Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at where the American democratic system and the society at large stands now that we are about one year removed from the January 6th insurrection.
And consider whether the things that seem to have caused this seditious incident have been addressed or whether we should expect to see more violence and sedition and all these other types of things after upcoming elections if certain Americans don't get their way.
Joining me today is a man who was dreaming when he recorded this, so you'll have to forgive him if he goes astray. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you going to share with us today how you still are able to party like it's 1999?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but if I have to wake up to do it, then no.
If I can stay asleep and keep dreaming, then yes.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Hey, do your thing. Do your thing.
All right, now we're recording this on January 2, 2022, and our first show of 2022. Happy New Year, Toonday.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Happy New Year, sir.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: All right. And we wanted to take a look back, though, at January 6, 2021, and the attack on the US Capitol and insurrection against our government.
Now, advantageously, we'll be able to do this now with a year's worth of perspective. And we want to use that to try to figure out what may be in store in the future.
Now, our first show of 2021, which was released on January 5, the day before the insurrection, addressed what we saw is out of control sentiments of entitlement and over privilege. And we talked about how these things could threaten our country and then cause some to turn against the country or whatever if they, if they didn't get their way. Now, we didn't predict the insurrection that took place the day after the pod was released for sure, but our discussion, the discussions were prescient enough that we heard from many listeners who thought that that episode, we were talking about the insurrection and that they couldn't believe that it was released before it happened.
Now, that being said, today, we're not trying to predict the future or anything, but we do want to take a critical look at how things have unfolded since then in light of what was going on at the time, and then consider just what that means as far as where things may be going. So just try to figure out what's going on, as we like to do. So, Tunde, now that you've had a year to contextualize what happened and for more information even to come out as far as what was happening behind the scenes at the time.
What about January 6th now is most notable?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Well, that's a bit of a loaded question, isn't it?
Well, I would say this, what's most notable to me, because that is obviously a broad question which I could pull a lot out.
But I would say just for the sake of brevity, I would say the response of the nation as well as the response of politicians.
Those two things are most notable for me and I'll parse that out. One is the response of the nation, which. It's a shame for me to say this, right, But I would assume that if the US Capitol got attacked, just like if I watch British people storming Buckingham palace or Russians storming the Kremlin in Moscow, any scene like that, I would assume that most of the, the citizens of those countries, a year later, I would say, wow, most of them probably were really upset about that.
I think this idea that we still have so divided in our country, and I know we'll get over some of our hypotheses as to things that have been promoting that division through this conversation, but a year later we still have a big disagreement as to how severe this was.
And most of this country looks like they still want to continue down this road. So that to me is notable.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I'd say for me, and this is more of the information has come out since, you know, the, the. How violent it was actually was very, it stood out to me. Like that's not something really that was captured when you, on that day, you watch, you know, we, that you and I, you know, we talk about. Like we don't normally just sit around and watch the news, but that's the kind of event where, yeah, you just have the TV on and you're, that's what in my view 24 hour news is for. Like when something like that happens, not just, just to have on, you know, all the time, not to talk about Dr. Seuss, but it, it, they like the documentary four hours at the Capitol, which you, you know, you, you actually had turned me on to and told me I needed to watch that. I could not believe how val. I could believe it, but it was jarring to me how actually violent this was. Like this is, this was an attack, you know, like this was, it was.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: A mob stormed and then they were.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Trying to take positions and hold positions and the police are trying to hold them back. And you know, this was like a real, real Real deal, you know. And like you, and like you talked about before, the rhetoric after the fact was like, oh, it was just a protest or it was this and that. And trying to equate it to different things, like, we haven't seen anything like this. You know, I did, you got to go back to the Confederacy, couldn't do this. You had to go back to the British 1812 to talk the last time somebody was doing this to a government building like that in Washington, D.C.
