 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueroaido. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you, through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now, enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueroaido and this is episode 240 of the program. Today is Friday, May 8th and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support the show this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving to us. And that includes Bethany Cook, Eric Dolendel Vachio, Gato Love, Inas El Saban, Ivan Leonskivic, Joshua Landeros, Juan Sandoval, Kathy Lee, Keith Inholz II, Kevin Chavez, Manchevel, Nurse Hemp, Radio Ardia, Renee Kaver, The Midwest Princess, Theodore Pulver, Wanda Meadows, William Bruntz and Vanna Gonzalez. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the Independent Progressive Media Revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. You've got a jam packed episode for you this week. We'll talk about MSNBC finally asking Joe Biden about the tar read allegations followed by the response from centrists and spinning from other propagandists like Joy Reid will address the anti quarantine protests that took place. How Alex Jones is already wanting to resort to cannibalism. I'll remind you about who George W. Bush is and will close the show by talking to Savage Joy. And also I will talk to 2020 Green Party presidential contender Howie Hawkins about his campaign. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's show. Plus some additional segments. Hopefully you will enjoy it. Let's go ahead and waste no time. Get right to it. After more than a month of media silence, Joe Biden was finally asked about tar reads allegations in an interview on national television. As you all know, Mika Brzezinski asked him about this on MSNBC. And I think that, you know, judging by the response to this interview and the response of the general population now knowing about these allegations now that they have more details and facts, it's evident that nothing is going to come of this because the Democratic Party's base. They don't really seem to care. Now, I didn't necessarily expect anything to come of this. But I mean, there will be no political consequences for Joe Biden at this time at all. Certainly, I think that Republicans are going to try to weaponize this against him in November. But in terms of the Democrats and their base seeking accountability for Joe Biden. They just don't seem to really care. They don't actually believe survivors, contrary to what they said as little as two years ago when they wanted all of us to believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the allegations that she brought forward against Brett Kavanaugh. I believed her and I believe Tara Reid, but not as many people are that consistent. Now, predictably, Joe Biden denied these allegations. And I will say that I do think Mika Brzezinski did an admirable job. But I'm not going to give her too much credit because when you wait more than a month to even mention it, there is an issue there. There's a media bias problem that we have to address as a society going forward. But with that being said, here's what he had to say about this allegation. But Mr. Vice President, as it pertained to Dr. Ford, everyone wanted on high level Democrats said she should be believed that they believed it happened. You said if someone like Dr. Ford were to come out, the essence of what she is saying has to be believed, has to be real. No, I know what I said. It has to be real for Dr. Ford, but not for Tara Reid. They're because the facts are that look, she I'm not suggesting she had no right to come forward. And I never and I'm not saying any woman, they should come forward. They should be heard. And then it should be investigated. It should be investigated. And if there's anything that makes it that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed. But ultimately, the truth matters. The truth matters. It's period. I thought my entire life to change, to change the whole notion of the law and the cultural sexual around the cultural sexual assault when I fought to strengthen and protect the process for survivors. I believe they come a long way and we have a long way to go in this system before we, in fact, are in a position that there's a fair and unbiased view. But at the end of the day, it has to be looked at. These claims are not true. There's no co-op. I mean, they're not true. Mr. Vice President, I can say to you, are you absolutely certain? Are you absolutely positive? There is no record of any complaint by Tara Reid against you. I am absolutely positive that no one that I'm aware of ever has been made aware of any complaint, a formal complaint made by or complaint by Tara Reid against me at the time this allegedly happened. Twenty seven years ago or until they I announced for print. Well, I guess it was in April or May of this year. I know of no one who's aware that any complaint was made. So predictably, he unequivocally denied this accusation. And if I were Joe Biden, if I'm innocent and I know that this didn't happen, I would unseal the document that would lead to her complaint because if there's a complaint that's there and she doesn't allege that she was sexually assaulted and only sexually harassed, that she says the complaint says you can kind of use that as evidence in your own favor to at least at a minimum downplay these allegations. Now, oftentimes sexual assault survivors, they change their story. They disclose a little bit of information and then they reveal more as time goes on, as they become more comfortable talking about this. But regardless, if you want people to know these details, if you want a proper investigation to be conducted, you unseal these documents and you just allow a very narrow investigation into these records so people can see the complaint that she had filed. Right, because she said she did file one. It's going to be there. So the question is, why wouldn't he do this? Why won't he unseal this document so we can see it? And the answer is, well, he doesn't have an answer. And I'm just talking about her name, not anybody else in those records a search for that. Nothing classified with the president or anybody else. I'm just asking, why not do a search for Tara Reade's name in the University of Delaware records? Well, Mika, because I'm trying to pretend like she doesn't exist and that I never knew her and I want to move on from this as quickly as possible. Yeah, see, he was speechless there because he doesn't have a good answer. There's no good answer for this. If you're innocent, you want the most thorough investigation imaginable to be conducted because you know that more information is going to be better for you. It's going to strengthen the case. But he's not doing that. He's not doing that. Now, prior to him actually talking about this directly in an interview with Mika Brzezinski, Chris Hayes actually covered this in a really brief segment and the backlash to him even mentioning Tara Reade's allegations was huge. But before we talk about, you know, the aftermath, this is the segment that he put out just a day or two before Joe Biden actually addressed these allegations head on. There have been moments, I think for many of us, all of us when we have heard about accusations against someone that we find ourselves desperately wanting not to believe, whether that is because we have some personal admiration for the individual or their work or political admiration, someone on our quote unquote side. The part of the difficult lesson of the Mitu era is not that every accusation is true and everything should be believed on its face, but that you do have to fight yourself when you feel that impulse. You have to do that in order to take seriously what is being alleged and what the evidence is and to evaluate it. And that is the case with the accusation by a woman named Tara Reade against Joe Biden. Now, at first, when I saw Chris Hayes do this segment, I was genuinely surprised. I was taken aback. I didn't expect this. And I thought, wow, credit words do. He's being responsible. He's trying to be objective and he's doing his job. But then I reminded myself, you know, how low the bar has gotten and that we shouldn't applaud a journalist for finally doing his job after more than a month of silence. I mean, if you go back the first time when we talked about this on the Humanist Report, it was at the end of March. So, you know, I can't give him too much credit for being this late on an issue and basically tap dancing around these allegations and adding a hundred different caveats about how he doesn't really want to believe this because he supports Joe Biden and what have you. But still, even though he covered it a month too late, immediately after that segment aired, hashtag Fire Chris Hayes immediately started trending on Twitter. And, you know, even though I didn't really see too many people directly calling for Chris Hayes to be fired, I saw mostly people saying that the prospect of him being fired for talking about this is stupid. Just the fact that anyone believes that a pundit should be fired for doing what should be their job. It really tells you a lot about the state of American politics and American political discourse. It is so toxic because here is, you know, an outlet who was, I think, rightfully holding Brett Kavanaugh accountable. And now the minute they try to hold someone on their own team accountable, you see the backlash from their audience, which consists mostly of Democratic party loyalists, and you're seeing that this is basically a cult. This is a group of people who are not interested in ideology or policy. This is a team sport to them and so long as they can get their team across the finish line, that is all that they care about. Now, the backlash to this became so overwhelming that Chris Hayes actually had to address this in the following segment in the next episode that he did. And I think that he he gets a little bit of credit for, you know, remaining courageous enough to not back down. But you can see here, he's kind of doing a little bit more lopsided coverage in this segment because he brings up the inconsistencies with Tau Reed's claim, but he doesn't actually talk about how we have new evidence that corroborates what she says, which is why we're all talking about it now, which is why, you know, the media is all of a sudden covering this because you can't not given the new information that we have like the Larry King clip, right, her neighbor's account. So this is the follow up segment that he did. We covered this story earlier this week. A few days ago, Joe Biden had not addressed these allegations today. As you saw, he did. It was his first time directly responding to them on the record. A lot of people were unhappy with the fact that we even covered the story, which is why you may have seen the hashtag fire Chris Hayes trending on Twitter most of the day yesterday. You know, let's say I received a lot of feedback about the segment we did, which basically fell into three categories. The first category for people who basically said, I don't believe Tau Reed, Tau Reed, I believe Joe Biden, based on their assessment of the actual verifiable facts of the story, such that we have them. And they pointed out, as we did when we covered this the other day, that her story has changed quite considerably. A year ago, she told a California newspaper that in 1993, Joe Biden touched her several times, making her feel uncomfortable. And then back in March, she made a much more serious allegation claiming that in 1993, then Senator Biden sexually assaulted her, penetrating her with his fingers under her skirt. Biden denies that accusation, as you saw, specifically responded today. Tau Reed also claims that she complained to three other people who worked in Biden's Senate office at the time when she was there about harassment, not assault. And then all three Biden staffers who've been contact by reporters, they all say no such complaint was made. Biden's then executive assistant was vehement in her denial, quote, and everyone's witnessed or heard of or received any reports of inappropriate conduct, period, not from his read, not from anyone. I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reed's accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional and as a manager. The people that fall into category one say that the weight of those three people, those three staffers, plus Joe Biden, long record of public life, against what Tau Reed says about what happened the time, leads them to conclude that she is not telling the truth. Now, the second set of responses I got was from people who fall into the I don't care category. Some of that even used the phrase, we're in the midst of a national nightmare, the worst disaster in generations, and we just need to get rid of Donald Trump. Now, that is not the way that I think about analyzing this particular story, but it's an honest expression of how some people view the trade-offs and the stakes here. And then the third category, which I got a lot of, was the one that was the most disquieting to me, which is a whole lot of people pointing to various aspects of Reed's character or her writings or her politics as a kind of proof that she's not credible, that she's making it up. Oh, she didn't report this sooner, or she said nice things about Joe Biden, her former boss at one point. So how could he have assaulted her? Or she supported candidate Bernie Sanders, so clearly this was just a political hit job, where she said things that people find strange on social media and on and on, much of it adding up to, you just can't trust this woman. Now, these are the kinds of things that have been used forever against women making these types of allegations. To me, the lesson of the Me Too movement is not that you believe every single allegation, of course not. No, the lesson is to take accusations seriously, to swiftly investigate the facts surrounding them as best as one can, while leaving aside the worst age-old instincts to drag the women who make those claims through the mud. So good on him. I have no problem with him bringing up the inconsistencies in the story with regards to Tara Reed, but you do have to be fair. If you truly are trying to be objective and get to the bottom of this, you mentioned the Larry King clip, right? You bring up her neighbor's accounts and how she was told about this in the 1990s. And she believes Tara Reed, even if she supports Joe Biden, this is all relevant. It's important. And I think it's also important to acknowledge how experts say it is very common for sexual assault survivors to change their story, because, again, it makes sense. Like, you're not going to share everything right away if you're not comfortable. This is why a lot of sexual assault survivors, they don't even speak out, because this is not just painful to relive. It's embarrassing. Like, you don't want to disclose these details, right? Who wants to do that? You don't want to bring this onto yourself. But, you know, I will give credit to Mika Brzezinski, because she did actually do a really comprehensive segment. And I thought that she did a phenomenal job just laying out all of the detail. She gets into Tara's inconsistencies, but she also goes over how, you know, Tara's story is credible. And, you know, her claims have been corroborated by numerous individuals. The point is that everyone who's watching should have all of the details laid out. They should know everything that there is to know about this story. And ultimately, they can use that information and do what they want with it, right? If you want to demand that Joe Biden step down, I think that would be a smart move. I don't think that an alleged rapist should be the nominee, because I believe Tara Reid. But I mean, the point is that they need the information. But what we're learning is that the information doesn't matter after all. Like MSNBC's audience didn't just need to know about this. They don't care. They know now. We can't say that they're ignorant. They just don't care. Their minds have been made up from the get-go, right? This is a cold. They don't care about objective facts. They just want their team across the finish line, as I stated. All they want for MSNBC to do is to shut the fuck up, confirm their biases, and move on to how bad Donald Trump is, and talk about Russia some more, I'm assuming. And, you know, I'm going to show you the response, because it really confirms that they have no core principles. You know, I'm not being hyperbolic when I describe their reaction. You have actress Deborah Messing trying to smear the victim by sharing a blog post about how Tower Read allegedly stole money from some nonprofit organization. And look, even if this were true, it doesn't mean that she wasn't sexually assaulted. This does nothing to invalidate her claim. She also then thanked Lindsey Graham, who never believes women, but because he stood up for Joe Biden. Well, you know, she is thanking him here. You have Richard Comey, who wrote one of the dumbest tweets I have ever read in my entire life saying, judging by the position of the female vagina, it will not be easy for anyone to just put their finger into the vagina unless there is some cooperation from the female herself. Did you catch that? I mean, this is some next level stupidity. Next level stupidity. But believe it or not, it gets worse, because after, you know, liberals and MSNBC-brained shit libs, you know, spent time smearing Tower Read, trying to assassinate her character, which is common in these types of publicized cases that happened to Christine Blasey Ford. You know, then Biden supporters moved on to attacking journalists, which is something that they say you should never do because it's bad when Trump does it. But here is a bunch of Biden supporters now attacking journalists. You have Biden or Buster, Lindsey Lee tweet out, now the Tower Read story has completely imploded. It hasn't. I hope the FBI investigates Nathan J. Robinson, Katie Halper and Ryan Grimm for their role in this fraud. Tara, or whatever your actual name is, you have gravely harmed real Me Too survivors. Chris Jackson tweeted, who thinks Ryan Grimm should release any correspondence he has had with Read considering she telegraphed her hit job to him in a tweet a month ago? And after writing a thoughtful piece for The New York Times about why Democrats should ditch Joe Biden, Elizabeth Brunig shared this letter that she received from a reader who writes, your recent column about the big fat tub of shit who was spouting lies about Biden and expecting ultra lib fem dyke bleeding hearts like you to believe her was as wrong minded as anyone can get. Don't you see that you have already tried and convicted an innocent man over something that, as he put so well, never happened? Can't you see when you're being conned? I don't know where you came from, but the time should get rid of you and allow you to slink back into that hole. So in case you lost track, they first smeared Tau Reed or attempted to. After that, they went after journalists who helped to publicize this story. And then they called on some of them to be fired, called on any journalist who dared to ask for some accountability to be fired, send them nasty letters, and predictably all of this has culminated in Tau Reed receiving threats. And nonstop harassment. The same exact thing happened with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The same people who said that what happened to her was disgusting are now doing the same thing, albeit for a different victim. Zero consistency whatsoever, because they didn't care about the details. They don't care about believing survivors. This is about their team winning, and that's it. That's what this is about. They don't care about ideology. They don't care about policy. These people are not principled. They don't care. That's what's been made incredibly clear over the course of the last week. They're literally doing exactly what defenders of Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh did. They're smearing the victim and attacking journalists. Because how dare anyone believe that a man who literally sniffs women's hair on camera and touches them inappropriately and invades their personal space, openly flirts with women. I mean, how could anyone think that this person would possibly take things a little bit further when the cameras weren't on, considering how far he goes when he knows that they're filming him? How dare you even question this? So, I mean, all that stuff about believing women? There's a huge caveat. Only believe women when they accuse Republicans. And the same is probably true for Republicans. I mean, we've seen the hypocrisy. Trump Jr. is tweeting out, you know, stories about Tareed when his father has been accused of sexual assault when he defended Brett Kavanaugh. So, nobody's hands are clean here, except for the left, everyone is a hypocrite. It's always, you know, we'll use these allegations if they're politically convenient. And that's the only time we're gonna purport to care. And the person who had, I think, the most profound response to this is Jamie Peck, who, you know, on Majority Report in a recent episode, I think she said everything that we needed to hear right now and what we're all feeling. Take a look. I guess I should back up and say first that I believe her. There was a lot of concurrent reporting, which we're seeing come out. And the story rings very true to me, as I'm sure it does many survivors of sexual assaults and workplace sexual harassment. It's very normal for survivors to change their stories based on cues they're getting about how they're gonna be received if they don't feel safe. Of course they're not gonna tell you the whole thing. I said like six months ago on this show that I wouldn't be surprised if Biden had a Me Too coming. And people thought that sounded a little farfetched, but this stuff exists on a continuum. And seeing the way that he touches women in public, it's not that surprising to me that he'd also do it in a worse way in private. If you listen to him on Morning Joe today, he wouldn't even say that he remembers her, which makes me sick, but is also probably true because like he said, she was nothing to him. He did it incredibly casually and also he's fucking senile. So I believe that he probably doesn't remember it and he's just used to having people cover up for his... I mean, this is like another side point about how maybe people shouldn't be in positions of immense power for that long because it tends to both attract people who like having power over others and also it can corrupt people, right? So going forward, like the Democrats have bet on the fact that nobody's gonna care about this and on a societal level, they're probably right. But we saw this during the Kavanaugh hearing, right? I was 100% sure nothing was gonna come of it because this society does not care about survivors of sexual assault. And at the time, a lot of Democrats were saying the right things. They were right about this. That guy should not be on the Supreme Court. Now we have a bunch of people who said that stuff back then, deleting their old tweets about it and turning around and doing exactly what the Republicans were doing to Christine Blasey Ford, attacking her character, attacking her as a Russian ass saying she's got a screw loose, it really, it's disgusting. And I know that I've argued for the Me Too movement in the past because although it itself is not a radical phenomenon that has a limited analysis, but it can point in radical directions, right? If we turn it into a conversation about power and the wider problems of the things that suck about having to work for a boss who has absolute power over you, right? But I think Me Too itself has been largely corrupted and co-opted by the establishment. We see this with Anita Dunn's relationship with Time's Up. This person should not be in charge of this kind of thing. And it's entanglements with the NGO Industrial Complex which basically exists to launder the reputations of wealthy liberals and their children. They do some good work, but it is essentially a bourgeois institution in that it upholds the existing power structures. So maybe we need a different kind of Me Too that has a more radical analysis, a more independent existence independently of these bourgeois institutions. I don't know. It's just, it's really depressing to me and it's depressing to see the Democratic Party going the same route that they went with Bill Clinton, right? Like, we have two alleged rapists running for president and I really think a socialist feminist analysis is the only thing that can explain it right now. That was great. That was great. And I'll link you to the full video because she does say more, so I'll put that in the description box. But what she says here is profound. Look, it is really depressing. Like, I never was under the assumption that Democrats believed in anything, but I at least thought that the Democratic Party's base was a little bit more ideological or principled than, you know, leadership of the party, but they genuinely don't care. And