the cities and they got jobs and they got paid more, and it actually broke it down and led to the creation of capitalism, which took feudalism and then turned it into a different form

of exploitation. Well, now we've reached this point, and this is one of the reasons why we are coming up on a point of crisis. We've reached this point where the pandemic literally created a new balance of power between workers and employers. Right, yeah, And we don't need to get totally into the weeds on this thing. This is

one of the reasons why they're raising interest rates. You, like, if you actually hear the speeches, if you read this is the meetings, they're saying, we have to rebalance the power between labor and employers. It's out of whack. So as a result, maybe a little recession could help make people more desperate to go to work. Can we pass, you know, legislation that will possibly make this happen. Meanwhile, you're exactly right, we have reached a point post of well,

I've belt said post pandemic, but it's still raging. Man. It's weird how those I know get in your head. We've reached this point where we are sort of reaching the possibility where labor might grow again. Like we're at like the first time in I want to say fifty years, the approval of labors off the charts right in terms of unions and solidarity. That doesn't work for the people who pay for government, who have corrupted the government. They

need people to go to work. They need people to come out into the offices, because it's not just about watching over them. Middle management is could completely just blow away tomorrow and everything be pretty fine, right, But they also it helps with real estate, it helps with these downtowns, Like the economy wants all of these people to go

and circulate the money and all of this. If the people are going to rise up, if they're going to form labor unions, if they're going to demand better working conditions because they're like I deserve better, well guess what a strong man is going to need to come along. And this is one of the reasons we've seen the

rise of Christian nationalism. This is one of the reasons we've seen the rise of anti democratic energies in this country because the wealthy I've reached a point where they have so dominated the sphere that people are like, screw this, this is obviously unfair. I'm not represented in government I'm not respected at work. I got fed into the maw

of a murderous generational pandemic. I deserve better and so as a result, now it's going to come to a point where someone has to put things right, you know, based on what these people want. Hey, I'm David Plots of Slaves Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news. Each week on The gap Fest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break down the races,

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in schools. Right, you know that this only Jared, It only goes in one direction, right, And so I want you to like and again, I try and paint a very clear picture of where things are headed. I remember twenty sixteen when I started woke a f and I said, this ship is going to get bloodier before it gets better. I said it on repeat as Donald Trump was ascending to the White House. I'm like, this is the beginning, literally of the end. I called it on national television.

White Supremaci's last stand. Right. I didn't say how long that stand would be, but I said it was going to be the last one. I will now tie in capitalism based on where we are and what has happened with this pandemic and continues to happen with the stories that are being told about workers. People are lazy, they're quiet, quitting all of this narrative that is coming down from on top. So Jared tell us, where does this go right? Because you say in your upcoming book that there is

an impending crisis. We're already living in compacted crisis. So what is the next one? Yeah, so basically we are sort of in I would say, the labor pains of a larger thing that is coming down the pike. And you know, it's really I'm with you. I was talking about this in twenty sixteen when I was like going into Trump rallies and talking to people, and people are like, that's absurd, He'll never get elected. And on top of that, like this is just hysterical hair pulling. Everything is fine,

the system will go ahead and regurgitate it. Meanwhile, one of the things that kept getting lost in this is that the American system of government was created specifically to go ahead and reward the wealthy, the white, and the powerful and keep everybody else in control. It was supposed to give us the illusion of representative government. This is the reason why we have so many minoritarian machinations within

the government. This is one of the reasons we have the electoral college, why the Senate was originally not direct voting, right, and also why it's still sort of populated the way that it is. The House of Representatives was almost supposed to be like, hey, check this out, you have democracy, you know, I mean, all the courts over here. It's like, no, no, don't you don't act. We've reached this point now where the illusions of the American myth, the idea of liberty, equality, freedom,

all those things. The American dream has always been a lie. The meritocracy has always been a lie. It's a game that was fixed for white, wealthy people, particularly white wealthy men. Now that that that illusion is threadbare, this is one of the things that happens when that illusion starts to become see through, people demand that something changes because that noble lie starts to lose its power. You have to

find a new noble lie. Yeah, And whenever we start having these problems where wealth accumulates in a few hands, and it's not shocking that you're elon musks, your Peter Teels, your cokes. They consider democracy the biggest inimy that they have ye period. They see that as their one impediment of power. This plays out over and over and over again. We've seen it with everything from the original slave even companies which took over their governments and outgrew the nations

that birth them. Right, all of these things always go in one direction, which is you reach a point of economic and political and institutional crisis, and then it's a moment of malleability. It can go in a couple of different ways. And I always tell people I actually am optimistic because humanity does continue to win these battles. Right, there will be something that flares up, whether it's the