and so, like, to me, just how violent it was, I think, and maybe the fact that that is not something that people have in the front of their mind and, you know, that's natural, you know, to some degree, is that the violence of it, if you weren't there and if you weren't very close to it, will kind of get lost on you in a sense. But this, I mean, I guess this leads right into what you were saying is because, like, this is a huge deal like that this happened and that there was a violent attack like that that happened. And if we're not doing things to actually try to prevent this from happening in the future, there's no, like, there's been no grand statement that happened to make it say, like, hey, this is just if this happens, then, you know, like, it's a no go. Like, it seems like people walked away from this feeling like, you know, wasn't that bad of a deal or wasn't that big of a deal. Even people who didn't like it don't seem to have, like, really held the line here and said that, no, we gotta keep pushing this because we can never let something like this happen again. And so that to me is, you know, like the violence and then there's actually a coherent plan, you know, like, okay, we're going to occupy the Capitol so that they just can't do this government function. And if they don't do this government function, then potentially, you know, Trump's going to declare martial law or something like that. And it's like, wow, this was, you know, like drawn up, like a true insurgency.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and that's what I was going to say. I mean, one thing I'll add, when you say the word notable, as we're talking, it stands out to me.
What was notable was that, and this is my opinion, which there are some facts coming out that support this, but I don't think we have time to parse out each one.
And by that I mean the facts that certain groups that could have helped were told to stand down for a certain Period of time, they weren't immediately called up like the certain National Guards, when states like Maryland, Virginia were calling in, trying to offer them people at the Pentagon couldn't be reached. So my point is that the insurrection itself and the organization of that is one thing.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: There was thousands of people down in Washington, D.C. first at the Ellipse, waiting to hear the President speak, or President Trump at the time.
And then people made their way over to the US Capitol and all the thousands of them. So obviously there's somehow thousands of people who got to D.C. right. Just like we were joking one time when we said, how the hell did 10,000 Haitians show up at the US border after a big earthquake? Because it's an island. So somehow these things happen. That's one part of an organization, of an event.
The other part, to me, though, which is notable. This is the notable part.
How is that? Like you said, the documentary was called Four Hours at the Capitol for a reason.
From the time the Capitol was breached, it took four hours for support to show up.
And that's what I'm saying. You're talking about the nation's capital, the United States Capitol building, the symbolic and actual seat of our power during something constitutional, which is the counting of the electoral vote. So this wasn't like they stormed the Capitol on Christmas Day when no one's there.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: This is like the Vice President's there. The entire Congress, Senate and House of Representatives is there.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: And for that to be attacked by a mob of thousands of people, and for four hours, no response by the US Military, by the National Guard, by anyone under the control of the administration of the United States President.
That doesn't happen by accident. And so my point, that to me, is notable, you see what I'm saying? Because I know we were joking that day. Imagine if there was a bunch, if it was BLM doing that. Remember the response in the summer of 2020 in June, when people got on parts of this country, found it offensive that President Trump used the US Military on peaceful protesters and then took his time to go walk to that church and hold the Bible up for a four hour.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: That was just to clear a street that wasn't clear a street.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: We had a whole federal task force for that. And so that's what's notable to me is that this was a culmination of an attitude that we have seen in terms of leadership's attitude towards certain Americans versus others for four years. So that's why.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: But I would say with that, I mean, at best, like you Have. There's two components. You're correct. There's the Tinderbox, which is a whole bunch of people, passionate, emotional, misled to some degree. And then there's the strategic aspect of it where, like, okay, well, it wasn't just because there was a whole bunch of people. And you get this mob mentality and people start doing things maybe they wouldn't ordinarily not do. Like, there was a actual cognitive, thoughtful. Hey, let's hold back on support here, you know, because we don't want. And I mean, you see the law enforcement that was there, and you're like, oh, my God, you feel terrible for them that they aren't getting supported at all. Like, they're just, you know, they're taking blows. They're getting pushed on by the crowd, you know, it's serious, you know, and, like, they're getting no support coming in, you know, like. And so it's like, I don't see how anyone who claims to support law enforcement can see something like that and be like, oh, yeah, that's cool. That's what we want to do. But, I mean, that's what this thing is. It kind of holds a light on to what people truly think, you know, like, and what they really think and. Or what they really prioritize.
And now this was like. Like.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Well, can I just interject real quick before you jump on that last piece?