there's something inherently heartbreaking about that, right? This election is full mask off for liberals and centrists. Full mask off. Nobody cares. They don't care. I don't know what else to say. This has revealed that. So it's certainly frustrating. You know, I felt hopeful that survivors of sexual assault were actually going to see a new culture in America because of the Me Too movement and all of the strides that we've made, but as you can see, you can only push so far until, you know, you accuse the wrong person. And then the movement's over. It's just, it's genuinely heartbreaking and there's nothing left to say. Centrists just don't care. You can give them all of the details. You could probably show them a video of Joe Biden committing a crime and they are not going to abandon their support for him. It's like Donald Trump, you know, his supporters will never leave him. And the same is true for Democrats. They're going to support Democrats no matter what because, you know, that cult mentality, that team sport mentality, it's just too strong for us to break through. It doesn't matter how much facts and objectivity, you know, we try to bring to this conversation. They just don't care. They're not like you and I. They have no principles. They have no morals or they do only up to a certain point. Look, love or a hater, you've got to hand it to Joy Reid. She is a very talented propagandist. And yes, she is a hack, but she's a clever hack because she managed to pull off something that I didn't think was possible. She took the Joe Biden Tower Reid story and somehow twisted this into an anti Bernie Sanders story about the notorious Bernie Bros. who have a plot to overthrow Joe Biden and install Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Party's nominee. Yes, she put this out there. And I think she is relatively convincing if you're already kind of predispositioned to believe the bullshit that MSNBC spouts on a regular basis. So we're going to get to that. But also I want to talk about how she managed to assassinate the character of Tower Reid or at least attempt to, but I think this will land with her audience, by preying on the conspiratorial instincts of the average MSNBC viewer. And she's trying to smear Tower Reid by using Russian hysteria and McCarthyism. And what she does here should definitely be written about by scholars of media and media bias for decades to come. This clip should be featured in the sequel to manufacturing consent. If there ever is one, take a look. Most weirdly, back in 2018, Reid wrote a series of blog posts extravagantly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, who intelligence agencies say wage cyber warfare against the United States in order to get Donald Trump elected president. And one such blog post, which she published on Medium and has since been deleted, entitled Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin, she wrote, quote, President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. Ms. Reid now says that her praise of Putin was misguided. So that is what I like to call a good old fashioned smear. Because the subtext of that clip was that, you know, since she loves Vladimir Putin so much and since Vladimir Putin loves Donald Trump, well, if you connect the dots, maybe, I'm not gonna say, but maybe, Vladimir Putin put Tara Reid up to this. Maybe he convinced her to fabricate these sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden and help Donald Trump win. She didn't say it, but that's what she was priming you to believe. She didn't have to say it to get you to think about that. But I have a counterpoint. Maybe it's the case that not everything is a conspiracy. Maybe Tara Reid just has a bad opinion, a wrong opinion about Russia, Russian politics and Vladimir Putin, but that she also simultaneously was, in fact, sexually assaulted by Joe Biden. I mean, two things can be true at the same time. She could be wrong about Russia, but be telling the truth about Joe Biden. Now, Joy Reid would never point this out because that wouldn't serve her political agenda. But nonetheless, MSNBC viewers aren't going to question this because they trust Joy Reid. They think that what she's doing is, you know, espousing information that they need to know. She thinks that you need to know that these pro Vladimir Putin blog posts by Tara Reid discredit everything that she's saying. And to make matters worse, we bring in the Bernie broke conspiracy theory about how this is all just the plot for us to basically push Joe Biden out and get what we want it all along, Bernie Sanders as the nominee. And she's the only pundit who's brave enough to call this out. Except that's not really what anyone is saying. Do I want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee? Yes. Do I believe if we were successful at getting Joe Biden to step down that all of a sudden the DNC would just bring out Bernie Sanders and be like, all right, kids, you did it. Congratulations. No, that's not what anyone's asking for. Basically what we're calling for is just generalizing here. Joe Biden, step aside. Let the rest of the nominating process play out. Let people vote. We don't have to go with him. He hasn't clenched the nomination officially. He hasn't reached that magic number of 1991. So why can't we just let the remaining people who were in the race unsuspend their campaigns come back and compete for the nomination aggressively? I mean, I haven't seen anyone say, let's install Bernie Sanders nonetheless. That's what she wants you to think that we want to do. So she tweeted out, for Sanders diehards, it at least seems to be about letting the media needle Biden into resigning and somehow replacing him on the ticket with Sanders. Although in the unlikely event Biden did that, why wouldn't he just seed his delegates to, say, a woman? Well, I mean, because logic and fairness dictates that the person who was in second place should be the front runner to be the nominee. But nonetheless, she continues here. If Sanders was the nominee or was on his way to gaining the nomination, would his supporters be pushing this case or helping misread in the same way? Is she what they care most about? Or is it getting that nomination by any means necessary, having not gotten it via votes? So what we're kind of seeing here is a little bit of projection. Since she is nothing more than a political hack, since she believes in nothing, she assumes that we all don't believe in nothing also, like her, right? Except I do believe in Tareed. I do believe that we should do everything in our power to make women feel comfortable to come out and share their stories, right? Now, certainly, I'll admit that I think that this would be less relevant for sure if Joe Biden wasn't seeking the highest office in the land. But I mean, you could flip this and ask the same question about her advocacy for Christine Blasey Ford. Did you only care about her because Brett Kavanaugh was needing to be stopped? Or would you care if he wasn't going to be on the Supreme Court? I mean, you can ask the same questions about everything you and your colleagues were saying about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. You can care about the woman in this story, but also acknowledge that it is especially relevant if they are seeking a position of power where they will be dictating policy ultimately that is going to impact women, every woman in the country. Don't you think that that is more relevant? I think she knows she's just, you know, being intentionally obtuse here, but there's more. She tweeted out, and has any journalist who's been covering Biden for a long time or anyone from the 08 campaign done any writing on why these complaints, if they were written and to supervisors, didn't come up in the Obama vetting process or during the general, or did they? I genuinely don't know. Maybe it's because Obama isn't infallible. In fact, he's a really bad person objectively speaking. If you think murder is bad, killing innocent civilians in, you know, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, if you think that's bad, then Obama isn't a God. Maybe we shouldn't just think any and everything that he does is good. Or, you know, maybe they would have, you know, not selected Biden if they knew about this, but they didn't. Maybe they just messed up. Or maybe Tareed didn't want to share her allegation. The point is that what you're using here is a tactic straight from the Republican playbook. Remember what they were saying about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford? Well, why is this coming up all of a sudden? Now that he is nominated to be on the Supreme Court, why didn't she bring this up sooner? It's the same question that we were asking, that Republicans were asking back then, and now Democrats are asking this, albeit about Tareed. It's political hackery that is so, so transparent that it's embarrassing. You'd think they'd be embarrassed anyways, but they're not. They're not. And she said more about this on her program. And it's just, you know, honestly, you would think that there would be some mechanism in Joy Reid's brain that would trigger some level of shame, right? That would make her think, maybe this makes me look like a hack. I probably shouldn't talk about this too much because it's embarrassing. It's not a good look. And this comes after she lied about time-traveling hackers writing homophobic blog posts for her. But I mean, nonetheless, she talks about how this is definitely a plot from the Bernie rose to install Bernie and rig the nomination. We also have to talk about the timing of all of this. Ms. Reid made her allegations public in late March when the primary was down to just Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And days before Sanders announced he was suspending his campaign. Some Biden supporters have questioned Ms. Reid's motives because of that timing. Ms. Reid voted for Sanders in the California primary. And that of course doesn't mean that she's not believable. But some Sanders supporters have used the allegations to call for Biden to be replaced on the Democratic ticket because of these claims with the implication that Sanders should replace him. Okay, so this is why her conspiracy theory doesn't make sense. If Tar Reid decided hypothetically to fabricate these allegations, why would she choose to time it after Joe Biden had already basically locked up the nomination? Wouldn't you, if you're trying to have the biggest impact, target that time after Bernie Sanders won Nevada and before Joe Biden won South Carolina because it seemed like he had momentum as we inched closer towards South Carolina. He picked up Jim Clyburn's endorsement. So wouldn't she choose to then drop these allegations if targeting Joe Biden and hurting Joe Biden was her only goal if she wanted to help Bernie Sanders? I mean, you'd think, right? But instead she chose to come out with these allegations when Bernie was already losing. If anything, you can argue maybe she didn't want to hurt Joe Biden, which is why she came out with this after he already had the nomination basically locked up, after he sweeped on Super Tuesdays two and three. But Joy Reid is just trying to get the audience to think, you know, maybe this is a made up allegation. Maybe she isn't doing this because she actually was assaulted by Joe Biden. I couldn't believe that someone who sniffs women's hair on television would ever do this. But I mean, maybe she just wanted to hurt Joe Biden and maybe this is a plot to have Bernie Sanders installed. And there's a little bit more on this that I want to talk about. Take a look. A couple of the challenges that I think people are having with the whole way this is playing out is that on the one hand, there's concern for Tara Reid for her to have closure, you know, her accusations to be looked into properly. And then there's the sense that the people who are pushing this the hardest don't primarily care about her. There is this subtext of this being some kind of an opportunity to maybe ultimately get for Senator Sanders a nomination that he didn't win the old fashioned way, right? So you had Claire Sandberg, who is Senator Sanders 2020 National Organizing Director, tweet, now is the time to deal with the ramifications of Tara Reid's accusations. Sorry, this is not cut nine for my producers. Not this fall. There is simply no moral justification for Biden to continue as the presumptive nominee out of respect for survivors and for the good of the country. He should withdraw from the race. That kind of thing is what's unnerving. I think a lot of people about how this is going. So this is just more projection from Joy Reid because she's a hack. She thinks everyone is as equally hacky as she is. But believe it or not, we do believe in the Me Too movement. We believe in these types of political causes, right? Not everyone is always acting for purposes of political gain. Believe it or not. But she's a pundit. She only thinks about these things in terms of what the payoff will be and whether or not she's going to take a stand will hinge on if there will be a political payoff of some sort. Now she also shared Claire Sandberg's tweet to supposedly, you know, prove that this is all nothing more than a plot to bring back Bernie Sanders. But in that tweet, Claire Sandberg didn't even mention Bernie Sanders. And she's basically making a strawman that we want to just Me Too Biden out of the race so Bernie can win rather than having him win the old-fashioned way. That's what she said. Yes, because let's pretend that MSNBC cares about winning the old-fashioned way after when Bernie Sanders was leading when it looked like he was going to get a plurality, your colleagues were defending the prospect of super-delegate stealing the nomination away from Bernie Sanders in order to give it to someone like Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden. So don't pretend like you're principled and you care about winning votes because you were one of the loudest cheerleaders defending the DNC's rigging of the 2016 primary. You insufferable hack. But I'm not even mad because this is what we expect from Joy Reid. But look, let me just put it all out there. So she can hear it from one of the highest-ranking members, I think, of the brotherhood of the Bernard. Would I like for Bernie Sanders to be the nominee? Yes, I think that that is obvious. But what do I want to come of all of this? I want Joe Biden to step down and I want the rest of the states to vote, right? Maybe he doesn't even step down. Maybe voters just have this information and everyone else unsuspends their campaigns and if he wins, he wins. I just want there to feel like there's some ramifications for this. Some accountability, any accountability is really what I'm looking for. But should Joe Biden be replaced by Bernie Sanders? Sure, if he can win. If you don't want Joe Biden to be replaced by Bernie Sanders, then you're admitting that you don't care about this rape allegation. It's not even about Bernie Sanders. Substitute Bernie Sanders for anyone else. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren. I would prefer Bernie Sanders, but the principle is we shouldn't have a rapist, an alleged rapist be the nominee. And maybe my opinion is invalid here because I actually do believe Tareed because I don't think it's surprising that someone who sniffs women's hair and had other women come forward and say that he made them feel uncomfortable. I don't think that this is too unbelievable here, but the point is we can do better than Joe Biden. And it doesn't matter if you think, oh, this is a plot to bring back Bernie Sanders. We're saying let the competition play out. It's halfway over. Primaries were postponed because of COVID-19. Just bring all the candidates back. Let's have a vote. We don't have to go forward with the rapist. This doesn't have to be about Bernie Sanders. If the competition were to happen again, if everyone unsuspended their campaigns in a perfect world, I would absolutely aggressively and relentlessly advocate for Bernie Sanders, but I'm not delusional enough to think that he would be guaranteed a victory. I'm not delusional enough to think that the DNC or Democratic Party leaders would install Bernie Sanders. If anything, what would happen is Joe Biden would probably step down and Obama behind the scenes, as he usually does, would get everyone to coalesce around some other Democrat, not named Bernie Sanders. Anyone but Bernie Sanders. The point is, why are you just okay with a rapist, an alleged rapist being the nominee? I mean, it's just you have to have some standards. And I get that you don't like purity tests, but how could you not be just disgusted by the fact that your choice will be between the lesser of two rapists? Like, how does that not just make you feel queasy about the state of American politics thinking about that? Well, it doesn't matter, because Joy Reid is doing exactly as she's paid to do. Toe the party line. And the DNC has already made it very clear they're not going to look into Joe Biden. They believe Joe Biden. Tom Perez is, you know, a team player. He came from the Obama Biden administration. So chances are nothing will come of this, but, you know, at least centrists, they went full mask off and they showed their true colors if you didn't already see them for what they were before all of this. But it truly is disgusting, but I will hand it to Joy Reid. That is a really, really, I think, effective propaganda. I think the only person who is even close to her in terms of pushing propaganda when she's at her best is Tucker Carlson. But this is truly just, I mean, this stuff, I think it works, right? If you can attach motive to a conspiracy that you're trying to gin up, then that is really effective, especially if you've been priming your audience over the years to believe that, you know, Vladimir Putin is basically controlling every aspect of, you know, democratic life in America. I mean, just by tweeting about Tower Reid, I'm reminded what it's like to be called a Russian stooge or asset or tool because I was called a Russian tool. Everyone is a Russian working for Vladimir Putin or a Russian bot if they don't, you know, denounce Tower Reid immediately and believe that Joe Biden is innocent and the man who sniffs women's hair is, you know, not even remotely capable of doing something like this. I mean, we live in idiocracy, the movie. The fact that people believe effective propagandists like, you know, Joy Reid, it doesn't matter how effective and persuasive you are, people should have common sense and know better, right? But the fact that they're not shows that we're really worse off than I think we even thought we were in America because centrists, they may be too far gone. I mean, we know that maggots are too far gone, but centrists, after they've kind of revealed themselves as, you know, party before everything else, I don't know how we can convince these people if, you know, facts, details, or just making a moral case isn't going to already convince them to just do the right thing. So as time goes on, as the lockdown continues, we're seeing more and more of these anti-quarantine protests pop up and they are emerging in various states almost every single week in California, Michigan, and even in my home state of Oregon over the weekend, we saw a reopen Oregon rally take place after Governor Kate Brown announced that the lockdown was extended until July 6th. And some of the images that I saw from this rally, it killed my soul because this is all, you know, a contingent of the population that is, for lack of a better word, batshit crazy. I mean, you see them holding up signs, you know, referencing QAnon, Q sent me. These are largely, you know, a pro-Trump megachuds doing this. And, you know, I'm sympathetic to the economic issues that are going to pop up with these types of extended lockdowns. And, you know, largely, we have to blame government because if they actually address the economic concerns of people who can't go to work adequately, there would be less rebellion. There would be less need to, you know, have this urgent reopening of the economy in whatever capacity that may be. But I want to highlight a couple of these anti-quarantine protests that kind of went off the rails. There was one in California where they, a crowd of people, largely, I'm assuming, pro-Trump individuals based on, you know, what they were wearing, were screaming in the faces of police officers. And if you can, try to pay attention to some of the signs that they brought to this rally. So, almost no one was wearing a mask. As you can see, obviously, they weren't standing six feet apart. And in case you missed it, that first sign at the beginning said, vaccines known to cause seizures. So, nobody wants to, you know, endure a prolonged lockdown. But these dipshits don't realize that they're making it worse. If we don't hunker down longer, then there will be more cases of COVID-19, which will lead to, you know, a need for longer lockdowns. I mean, Georgia, just reopened their state back up. And guess what happened immediately? A thousand people got COVID-19 because their idiotic governor decided, you know what? We're going to open up the state again. You're making it worse. If you truly want the lockdown to be over, this is not helping. This is making it worse. Now, again, 100% sympathetic to the economic concerns, use that energy to call up your representative. Use that energy to demand universal basic income, rent cancellation, because that's the true solution, not for you to go back to work and risk your life for capitalism. The solution is an economic fix so we can withstand a prolonged lockdown, but that's not happening. So yes, government has failed, but this also isn't helping. This also isn't helping. Now, I want to highlight a reopened Wisconsin rally because after seeing, you know, all of these anti-quarantine protests pop up, you know, it was really soul crushing. It was depressing, but this video made me feel better, and I think it's going to make you feel better as well because you had one person who decided to troll these protesters and risk his own life to basically tell them to eat shit and call them dipshits. Take a look. God hates dipshits. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Thank you. Fuck you. Fuck you. God hates dipshits. Fuck you. Fuck you. Can you explain me a little more that way? Yeah. I love it. Can you explain why you're just seeing fuck you and being vile to everybody? These people are risking people's lives, including your own. They are not. They are. Yeah. I expect to know these people. I believe in science. I do believe in science. You're so foolish. I do believe in science. You're so foolish. Okay. Yep. Science is wrong. Yep. Fuck you. No, science is wrong. Fuck you. Science is right. Have you looked at the models Yep. I have looked at the models. And what do they look like? Bad. They go from 2.5 million dead to under 50,000. Fuck you. More people are killed by the virus. Fuck you. Oh, it's just the flu. I know. It's just the flu. It's a virus. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Yes, post me. Fuck Trump. God hates Trump. God hates dipshits. Fuck you. Thank you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Selfish prick. Fuck you. Yeah, look at your cheap Walmart shoes. Yeah. These are actually Reeboks. Crossfit. They're pretty expensive. Yeah, get a real job. Get an essential job, you piece of shit. Get an essential job. Fuck you. Get an essential job. Your mom's giving blowcaps. Fuck you. Your mom's giving blowcaps. Oh, good one. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. An American piece of shit. Oh, the wreck, yeah. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. You can take pictures of other people too. Yeah. Fuck you, no one wants here. Fuck you. Fuck you. Nice daddy issues. Fuck you new dad issues. Fuck you. Fuck you. Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Go to work. God hates dipshits. God hates dipshits. I swear I really suck. You're a talk guy, huh? Swearing around little kids like that? You're putting your kids at risk from a virus that is very deadly. Oh, but I'm the asshole. Are you a liar? I'm sorry I fell. I'm not under 30. Fuck you. Fuck you. Please stay six feet away, sir. Fuck you. You can't be stupid. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I can't wait to be on Breitbart. Shut down all the hospitals and no one's getting care right now. Oh, okay. No one's getting care. Fuck you. Fuck you. Keep filming. Fuck you. Fuck you. There you go. Yes, thank you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Oh, dick jokes. Nice. Good one. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Can I ask you why you're saying fuck you, everybody? You are all endangering people's lives because you're selfish. I'm trying to stay six feet away if you don't mind. This is what liberalism is. What am I doing? Progesting you dipshit. Fuck you. Fuck you. I'm concerned because I have members of my family who have autoimmune diseases and will die because you dipshits don't believe science. So fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I love that. And I salute you for your service, Patriot. That was great. And I can't help but think that that was, you know, Matt Christman from Chapa Trap House because the guy sounded exactly like Matt Christman. But I mean, that was really, really great because these people are endangering their lives. And what's astonishing to me is that they're more concerned with the language that he was using in front of children than the fact that they brought their children to this rally and potentially expose them to a deadly virus that's highly, highly contagious. I mean, their priorities are all out of whack. All out of whack. Like it reminds me of when I worked at Blockbuster, not to go off on a tangent, but I worked at Blockbuster. And I remember a customer distinctly who asked, does this movie have, you know, a lot of violent or a lot of sex in it? And my response was, and I don't remember the movie. No, it doesn't have a lot of sex scenes, but there's like a really graphic scene where somebody's head was chopped off. And the response was, oh, I don't care about that. As long as there's no sex. Okay. So as long as there's nothing natural taking place, I'm fine with my kids seeing, you know, someone's head explode. But if they see a boob, that is crossing the line. I mean, the logic makes no sense. One is, I think, clearly worse than the other because one is natural. One is not natural. You know, it's not natural to chop off someone's head or, you know, do violence, but it is natural to have sex. So I just didn't make sense to me. But nonetheless, you know, this is their priorities. And I just love that. He kept telling people, God hates dipshits. Fuck you. I mean, this man is so brave, so brave because if I've learned anything over the course of the last few years, it's that right wingers are completely insane and unpredictable and I don't trust them. And yeah, I'm scared of them. I don't care if that makes me look like a beta male cuck. These people are batshit loony. And I'm not going to taunt them. I'm not going to do that, but he did. And the worst that, you know, was hurled his way were these cringe worthy boomer jokes. Your mom's giving blowjobs and they also made dick jokes. That's just, I mean, these people are so, so stupid. So this was really satisfying to watch, but I will say, you know, it's difficult for me to just condemn these individuals even though they are loony, right? The Trump supporters queuing on people, they're insane. However, we have to acknowledge that there are economic concerns that are very legitimate. And I think that, you know, not all of these people are coming out to protest, you know, because they're hurting economically. Some of these people are just conspiratorial dipshits and, you know, they're anti-vaxxers, but putting those people aside, there is a portion of people who want us to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible because they are hurting economically. They're, you know, laid off. They lost their job and as a result lost their healthcare. So I get that sense. I feel the urgency. I know people who have been affected. So, you know, a large portion of this can be blamed on the ineffectual response or lack thereof from government, mostly the federal government because state governments don't have the resources to do what the federal government is able to. So, you know, you've got to blame government, but at the same time, if you're going to voice your concerns, literally putting your life in danger and exposing everyone else and basically prolonging the lockdown because you're facilitating even more spreading of COVID-19, it's not the right way to go about this. So, I mean, these people, they have to stop fucking doing this. I mean, we're not the only country that has seen these types of anti-quarantine protests. Other countries have had these types of, you know, events pop up, but we're certainly one where it's happening the most frequently. And that's really terrifying. It's scary. So, um, yeah, I really commend the person who trolled them, and I'll just advise them don't do that again because these people are crazy and I don't trust them. I think they would probably, at least some of them will be inclined to assault you, getting your face, coughing your face. I don't trust these people. They're crazy. And I don't trust most people, not just MAGA chuds and, you know, QAnon dipshits, but I mean, yeah, very, very entertaining, albeit I was worried for him. It's day 60 something of the lockdown. Society hasn't necessarily crumbled yet. Stores are still open. Food is still widely available in spite of a couple of shortages that pop up here and there, but for the most part, we can still survive. Nonetheless, Alex Jones of Infowars is already talking about the necessity of maybe possibly resorting to cannibalism in the near future. Take a look. Gay! I will eat my neighbors. I'm not letting my kids die. I'm just going to be honest. My superpower is being honest. I've extrapolated this out and I won't have to for a few years since I got food and stuff, but I'm literally looking at my neighbors now and going, I'm ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up. You know what? I'm ready. My daughters aren't starving to death. I'll eat my neighbors. See, my superpower is being honest. I'll eat your ass. I will. I'm combat model, optimal self-sufficiency, probably the leader. The point is, is have you thought about that yet? Because I'm somebody that thought I could fix this and I'm starting to think about having to eat my neighbors. You think I like sizing up my neighbor? How I'm going to haul him up by chain and chop his ass up? I'll do it. My children aren't going hungry. I will eat your ass. And that's why I want the globalists to know I will eat your ass first. Wow. Wow. I don't know what to say about that. But quote, I'll eat your ass. Alex Jones, 2020. Like there's no conclusion other than he wants to eat his neighbor. Like if anyone's going to be better off, it's going to be someone like him with a lot of money. And according to him, he already has food rationed. So I mean he's put food aside. He's going to be okay. But yet his neighbor is looking kind of tasty. And he says, you think I like sizing up my neighbor? How I'm going to haul him up by chain and chop his ass up? I mean, imagine the look on his neighbor's face. He's watching Alex Jones go on this deranged rant about eating him. I'll eat my neighbors. I mean, I genuinely feel bad for anyone who lives near Alex Jones. Like that's got to be like horrifying. Like first of all, he is probably like a loud person, but also he's crazy. So you probably hear him yelling. And the fact that now he's talking about like literally eating his neighbors. Look, I expected this to happen, right? But I was thinking, we're going to start talking about cannibalism maybe on year like three or four of the lockdown in the apocalypse, not like two months in when we still can get food, when stores are still open and you could just go to the store and purchase food. You shouldn't go very frequently, but nonetheless, I mean, it's there. If you need it, don't have to eat your neighbors. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about a tweet from Caitlin Bennett, otherwise known as Gun Girl, who shared a picture of herself with Alex Jones and included the hashtag Alex Jones eats ass. I'll eat your ass. Okay. Look, do me a favor. Once you close out this video, check on your right-wing neighbor or friend or family member. They're not doing okay. They're not doing okay. Check on them to make sure that they still have all of their faculties in order and they're not going crazy because you know, if you thought that the far right was crazy, this lockdown is showing that there is no, you know, there's no level that they won't stoop to. There's no level of crazy that they're not willing to go to. They are absolutely insane. So much so that I think that the movie Idiocracy, like sometimes I'll jokingly say that we're living in that movie and that it wasn't supposed to be a documentary. I think that some right-wingers like Alex Jones surpassed the level of stupid that we saw in the movie Idiocracy. That's how bad I think it's gotten. I mean, when you have people like the President of the United States literally asking whether or not injecting disinfectants into our bodies would be a solution that could fight COVID-19. I mean, there's just... It's as stupid as, you know, the President in Idiocracy watering the crops with Gatorade and wondering why all the crops were dying. It... I don't know what to say. Certain things leave me speechless, but it doesn't happen very often. But when it does, it's got to be something crazy. And this is one of those things. But at the back of my mind, I will admit I think that I believe Alex Jones' attorneys when he says that he was an actor, basically an entertainer, because I mean, is he genuine about this? Do I think that he actually wants to eat his neighbor? I don't believe so. I think that he knows what he's doing. I think he knows that he's a huckster and he's an entertainer. The only reason why he has a show is to huck his, you know, dumbass... I don't know. What is he even still selling? Brain pills, just weird vitality stuff. Like, the man is a fraud. He's just trying to make money and being over the top and entertaining is part of his shtick. So in a way, you know, I'm part of the problem by participating in this and shedding light on his stupidity. But when you see something like this, I mean, how do you not respond? I... I cannot talk about this. Alex Jones is talking about cannibalism and specifically he wants to eat his neighbor's ass. I mean, I just can't remain silent as this happens, so hopefully you'll forgive me. I will try to do better and talk about things that actually matter in the future, because Alex Jones is not someone who needs any more attention. I don't know who needs to hear this right now, but George W. Bush is a war criminal. He is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million Iraqi citizens. This man tortured people. He should be in prison right now, but he's not. And the fact that he isn't spending the rest of his life in jail should be an outrage to everyone. So for those of you who forgot, this is a bad person. So we recently talked about how the New York State Board of Elections was trying to purge everyone but Joe Biden's name from the ballot in their upcoming primary and how that was being challenged in a court of law by individuals like Andrew Yang and delegates to Andrew Yang. And guess what? I'm sure you already have heard by now, but a judge ruled in Andrew Yang's favor and overturned the decision of the New York State Board of Elections. So in other words, the primaries back on, Andrew Yang single-handedly saved democracy in New York. Credit words do. So as Matt Stevens and Nick Cora Siniti of the New York Times explains, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered election officials in New York State to hold its Democratic primary election in June and reinstate all qualifying candidates on the ballot. The ruling came after the presidential primary was canceled late last month over concerns about the coronavirus. The order filed by Judge Annalisa Torres of the United States District Court came in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He sought to undo the New York State Board of Elections decision in late April to cancel the June 23rd contest, a move it attributed to health and safety worries and the fact that the results would not change the primaries' outcomes. On Tuesday night, Douglas A. Kellner, chair of the New York Board of Elections, said the board was reviewing the decision and preparing an appeal. And speaking on CNN, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the presidential primary would proceed per the court's ruling, at least for the time being, but he noted the potential for an appeal. Okay, so let me just say that this doesn't just put Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang's names back on the ballot. This puts all of the presidential contenders back on the ballot. This isn't just a win for Bernie Sanders supporters. It's a win who is supporting someone other than Joe Biden, which is most Democratic Party primary voters, although Andrew Yang is the one who catalyzed this move. And I absolutely applaud him. You've got to give him credit for this. He did this. Bernie Sanders just wrote a strongly worded letter. Andrew Yang took action in the form of filing a lawsuit, and that's what you want to do if you actually want to effect change. So, my hat goes up to Andrew Yang. He made the correct choice to do this, and we all benefit from his courage. I absolutely have to give Andrew Yang credit. And let me just say for Andrew Cuomo, the fact that him and the New York State Board of Elections are saying they're going to appeal this really shows you the contempt that they have for the Democratic Party's base. It shows you they don't care about democracy, right? And it's not like the DNC is the only institution within the broader party apparatus that's corrupt. State Democratic Parties are equally as corrupt. They are all working at the behest of the establishment because, you know, they're going to go where the power is flowing, you know, because that's how they are able to have a bigger influence. So if you side with Joe Biden, he's going to pay you back when he's in power, you know, and I don't know what that looks like. Maybe a position within his administration. Maybe he favors your state in some way. I don't know what that looks like, but I know that power is always what people are going to gravitate to at least if you're corrupt and career minded. Now, Andrew Yang responded with a statement via Twitter saying, quote, I hope that a federal judge agreed that depriving millions of New Yorkers of the right to vote was wrong. I hope that the New York Board of Elections takes from this ruling a newfound appreciation of their role in safeguarding our democracy. And I couldn't agree more. And look, let me just say this. The fact that we even have to challenge the Democratic Party in the court of law in and of itself is just it shouldn't happen. They're the party that frequently speaks out about the tactics and disenfranchisement that happens to their base when the Republicans do it. But here they are doing it to their own base, but not necessarily, you know, the base who they want. The people who aren't going to fall in line. They just kind of want them brushed aside. And even if Joe Biden is a huge favorite to still win the Democratic primary, they still couldn't help themselves. They had to deprive voters of the choice because, you know, it's that's what they do. There's really no rhyme or reason to it. They just have to do things like this to spit in the eyes of the left. But when the left fights back, sometimes you can win. Sometimes you can win. It's just a matter of playing hardball and acknowledging that you can't lie down and take it. And I want this to be a lesson for leftists going forward, right? I thought that Bernie Sanders, you know, speaking out against this was important, but he just sent a letter about what they did. He should have been one of the first people to file a lawsuit. And I'm not trying to dog on Bernie Sanders. And, you know, I don't want you to think that he's a bad person. It just shows you that one of the main things he could have done to possibly win was be stronger. Actually take on the establishment. And if you want to win, that's what you have to do. It's not an option. You have to do it. And Andrew Yang is clearly playing to win. He put out a tweet saying that he absolutely is taking note of the people who aren't supporting direct cash payments during this pandemic. And rightfully so. I mean, he's the UBI guy. But now is a time where even if you didn't support universal basic income, generally speaking, you should at least support it throughout the duration of this primary. And if you're in the Democratic Party, I mean, it shouldn't even be debatable. So, you know, I applaud Andrew Yang. This was a courageous move and it paid off. And let me just say this. One thing that was risky, like Andrew Yang most likely will be running for president again in 2024, assuming Joe Biden isn't able to beat Trump or assuming he wins and then steps down or something. But he's going to be back. That's the point, right? He's running for president again. And if you want to run for president and you want to be successful in the Democratic Party, one thing that has been abundantly clear is that you have to find a way to win over the establishment and never question them. That's what we saw in Elizabeth Warren. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to win. It just means that you'll receive less pushback from the establishment. Now, Elizabeth Warren, she showed you how powerful they are at getting you to roll over and die. And as a result, Democratic Party officials weren't freaking out about her. And they were freaking out about Bernie Sanders. So, I mean, these are the people theoretically you'd want to win over if you're going to run for president again. But the fact that Andrew Yang is still challenging them, it shows that you know, he has a good strategy. He knows you have to take on the establishment head on. Otherwise, they're going to steamroll you. Never ever just, you know, acquiesce. Never just let them get a victory over on you. Always fight even if it seems like it's a lost cause. Fight, fight, fight. Never stop fighting. That should be the mentality that we have going forward as a left collectively. Otherwise, we're never going to win. So, just keep that in mind. Whenever you think that fighting might not be the good option against the Democratic Party establishment or any institution in the United States, fight that instinct. Fight the system. You have to. Otherwise, you will lose every single time. Joe Biden's campaign put out a new promo and I don't know why they did this. There's no reason for this. It's so cringe-worthy that it will make you want to die. I don't think that I've ever seen anything this cringe-worthy. Like, if you thought I'm just chilling at Cedar Rapids or Pokemon Go to the polls was bad, take a look at this gem that Joe Biden's team thought that they should curse us with. No, I don't. Do you have any knives? Yeah. I always start with dessert. Is the name Maurice funnier than Martin? I like Maurice. One R. Yeah, don't try too hard. We're going on a speech that I'm going to need you to deliver. We've tried to find a place for the word loquacious. 41 down. Comedy duo Key and Blank. How many E's in peel? Three. Three E's in peel. Three. That's 13. We're going into 20. Keegan, I do everything 40-60s days. That's 20. 230, Keegan, 30. 10 more. 30. Pretty good, man. Pretty good. I'm still working on my sunglasses. Joe, I got to get going. Where are you going? You're quarantined. You can't go anywhere. We're in quarantine. Keegan, do you have any threes? I do, Joe. Yes, I do. What was the point of that? What was the point of that video? There was no purpose whatsoever. And when you look at the like to dislike ratio, you'll see that people were a little bit turned off by it because it's patronizing. This is pandering. I don't care about celebrities that support your campaign. I don't. If you get a celebrity endorsement and, you know, I'm supporting you, cool. But at the end of the day, give us policies. That's it. You don't have to pander. You don't have to seem cool. You don't have to hello, fellow kids every five fucking minutes. Just give us policies. It could be the most boring, plain video imaginable. Just, you know, a black background with white texts saying policies X, Y, and Z. That is better than this. This is irritating. I'm not seeing this. It makes me dislike you and Keegan-Michael Key. Yeah, Keegan-Michael Key, is that his name? It makes me dislike you and him more because this is just, it's stupid. It's brainless. There wasn't much planning involved. And I feel like maybe I'm being a little bit petty here. But when I saw this, like, it just made me hate politics even more than I already do. And I talk about politics for a living, right? So I should love all of this. I should eat this up. But I'm to the point where I'm so exhausted where there's so much that needs to be fixed that this type of shit does absolutely nothing. And like, going to some of the lines, they don't even make sense. This is what Keegan-Michael Key said. Is the name Maurice funnier than Martin? What does that even mean? I don't know what that means. Neither of them are funny names. They're just names. What does that mean? What are you implying? There's no point. They didn't even think this through. Like, I feel like they were just kind of going off script or just decided to turn on the camera and whatever happened happened. They didn't, you know, watch it back and edit it. It was just stupidity. You had Joe Biden say, I'm working on a speech that I need you to deliver. Okay? I mean, what is the point? See, this irritates me because there's so many issues that he could be talking about. And I'm not saying that he needs to, you know, release an ad talking about Medicare for All because I'm not delusional enough to think that he would ever adopt any of the policies that the Left wants him to adopt. But let's say that he tailored a policy-specific video to, you know, the crowd of people who he wants to appeal to, center and center-right. Let's say, you know, he just put out an ad saying that he's more competent when it comes to COVID-19 than Trump. Hell, he could put out an ad just saying, vote for me if you want me to name the next replacement on the Supreme Court. And that would be a thousand times more effective than this. And I'm not saying that he doesn't put out those types of more policy-specific ads, but he thinks that these types of ads, these types of videos that he puts out, are going to help cultivate, you know, more of a personality around him that he's not just this doddering fool who is an alleged rapist. He actually, you know, he has friends in the comedy world and he's funny. He's just like you and I, you know, he jokes around, he laughs. But it's not going to help him with any of that. Like, what are they thinking? And because I am a prick, I'm going to read a couple of comments from the Joe Biden subreddit, because I can't believe these are real. Like, the top comment says Joe Mentum. That's it. The next comment says, oh man, that was a pretty funny video. It deserves more likes. I made sure to like it. And then somebody replied to that saying, I do everything in 46 these days, had me laughing out loud. Really? It had you laughing out loud? Seriously? I just don't understand liberals. I don't understand them. I don't get them. They speak a language that I do not understand at all. I mean, think about this. Do you ever see the Republican Party putting out ads very frequently like this? I mean, they've done you know, more lighthearted, stupid ads like this, but I mean, they're trying to win an election and that's clear by their actions. Like, they're putting out hard-hitting ads. Trump's team released an ad hitting Nancy Pelosi for being out of touch and talking about all the expensive ice cream that she eats with her multi-thousand dollar refrigerators, you know, that are fully stocked. I mean, they're putting out ads and they're telling us that they want to win an election. Their ghouls, they're disgusting. They are morally reprehensible. Their ideology is antiquated and hypothetical to what human beings should stand for. Like, we should stand for each other and, you know, helping one another, lifting each other up. But this is a disgusting party of death and destruction. But one thing that I'm sure about with the Republican Party is that they want to win this election. When you see shit like this, it shows you how out of touch Democrats are and they're not playing to win. And, you know, it's not like Joe Biden is the only one who does this. We saw it in 2016 with Hillary Clinton when she was doing all of these pseudo campaign rallies, if you can even call them that, where she just brought on, you know, Jay-Z and Beyoncé or Katy Perry or Lena Dunham to sing or speak or whatever they do. It's just, this is not going to help you win elections. You have a large swath of voters in your base who care about policy, who care about winning. And even if you just ran a single this entire election cycle saying vote for me and I will replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That alone will be so much more persuasive than whatever that was. It was cringe worthy, it was awful and I wish I could unsee it and I'm sure that you wish you could unsee it, but I'm sorry if I saw that you're going to suffer with me viewer. I'm sorry, but that's the way it's got to be. That was awful. So I want to talk about some people, a select portion of the Democratic Party's base who think that they're doing something to help out the left, but in actuality they're not really helping out the left. There's a number of people who are aggressively lobbying