Gilded Age, whether it's fascism, Nazism, you name it. They'll happen, and then people will eventually work their way out of it. I'm not saying that we'll live. I hope. The wheels were starting to turn and I was like, I don't know if I'll be here for the other side of it. Okay, no, not necessarily, because we're getting ready to go into what is probably going to be a long term crisis. And one of the things that you see with this, it's

not just conspiracy theories. You start to see white supremacist conspiracy theories of a very specific type replacement theory, right what we now call the deep state, or what QAnon says, this is a longstanding white supremacist idea. And it breaks down to this, which is democracy is dangerous because it allows outsiders, which are Jews, by the way, it's an

anti Semitic conspiracy theory. It allows them to infiltrate the government, rely on satanic traders, liberals, democrats, you name it, and go ahead and manipulate people of color who don't know better, right, because they're not smart enough to know better. And this isn't just by the way, deep state, QAnon. This is what happened during Civil rights, this is what happened during both red scares. It's a continual use of these conspiracy

theories by the powerful, again to protect themselves. We are reaching a point where this malleability can go in a different a couple of different ways. One we can have a better society, which means sharing resources and actually starting to fix those minority Harry and infrastruct which, by the way, involves learning actual history and learning how the Constitution was actually created and who it was created for. You can

create a fairer future right and democracy. When it wins out, it actually moves usually towards altarianism, or we can create a new illusion. And that's what stuff like fascism and Nazism did. It created a white supremacist mythology, It merged with Christianity, it merged with national myths, and it created a new myth Christian nationalism right now is what's on the rise. And the reason it's on the rise is

because it's a new mythology. It goes ahead and reinforces the old American mythology, the white supremacist mythology, the Christian mythology. And I'm sorry, but things can change into her. You can see all the progress of the twentieth century rolled back. Look at Hungary, look at Russia. What do they do? They take away your rights? They go ahead and say this is a free and fair society. Meanwhile, it's completely structured for all these for all these intentions oligarchs, and yeah, exactly,

So that's where we're going. The question is what wins out. But where we're at right now, this is not sustainable at all. And again talking about climate change like the worst thing, inequality and the specter of climate change, all of these things coming together, they are going to I mean, it's it's going to be combustible, and I gotta tell you it's going to be ugly one way or another, and there's going to be bloodshed one way or another.

That's just going to happen. The question is what happens on the other side of it, And that question is still up in the air. You know. It's so fascinating because I remember the first time, and people who listen to this show know that I reference this book all the time. The first time that I read Octavia Butler's parable of the Sower series, and I said, there's no way right that all that this perfect storm is created

Chris Show. Fascism, climate change, economic instability all happen at the same time to birth this new dark, dystopian America, right where each state is operating as its own fiefdom and has built walls around itself because there is no

longer any federal institution, any federal production. It's all been gutted. Right, So each and every place you have to pay off police much in the same way that you do that in developing nations, right, because there is no there is no one looking and making sure that everyone is on the up and up. And so when you say that, you know, there's a couple of places that this goes. The question will remain for the American people if they're

willing to go along for this ride. Yes, right, because we're being taken for a ride and it's like, are you buckling up for it? And again, this is one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you, because this is not pleasant stuff. And I want to be very clear because people always say to me, they're like, you know, this is like the Handmaid's Tale. That's always the push, right, like after the overturning of Wade. Well, I want to I want to speak some hard truths here.

When Pete, when when everybody said, oh Roe v. Wade's going down, there's going to be the marches are never going to stop. People won't deal with this. It's September, late September. Yeah, the marches stopped. You know, there are still there's still protest all of this, like part of what has happened, and it goes to what you just said, this idea that the federal oversight has been completely dismantled, right, and that's intentional. That goes back to these oligarch that

we're talking about. We now have reached a point where governors and this is why Abbott and de Santists are doing what they're doing. Why why even Gavin Newsom is doing what he's doing. At the state level is where the power resides. Now, that's where the main focus on things is, and you can get away with things like overturning roev Wade why because people in blue states feel like it's not going to affect them. Meanwhile, who's being affected.

