 So ask yourself this. How does the United States government treat individuals who they view as terrorists? Well, I think if you're watching this, you are informed enough to know the answer to that question. We indefinitely detain them. We murder them. So when the president of the United States takes to Twitter and he designates Antifa as a terrorist organization, what are the implications of that? Well, clearly if this is a terrorist organization that gives the United States government a justification to treat them as terrorists. Deny them habeas corpus. Deny them constitutional rights and kill them extra judicially if need be. So a lot of people I think kind of scoffed at that designation on Twitter but I do believe it's dangerous because it is inciting violence against anyone the United States government views as Antifa. Now, I've explained this before but to say that Antifa is an organization doesn't really make sense. It's like saying environmentalists is an organization. Sure, there are environmental groups, but to paint Antifa with a broad brush when that label refers to people who are anti-fascist doesn't necessarily make sense. But he did this because he wants to have some sort of justification legally speaking to treat them as terrorists. Terrorists don't get rights. Therefore, we treat you like the terrorists that you are under the view of the United States. And as soon as Donald Trump said this, well, of course, the far-right extremists currently in our government sitting members of Congress started to incite violence against Antifa. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz literally asked on Twitter why we can't hunt them like we do the terrorists in the Middle East. Let me rephrase that if you don't know why that's so outrageous. He asked why we can't hunt United States citizens like we do terrorists in the Middle East. Deny them due process. Kill them extra judicially. That's what he asked. Now Donald Trump by designating Antifa as a terrorist organization and then priming people to believe that Antifa is actually fueling these uprisings well when he threatens to use the US military against these protesters. What is he trying to do? He is trying to get you to think that the US military is fighting terrorists. That's what it does. It's not changing the way that it functions. The US military has always been fighting terrorists, right? We've been doing this war on terror since a lot of people who are now old enough to vote have been born, right? So it's not really a change. When in actuality, this is a change. To use the US military against US citizens is completely unacceptable and unconstitutional. So that's why this designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization is unacceptable. And it also doesn't make sense. But there are individuals within government who are far right who are using Trump's designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization to incite violence against US citizens. And before we get to Tom Cotton's op-ed in the New York Times, well, fewer people knew that he literally advocated for the murder of Antifa members online. He says there should be no quarter for insurrectionists and artists, rioters and looters, which means they should be extra judicially murdered by the state. Because if you're saying no quarter, well, this is a military term. That means we just kill them. We don't capture them. We kill them. That's what Tom Cotton, a United States senator, is saying about rioters, looters, insurrectionists, anarchists, people who might fall under the category of Antifa. So we now have multiple lawmakers advocating for the extrajudicial murder of US citizens after the United States president threatened to use the military to violently crush protest around the country. You have to understand the gravity of this situation and how serious that is. Whatever your political predisposition may be, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, right? Because if you're not allowed to vocalize your policy preferences in a way where you protest, if the government is going to use the military, if we establish that as a precedent, well, then you're not going to get anything you want ever again. So this is very serious. And you have people like Tom Cotton who are now cheering on Donald Trump as he threatens to use the military. He published an op-ed or The New York Times published his op-ed and it's titled Send in the Troops. The nation must restore order. The military stands ready. And in this op-ed, he explicitly calls for an overwhelming show of force to crush the rebellion. So let's recap. After this United States senator said there should be no quarter, for these people. He then said let's call in the U.S. military. This is a declaration of war against the American people. They're saying we're going to treat American citizens who we deem unworthy enough like we do terrorists. No due process. No habeas corpus in some instances. If you go to New York state, for example, we're going to extra judicially kill them. Why? Because we say that they're terrorists. So listen to us and take us at our word. This is dangerous. And the Republican party has already been an extremist party. They've already been a proto-fascist party for quite some time, but we're watching them transition from a proto-fascist party to a violently fascist party. Because when you start threatening violence against your own population and following through on that when you have police departments around the country using chemical weapons against United States citizens, we are officially entering fascist territory, right? It's not just fear mongering and alarmist rhetoric. We are in fascist territory. Again, a United States senator is calling for an action that could instigate a civil war. Pit the U.S. military against the very people that it's supposed to protect. And this is a brazen violation of the U.S. Constitution because think about this. Once the government does this, once the government steps in and crushes protests with the military, well, people will start to slowly but surely accept this as a normal thing, like we accept spying as a normal thing, like we accept a torture as a normal thing during the Bush years. So once we get to that point, all hope is lost. You want Medicare for all and you think that taking to the streets is the only way to get it. Well, now there's precedent if this happens where the military can crush you. It's deeply dangerous. And my worry is that we will accept this because we kind of are accepting this, right? Like I'm talking about it. Some of you online may have vocalized anger over this and there's been a lot of pushback about the