Joe Biden to choose Elizabeth Warren as his running mate because in their view that would be a concession to the left. And let me just put all doubts aside Elizabeth Warren is no concession to the left at all. In fact, if Joe Biden shows her as his running mate I can't speak for everyone, but for me that would mean nothing to the left because she's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. She stands for absolutely nothing. So I'm not delusional enough to believe that she would try to nudge Joe Biden in the right direction. No, she would just go along with whatever he wanted because Elizabeth Warren is a team player, party above people. She's proven that time and again, and if you haven't learned that about her nature by now then I don't know what to tell you. She's too far gone. She's irredeemable and in 2024 I think that the left should if there's someone available, attempt to primary her. It most likely won't be successful but it still is something that we should try to do because I think we deserve better. We deserve to have someone that represents the left unequivocally not conditionally based on whether or not it's convenient, right? So one of the people who has been pushing for Elizabeth Warren to be VP is the insufferable Mehdi Hassan who penned an open letter to Joe Biden saying that he should definitely pick her as a running mate because that would appease the left and he also tweeted this all the polling makes it pretty clear if Joe Biden is genuine about reaching out to the left to progressives and to, yes Bernie Sanders voters, he should make Elizabeth Warren his running mate. If he doesn't, we know he's not serious. Now, apparently he needs some type of sign that will tell us whether or not Joe Biden is serious or not. He's not serious. But I mean I don't understand this. What do you expect Elizabeth Warren to do in terms of like helping the left? Nothing. Nothing. And this is one thing that's really bothering me. If you're going to vote for Joe Biden strategically in a swing state because you desperately want to oust Donald Trump, I can rationalize your choice to vote strategically. But don't lie about what we're going to get because the left isn't going to get a victory with Joe Biden. The one benefit is if we defeat Donald Trump Donald Trump is defeated and in turn Joe Biden will most likely be the one who replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But that's it. I mean any other benefit like not going to war with Iran while we just wait four to eight years until a more competent Republican comes along and actually does what Trump wants to do. Undoing all of Trump's discussing executive orders. That'd be great temporarily, but we just know that the next Republican is going to come along and undo all the progress that you've made. And then the next Democrat after that subsequently won't undo the harm caused by the Republican party. For example, Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And Joe Biden says I don't agree with this, although I wouldn't move it back. So I mean do you understand? We keep lurching further and further to the right and until we get a true revolutionary who's going to undo some of the institutional mechanisms in some way that is leading us to our ruin, both economically and when it comes to the environment, then we're not going to get real change. So we have to be real about ourselves. If you're voting for Joe Biden I respect that. If you want to defeat Donald Trump, that's that's fine. I want Donald Trump to be gone because I don't want another four years of Donald Trump but I'm not under this delusional idea in my mind that we're going to be able to put pressure on him. Of course that's not going to happen. He's not going to listen to us when he's in office because if he was going to listen to us, don't you think he'd be listening to us right now when he needs our votes? So just keep that in mind. Like we have to be realistic and temper our expectations. Defeating Trump is important but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that we'll have any sway over Joe Biden whatsoever because he's not going to listen to the left. He's going to listen to his donors in the same way that Obama and Clinton and any other corporate democrat listens to their donors right? And that's that. And you know as Matt Leck put it, if Warren is the pick it'll be for services rendered not because it's a real concession to the left. Exactly. It's not a real concession to the left and I don't think that Joe Biden would pick Elizabeth Warren. I just don't. Wall Street doesn't want him to pick Elizabeth Warren and he'll likely listen to Wall Street. Now I'd be happy to be proven wrong but it doesn't matter like even Wall Street doesn't like someone as you know a milk toast as Elizabeth Warren because you know they know that she'll scold them during a public hearing at best, at maximum that's as far as she'll go but they don't even want that. They want a corporate democrat like Gretchen Whitmer you know so that's who I'm sure he'll gravitate towards if not her then that type of democrat but the problem with this line of thinking that Elizabeth Warren should be the VP is that people are outraged that others don't think the same way. So for example there's an article that came out about how Bernie Sanders isn't necessarily advising Joe Biden about who should be his running mate. He's kind of just ignoring that discussion all together and people are not happy with him because of this. So as tell Axel Rod of the Hill reports Senator Bernie Sanders has thus far not encouraged former Vice President Joe Biden's team to consider Senator Elizabeth Warren as his running mate despite his long-standing ideological alliance with the Massachusetts senator. There is no ideological alliance by the way. Three people familiar with Sanders conversations with Biden whom the Vermont lawmaker has endorsed told the Washington Post that Sanders has declined to back some liberals efforts to convince the former Vice President to select Warren as his number two. A top spokesperson for the Sanders campaign told the Hill that the senator and his team are not advising the Biden campaign's vice presidential selection process in any way shape or form. So basically people are viewing this as Bernie Sanders snubbing Elizabeth Warren because he's not actively campaigning for her to be Joe Biden's running mate and as the Washington Post's Matt Visor put it, Bernie Sanders the liberal figure, best position to push for concessions from Biden so far has declined to support Elizabeth Warren as VP despite their ideological alliance according to three people familiar with his conversations with Biden. Okay, Bernie Sanders doesn't owe Elizabeth Warren shit and stop trying to pretend like there's some ideological alliance. If there was an ideological alliance maybe Elizabeth Warren wouldn't have tried to sink him before Iowa maybe she would have endorsed him on Super Tuesday. Now I'm not saying that if she had endorsed him then that would have led to him being successful but at least it would have showed that she's principled for once in her life. But there is no ideological alliance. Elizabeth Warren is a reformer. She wants to make tweaks around the edges whereas Bernie Sanders is more of a revolutionary. He wants to change the system fundamentally from top to bottom and while I don't agree with him on everything I just acknowledge that there is a real substantive difference between him and Elizabeth Warren I mean Elizabeth Warren didn't even get elected and she already backtracked on Medicare for all. She acquiesced and supported a public option. That's unacceptable. So you're not a revolutionary you're not an ideological ally to us if you're caving before you even get into the White House No. So it just it irritates me that people are trying to I don't know create some type of momentum for Elizabeth Warren as if that make a difference it doesn't make a difference. Look I don't care who Joe Biden picks as his running mate I genuinely don't unless it's someone like Nina Turner or Bernie Sanders like an actual Sanders ally and I know that that's not going to happen but the reason why I don't care is because I don't necessarily think they're going to have an influence on him. Joe Biden's running mate matters in so far as that will likely be the next liberal that we're going to have to deal with in 4 to 8 years someone who we will inevitably have to fight wherever he picks it's probably going to be someone who's shitty and it just it doesn't matter to me right so let's not pretend like there's anything we can do if you consider yourself to be left leaning to influence Joe Biden again I want Donald Trump to lose. I'm not going to vote for Joe Biden but just make the argument that is the relevant argument the only benefit to Joe Biden assuming power and ousting Trump at least temporarily is to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg like in terms of getting any robust agenda passed into law whatever he passes will mostly be done via executive order and undone by the next republican administration so I mean like we have to be realistic because if we lie to people if we gaslight people and you know we give them a skewed perception of the power that they actually have they're not going to use it properly like people need to know what they have what tools they can use at their disposal to actually effect change and getting Joe Biden to bend to the will of the left that's just not going to happen like he'd do it hell you'd already offer you concessions when he needs your vote but if you think he's going to be more inclined to listen to you when he's in power when he doesn't need your vote I mean that's just naivete and I get that people want something to hang on to because the future looks really bleak right now but we've got to be honest with ourselves if we truly want to change the country and trying to you know place our hope in a Joe Biden administration I think is misguided if he wins and beats Trump then hopefully he can replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg but that's really the best that we can get out of Joe Biden's administration that's it period so you know this idea that Elizabeth Warren as VP would somehow fundamentally change what Joe Biden would bring us politically it's delusional and it's not going to happen so if you are one of the individuals pushing for Elizabeth Warren to be VP fine whatever like that's fine but don't try to you know basically scold others as Matt Pfizer to Bernie Sanders and get them to agree with your delusional idea that that's going to make a difference Elizabeth Warren as VP will absolutely do nothing for the left because she is not operating on behalf of the left she's loyal to party leadership and she's proven that time and again I don't know what else she needs to do does she need to put it in writing for you that she's not fighting for you she doesn't care about the left like what more do you want from her actions matter and her actions throughout the course of not just the 2020 primary but the 2016 primary show you beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has no spine so it doesn't matter if she's the running mate Joe Biden will still be Joe Biden the pro-corporate neoliberal war monger we've always known him as and Elizabeth Warren as his running mate definitely is not going to change that stop fooling yourselves so I'm going to blow your minds right now because a lot of people don't know that previously I was a Democratic Party loyalist I was one of the Kool-Aid drinkers like in 2014 I was part of that nerdy draft warren campaign and I've said this before but a lot of people don't know that but you know I believed that not everyone I was still critical of the Democratic Party and largely dissatisfied with Obama but I did believe that overall most Democrats wanted to do good and to them it wasn't just necessarily about getting power and protecting the status quo like I thought that people within the Democratic Party like Elizabeth Warren actually wanted to effect change and that's why I wanted her to be president over Hillary Clinton because even when I was a Democratic Party Kool-Aid drinker I at least acknowledged that the party was to right leaning and I thought that people like Elizabeth Warren had the courage to take the party in a new direction but looking at the 2020 Democratic Party primary it's just almost unfathomable how different my perception is now because this election really was mask off for Democrats because they're proving that almost none of them believe in anything I mean you have a couple people who I think are actually left leaning and want to effect change in the country but overall most Democrats are proving that they really don't stand for anything it's party above people they're gonna be with their team it doesn't matter how foolish and hypocritical they look it's the Democratic Party and if you don't love them and worship them then um fuck you I don't know what else to say so let me just use Elizabeth Warren as an example because she was someone who I respected so much so back in 2018 when I was trying to put aside my feelings of disappointment in her after she refused to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016 you know she said this and when she said this at the time I genuinely was foolish enough to believe her yesterday was an extraordinary day when a woman came forward to make heartfelt claims about something terrible that had happened to her the man in question could stand up as if he is entitled to this position and launch a political attack and simply declare that no it's not true we have to acknowledge what's going on in our country is wrong and it does not represent our values what we should be celebrating is the fact that we are willing to fight back we are willing to raise our voices we are willing to say we will be heard in this country so I loved what she said there you know Brett Kavanaugh seemed entitled to the position I noticed that as well women will be heard in this country of course that's something that is absolutely necessary and she went a little bit further in a tweet saying I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford should be impeached so think about how strong her condemnation of Brett Kavanaugh is the allegations brought forward by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford are so serious that she literally believes a sitting supreme court justice should be impeached that is a very strong statement and it's part of the reason why even after I kind of saw Elizabeth Warren didn't have as solid of a spine as I had previously thought she still is willing to go a little bit further than other Democrats at least rhetorically but contrast that with what she's saying today when it comes to arguably more serious allegations brought forward against Joe Biden by Tara Reid with even more corroborating support than Dr. Christine Blasey Ford well she's no longer saying that all that sentiment about believing women has gone out the window because as Alexander Bolton of The Hill writes Senator Elizabeth Warren told reporters late Monday that she found presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's denial of sexual assault allegations by a former Senate aide credible and convincing I believe that everyone has a right to tell her a story to be listened to and treated with respect Warren told reporters after she walked into the Capitol late afternoon vote I saw the reports of what Ms. Reid said I saw the interview with Vice President Biden I appreciate that the Vice President took a lot of questions, tough questions and that he answered them directly and respectfully the Progressive Senator also said the Vice President's answers were credible and convincing later asked if she thinks an independent investigation into Reid's claims something a couple other Democratic Senators have endorsed is needed Warren said I think what the Vice President has said is convincing and I support him so do you understand how troubling this is in 2019 she was willing to go further than most Democrats in calling for Brett Kavanaugh to be impeached and now she won't even go as far as other Democrats who have signed on to an independent investigation into Tara Reid's claims which if he's innocent is harmless she stands for absolutely nothing maybe when she was first elected she actually was idealistic she actually did want to make a difference but now it's really clear what Elizabeth Warren is all about Elizabeth Warren she wants power by any means necessary and when asked whether or not she would be Joe Biden's running mate for the first time ever she answered the question directly without meandering and bringing in her family history she just simply said yes we have seen the importance of having a leader that we can count on in a crisis it's not Donald Trump it is Joe Biden if he asked you to be his running mate would you say yes yes she cares about power Elizabeth Warren cares about power she can throw away everything she previously stood for if that's going to get her closer to the power that she so desperately craves you know what they say absolute power corrupts absolutely and you don't necessarily even have to get power to let it corrupt you just being in the vicinity of power that's enough to corrupt you and turn you into the same type of ghoul she used to fight against or at least I think she used to fight against maybe that was all political theater who knows at this point Elizabeth Warren is an absolute clown and nobody should take her seriously nobody should take her seriously after this election cycle and look you don't even have to go back that far you don't have to go back to 2019 there are examples in 2020 of her saying that basically we have no reason not to believe women look at what she said about Mike Bloomberg when she was asked about whether or not you know she believes the women who Mike Bloomberg is refusing to release from non-disclosure agreements this is what she said she was very clear so much Brian do you believe that the former mayor of New York said that to a pregnant employee well pregnant employee sure said that he did why shouldn't I believe her you know I'm just really tired of this world this one is personal for me it really is pregnancy discrimination person who did that look pregnancy discrimination is real and these we have gone on and on and on where people say oh I can't really believe the woman really why not so you say that you believe Joe Biden and you don't believe Tara Reid my question to you now Liz is really why not why can't you believe Tara Reid have you not seen the countless photos and videos of Joe Biden touching women sniffing their hair invading their personal space have you not heard from Lucy Flores as well as the other women who said that he made them feel uncomfortable is it really that difficult to believe Tara Reid I think that I would respect her more if she just said look I believe Tara Reid and I think Joe Biden probably did what what she says he did that's hard for me to say as a very loyal Democrat but I believe women so I believe Tara Reid however I'm still going to support Joe Biden and yes I would still be his VP because it would at least show some level of you know consistency because you're not going to get the VP anyway like you made a fool of yourself in 2016 when Hillary Clinton dragged you along because she made you think you'd get the VP position and you didn't so you're doing that again and you didn't learn so I mean one of two things if not both things are true about Elizabeth Warren either she has the worst political instincts ever or she has no spine I think it's probably both but I mean this is just how could you not see this and let me just say everyone is human nobody is perfectly consistent I try my very best to be consistent in the Humanist Report Catalog you could see some inconsistencies with what I've said now in spite of the fact that I try very hard to be consistent but I'll admit you know we're not perfect beings we're flawed human beings are inherently flawed and often times you know our ideologies and opinions change with life experience so you know maybe that leads to greater inconsistency but this is brazen she's going back on things she said last year how are you not embarrassed how can you with the straight face defend Joe Biden after all of the things you just said all of the powerful statements you said about believing women just recently they have no shame and they think that they can pretend like everything is okay and that voters are going to forget about this but they're not going to forget this is precisely why so many people don't vote they just check out of electoral politics because it's all a fucking show nobody stands for anything nobody means what they say everyone in DC is just jockeying for a better position of power that's it nobody gives a flying fuck about getting any policies implemented that's why so many fucking people check out that's why so many people who I know who were excited to come out and vote have just kind of thrown their hands up and said fuck it what's the point nobody believes in anything now I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I believe that everyone should vote I believe we have to use the tools that we have to make our voices heard loud and clear so we should vote come out and vote but you have to at least understand why people are so demoralized it's because of things like this people who previously used to inspire voters make them think that the system was working because people like Elizabeth Warren could get into the senate now they're leading to it being delegitimized and they're not trying to do anything to redeem it they're not even paying lip service to the fact that we're so disappointed like we're all just supposed to put aside all the negative things that Elizabeth Warren and Beto O'Rourke and Kamala Harris and Corey Booker said about Joe Biden and now we're supposed to believe that they believe that he's the best person ever and they love the fact that he's the nominee you're so fake and I hate this this is why people tune out of politics because of shit like this Elizabeth Warren is no help so I mean I used to think that she was one of the better ones but now she's absolutely part of the problem this brazen lack of consistency and just open hypocrisy I don't know how they're not ashamed to put themselves in the mirrors how does Elizabeth Warren live with herself and she said that Bernie's base was built on a foundation of hate yeah your base is built on a foundation of bullshit and it stinks so bad I could smell it across the country you may be in DC but we know you stand for nothing you're a phony Elizabeth Warren you're a hack, you put party above people and you should really just stop because you're embarrassing yourself hello everyone I am back with Joy Marie, otherwise known as Savage Joy, she's an activist she hosts her own podcast on Real Progressives and she is here to kind of reflect what we all just went through and what we're going through currently Joy, welcome back to the program you're having me these discussions are basically incredibly therapeutic to me and based on what the audience says they always love these because I think that it's okay if we admit that we don't always know the right words to say during tough times we don't always have the answers sometimes we don't have direction but if we just talk I think that that kind of goes a long way and we just need a good conversation right now so I want to just tease a little something Joy has a pretty big announcement about a project that she's working on we're not going to reveal that until the very end so you have to watch the entire video no fast forwarding, okay so watch that and and I'm not Preggers just as a heads up I am not Preggers she may be as pregnant I'm too old, I'll be four be one in two weeks well happy birthday in advance um so I wanted to get your opinion because out of all the people I know who supports Bernie Sanders nobody was more dedicated and invested than you you literally like sacrificed five weeks of your life to go to Iowa and knock on doors for Bernie Sanders and this is tough like you just mentioned before we went on that you got your ballot I know my ballot is sitting in my mailbox I haven't even checked yet because I don't know so let's just check in how are you doing? I'm still you know I would say it's 2016 all over again but it's not it's worse because it's like the second time so there's kind of this PTSD of sorts with this the death of democracy again yeah so I went to Iowa family and I knew one person in the entire state I had never been there and I went for five weeks and you know knocked on hundreds of doors and ice and snow and like negative four degrees and you know just made thousands of phone calls and I and you know I was there caucus night and everything helping and I was so envious of everyone getting to vote caucus but to vote and I was like I can't wait to get back to Pennsylvania and start being active there for our primary and I came back they made me victory captain and so I was