I would say this is even. To elevate what you said even higher. This is not just that. This is an important reflection of leadership, because what you're saying is very important. That was a violent mob, and I do. It's on hbo, Max, this documentary. I think everyone should watch it. I was embarrassed as an American to see that.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, no, that's like, this is.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Where it's supposed to be, America.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: I look at that and I'm like, well, what about. What if any adversaries in the world see that and be like, oh, yeah, now, granted, like you said, there's the second part, where clearly the military did not, for whatever reason, have authorization to go in and help or the National Guards or whatever. Again, just for presence. Not that they need to go in guns blazing, but just the numbers. They were so outnumbered law enforcement that just additional presence would have made such a big difference. And that's one of the big tenets that you see with these large demonstrations is always that, oh, well, law enforcement. You need to have people. You need to have a presence. You need to be out there, you know, show a force, so to speak. So you don't have to use any force. And when you get this puny force and they don't get any support. But I mean, clearly this was an extreme event. You know, it's something that's unprecedented in many ways. As far as the US Capitol, we've seen it, you know, smaller things in various state capitals and so forth, but still, maybe not to this extent, but. So, I mean, let's. Let's get to it. What was your thought on the rhetoric and the politics that led up to it? Because I don't think we can talk about the day as. Just as a standalone thing. It is something that there was a build to it, then it happened, and then we can talk after this. We can talk about what happened after that to kind of. To set the stage for where we are now.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think the ecosystem is a very important concept because, you know, we can trace this back, you know, first to kind of. I'll say you could trace this back through American history, but I would say in modern times, let's say the last 50 or so years, this begins with the Southern Strategy. I mean, it's too much for us to cover in one show. But let's just assume the Southern strategy in 1968, for those that want to look it up, could be one start to taking a certain type of energy that has been in this country.
I would say that's in some ways antisocial and anti Democratic. And I say that with a little D. Not political party Democratic, but just not wanting to play in a democracy with other people that they don't want to play with.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: And those were the segregationists, the Dixiecrats, who got upset at Lyndon Johnson for signing the civil rights bill. And out of shrewd political opportunity, Richard Nixon, through Pat Buchanan at the time was working for him, decided to take that energy and bring it into the Republican Party.
Then we have confession.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Just. Just so like, it's just clear you're not like, just throwing names or trying to label, like, segregationists are explicitly anti democracy. Like, they specifically don't want certain people to be able to vote. Like, that's like, that's their tenant. So it's not to say, oh, these people are anti Democratic as like a pejorative. It's like, no, no, no. Descriptively, that's kind of one of the things they stand for. But go ahead.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: And I thank you for that interjection because it also allows me to say this. You know, I don't want to paint all Republicans with the brush of being segregation or Dixiecrats they were invited into the Republican Party. The Republican Party prior to that was the party of Abraham Lincoln, which was proud of its history.
So I want to be very clear there, because not all Republicans today, obviously are the descendants of that mentality. But unfortunately, that type of mentality has been allowed to kind of fester and permeate for you and I's lifetime. It was pretty much under the surface, maybe catered to with dog whistles by politicians.
But I think Fast forward to 87 Removal of the Fairness Doctrine, fast forward a decade or so after that timeframe with the proliferation of technology that allowed for the consolidation of primarily talk radio. So AM radio stations created an ecosystem.
Then you get to maybe in the late 90s, the cable news technology proliferation.
Then you Fast forward to 10, 15 years later with social media. So what you've had is for the last 40, 50 years, on top of some of the political decisions, technology that has allowed for the fracturing of reality and for different people in our country to get different narratives in their ecosystems. And then I think you sprinkle in a little bit of it is the nativism that was created after 9, 11, with some of the fears just that came up naturally with what happened, being attacked by kind of Arabs and Muslim, that kind of whole thing.
Then you bring up some of the angst that Barack Obama created when he showed up as the first black president, and the response, which was the Tea Party.
And then you get a guy who's an entertainer who knows how to take this energy and knows how to deal with it from an emotional level and how to lead people emotionally named Donald Trump, who did a great job in capturing that energy in 2015 and 2016.