fact that the New York Times even published this Goons article, but the fact that we're not protesting outside of their offices after individuals like Matt Gates and Tom Cotton said we should kill Americans extrajudicially that shows us that we might actually accept this. We might just sit idly by as the military steps in and crushes this protest. This is literally tyranny. This is the definition of the First Amendment being violated. This is fascism and every single person should be shaken to their core if they care about free speech right now. We're not talking about college students protesting certain speakers. We're talking about an actual threat to the First Amendment. We're talking about an escalation so serious that the U.S. government may use the military against citizens. Unacceptable. And anyone who stands idly by silently who just allows this to happen without speaking up, you know, maybe they like Donald Trump and they trust them so they don't necessarily see this as an issue currently. I promise you that if you don't care now, if you follow us through with this, you're going to care one day when a Democrat takes office and tries to crush a protest with the military. Because once we say this is okay as a country, then we tacitly give the government permission to do that. It's why they spy on us constantly. Do you understand? So this is deeply, deeply important that we all pay attention currently. Now, here's the thing. What oftentimes acts as a check on government tyranny or should theoretically be a check on government tyranny is the media. But guess what the New York Times did? They published the op-ed from Tom Cotton where he literally advocated for the U.S. government to crush these protesters. The New York Times should be going out of their way to act as a check on the tyranny that we're seeing currently. But what are they doing? They're aiding and abetting the fascists currently who are out of control. But it's not the first time that the New York Times has done this, aided and abetted fascists, platformed fascists. Because on June 22nd of 1941, they published an excerpt from Mein Kampf. Yes, you heard that correctly. Mein Kampf in an article titled, The Art of Propaganda by Adolf Hitler. Now, the attempt to justify this was that, you know, this was published for educational purposes. Since Germany wanted to wage a quote, unquote, psychological war on the United States, the editors likely thought that this insight into Hitler's thinking would be insightful for American readers. Although the problem with this is, if you just publish something uncritically without actually challenging it, it could have the opposite effect. Now this isn't the first time that the New York Times, rather than actually pushing back against the government tyranny, has platformed it and signal boosted for it. As Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs points out, they published an op-ed advocating for the bombing of North Korea, as well as the bombing of Iran, written of course by John Bolton, and they even published a piece by Blackwater's Eric Prince advocating for the privatization of war. Now I'm going to link you to Nathan J. Robinson's article in Current Affairs. I think that he does a really good job going through why, you know, this was a horrible idea for the New York Times to publish this op-ed by Tom Cotton. But the backlash to this actually made me feel a little bit optimistic, not a lot, but just a little bit, because there was some pushback from people who actually worked at the New York Times saying this puts their Black writers at risk. And it forced the editor to come out and actually respond. Now his response was absolutely terrible. He basically makes the generic argument that, you know, if you want to counter bad ideas, then you just need more good ideas, bro. And I mean, he basically implies that this was meant to be educational, even though he disagrees with Cotton's rationale. And let me just say, the same justification he used for publishing this is the same justification that they used to publish Adolf Hitler in 1941. Well, this is educational. No, if you want to get insight into an opinion that you view as deeply problematic, that is objectively unconstitutional, then you can't just publish it uncritically. You have to challenge it. If you're going to platform it, you have to actually subject it to scrutiny. Otherwise, people aren't going to view this as something crazy. A lot of people are going to read Tom Cotton's op-ed and think, wow, this makes sense. And it's published in the New York Times. So this is a legitimate argument that a reputable news source has published. So do you understand the problem with this? Now look, the New York Times can publish whatever they want to, they are a private company. But the irony embedded in all of this is that the same amendment, the first amendment that Tom Cotton is attacking, is the same amendment that allows the New York Times to exist. Freedom of speech, free press, these are all interconnected issues. So the fact that they published this, I mean, shame on them, if you're going to publish this, then challenge it, right? Don't just allow a United States Senator to suggest that we should violate the Constitution in a brazen manner. You're supposed to be a check on government tyranny. You're not supposed to assist them in their quest to gaslight and brainwash citizens. You're supposed to be the check. You're supposed to be the force that stops that, the Fourth Estate. So what I would encourage you to do, if you read the New York Times and you are a paid member, unsubscribe. I canceled my subscription. I was only the basic $4 a month subscriber, because I sometimes will use them as a source when I do the show. I canceled and I let them know it was because of the Tom Cotton op-ed that they published and they shouldn't aid and abet fascists as they literally help our government become more and more fascistic, right? I'm not going to support any institution or any organization that assists the fascists in their takeover of government and American life. Now I'm going to leave you with the wise words of Marian Williamson, who writes, the opinion editor of the New York Times should publicly apologize at the very least. Publishing Tom Cotton's op-ed was not just publishing a different opinion. It gave voice to a call for the military takeover of the United States of America. WTF doesn't even begin to cover it and that's exactly it. WTF does not even begin to cover it and if people don't grasp the seriousness of this, the scope of this moment and what it's going to require from us to overcome it, then we are in a lot more trouble than we think.