going to be training people things like that on how to do phone banking and such unfortunately a connection I have in the campaign let me know the Sunday before that he was going to be dropping and it was devastating because I still had scheduled trainings the next three days and I am extremely dedicated and they were like why can't you do it you know and I was like I'm just not feeling like I can convince people to vote for him right now and stuff like that and you know I still haven't watched the video where Bernie dropped I can I don't want to see it all I know is he dropped that's all I care about I don't need to see him you know because I know it was hard for him I know but as someone who has given you know so much to this campaign emotionally and physically and monetarily and things like that I absolutely feel a sense of betrayal did I expect him to take it to convention again you're damn right I did you know COVID fucked everything I mean let's keep it real and maybe he'd still be in the race if it wasn't for COVID but he dropped too early now all the states are mail in ballot so it's not like that's you know putting people at risk necessarily because we can all vote by mail so he just dropped way too prematurely and and it's hurtful and today I got my ballot which I've been waiting for over a year finally got it and I had like a full on ugly cry when I need to check that box because I'm like here's you know it's all coming to fruition here it is it's a culmination of everything I gave my life for but it's not the same because he's not gonna be president now there's no hope of that it's done he's 78 he's not running again he's gone where the hell do we go from here I don't know you know I'm like a lot of people I don't know I genuinely don't know I feel like a lot of anger I feel in some ways energized but also you know demoralized and I don't know where to take the energy the anger and place it next like all of this can't just dissipate just to go somewhere we have to channel it but right now I don't think anybody really has a clear cut solution because movements you know I don't necessarily think that they hinge entirely on a leader but it really helps to have a leader to have a face I mean part of the reason why I truly believe Occupy wasn't successful is because it was a leaderless movement there was no hierarchy and there are benefits to that but at the same time you know if you don't have someone kind of guiding and steering the movement in a way is difficult to maintain so my number one goal is just to make sure that the whole crew stays together like this energy for Medicare for all and you know all these things that Bernie Sanders brought to the forefront it's not going to just go away so we have to make sure that the team stays together to continue fighting but in terms of how we continue that fight I genuinely don't know and I agree with you I was really really I was saddened when he dropped out he did drop out too early and in a way I don't necessarily know this is just because you know I still feel admittedly emotional because of all of this I kind of resent Bernie in a way like I don't hate Bernie but I feel angry because it feels like we all poured so much into this our hearts and souls time energy resources and I just feel like he didn't fight hard enough and you know I from the beginning have been saying you've got to be tough or you've got to hit Joe Biden and he never did but at the same time I can rationalize his decision to not hit Joe Biden because his strategy was working he was leading in the polls right so it wasn't necessarily something that I thought was sinking his campaign until after Super Tuesday that was a different race and at that point in time Bernie needed to really look in the mirror and ask himself if he truly wants to win and I never thought that he did that he changed nothing and he just ran the same campaign which we all knew wasn't going to be successful so to me I feel hurt because it seems like he just kind of surrendered like he put up the white flag and like I get it right like I can't expect someone who's 78 years old to sacrifice their time and energy if he doesn't really feel like it's going nowhere but at the same time you know I still like we all kind of we put everything into that campaign our hopes and dreams and this isn't like here's the thing and like there's a lot of people who love that the Bernie Bros are all demoralized but this isn't like a sports team losing to us like to me this was so important that I felt like if Bernie wasn't elected humanity doesn't have a chance and what I mean by that is if Bernie got elected he was the only person who I believed would actually fight to get action when it comes to climate change and leave the world and I wasn't even you know under this illusion that he would be successful I just felt like he would give us a chance right he wasn't a savior he's a human being who was very influential but not perfect and now that he's gone I just I don't know what to what to think of this right like who's next what can we do um there and the answer is there's there's no one no one's ready to step up nobody has the credibility or name recognition to step up nobody is as bold as Bernie Sanders and it's not like Bernie was this god who was infallible he was very flawed as a candidate he made a lot of mistakes that I feel frustrated by but in terms of like anyone who's near his level there's no one so I kind of feel like you know we're all just flailing we don't know what to do we don't know where to go we don't know how to make what has been created a sustained movement and it's a little bit disheartening and in a way I feel like maybe after COVID-19 is you know when we could put that behind us maybe things will become a little bit more clear because I kind of feel like myself and others just have tunnel vision we just want to get through this right now um but it's tough and I think that the lack of direction it is it's hard um I wanted to get your opinion on some of the revelations that we have that kind of added to my anger with Bernie Sanders I shouldn't say like I don't know if I'm angry at him I just like I'm giving him the cold shoulder you know if I was speaking to him currently um we learned can I or are separated right now we're not divorced we're separated we need couples therapy like 100% um well we learned about Jeff Weaver starting a super pack and how everyone within the campaign they knew about Jeff Weaver now I was an outsider I didn't know about Jeff Weaver and you know some of the signs that we saw back in 2016 or 2017 with the revolt of the our revolution staffers what do you make of this because to me I thought Bernie knew better than to surround himself with people like Jeff Weaver can you just kind of share your thoughts because this really it pissed me off yeah I mean the thing is you know being so connected to the campaign I will be totally transparent I did know that Weaver, Baz and um Chuck Rocha were very not well liked to put it that way um I and I actually interviewed him um a year ago um or 18 it was um and he's quite charming um he was very nice and personable and um encouraging and and it came across very very genuine um now the thing about Bernie which I've heard from his own family members is he is loyal to a fault your friends with him you're nice to him my friend Joe you know that is Bernie when he puts his hand on Liz Warren's back I want to grab his shoulders and shake him but to him she he's still loyal to her even though she's garbage to him and that's how he was with Jeff Weaver they Jeff has worked for him for 32 years so that at that point it becomes like a family member you know and and you know I mean that's the only uh job Jeff has known has been working for Bernie and I think Bernie had that sense of obligation in a way um but since you know Fazz took Jeff's place a lot of us were like okay good someone who's getting in there and then we started learning how the campaign staff was calling him spaz um as his nickname and uh Chuck Rocha I was told was you know very shady but he seems so nice and intelligent and for the movement and you know the thing is I wanted to say you know a number of things I you know was told by higher ups on the campaign but it would hurt Bernie so you know someone from Wapo sees my show and says race campaign you know manager is like conspiring against him and next thing you know I fucking screw Bernie you know out of votes so I didn't want to go there but I was apprehensive and it was um a frustration by a lot of people on the campaign um yeah so it's difficult I am not surprised in the least that they created this pack nobody is no one that's so interesting and you know like you said he's loyal to a fault and I think that that's admirable but it's not admirable when it reaches a point where it's literally harmful you know it goes back to the Joe Biden is my friend thing you can't say that like this is not a good person this is someone who has voted for a war that has killed hundreds of thousands if not more than a million Iraqis this isn't a good person and that's not to say that Bernie is perfect or would be a perfect president but you know to me it's just a blind spot and I kind of viewed it as naivete on Bernie's part because you can see the good in people I think that that's great you know I love optimism at my core I think I'm a pretty optimistic person but at some point you know that instinct that mechanism that you know tells you kind of be skeptical it's got to kick in and I feel like it never kicked in for Bernie Sanders and we you know we just saw what was it last week he did a live stream with Elizabeth Warren I mean how can you she just right she just said that your campaign was built on a foundation of hate I'm paraphrasing but like attacking all of Bernie Sanders supporters like to me that is unforgivable like you know what this movement is about I don't like I personally Bernie's just I want policies give me policies and I'll shut up and go away give me Medicare for all and the wars these are like very simple things that we want so to say that that's motivated by a foundation of hate he should have called her out publicly for this some things are just beyond the pale and what she did to try to sink him that's not what friends do that's not what friends do you know if you're genuinely a friend like the way that Joe Biden treated him Joe Biden's characters are finding out about the sexual assault allegations at some point you've got to reevaluate who your friends with and realize if they're kind of bringing you down and I just feel like Bernie never did that and I don't want people to think I'm against Bernie and I'm just dogging on Bernie but I do think that if we want to be successful at anything going forward we have to be introspective and we have to ask these tough questions because Bernie is not a cult leader and I think that the mainstream media surprised how you know we are able to criticize him so easily after they called us a cult for two years or four years but I mean I want to be successful and I want the policies that I advocate for to be codified into law one day so we have to kind of look ourselves in the mirror and ask where did we go wrong and this is kind of what I wanted to pick your brain about because I think that there's a lot of things that Bernie could have done better but at the same time I think that there are also things that are kind of outside of our control I don't think there's anything that he could have done to reign in the media bias he could have maybe called it out more I don't know that that would have helped but just within the realm of things that we can control what do you think if you were advising Bernie you would have told him to do and just in your opinion this is loaded you might not have an answer what do you think is the number one thing that led to his demise I kind of have a theory but I want to hear what you have to say so we can compare notes two things I think which led to us losing votes are A Joe Biden's my friend and B yes I believe he can win against Trump never say that about your opponent first of all it's not true he can't win against Trump we all know this Biden's gonna lose if they don't you know if they keep him in there he will lose we will have Trump again that's a fact so the fact that Bernie was like yes I can you know and he kept saying it no Bernie shut up say I believe I'm the only one who can win because then he would say um you know I don't think status quo can win against Trump I don't think big money can win against Trump yeah I believe Joe can beat him no dude he can't so I think you know when people are watching this and they're undecided yeah even Bernie said Joe can beat Trump no he can't so I think he played it way too soft I mean in 2016 we were like go harder on Hillary she's garbage you know but he went harder on her than he did on Joe yeah I mean the one um uh debate when he was like I'm gonna ask you a third time did you say you cut social security I was like yes finally let's go Bernie yes yes yes and then it was one night only he stopped it was like no I finally thought you were gonna like go hard like it was I don't know you know what was said or what was done I don't know all I know is I keep thinking back to um in 2018 when I um interview um Jeff Weaver and he had just come out with this book and he was telling me about how and I do believe him on this I really do um because we had a lengthy discussion about how psychologically and mentally it affected Bernie so much when Trump won because he did partially feel responsible I mean he was in a place nobody else in the world was in and he's in a place he's in that place again he's being held to make all of his bros fall in line we're not going to but he's being held to that expectation um and we cannot truly fathom what that's like for him and that's not to rationalize or make excuses that is just literally um the case he does feel a very big sense of responsibility to get Trump out of office um because he knows he's being blamed for him being in it in the first phase and when countless people say that it kind of fucks with your head and you're like maybe I did kind of help we all knew he didn't um but I get it he has that that sense of responsibility that none of us can comprehend um as far as you know complaining about the media and stuff that to me is kind of hopeless just because when Trump does it people flip out oh like a Nazi you're saying the media is awful and um and Bernie came out with an article that said he thinks the media is one of the reasons he lost and it just was not good um so I think really just the main things were well and also you know he he took on Iowa for the inconsistencies what about Massachusetts what about Texas what about you winning California and not getting delegates for over a month why aren't you saying these things like us as volunteers worked for these votes we worked for these delegates we deserve them so the fact that you're not saying you know as a campaign we have every right to say you know what our exit polls show not only did we win we won by far and now we're coming in like third you know what I mean it just it wasn't making sense um so yes we could have taken taken on um individual states more as well I feel like after Iowa he wouldn't have been unreasonable to request an audit of every single primary after that I mean that's something that was unprecedented I've never seen anything like that and I don't necessarily know that there's anything there with the exit polls I know that they over sample younger people but at the same time when we saw what happened with Iowa like I was already calling for you know some type of international organization to oversee our elections because you like you can't here's the thing regardless of the outcome you can't have people lose faith in the process and one thing that's become abundantly democracy if people don't trust the process because then you know they don't actually feel like their votes mean anything and when people check out of democracy democracy dies and I'm not saying that to be hyperbolic I'm saying like comparatively speaking in these types of countries mostly younger democracies when people check out and stop voting they end up dying or they slide into illiberalism or authoritarianism so I mean the people who claim to care about democracy they're not taking this seriously even just the fact that we have 100 million people that don't vote that is a huge huge red flag it doesn't bode well for you know the long-term strength of our democracy and nobody's taking it seriously so yeah you know one thing to me and I'm not a hundred percent sure that this is like the smoking gun the one thing that led to Bernie losing and I think that he could have made some adjustments afterwards but I think that after South Carolina Obama getting everyone to kind of coalesce around Joe Biden that really did have a substantial effect and I can't remember who conducted the study but they showed like the differences between the left and centrist is that they really respect party figures Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama like these people they say something and it's like gospel whereas the left obviously isn't like that you know we're like fuck the authority so when Obama got everyone to coalesce like when everyone kind of dropped out behind the scenes we all knew it was Obama and endorsed you know Biden that was huge it changed the entire dynamic of the race and I think that largely that is one of the biggest things that led to Bernie's loss I can't say like it's too soon to say that's definitely what did it but it was one of the factors unquestionably yeah if those all those people stayed in vote would have kept being split I mean that is absolutely the number one reason mathematically 100% it's as soon as they dropped out that's when okay you have two candidates that's it you know before you had six well they go different ways well now you have two and unfortunately Biden voters their second choice was Bernie I never believed that until I was at a caucus site in Iowa and Joe Biden was not viable in my location and the majority of them came to me in my section which was insane I'm like they're so different yeah they're both like old white dudes but like they couldn't be more different yeah it was crazy so being given you know people have Obama nostalgia that's what it comes down to they want Obama number three oh we miss him so much oh my god handsome well spoken and they ignore you know all the horrible things he's done and Joe is just kind of like an extension of going back to normal which anyone with a brain knows that for people of color and you know women and LGBTQ like going back to normal is not good so you know it's a lot of it is privilege a lot of it like I don't care about you know policy Joe Biden has no policy what does he stand for I don't fucking know I have no phone bankers what are you going to do call someone and then they're like what do you say about how does he feel about healthcare he doesn't like Medicare for all like what is he support and also how do you phone bank and answer like what about Tara read what about Iraq or like how there's like nobody I want them to call me so bad like so bad I'm like please call me because I would probably make them cry but it would kind of be worth it it would I think we're we're pretty fogged to be honest but not that I support them just doing a switcheroo and putting in like an idiot like Cuomo who hasn't done a single event or gotten a single delegate because that is also the epitome of undemocratic but Joey himself even said the VP I pick needs to be ready to step up immediately why it's like he knows they're going to pull the 25th amendment on him and he's sending out for him things like that it's I think he knows I really do I think he knows like he cannot you know cognitively deal with anything yeah I mean to me my feelings are kind of all over the place on that because it's like to my core I have to be consistent and if Joe Biden got more votes alright you know no matter how he got those votes he gets to be the nominee that's just fair is fair right I mean I was I was very angry when we were talking and there was all this talk of Bernie Sanders having it stolen away from him at the convention with super delegates Liz Warren even said that she would be open to this right so I think that if you get the most votes that's fine that being said I'm not going to shed a tear for Joe Biden if there is a switcheroo that happens at the convention I don't think that will happen I'm not going to shed a tear for him because he was advocating the same thing I mean I keep pointing to an article on my show about how Joe Biden says that if somebody gets a plurality Sanders but not a majority he will aggressively compete for the nomination at the convention which means he was willing to resort to a contested convention so I mean you're the one who asked for this you said that you know contested convention is a okay if it's to stop Bernie so now you reap what you sow you're kind of a horrible candidate you know and there's the tar read allegation sorry I believe her anyone who doesn't is I think fooling themselves and it's just like you said we're fucked I don't think that you can put it more simply and it's it's so so frustrating and it's gotta be like a slap in the face to activists especially yourself how Joe Biden one states he didn't set foot in when Bernie supporters were relentless phone banking every fucking minute that they had to spare and this asshole won by doing nothing by standing for nothing like I'm reminded of this video I think it was after Iowa where some of his volunteers took turns sharing like 50 things that they liked about Joe Biden are 30 things and none of them had policies I saw like two policies maybe and it was like oh he's nice he's committed it's like none of this means anything Joe Biden says there's nothing that we can't accomplish together but then he says we can never have Medicare for all like this man he doesn't stand for anything it's so irritating to me so it feels like you know we're just going to keep doing the same thing like I know Democrats like to pretend Trump is uniquely terrible and sure maybe he is with regard to tone but you know Democrats their reign broke during the Bush years as well and rightfully so that was a much more destructive presidency but Donald Trump like in 10 years they're going to normalize him when we get President Tom Cotton or someone who's even worse and I think that this fear mongering has not been good for the left it hasn't been good for the center because here's the thing like Joe Biden is I think better than Donald Trump albeit marginally but if we are able to defeat Donald Trump all of the bad policies that come along with Trumpism aren't just going to vanish into thin air sure we don't have war with Iran if Joe Biden is president most likely but that doesn't mean it's done forever we postpone it four to eight years until a Republican gets involved maybe the best case scenario you know Joe Biden gets to appoint someone to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg I'm not convinced she stepped down if a Democrat was able to win the presidency so it's like we're we're seeing the line between Democrats and Republicans become blurred and this terror-read situation makes matters worse because the one kind of like pull that Democrats had was that they were just better on social issues women's issues LGBTQ plus issues you know racial justice and now they're proving that they literally stand for absolutely nothing so what are we supposed to do like we don't have real choices in this country and I don't like the talk of just getting a third party like we need fundamental for reform we need five to six parties like we have a lot of ideological diversity in this country even if I'll say voters aren't the most ideological but we need to be able to have like an honest discussion policy wise about what we need to do to fix our country and we're not going to get that with the same two-party duopoly that's been taking place so it you know if for me I'm just kind of like reassessing what is going to work and I think that one of the conclusions that I've come to that electoral politics is kind of a dead end I'm not saying that we check out of electoral politics I think local and state politics is really important electorally speaking and we should absolutely support candidates running for congress but in terms of just like only eyeing the presidency I don't think that that's going to make us successful in the long run I mean it was nice because we're this close we're this close to getting the most powerful office in the land but it didn't work and nobody else is going to be able to fill that void that Bernie Sanders is leaving so I think the biggest question is what's next and there's no answer to that I totally agree and you know not to be a downer to the viewers or anything but this one dude he's the one that planted the seed for everything so no and he is far from a deity and he is far from a god or infallible but the