And I think here we are.
And that's a big part of it.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, to me, I look more recent in terms of the. What we've seen now, this, you can find its roots and all of the factors that you just laid out. But what we've seen is it's pure plays for emotion, which is not unprecedented. But what we're seeing now, basically, is that the way we talk about people who disagree with us on issues, the ante has been raised continually. So now, and this isn't symmetrical, so I'm not to say that everybody does this, but there are areas essentially in the country where people talk about people who disagree with them politically as if they're the devil, as if they are pure evil incarnate. And therefore anything that can be done to prevent them from getting in power is justified, is worthwhile. Is almost a duty. And so I think we've seen that in our politics. We've seen that in our media, where basically some people will take that stuff literally. Some people can get it. It's entertainment or whatever. Fox News, Tucker Carlson gets sued, his defenses, hey, people know this is entertainment. This isn't fact. But that's not 100% true. Some people take that stuff as real because what stood out to me. And again, looking at that documentary again, where you get to see people interviewed and they had footage from on the ground that day, and the people are talking about what they're doing at the insurrection as if it's like life and death, as if it's like survival and not survival. And clearly the stakes aren't that high. Like, we can see now like they failed. And it's not like it's the do or die and that's in that vein anymore. Like, they just. They're constantly amped up on the threat of things that are kind of made up, like, oh, if we don't do this, then borders are going to be overrun with this and that. And it's like, it's a play. It comes from politicians and it comes from media for different reasons, which I'll talk about in a second. But it's a play basically to up the ante emotionally on all of these things that. And many of them are really not that big of a deal one way or the other.
I remember me growing up, the conversation about people don't vote, all politicians are all the same, and yada, yada, yada, you know what? By and large, politicians still are mostly the same. You know, like there's. But we're seeing something more happen right now that plays into, like, again, just more aggressive plays to emotion, to dogma, to tie people's attention, to tie people's money, you know, get people to donate and stuff like that. And it's without regard to the fact that if you send that stuff to 10 people, eight of them might be able to say, yeah, yeah, you know, they're exaggerating for effect or whatever, but two of them are going to really believe that there's a pizza. There's a pizza store in D.C. that has a basement where there's people under there and they're. They're doing stuff to kids. And even though the pizza place doesn't have a basement, you know, like, there are going to be some that believe it and act on it. And the reference I did was the pizza gate thing where the guy droves up from North Carolina Looking for a basement in a pizza shop that doesn't have a basement because that's. He was. He heard on. On in his. In his ecosystem, that that's what was happening there. And he had to get there and stop it no matter what, you know, so he shows up armed and so forth. So I think not enough has been.
There has been not enough thought, not enough consideration has been given to the fact that a percentage of people are going to believe when these extreme emotional ploys are made, they're going to believe it and they're going to act on it.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Well, I would say this. I'm pretty sure since that guy's got so much concern, he does A long drive from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. i used to make that drive, you know, when the summers when I was a kid, it was like five hours. So I'm pretty sure there's some great nonprofits in the state of North Carolina that help children directly that he could get involved with. So it's a shame that he did. He decided to make that trip, but.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: He made that trip because of the level of urgency that he was communicated.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it just like you said, my other joke was going to be, like you said, everything was so diabolical. The world was going to end if they didn't complete this insurrection and storm the capital and anoint the Sun King as the permanent God of the United States.
And I'm reading an article because, like you said, we're right after the first of the year. So I've got all the stuff about the markets coming at me now.
The s and P500, the benchmark for our US stock market, rang up 68 records over the last year. In 2021, that means 68 times it beat itself in terms of a new high. 365 days and maybe 250 trading days. 68 of them were new records. So again, the world is so bad and all that on one side. That's what I mean by these ecosystems.
If you listen and you only immerse yourself in that rhetoric, you would think the actual world is ending. And that's why it amazes.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: That's the point that you made, though, that it was the fracturing of reality and that we are no longer drinking from the trough, so to speak of. Here's the information.