It's people of color and poor people in states that have already been raff and so and I'm sure you've seen on social media as well, everybody like does this thing where they blame people who live in red states, like get out, just move, just move. And Meanwhile, what has happened. It's turned into this dissection of America where you have one side, like so called blue states that are insulated from these type things. Right, So, when you

talk about something like a Handmaid's Tale or dystopias. This authoritarian movement that we're talking about, it's going to be felt in certain places. It's going to lead to massive oppression in certain places, and in other places, life is going to feel a lot like what it feels like now. It's almost like gated communities. Right, you can pay a certain amount of money to be walled off from things. Yes, and neoliberalism, which by the way, is at the heart

of all of this. Neoliberalism is all about levels. You pay a specific amount to go on the airplane first, right, you pay a certain amount that you can bypass traffic on the interstate, whatever it is. You are going to reach a point where the dystopia in America is going to be something that you can pay to get your way out of. You can live a very twenty twenty two existence in the future that is away from the

oppression and way from that. You're going to have to pay for it, but you have to pay for it. And meanwhile, it's not going to be something like a Handmaid's tale. You know, you see this thing where it's like, oh, you've been informed on right, it's a spy network. Yeah, you're gonna have spies, but that's not what's happening here. You have algorithmic technology that is historically powerful, and we're already seeing the state use data from your phone, from

your search results, from your GPS whatever. We are talking about the construction of something historically cruel. But going back to what we were talking about with the middle class,

particularly the white middle class, they will allow authoritarianism. They will they will embrace authoritarianism if it allows them to keep their power, their privilege, and their safety, and it pushes the cruelty off on vulnerable people like these migrants, and they don't have to look at it, yea, if it can just be done over here, much like essential workers.

If I don't have to see them suffering, if I don't have to see them intubated, if I don't have to see them dying and saying goodbye to their families on iPads, then I'm okay with it and part of the problem. And I just want to make this final point on this point. One of the things that leads to change in this country, such as civil rights. Middle class white Americans were not necessarily rallying for civil rights in the fifties. In the sixties, it was TV bringing

the suffering into their home. Civil rights activists made them look at it, they made them smell it, they made them confront it. That's what moved the needle on this. But middle class white people particularly are fine with authoritarianism in a lot of cases as long as they don't have to witness it, and as long as it doesn't make them feel guilty about their own privilege, which is one of the upsetting and disturbing parts of this culture. I mean, and that is you know, and I will

end here today. God, I could literally talk to you for days, like a marathon podcasting. But you know, the fact is that to me, that is the responsibility and the power of the fourth estate. That is why it is so imperative that people are paying attention to how we are watching the crumbling of journalism and media under the pressure of capitalism and greed, and that without those cameras, without those conversations, without this analysis, that is clear of

partisan bullshit. But it's very obvious about what is happening to you, you'll just allow it to continue. Yeah, but we've been fed speaking in bullshit. We've been fed this bullshit story that the media is liberal and left. That's not the case. The media in a very very large sense. First of all, it's through a corporate lens. It's owned by giant corporations and billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who have a very particular point of view, which is that capitalism

is good. We don't need a lot of reform. Maybe we look at Trump and we're disturbed by him, but if we get rid of Trump, everything will be fine. Meanwhile, who are the people who are working in journalism? And I think you know this as well as I do. That doesn't pay enough for people to live in New York City and Washington, DC, in Los Angeles. These are people who come from wealth and privilege. In a lot of cases, their parents are subsidizing their careers in media journalism,

and or their parents are media moguls themselves. And so what happens here You have a lot of people who can't face this crisis. Why because if you agree that the meritocracy is broken, the white supremacy and privilege is what runs this country, right, and that is built on the backs of suffering of the poor and people of color.

All of a sudden, you gotta look in the mirror and you got to start wondering how you became like one of the main journalists in the country, and how you became a best selling author and how you became a media personality. That mythology of America is intertwined with their own personal mythology, and they can't face it. They just can't face it. And that's one of the reasons they hated Trump. Trump made them think about it, and they needed him gone. They needed Trump to get out

this absolutely incompetent but foonish, disgusting man. They needed him to be gone so they could go back to their own sort of privileged bubble and their own mythology could be safe. And again, a lot of these people will go along with this thing until the bitter end. God damn. Jaredy eight Sexton, he must come back to woke aff His upcoming book is The Midnight King, A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis, and he is the co host of the muck Rake podcast, which you guys have got

to listen to. Jared, I please, please please come back and join us again. This was eye opening, It was incredible, and I enjoyed the comvote so much. Well, thank you. It's one of my favorite podcasts. So this was a trade for me, thank you. That is it for me today. Dear friends on woke a App as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.