fact of the matter is he did plant the seed that brought things like free college Medicare for all Green New Deal to the main stage nobody this you know election year would be talking about any of that shit had Bernie not run in 2016 he also mobilized over a million volunteers you know the what he has inspired in a movement to at least create that groundwork if we can't do it I don't fucking know who can I don't fucking know unless someone comes out that none of us have ever heard of I don't know who else has a 40 year history of activism I don't know who else has you know been fighting for the people that long I feel like if we can't do it with him on the ballot I just kind of don't have hope in that regard at all it's so hard to have hope right and I mean I kind of like I'll go back and forth like sometimes I'll feel genuinely hopeful and optimistic but then other times I'll feel like that was stupid that optimism was pointless nothing is going to amount to anything but I mean at the end of the day one thing that we have going for us and I use the word going for us you know loosely because it's not a good thing is that all of the material conditions that existed that you know are plaguing the working class they existed before we really knew about Bernie Sanders as a country and they're going to continue to be an issue going forward so so long as these issues are there there is going to be a type of I don't know there's going to be an opportunity and it's just a matter of how a movement or a person seizes on that opportunity and the problem is that it's not necessarily like good actors that can use that opportunity we see you know rising fascism around the world it's not just in the United States what's Donald Trump you know he seized on that he seized on the material conditions in the United States so it's just a matter of like who's going to get to it first and it's a question that I don't know like it's we don't know the end of the story not that this story really has an end but we don't necessarily know what's going to happen is it going to get better or just progressively worse and we become acclimated to the shit situation and I think that all of this uncertainty is what's driving a lot of like the depression and the demoralization because it is tough like you want some sense of what the future is going to be and you can have a loose sense right none of us know what's in store for us things can change on a dime like that but you know if you can kind of anticipate alright well there's a general way that the wind is blowing you know we have Bernie Sanders and you know we're inching towards progressivism you know the younger generation you know anyone who's under 45 basically is very progressive so that's what we have in store for us I think that that's something to hang on to possibly but then I also tell myself conditions can change um you know I don't think it's as easy as some people are saying that we just wait for the boomers to die not that you know we love boomers there's a lot of great boomers on the burning movement but it's not so easy as waiting for the next generation to die off because people's opinions change over time and someone who supports Bernie today 10 years from now could be you know duped by some different ideology you know people aren't as consistent and principled as we as I would have liked to thought to have thought they were and this election is definitely showing that with the Tara Reid stuff I mean I believe Democrats when they came out against Brett Kavanaugh swinging you know with because I believe Christine Bozzie Ford and I thought well you know it's great that we at least have allies in power who are looking out for women at least you know rhetorically at least when it comes to you know these issues and now it's mask off for everyone nobody cares everyone just wants power and I don't know how to process that and I think a lot of people don't know how to process that and I don't know what to do with that information I don't know how to work within the confines of that very disgusting system and I don't know yeah absolutely I think one of the things that I'm looking forward to is you know I protested at Occupy DNC at the convention in 2016 six days marching like eight miles a day and over a hundred degrees I mean it was insane but I couldn't have gone through that week were it not for my brothers and sisters with me so I will be doing that again I already have my place booked in Milwaukee so I'll be flying out from Pennsylvania but it is according to Tom Perez not that I trust him but he said in his squeaky annoying voice that it's still going on and he said that a few days ago so if it's still going on I am there I am in the streets I'll be filming if it does go become virtual and it's canceled I am organizing with one other person a protest in DC at the DNC headquarters either way they're going to fucking hear me either way I will be there and I will have other comrades who ever wants to come they're going to listen period what will it do I don't know but it fucking felt good when I did it before at least selfishly I don't know but at least it felt good it felt like I'm saying fuck you and look at the exit numbers you did this yourself yeah they're hemorrhaging support and that will continue and maybe Joe Biden can squeak by and win but that's not going to change the underlying issues with the Democratic Party and I will say one good thing that we can take away from this election and just Bernie Sanders that phenomenon in general even if it's over I think one of the greatest gifts that he gave us was each other we've made so many great friends throughout this process there's so many people that I know personally like my mom who was awakened politically for the first time and this is so special there's real value in that so it's not like all of this was done for nothing I don't want people to take that away all of the effort that we did make to get Bernie elected we don't know how that's going to pay off but even if in your life you just convinced one extra person that it's huge that is huge because it takes all of us at an individual level to have an effect on the macro level so that's what I will say is there anything before we get to your special announcement that you wanted to talk about because we could basically talk for days and not run out of things to say but is there anything that you kind of had that you wanted to bring up on cam? I don't think so I mean I have a lot of great shows coming up so I don't think so I think we talked on much of it when I post these things about Bernie some people get very defensive and I have to clarify a lot look I love him I will always love him but he's pissing me off like it's that simple and I took the Bernie poster down that I've had every show for three years because I just maybe it will go back up one day I don't know but my audience was kind of upset that I did and I'm like look I'm going through grieving period here when I look at that I see pain right now I don't need to look at it so I think a lot of people are grieving a different way I'm glad I got to vote today but it's still kind of sore but I think we're all dealing with that despair and depression and hopelessness in our own way and I'm just looking forward to being an activist again because you can't be one right now unfortunately like armchair activism is not my thing I want to get back out on the capital steps and stuff like that so the forced agoraphobia I'm looking forward to getting back out there I totally get that and as someone with actual agoraphobia I literally have agoraphobia this is even too much for me I didn't know that I have agoraphobia I've made some progress over the course of the last couple of years but I mean with anything you kind of backslide but this is even a bit much to me because there is a greater sense of being confined and even though that's comforting to me in a way it's still really uneasy because if I want to go get a bean and cheese burrito from Taco Bell I don't want to have to get on the mask, get hand sanitizer it's just a lot it's a lot and that's totally a first world problem I could be way worse off but it is a scary time in general my best friend she has COVID she's a healthcare worker my niece is in healthcare and I'm terribly worried about her so I just want everyone to be able to move past COVID and I think that once we do get past this and we will get past this I think then we can kind of figure out what to do next and I will say to people who are feeling depressed because it's certainly not just us you know there's nothing that we can say that is going to make you feel better but hopefully it's comforting to know that you're not experiencing this alone because there are a lot of people online who need people to talk to who will text with you and call with you and even if that doesn't necessarily seem like it's something you want trust me it does really help just talking to someone about things it's important like see one of the things that irritates me is whenever these types of issues pop up and we discuss mental health nationally as a country so we have to make do with what we what we've got talking to people with the same types of issues who are going through the same thing a lot of us are experiencing this right now it really does help so I will leave people with that we don't want anyone to come away feeling like there's no hope it feels like that now but there have been times where we felt like this before and we felt hopeful again like the world keeps turning the sun will rise again but right now it's all darkness and it sucks it seems like there's no light at the end of the tunnel but I genuinely believe as I said to my core I am an optimist I believe things will get better and that's deep within like you have to really dig to find that belief in me but I know it's there and I know that things will get better it's not going to be perfect we're not going to live in a utopia because how could it possibly well I shouldn't say how could it get worse but I think I'm not going to jinx it knock on what I think the thing is I get so down sometimes and then I think at the end of the day I do not want Nira Tanden and Alyssa Milano giving each other cheers with mimosas that I'm crying so fuck that they're not going to see me continually down because that's what they want and it's trite but it's freaking true they relish in us being sad they don't get it it's not conceptually they're just too immature but so fuck it we'll be down and out but get back up exactly if anything be more annoying be a bigger thorn in the sides of the establishment give these fuckers hell because they've given it to us and yeah I think that's such a great thing to point out like don't be down because that's exactly what they want and they've won but I mean the fact that we almost won is kind of astonishing because this is like a grassroots movement and we took on a capitalist machine like a global capitalist leader like that's kind of fucking insane if you think about what we went up against and we almost won right we didn't but it's still remarkable so there is a there there we just got to harness it and try to move on so I will say that you have a very special announcement about the next project that you're working on I got spoilers and I love it I'm so excited take it away joy I have to tell someone like anyone who watches my show knows like I don't keep things so when people come to me and they're like yo breaking but you can't tell anyone I'm like so so I've been working on this for like almost a month and I'm like going to explode but so myself and peter douche nate sliver slash pat the burner pat coat all one person and I are writing his next our next parody which is on the resistance trademark so it's all about karenisms and you know just the hypocrisy and we hate bernie bros and all of those things and we are just having so much fun writing it we have given ourselves a due date of June 30th and we will be doing pre-orders sometime around there and the reason we're trying to write it so quickly well first of all the resistors on twitter kind of helping us write it themselves to be quite honest but the reason we set that date for next month is because we hope to have them edited and printed by the time we go to convention so we can you know sign them for people and stuff there pat's last book the peter douche book was a huge success so one day I was like I'm so fucking depressed write a book with me and he's like really I was like yes and he's like okay so we've just been having a blast with it and I'm so happy that I finally got to say something because I haven't even told my organization that my show is on like literally nobody knows except my husband and you and peter douche that's incredible but I will say that all of our favorite characters are gonna be in it all of our favorite shit libs make at least a small appearance and all I'll say is some of our favorite burners will make an appearance too nice it's geared to make people laugh and it's actually making us laugh while we're writing it so I think it'll be kind of cathartic for people to be like oh my god I saw people say that it's so hilarious like and just kind of you know if we don't laugh we'll cry like that kind of thing yeah I'm excited for people to read it I think it'll be really great I am so excited and like I got a little bit of background information about some of the shit libs characters you guys are gonna die laughing and just the fact that you mentioned the karenisms will be included in the book I feel like we need this right now so I'm looking forward to it what gave me the idea is watching the disgusting responses from women about tari I was like I can't even I gotta like do something like poetically or something like this to just let me escape from this because it is so egregious and then I was like let's just take make Alyssa Milano and such is already a parody essentially so let's just do something with that and then also you know last year I lost over 70% of my eyesight so and I was an English major so this is I haven't been able to really write so this has been very very good for me so that I can still do what I love to do yeah that's so awesome and it's not just like helping you like this is something that I think a lot of people are going to love like we need to laugh like you said like if we don't laugh then we're gonna cry so we need to laugh okay I gotta press you a little bit and you don't have to say this I want to spoil it but Alyssa Milano's character can we get any background on that any name for her I'm not gonna give her name but let's just say we are kind of going through tweets kind of you know I mean there's no way you're not gonna know who these characters are let's just put it that way like if you're on Twitter you know who these people are there's gonna be no discussion I'm just hoping we don't get sued because I'm like what is the legality of this because fair use fair use I've had to be very very like I had to do a lot of research about fair use and that is that's all parody that's fair game so they can't touch it if they try they're in the wrong but it I mean we're only saying what they said so if they find it offensive they need to be self critical because we're just literally saying what they themselves said stop being such a self parody if you don't want to be in a literal parody book like maybe that you know I'm looking forward to it they don't turn around and write one about me they'll be like she talks like a valley girl and you know all the shit will come out I'm like fair game I guess they're not artistic enough to do something like that these are shills these are corporate ghouls they don't care so we've got to make some of them because that's all we got that's the best that we can do to make ourselves feel better and anyone who is like very online on Twitter I already know that they're going to love this based on what you've told me behind the scenes so yeah we'll bring you and Pat the burner back on to talk about this when it releases I always got to support progressive projects I'm looking forward to this Joy tell the people what we can do to watch your show online so you can find me on Twitter at at Savage Joy Marie 1 and that's good to follow me for all my upcoming shows and also for updates on the book and you know a link to pre-order also you can follow my shows and see about 300 back episodes on real progress in action on YouTube we just became a 501c3 so we had to change the name to kind of become that 501c3 and keep politics separate from our economic side so yeah follow us on there and check me out on Twitter and I post a lot of Savage things I'm told so yeah the name is I think representative of your character Savage Joy I didn't give it to myself so I hope so well Joy it is always a pleasure we are always happy to have you on the show thank you for just like you know shooting the breeze and helping to digest what the fuck just happened over the last two years yeah so we'll have to watch this back and be like I don't know we were kind of off or whoa we were psychic it'll be interesting yeah I've had you know both of those reactions to myself like wow I nailed it oh I was wrong so we'll see it'll be interesting all right thank you so much for having me on I love you I adore you to pieces same same absolutely it's always fun to talk shit with you hello everyone I am here with Howie Hawkins he is the co-founder of the national green party in the United States and he's currently seeking the nomination of the green party he just announced that his running mate will be Angela Walker and there's a lot happening with his campaign Howie thank you so much for coming on the program well thanks for having me is it okay if I call you Howie everybody does okay okay that's easy the only primary I lost in the green party primary is somebody put Howard on the ballot and every minute I got the only time I got kind of Howard is when I was an inch when I was a kid so everybody calls me Howie that's fine yeah see I same is kind of for me I go by Mike and when people call me Michael like online and what not like my family calls me Michael but when I see someone online call me Michael it feels really weird so it's like don't don't do that so I thought I'd ask beforehand so thank you so much for coming on the program it's not often that we get a presidential contender on but I just kind of wanted you to be able to explain what your campaign is about because my audience if you're not aware or familiar with them they are largely supportive of Bernie Sanders or were and judging from the response that I've seen there's a lot of people that feel very disappointed very demoralized and I've seen you know a sentiment that you know many of them want to check out of electoral politics altogether so what is your message to these individuals who feel like all hope is lost there's nothing we can do what do you say to these types of people well I think Bernie showed there's a lot of support for the progressive governments he talked about and some people say he created that I think he just gave voice to a lot of sentiment that was already there like Medicare for all you can check the polling used to call it national health insurance going back to Truman and it's always pulled more favorably than those opposed usually in a substantial majority occasionally a plurality so he gave voice and particularly at a time when we're becoming harder and harder to access and the same thing with inequality we've had 45 years of stagnant wages housing and health care and college for the kids have gone through the roof and so people are retiring with no savings some of them are still paying student loans I know a woman who comes out of the civil rights movement names Coley Clark she was Medgar Evers assistant active in the student nonviolent coordinating committee went north with King to Chicago she finally got into college in the 80s she's on social security now and they're garnishing her social security checks to pay student loans it's ridiculous so Bernie expressed what people were feeling now for people to say it's hopeless it's exactly what the corporate power structure wants because they don't want to have to pay attention to you they want to you know ignore you if you don't vote and I would say if you settle for Biden they can take you for granted you get lost in the sauce you vote for Biden he's against Medicare for all he said he vetoed it across his desk as president so what I'm saying is the Green Party is where you can continue to fight for those things through November and beyond and so don't waste your vote you know make your vote count make people hear what you want and then make the politicians come to you so to the Samus people I think where the logical place where they should go to keep fighting for the things they were fighting for yeah and I think it's so important because when you consider the fact that 100 million Americans basically don't vote that's really scary like that doesn't bode well for the health and longevity frankly frankly of our democracy so not participating even though you know admittedly myself I kind of felt like I just want to disengage from electoral politics that is exactly what the corporate power structure you know the capitalist system wants and so long as you are active and still voting and making your voice heard I do think that there's hope but it's when all of us check out that's when I really feel like then all hope is lost so I appreciate you saying that now one thing that I have always admired about the Green Party is that they are the closest ideologically to me so when it comes to you and Bernie Sanders there is actually some really substantive differences so first and foremost one of the major differences is that you are explicitly pro BDS on top of that you support reparations for American descendants of slavery so talk through a little bit of your policy platform and also as I understand it you were the main founder of the Green New Deal so a lot of the Green Party policies and their platform has been popularized by the progressive left that's fighting within the Democratic Party to an extent but tell us about your platform that you are currently running on okay well at the broad scale Bernie calls himself a Democratic Socialist and I think he's missing two of the fundamentals of Democratic Socialism and this goes back to Marx and Engels summing up the failure of the 1848 revolutions to try to get the franchise for working people and they were an alliance these are revolutions spread across Europe and in the Latin America working people in the new middle classes the professionals in the new rising business class fighting the land of the elite to be included in the government the land of the elite made a compromise let the middle class in told the working class you don't get to vote so Marx and Engels told the movement we got to have our own party we can't rely on the professionals and the business people as reliable allies so that's one independent working class the other is Bernie wants to tax a billionaire class in order to fund social programs social programs we should have the problem is the billionaire class still has concentrated economic power and that translates into concentrated political power so they can resist and roll back to social programs so what we got to do is have a socialist economic democracy based on social ownership and democratic administration of the major means of production so that the people not a capitalist elite makes the investment decisions and you know has control of the economy and they have political equality democracy needs socialism political democracy you really can't get until you have economic democracy so that was the foundation of the socialist program, the socialist economy and Bernie well he makes gestures to it like he wanted to promote worker co-ops he talked about public energy in his Green New Deal but he also said when he gave his speeches on socialism I'm not about he called it government ownership you know government can be your municipality I think you want to decentralize as much as possible social ownership can also mean cooperation so but that aside you know he wasn't about changing who owns the major means of production which is central to the socialist platform so that's on the broad scale in terms of the issues I'm raising I'm leading with what I consider three life or death issues the climate crisis which is where the Green New Deal comes in the inequality crisis inequality kills working class life expectancies are declining so we call for an economic bill of rights and we can talk about how these different programs would work but the right to a job and income above poverty, affordable housing comprehensive healthcare public education from pre kindergarten child care through post secondary colleges, universities, technical and trade schools continuing adult education and finally a secure retirement and I want to double social security benefits to do that so that's a life or death issue because for basically the bottom half of the income spectrum every month it's like if you have to