You decide what to make of it. It is all information now, for the most part, is packaged in a way to fit the narrative. The narrative's created first, and then the information then is provided to you only to the extent it supports whatever narrative you've chosen.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Let me follow that up real quick because that takes us back then to the Insurrection, because that's why I wanted to mention the economic part of it is because again, the President, whoever is president, should have no bearing on what people think of the economy. But it has, like you're saying, because now we've equated good and evil to this. Now it's a real. It's like religion, you know, now the Democrats are evil. So no matter what happens, it's.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Well, but let's.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: It's all evil. But I want to go to where your mind, where you got me for a second here, is the ecosystem, as you're saying, requires then more and more diabolical. So like you're saying it's a good thing you said, because in order to fudge up the reality and the facts of the insurrection, this is why it's been necessary that we had Dr. Seuss, critical race theory, all of these quote unquote scandals.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: No, I get you on that, but I want to stay closer to the actual. If you look at the Insurrection, remember, a large part of that was because people believed that there was fraud in the election.
Now, again, if you want to again, drink from the trough of the facts that have been established, then you look at how the judicial system handled this. The judicial System looked at 60, 70, 80 cases that were filed alleging fraud. None of them went anywhere. Because in a court setting, you have to actually produce evidence. You can't just say stuff and then that rides. That carries the day for you. Well, in that setting, it was completely unfounded that there was fraud in the election, at least any kind of notable fraud.
But that claim continued, it permeated, unrestrained in certain ecosystems. And so therefore, again, 10 out of 10 people may not believe it. And now it may be more than 2 out of 10, and then maybe 6 or 7 out of 10 believe it, but 2 out of 10 may actually be ready to act on it. 1 out of 10, 1 out of 100, that's still. You get into the scale of those things where it's like one out of 10, one out of 100. When you're talking about 10,000 people, 100,000 people, a million people, that's a lot of people. And so you make these claims in this ecosystem because this ecosystem is catering to a narrative, not trying to provide factual information. And so that, to me, is where you see people showing up at the Capitol thinking that they're, they think that they're honestly defending a stolen election where that is Just an entertainment ploy. That stolen election we know now was something to get people to watch tv. Fox News was saying that the election was legit. The ratings started going down, people started watching Newsmax or something like that. And so Fox News started saying the election was stolen because they had to keep their viewers. And then it's about, all of it's about money. You can raise money saying, I'm fighting a stolen election. So politicians can say it, news media can say it, but attorneys can't say it. They can't go into court. Attorneys are getting sanctioned, attorneys are getting like all the attorneys that brought these cases, they're getting run over the coals. Because in their setting, you can't just say stuff if it's not true. And so the fact that you have the ecosystems that can build around things, create realities for monetary reasons, then you have people act on it. And that's what we saw here, basically, because that is the people did show up thinking they were trying to defend against the stolen election. And that claim ran because it was unchallenged in the ecosystem that they got their information in.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Yeah, and let's unpack that for a minute. Let me stay on that with you there. Because what you're talking about is actual. It's like the scientific method, right?
Like trying to get to a factual conclusion through maybe trial and error by looking at things.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Right?
[00:25:18] Speaker B: So we're looking at two different examples of it. One is people that have been told over and over again that something's stolen, that something's rigged, or something's this, something's that, and every time there's proof being generated for them, that proof is eventually knocked down.
Then we have, like you're saying, the courts and that environment asking, okay, well, prove it. If you have this stuff in, you know, in play here, this, that this election was stolen or rigged, whatever. And to your point, all these court cases, these attorneys can't prove it. You know, with the transcripts are out there, you can read them, blah, blah, blah. Also, what's interesting to me, money, like you said, it's all about money. Money talks.
I remember not only Fox, but several other, even Newsmax, did this literally stop certain anchors in mid sentence when they were going down. This election fraud and that the election was stolen, roe, due to the threat of being sued by companies like Diebold, like Dominion Voting Systems, all that kind.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Of stuff, and ongoing cases that they got sued for defamation, and some of those are still going on and they pull people off the air.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: And that's what to me Again, if I'm just trying to be an observer, scientific method here and say, okay, let me give people the benefit of the doubt. If there were shenanigans in the election, I'm American, I want free and fair elections. I want to know about this.
Okay, well, one group here keeps making these claims and every time they're asked to show evidence, it's just, they can't, they don't show anything. They don't come to the table and think, oh, and then this other, this corporations here, these media companies, they're actually yanking people off air who are saying this stuff because they're being threatened with lawsuits. So if they had confidence that this stuff was true, wouldn't they just say, okay, I'll see you in court, you know, show me that it's. That it's, that it's that were wrong type of thing. And so those are the things that just had me sitting back as an observer and saying, okay, and then, and then let's get into the. Some of the other stuff that's happened in recent months. The various audits and even the audits that, like the famous one in Arizona and Maricopa county, that was only done by people that supported the former president, not the current, current president.
They were being honest and they showed that the actual winner of the election won by 99 more votes than the actual, on election night showed.
So when you put all this together, right, that tells me as an observer, okay, whether I was happy or not with the results of the election, I can no longer say that it was stolen and rigged and all that kind of stuff. If I want to just not use my emotional lens and use my kind of factual lens, then I've come to this other question, James, and I'll pass the baton back to you because you know me, I get on this high horse a lot.
I still get emails literally today from US politicians, elected officials telling me that the election was stolen and that it's. How bad it was and all this stuff.
How is it that if a foreigner did this and was caught, they would be considered an adversary that's trying to disrupt the United States democracy and Americans.
But Americans can do this and no one gets in trouble for it. That's, to me, the. I don't understand how you keep.
How you can be an elected official and lie about stuff that you know is a lie in public.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: That's the ecosystem thing. Because the thinking, yes, politicians are allowed to lie, as Twitter and Facebook explained to us when they were saying, hey, we're not fact checking Politicians, or at least initially they weren't, because they're allowed to lie. Cop campaigning, you're allowed to lie. And so if the check on a politician lying or on a media organization lying is supposed to be people turn off and say, hey, I want a reliable source. But what happens if people no longer want reliable sources of information, but rather just don't want to be told what they want to hear? That's where you get into the sense of entitlement that we spoke about last year, where I'm not entitled to be in a democracy, I'm entitled to win every election. And so therefore, if I don't win, then there's a problem. And we got like, what's the problem? I don't know. But there was. And we got to find. And so you start with the conclusion that we have to undermine this because we didn't win. You know, like, that's the reason has to be undermined, not because it's you. You actually have proof of something, but you're looking for proof after you already have your conclusion. It's very similar to what we saw with the Flat Earth documentary. But I want to, I want to ask you something before we look forward. I do want to look forward, but I want to ask you something real quick. What's your take on this obsession with Trump that is that like, it permeated the insurrection we see. It's still going on now. Like, people seem to be willing to do anything, you know, like they'll flush the Constitution or whatever. Like it's.
I don't understand how I've never seen such idolatry of one man. Like in a political sense, like, you could see this. I almost, and maybe you said it already because, you know, the entertainment. I was like, you can almost see this in entertainment, like, oh, Michael Jordan or, you know, something like that where people just like, oh, he can do no wrong. Or you know, something like our musician or something like that, where people just don't get this segment of people that are just devotees, Beyonce, you know, and the Beehive and all that. Like, I've never seen this for a politician, just where it's like he is going to save us from everything. And what's your take on that?
[00:30:36] Speaker B: There's various, I think, things that come together to make this moment happen. And one thing that I just to kind of bring in the last part to this part is the danger here that has already happened. I mean, this isn't something that's going to happen. It's already happened is that allowing this, the fact that this has all been allowed all these years now has changed the culture of the voters and of the politicians who are now in power and who seek to stay in power. So what I was going to say to the point you made about the claims of rigging an election and all that, think about in the Last year, in 2021, the governor races, the congressional races, special elections, mayoral races.