go to the doctor it's a crisis you have to skip rent or utility payments puts you in trouble or you skip the doctor's appointment and you might die the man that lived downstairs for me last year he had to get kidney medicine he's on medicaid medicaid didn't pay for the kidney medicine and when it came to the end of winter or march he decided to pay his utility bill and skip the medicine that month his kidneys failed by mid april that kind of thing happens too often so that's the second life or death issue the third is this new nuclear arms race we're modernizing our nuclear forces the strategic nukes are six times faster launch on warning isn't the issue anymore you launch when you think the other side might launch so the hair triggers closer than ever we got tactical nukes in conventional forces with the military doctrine that we can escalate to de-escalate so if you're losing a conventional war you use tactical nukes and then you say well de-escalate Russians have the same doctrine that's insanity Daniel Ellsberg's last book was the doomsday machine and the point was and he used to be a nuclear war planner before he was a Vietnam war planner he said once the nukes start flying it's basically automated, they're all going and we're dead so we need to and this is a major part of my program deep cuts in military spending I'm saying 75% out of these 7 official wars we're involved in special operations in over 100 countries start bringing our troops home and then take some nuclear disarmament initiatives pledge no first use disarm to a minimum credible deterrent and on the basis of all those tension reducing initiatives go to the nuclear powers and say we want complete and mutual nuclear disarmament according to a treaty that was agreed to by the 1922 nations in July 2017 the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons the international campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons got the Nobel peace prize for that and hardly anybody in this country knows about it because none of the presidential candidates in any party are really talking about this issue let alone putting forward proposals for disarmament so those are my three leading issues their life or death issues and the first thing that comes up is well, you're going to spoil the election for Biden no, the Democrats are spoiling the election because since NATO ran we've been promoting a proven nonpartisan solution which is get rid of the electoral college and go to a ranked choice national popular vote then you can vote for what you want without helping your worst enemy and the Democrats have never picked that up instead they blame the Russians and the Green Party and that's not dealing with reality so these are things that we're trying to raise and then you mentioned a couple issues reparations and BDS we'll start with BDS I'm generally against economic sanctions they hurt the people more than they hurt the people you're trying to target and right now in this coronavirus thing a lot of these countries were sanctioning aid and trade to deal with the coronavirus crisis and they were having problems before this the exception is when an oppressed people asked for that kind of support and I was very involved in the anti-apartheid movement seeking divestment and US sanctions against South Africa which we finally got in 86 I was very involved from the Soweto uprising in 76 until Congress overrode Reagan's veto of sanctions and then very quickly got the South African elite to say we can continue to exploit oppressed Africans here or we can do business with the rest of the world and they chose business and although South Africa is still a very unequal society they don't have the formal racial barriers so that worked and we got the same kind of situation in Israel-Palestine and the Palestinian movement is very united around boycott divestment sanctions so I support them and the way I would apply it is in steps so you don't just shoot all your bullets in one blast and the first thing which the movement there is calling for, the National BDS Committee Omar Bargoudi is the prominent leader there is military sanctions we start cutting military aid to Israel until they start respecting Palestinian human rights and negotiating good faith for a resolution instead we got the Trump administration about to approve give their house a stamp of approval on Netanyahu annexing the settlements in the West Bank which is exactly the opposite of where we go the US cannot basically have a position in Israel right or wrong they should be neutral they should be for the human rights of everybody living there and BDS I think can contribute to that as far as reparations goes absolutely the next step is to commission to study reparations for African Americans I think we need to study it and have this commission because African American community needs to be heard from in terms of what they need from reparations there's always been a debate how much it should be individual and how much should be collective in other words African American families have on average one-tenth the wealth of white families they need some money to make repair to damage that's been done by slavery Jim Crow ongoing discrimination and you know people say well that's a long time ago but what about during the Obama administration black America lost half its wealth because the corporate criminals that did predatory lending and foreclosers and then the Robo-signing which was just basically computerized fraud to steal people's homes they were not prosecuted in fact two of them are in the Trump administration now Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross and they were right in the middle of the Robo-signing Mnuchin in one West was notorious predatory lender in foreclosure so that happened in the last decade so this is something that needs to be repaired right now but these are the things that need to be studied the collective side is if you give people cash in the economy that still has institutionalized racism and capitalist exploitation the capitalist is going to end up with that money when people spend it so how do we change the system when the modern reparation movement started James Foreman who came out of SNCC and they had a black economic development conference in Detroit and they came up with a black manifesto and he took it to the Riverside church in the manner that the churches and synagogues fund black newspapers TV stations and radio stations and a black research institute as institutions that would help the black community come to graphs with their situation and advance educate people through the media and advance policy solutions so those are the kinds of things that the commission would study and I would add that there are other groups that need reparations there are Mexican Americans in New Mexico whose land has been lost against the Treaty of Agua Guadalupe which was what settled the War of 1848 when the US basically took half of Mexico and those people had land rights that had been violated and of course Indian Treaty rights there's 370 treaties with indigenous people lands has been stolen against those treaties and services that the federal government is supposed to provide have not been so there needs to be an honoring of those Indian Treaty rights and bringing those services and that land back into their possession so and then the other people are and this overlaps with the black community and the brown community is the war on drugs the devastation they did to communities we need a truth justice and reconciliation commission so people can talk about what happened to their communities and what needs to be done to repair them because all the people put in prison for possessing drugs most of what the people that went to prison destroyed families evacuated large portions of communities of young males and it was devastating for the other area where we need reparations yeah and everything that you say I agree with 100% which is really you know it's nice because when we talk about politicians in any of the two major parties even if you find agreement you're going to find vigorous like disagreement in other areas whereas with the Green Party your policies mostly line up with myself ideologically but one of the most important things that I really respect the Green Party for is your relentless advocacy for rank choice voting because this isn't to me just about voting you know for who is someone I agree with like I genuinely want power structures to be infiltrated by outsiders like the Green Party and whatnot so can you talk through about what rank choice voting nationally would look like and how we would get that because we know that in the state of Maine this was approved via ballot initiative and now we see a relatively competitive race with a third party candidate a Green Party candidate Lisa Savage if we got rank choice voting we're not necessarily just talking about a third party in terms of the Green Party we're talking about a huge step forward in terms of a multi-party system one why do you think Democrats refuse to adopt this and I think we both know the answer but I you know I think it's cathartic to hear you know why from you and also too how do you think as you know a collective left greens socialists independence we can make rank choice voting a reality well I think the Dems are worried that a third party will get established their instinct with the greens is to keep us off the ballot you know I'll just talk about our experience in New York we have to get a substantial petition done before we had a ballot line and they always challenged us and even when we did have a ballot line like this year the DNC with that national firm law firm that worked for Clinton and the DNC one of the partners is named COE forget the other name prominent Washington law firm went to court and said as the coronavirus lockdown started we're challenging the green signatures and the green signatures are good you know we went to enroll greens and they were good petitions and said we're challenging them but we don't want the Board of Election to review them because of the coronavirus crisis for public health reasons therefore knock the greens off the ballot and we defeated them on that but that was their instinct and then under the cover of the coronavirus crisis the state budget attached to it tripling the ballot access requirements for the green party to keep our ballot in terms of votes in this election and if we don't get it tripling the number of signatures we got to get from 15,000 to 45,000 in a six week window and when you're petitioning you really need to double so 90,000 signatures in a six week window you know we do it with volunteers the Democrats they got a lot of money they could pay people to do that but that's a real barrier so the New York Times when they heard about this plan they called it the Democrats secret plan to kill third parties so that's why the Democrats they don't want a democracy they want to take their left for granted and so I think that's what motivates them but there are progressive Democrats we've got behind it we have right choice voting about 20 cities they passed it in Maine the Democrats progressive Democrats up there as well as Libertarians and you know just sort of those practical Democrats and Republicans you have up there in New England town meeting country where you know those elected officials and state legislature they sort of have to be accountable those town meetings because those town meetings can you know call them the task too so different kind of political culture than most of the country so I think that helped so yeah rank choice voting you know people should understand it you rank your choices one two three take the Nader Florida thing just to so there were a lot of candidates but just have Nader, Bush and Gore more of Nader's supporters choice would have been Gore or Bush so what happens in rank choice voting if nobody gets the majority in the first round the last place candidates eliminated and their ballots switched to their second choice so in that election Nader's vote would have switched to Gore and he would have won handily so that eliminates the spoiler problem the incentive to vote for the lesser evil to stop your worst enemy the other thing rank choice voting can do is get proportional registration proportional representation in legislatures it's called the single transferable vote so the counting is a little more complicated it's the same principle but and there are bills in Congress for this you have multi-member districts and you rank your choices in order of preference and the end result is each party gets representation proportion to the support they got so that's in contrast to the plurality winner system we have right now so I ran in this district where I'm sitting right now about nine years ago now and I got 48% of the vote and the person that got 52% got all the power my vote didn't get any representation and that leads to tyrannies of majorities or sometimes tyrannies of minorities because the plurality wins and that's not right this is a system of voting plurality winner that was invented in the late middle ages in England in 1430 they made the sheriff instead of taking what he thought was the consensus of all the property owners and his shire he had to go out and actually count them and the plurality candidate would then go to the House of Commons what are we now almost 600 years later it's time for an update the system is antiquated and to kind of put this into context for people when we talk about multi-member districts the districts that we're all in we get one representative if they get 45% of the vote they win right the 65% gets no representation so if we just increase the district magnitude to 2 in that instance in your race you as well as your opponent would have gone to congress and let's say hypothetically speaking we had someone with 45% someone with 30% and someone with 10% the people the majority of people would have someone representing them representing their voice whereas the 10% would be left out if the district magnitude were to for example but it just makes things more representative it's more proportional and it's more democratic and so I totally this is why I've really been trying to push rank choice voting for so long because it helps to make marginalized voices electorally actually take positions of power which is important now speaking of being disenfranchised as a non-mainstream candidate you were banned from Twitter you got your account back and this isn't necessarily a new phenomenon you know third party candidates you know activists social media does tend to marginalize them to a degree indie media on YouTube kind of is doing the same thing to us currently so can you talk a little bit about what was that all about because I heard that you were banned from Twitter I thought it was outrageous but you're back but what happened well they said I was impersonating myself you know how do you do that and you know it was just a two or three sentence message they didn't talk to me I think what happened is somebody you know there's a complaint for them they said somebody complained saying they were me that somebody that my page was impersonating them and without investigating they just took me off so we got some media and there was a petition and so then we got a two sentence you know a letter about maybe a week or ten days later and they said your pages or what do they call it restored it'll be up in an hour and then it just said thanks Twitter they always sign off thanks Twitter they never talked to me so it's still kind of a mystery what happened but my guess is somebody you know played a dirty trick on me and then Twitter just didn't investigate and just took that complaint form at its face value and even if it wasn't necessarily someone reporting you it could have been automated but just to kind of compare contrast could you imagine this happening to any sitting member of a congress a democrat a republican it only happens to the outside voices who conveniently kind of you know need to be suppressed for the powers that be so you know there are ten foil hats and speculate about this but I thought that it was it was absurd to have you know a presidential candidate be suspended from Twitter for an arbitrary reason nonetheless I had to ask you about that since I had you on another thing that I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about is we've been hearing a lot about the prospect of Jesse Ventura jumping in the race possibly seeking the Green Party's nomination I wanted to ask you because the Green Party's nomination is still taking place there's other candidates running there's Dario Hunter there's others how would this work I mean assuming he wants to run for green assuming he's going to run for president is there any way that you and him could collaborate would he have to run as a separate candidate what are your thoughts on this well he has said he's supporting the Green Party this year he joined the Green Party it remains to be seen if he's actually going to run you know I think Jesse's a guy who likes to win he's getting in late you know the numbers just aren't there and you know he has a mixed history on policy that you know the Greens are going to scrutinize so he'd have a tough time I believe and you know it remains to be seen if he actually gets in but I welcome him getting involved and you know if he's not running I'll you know ask for his support he said he'd support the Green Party and you know politics is about addition not subtraction so he brings in people that's good sure sure this was before we got news that you announced your VP but in the event you hadn't selected a VP would that be a possibility of selecting Jesse Ventura do you know if any of your opponents would have considered that just because I think that name recognition is a real struggle for third party candidates so I could see value there but I mean you would want ideological consistency of course something to consider but that's something that you would have considered if he had made this you know not announcement but you know floating about candidacy sooner well I chose Angela Walker because I know her I have a rapport with her you know that personal chemistry is so important when you're running as a team she knows the issues she speaks in a way that people understand and believe her conviction she moves people she's a younger african-american worker she's a truck driver with a long history she ran against David Clark that crazy sheriff in Milwaukee County where's the cowboy hat he was a Trumpie I mean he was after Angela ran against him she got 20% of the vote she ran as an independent socialist back in 2014 people started dying in his jails he was telling people to get a gun don't call 9-11 I mean it was really somebody who had to be challenged you know Angela is that kind of person she stepped up and she's been involved she was involved in the Wisconsin Uprising as the legislative director of her amalgamated transit workers union local she was a bus driver at the time in Milwaukee so you know when we talked in my campaign team she was always at the top of the list as far as I was concerned so I was just happy that she agreed I've never met Jesse Venture I mean to develop a relationship I think she balances the ticket in so many ways that I don't think I could have a better choice but if you know Jesse doesn't run but supports us there's a role for surrogates he can speak to his people and urge them to vote for us I would welcome that and I respect that because I was a little bit torn on this because I think that name recognition is really important at the same time I like Angela Walker I like her the fact that she's a working American I like that she's an activist so I do think you have to find that balance and I thought that you made a fantastic choice so you know I just kind of wanted to get your take on this because I wasn't necessarily sure what was going to happen if anything would come of that because I knew that back in 2016 I think earlier on you and Jill Stein had kind of been open to working with Bernie Sanders so I wasn't necessarily sure if that was something that would have been possible thank you for speaking on that I don't know that he will run but if he is trying to spread policies that are positive for working Americans then I'll support that but yeah I respect your decision I think the logic makes a lot of sense you want people who are organizers who are activists and who are working Americans because when I think of idealism in America and the American dream there's nothing more American than a truck driver running for president to be on a ticket I think that's great so yeah so moving on I do want to ask you a question this is a little bit of a controversy so in an interview with Primo Nutmeg you had misgendered and dead named Chelsea Manning and just for context I want to read the quote to you you say this about Julian Assange Julian Assange should not be prosecuted for publishing leaks from Bradley Manning or what's he called himself Chelsea I don't believe that this is something that you did intentionally but dead naming is something that's really harmful to the trans community and I just wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of respond to that yeah I put my foot in my mouth this was like 70 minutes into a long interview when I got up at 3 in the morning to drive over to Massachusetts to give a speech and then did this interview and I was working about lunch I was afraid I wouldn't miss it you know I've worked on the Manning case before she transitioned so that name popped into my head first and I realized whoops and then I used the wrong pronoun it was just an innocent mistake and I've apologized about it many times and it's just one of those things that you know I made a gaffe and I apologize for it it was a mistake thank you for saying that I appreciate that I just wanted to get your input on that this is something that my viewers have brought to my attention that I wasn't aware of previously but thank you I appreciate that I could also add that that was over a year ago I think it was made it was a year ago but people keep putting it on the internet that people had opposed me it's kind of the smear thing and I accept my apology it's sincere I appreciate that another thing that I wanted to ask you about another controversy so you had previously suggested that you believe that the 2016 Democratic Party primary was rigged I would agree with that sentiment and now there are other individuals running for the Green Party nomination that are saying that the same thing is virtually happening in the Green Party in 2020 so I want to bring up Ian Schlackman this is someone who was running obviously suspended his campaign and he announced that he'd be boycotting the nomination for the Green Party altogether because he believes that the process was unfair it was tilted in your favor and he puts forward a number of examples he says that the individuals who were working for the Green Party apparatus as national cold chairs they didn't step down when they started working for your campaign so there was a conflict of interest he also said in an interview with Primo Nutmag that your campaign, the language and verbiage in particular that you put out ended up being adopted by the PCSE, the Presidential Campaign Support Committee and these rules ultimately ended up disenfranchising other candidates for example this led to a vote in North Carolina where although there were seven other candidates you were the only one on the ballot they say that this tried to force a two-way race between you and Dario Hunter can you just talk a little bit through this and your response to this because I think that one of the turnoffs for Democratic Party voters and I speak only for myself is the way that the Party apparatus uses these types of institutional advantages that they have as leaders of the party to disenfranchise kind of the challengers so what is your response to this what is your response to Ian Schlackman and others who are worried about the process itself who agree with you politically and on the policy but think that the process wasn't necessarily fair and transparent Ian is full of it in every respect first of all I'm not part of the National Party apparatus I've been grinding away here in Syracuse and in New York State I haven't been involved in the National Green Party really since we got the current version Green Party of the United States its FEC recognition and so forth and the rules soon after the Nader Campaign in 2000 and actually I lost a lot of the things I thought about the way it should be structured and I think it's ineffective in the structure now so I've been focused locally so to say I'm pulling strings there that's just nonsense now the people that work for my campaign they resigned from the committees it said my campaign manager she finished out her term which was about a month after I announced now there are members and chairs two of them who publicly support me other members publicly support other candidates one of them supports a candidate but doesn't say so publicly you talk about rigging there's a lot of stuff games being played but my campaign is not playing them as far as the rules of the presidential campaign support committee I had nothing to do with that the rules are if you want to be recognized by the party you've got to file with the FEC have a website fill out a questionnaire raise at least $1,000 from at least 100 people and there's a fifth criterion oh I think you have to write a letter to the CSE I mean it's really simple stuff that if you can't raise $1,000 you shouldn't be running for city council let alone president so that was the thinking was we get these marginal candidates now they're running around saying they're excluded and they're just rigged they don't have campaigns they just start lying and so you know it's disappointing that people do that and it's not constructive and you know I have basically ignored it I haven't spoken out but you brought up this guy and you know what he's writing is just not true one more thing to follow up him as well as four other green party presidential candidates they did pen an open letter asking for the rules to be revised to make it more fair for more transparency and accountability going forward like I don't necessarily know what can be done so far in terms of like 2020 going forward how do you think constructively the green party can improve the process because even if you don't necessarily believe that what Ian Schlackman is saying is correct the perception for individuals such as myself it's difficult because for me I don't necessarily follow the internal politics and factualization within the green party I'm kind of just an outsider who I support green party candidates here democrats here so I mean I agree with you on the policy but I think that transparency and fairness is something that I do care about so in terms of like just people like me how do you improve this how do you make the optics better well I think what the PCS see try to do is say we're only going to recognize serious candidates and the criteria are very low but that didn't stop some people from stepping up and you know in today you can get online and say anything so I'm not sure I do that the process is transparent you mentioned North Carolina look each state party determines who's going to be on their ballot some of them go with the recognized candidates some of them let all comers on California party wanted the three recognized but the Secretary of State put two others on in North Carolina they had a criteria and they wanted the candidates to ask the question how are you going to get on the ballot and at least they had 37 I don't know why they had 37 states but that was their number and none of the other candidates answered that question you know we have a ballot access plan to get on all 51 states and that was the criteria they decided on so you know you got to step up and meet that I you know that's a that's a reasonable question you want to run nationally how are you going to build a green party because getting ballot lines one of the concrete things we can get out of this campaign in about 40 of the states the vote we get for president determines whether that state green party has a ballot line for the next election cycle and that makes it a lot easier to run our candidates for local state and congress and in most states it's a half a percent in New Mexico one two or three percent a few states is five percent Alabama's 20 percent that's the toughest one but you know we can get on the ballot in a lot of states and you know that's how we're going to build this you know you talk about name recognition earlier and celebrity you know you can't build a party out of that you mentioned that the people that don't vote that's working class people people the color young people and even our campaign we may appeal to them but that's got to be followed up with organizing not just mobilizing get out to vote organizing is the kind of thing union and community organizers do they don't go out and preach to these people they go out and listen and find out what's going on how it can help build relationships friendships and trust and the way we're going to build this party is we got to have green party locals in these communities where the people in the community know who the activists are that they can trust them that they know what's going on that they can come to them with issues and so here in new york we ran grandpa alwis old grandpa monster and got the bout line in 98 and then we ran celebrities in 2002 and 2006 and we failed to get the 50,000 votes we needed so in 2010 we couldn't even get any celebrities to step up so that people turned to me and I'm a nobody I was a teamster unloading trucks at UPS during the campaign at night so you know but what we had was a good message and we had organized it on the ground and we got our 55 we got 60,000 votes at election next election almost 200,000 votes that's when I got 5% and Governor Cuomo did I go over that I've been talking all day to people but we're at 5% you know Cuomo had wanted to run up the vote get more in his father Mario Cuomo got get more in he got in 2010 to get ready to run for president and he got less he couldn't take us for granted that 5% 200,000 votes he had to then say well what can I do to compete for those votes and he adopted demands that we were raising and never supported like a man on fracking a $15 minimum wage paid family leave and gestures toward tuition free higher education which were kind of phony as they panned out but you know he made the move and that's the kind of influence we can have even without winning the office so that's why I tell people you know well for what you want to make the politicians come to you don't waste your vote on somebody who doesn't believe what you do yeah I want to kind of get into that a little bit more as you talk through organizing because I think that there's this misconception about the Green Party and that they don't exist until once every four years they kind of materialize and then dematerialize once the presidential election is over but that's not actually true I mean the Green Party has been consistently fielding candidates at local offices and doing organizing for example I've covered in my program the activism in the early net neutrality days when Obama was still president of Margaret Flowers I thought that her protesting Tom Wheeler was really admirable so I'm curious in terms of putting aside electoral politics for a moment what do you think is the best way to affect change in terms of organizing and how big of a role does electoral politics play in boldening the left because I think that's just one piece of that and I think a lot of people are kind of reevaluating the role of electoral politics how big of a role does that play and is organizing itself actually putting pressure on these existing institutions as important or possibly more important is actually running for office what is your take on this because I know that the Green Party has been incredibly active on non-election years around issues so like can you just talk through I know this is kind of a loaded question but for me I'm kind of thinking through what do we do as a collective left and I include everyone in this category green socialists anyone who agrees with the policies that I want how do we at least get the policies we want if we're not able to gain power does that kind of make sense I know it's a little bit broad yeah it's it's a combination of movement and party without the social movements the party doesn't have the energy behind it but without the independent party social movements get taken for granted by the power structure take the Iraq war I mean we had such big demonstrations in the U.S. and around the world that the New York Times called us the world's second superpower but then that movement unlike the anti-Vietnam War movement where we were saying out now to McCarthy and Kennedy who were calling for negotiations the Humphrey and Nixon and what we found out was we had such massive demonstrations a year after the election 69 the Vietnam War in October and the massive demonstrations a month later that Nixon and Kissinger realized if he went through with his secret plan to end the war which was to Newt, North Vietnam he wouldn't win re-election in fact it might provoke a revolution they were worried about that because we had so many people in the streets and we weren't saying we're supporting the lesser evil against the Iraq war the broadest coalition United for Peace and Justice said their slogan was against the Bush agenda which is saying vote for Kerry who was pro-war Kerry was saying I can fight the war better than Bush I got a military background I'm reporting for duty that's what he said at the convention and he wanted a bigger surge than Bush eventually got and that really hurt the peace movement and then because the message was the Democrats or the peace party when Obama got in there and is having his torture Tuesdays where he's selecting who to kill by drones escalates in Afghanistan removes quote-unquote combat troops while leaving special operations going on in Iraq and so forth the peace movement was largely absent so now that's why the movement is so important and it's going to be important no matter who wins the presidency in this election on the other hand what a party can do for the movement so I mean our problem with the social movements now is we got this nonprofit industrial complex where if you trace it back they're billionaires on the right it's the Koch Brothers on the left Soros gets a lot of attention but there are others you know Steyer and Lewis and these other very wealthy people and so what happens is you get groups funded they hire staff staff sit around the table decide what the tactics are and then we get a message on the internet move on tells you what the next thing to do is and that's very undemocratic it's very much like an electoral campaign top down mobilization so people are atomized and easily manipulated because they're not talking to each other and they can't critically evaluate the situation which happens when you're talking to each other at the grass roots now what a party can do is bring people together and in a multi-issue platform so you relate the issues and you make allies of people fighting over different issues who may be competing for media attention supporters and money and a party can do that I mean in the labor movement I'm part of I've gone to these labor notes conferences which promote union democracy I've been a member of teams just for a democratic union and they've been going since the you know 70s but I don't think it's really going to happen until you have a party with a position on union democracy that it goes in an organized way and you know fights for democracy in the unions and you know all the movements there are positions that a party could bring in there because the movements tend to get you know patriotic and chauvinistic about their own movement versus the others our issues are we're more oppressed than you are our issues more you know we got to save the climate everything else got to wait no we got to find a way to bring it all together and I think that's what a party on the left can do and so that's why I think that's a missing ingredient for the left particularly in this country because we haven't had a party of the working class since the Socialist Party which came close to becoming a major party and you know we can go into why that didn't happen around World War I but I think it shows as possible but what we got to do is organize not just mobilize like I was talking about earlier that I think you know all the left the movements need to do you know we tend to mobilize we preach we go out with our leaflets and our Facebook messages and everything and we don't take the time to build relationships and get rooted in communities where people trust us and that's you know union organizers know that when they're trying to get recognition or organize a strike or a collective bargaining fight and community organizers know that you know that's how you build a base for your community organization and it's something that we need to pick up in the other social movements and with the Green Party yeah that's a really thoughtful response and it kind of puts everything into perspective given the position of I think a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters because myself you know I've been politically active since you know my college days but now I kind of feel myself rethinking I've been introspective lately wondering what like how do I get the policies that we need implemented into law what do I do to effect change so I mean you you've been in the trenches for decades of time so what's the one thing like the one piece of advice that you could give to a young activist who's just kind of getting involved in politics you know is being politically awakened they just read Marx Chomsky what would you say to that person that's the best thing that they can do to effect change you know they're maybe thinking do I run for congress do I organize do I join DSA do I join Green Party what would you say to that person because I feel like there's so many options that it's difficult and we're all kind of we're experiencing a new vision I think we all just want to get through COVID-19 but we want solutions and we want to have some sense of direction so what do you say to that kind of aimless person currently if you will Well Michael Harrington who I have disagreements with I mean he's the grandfather of today's DSA, Democratic Socialist America used to say there's no such thing as an unorganized socialist you got to be part of a group because that sharpens your thinking and it develops you because you got to learn how to speak and you know represent your thinking and other people challenge you and you know that's one of the reasons of you know Green Party locals should be places where we develop people their education their ability to speak write you know do the kind of graphics all the things we need to learn how to do so you got to be part of a group and that would be my first piece of advice second thing I would say study history you want to see how social change happens see how it has happened and you'll also learn that most of our movements for progressive change we lost and we lost and we lost and we lost until we won and I've been involved in movements where we were a small minority vilified you know anti-Vietnam War in 65, 66, 67 you know we were like you know a fifth column for the commies and then in 68 after 10 it just flipped and I think in the back of people's minds particularly those people whose sons and daughters were going off well mostly sons to Vietnam because of the draft and coming back if not you know in a body bag or with a wound with mental issues you know really scarred they began the question you know why are we fighting in Vietnam anyway and you know they began to realize that there was supposed to be an election in 56 to reunify the country or was it yeah 56 and the U.S. didn't want it because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win who had led the fight against the Japanese occupation and then the French trying to recolonize it and then the Americans and you know his declaration or proclamation of independence was modeled after our declaration of independence you know people but in any nuclear movement when we started occupying the Seabrook nuclear power plant 8% of the people in New Hampshire agreed with us that nuke shouldn't be built and we got everybody's attention by that mass occupation 1414 of us arrested put a National Guard Army for 10 days on the cover of the newsweek Newsweek, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post it went national what we did in New Hampshire is then that was in spring by the next year we brought town meeting resolutions saying stop construction works in progress that's where we had to pay for it before it was up and running which wasn't a tradition plants weren't put in a rate base to establish rates until after they were up and running and we went to Rock Rib Republican New Hampshire that was you know got us news from the Manchester Union leader and they said yeah you're right we shouldn't pay for this thing if it isn't working we shouldn't pay for you know why does this get special treatment and they realized the public service company in New Hampshire this nuke was like I forget what the ratio was like a hundred times bigger than all the assets they had it was more a wall street project and you know then so we won that up and down the state we won those town meeting resolutions and then they pulled again 80% of the people in New Hampshire were with us so you start out as a minority, same thing with the anti-apartheid movement that was a case where people said yeah South African apartheid is terrible but you're not going to get your college to divest your union to divest, your city to divest you're not going to get under Reagan you're going to get sanctions against South Africa but we did because in 8586 suddenly we got the movement got game momentum we put up shannies to Dartmouth College where I had gone we prefabbed them, brought them in our flatbed truck and put them right in the center of the green where they do the bonfires for the football game it was like sacred territory and all the liberals who had sort of been intimidated by the right wing Dartmouth review funded by some national right wingers they came out of the woodwork we had 400 people out there within 20 minutes it just totally changed the climate and then the other campuses started doing it and then the trans-African did the civil disobedience outside the White House, Congress passed a bill that had been in there since the late 60s Reagan vetoed it, Congress overwrote it so these are cases where we were or fracking in New York you know it was the people most affected that were against it but then people understood what it was and you know we got 5% in 2014 and then almost said okay that's what the people wanted so these are all examples I've lived through where you started out as a minority but you know if you think you're right and you can persuade people even if it's one on one for a while you know keep at it because if you study history you'll find out that you can win so that's so people don't get discouraged they should have a historical perspective and realize these things it's like in leaps it's like you're pushing against the door and suddenly it busts open and you're through and all the people that were watching you saying you're wasting your time they come running through too saying we're with you all the time so that's how it works so people get in the organization and get some historical perspective so when it's tough going realize that you know you never know when that spark's going to light the prairie fire and things will move yeah and I think that's a really great advice because after speaking to Dr. Harvey JK you know about how radical our history is you know on the left and what we've managed to accomplish you know we're not necessarily doing anything new today it's the previous generations in the fight like yourself who have kind of like given us a little bit of guidance in terms of what we do and I think that part of the problem is that all of us especially myself we've been hyper focused on electoral politics and there's this you know I think underlying belief maybe that we can't really affect change unless we get a progressive president but when you talk about you know sanctions on apartheid South Africa with Reagan as president it shows people that we have to rethink what we previously thought was possible and you know for me my number one goal is to make sure that regardless of what happens in these elections people are mobilized and they stay engaged and so I wanted to kind of push this off to you now so speaking to the person again going back to the beginning of this interview where you know there's people considering checking out of electoral politics not voting altogether can you make your pitch to those people as to why you think they should stay involved and what we can do to support your campaign well people should stay involved because you know our lives depend on it you know the climate crisis is not just you know more heat waves and some stronger storms it is mass species extinction the collapse of ecosystems the collapse of agriculture they're climate scientists who've calculated what might happen in our business as usual scenario and they come out with around 90% of current humanity not being able to be supported by the agriculture we could reduce in the year 2100 so this is a real calamity we've talked about the nuclear arms race and then for you know at least the bottom half of the income spectrum whose average income is $18,000 $500 that's the working poor you know it's a life of death issue you know if they can sustain a standard living that's healthy where they can go to the doctor you know we gotta be engaged just for our own lives and so you know I urge people to be engaged and you know I think they call Hubert Humphrey the happy warrior you know I try to think about that when you know things are not going well it's like well you know that comes with the territory and you know if you believe in what you're doing then you know that should be enough no matter what people say in the long run you know you'll persuade people and these movements can advance so that's what I would say to you know people thinking about maybe I can't make a difference man you can you know a small group of people Ralph Nader says if we just had like forget the numbers like 100 people in each congressional district pester and a member of Congress we could transform the country you know organized people can be organized money and you know while these politicians catered to the money they gotta get the votes in the end and if they're worried about that that's more important because they want to keep their jobs and we got power and we have more power than we know you know during Vietnam you know I mentioned how to you know the tactical nuke plan that Kissinger Nixon cancelled we didn't know it at the time you know it came out maybe four or five years later in fact Dave Dellinger one of the leaders of the anti-war movement in that period wrote a book called More Power Than We Know because we were winning and some of us didn't realize it we were discouraged so that's what I would say now to get involved in my campaign you know we have a website HowieHawkins.us you can get to all the social media Facebook, Twitter and those other things there and those releases op-eds, policy papers and just statements about what's going on you can sign up to volunteer or just get our bulletins about what we're doing you can donate we're the only campaign in the country that is seriously going for federal primary matching funds and we're basically at a point now where we expect before the end of this month to qualify we need $5,000 from 20 states and individual contributions of $250 are left and we got a chart up there how we're doing on ballot access look at your state and your state is over the finish line with 100% realize that your donation will be doubled when we qualify up to $250 and you know we need that we need people working on this campaign I can't do this all myself we got to get on a ballot we just committed $10,000 we're going to court in this coronavirus social distancing environment which makes petitioning unreasonable and saying hey, the Green Party has been on the ballot several election cycles just put us on and Vermont did that Illinois said no, we took them to court and we won in court we're doing that we got 24 ballots which is equal to 305 electoral votes which would be enough to win the electoral college but we're going for all 51 ballots and we're going to go to Columbia so people can help and that's what we need we need a little army out there magnifying our voices even if it's only in this lockdown you can't go knocking on doors at this point although maybe that'll change we've been thinking about how to do that with proper social distancing and maybe as things open up here that'll become an opportunity but you can always friends, family, neighbors and talk up the campaign alright, well thank you so much Howie Hawkins running for the 2020 Green Party nomination we're absolutely thrilled to have you on the program hopefully you'll be back to talk about your campaign again when we have an update I'd be happy to thanks for having me alright folks, that is all that I have on the agenda for today's show hopefully you enjoyed that as usual we're not going to end the show without thanking all of our Patreon, Paypal and YouTube members for not just helping the show to survive but thrive as well I understand if you can't support the show because we're all struggling currently but if you can, then thank you, but you can also support the show by simply liking our videos, sharing our videos and just by watching our videos that honestly goes a long way so I'm done rambling, I'll see you all next week take care everybody this is The Humanist Report, I'm Mike Ferriero