It's a shame, and I'm not saying this as someone, I'm not a Democrat, so it's a shame that I have to say this many times. When the Republican candidate lost, he didn't concede, and he claimed, he tried to do what President Trump did, claim the election was rigged 100% at a time, except one case, because the vote, I think it came to within six votes. So it was the legal amount where someone could contest it. Every other case, when a Democrat lost, they called up the opponent the next morning and said, I can see you won fair and square. So what I'm saying is that is becoming where the litmus test for one party is for this tough guy attitude of stay strong, don't ever show a chink in your arm, or even if it's a true loss, you can't admit you lost while the other party is still thinking that somehow this is normal politics like it was years ago. So that's another danger I see coming. But going back to this, but that.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Because that behavior has been rewarded, though. That's why.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: That's my point.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Like you said, people are still raising money claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. So those, they're sending those emails asking people for donations based on that, because it works well.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: And that's why I just bring it up to say that this isn't something we got to be wary of. This has already happened. I think a lot of people that don't like what has been happening still somehow think that there's this Runway of time to stop it. And I think another notable thing, I think, you know, to answer your first question from the show is, you know, it's too late. This is what the trains left the station and the coup is happening in front of our eyes. So getting back to the idolatry thing is I think there's, you know, like I said, there's a lot of ingredients that go into that stew.
I'll say this for the first time in my life, I think I might have understood why the major religions like Judaism, Islam and not Christianity at this point, but at some point, it had it that they didn't allow the showing of the deity that you couldn't. Like Islam and Judaism don't allow you to show images of God. There's no image of God in those religions. And I think part of it is I realized that human being symbolism and images is important.
And a lot of people will gravitate to an image or an idea of something because they need to latch onto something. And so I think what Trump became was that image and this idea.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: But that's the question, I think, is how did that happen? Because it's not like Mitch McConnell gets that kind of loyalty. It's not like, again, there are plenty of Barack Obama, there are plenty of politicians that have become very popular. Bill Clinton, that's where I do. Ronald Reagan, not while they were there, did they become this thing that is abstract from their very being. And like, some of it, I think you got to give Trump credit on, like, he's the ultimate marketer.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: He's a showman. Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: And the reason I say that is because, if you notice, he's able to sell dreams in a way that it's always. Salvation's always right around the corner, but he's never delivering it. And like, he was president for four years and he's like, hey, you gotta let me again, because of all the stuff I gotta do. And it's like, well, hold on, shouldn't you be telling all the stuff that you did do? Shouldn't you have done a bunch of stuff by now? You were four years president. But people weren't hurling that against him, saying, oh, he didn't get this done. He didn't get that done. Amongst the people that were actually just fawning over the guy.
It was a reason to stay with him because that stuff wasn't done. He had to stick with it.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: That's where the danger is, because that's why it's not about, he didn't get it done in the first four years. This is where it becomes dangerous is. And this is Germany in the 30s. All that kind of stuff is. And I'm not. I want to be careful. I'm not saying that we're going to have a holocaust here. I'm just saying the idea of the strong men who then pit the population against each other, that's why there's no talk about, well, he didn't get it done in four years. You know why? Is because the Republicans that were there when Trump was in office, the ones that weren't loyal, didn't support him, and then it was.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: It's all their fault.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah, we need to. And then that's the guys that were in the tent. So next time when he wins in 2024, we got to make sure they're all purged. No more Liz Cheney's, no more Adam Kinzinger on one end.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: The other failures are the fault of other people, of someone else.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Correct. Well, yeah, still a victim mentality, but let me finish here. Then the next phase of that, the other half is then rigging the system. Then we can't even have an opponent. Meaning Democrats have to be wiped off the face of the earth because of CRT and BLM and all this stuff that they're so bad.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: The doctor suit that become. That's where the culture wars are so important.
Because that was where I was going to go with.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: That's where I was going to go with that actually, is that I think one of the things that actually stood out to me in this is that what Trump either consciously or, you know, he either consciously made this decision or this is kind of just him. And it's probably some mix of both. He is the natural solution to the problem that the right wing media tells that people that they have, the Democratic problem or the antifa problem or the left wing problem, all of the problems that they have. Trump has positioned himself as the solution to those problems. So he has made himself the center of like he watched Fox News, saw all the things that they were saying, hey, this is our problem, this is our problem. This is our problem. Lo and behold, he presents himself as I'm the one that can solve all these. What's the me alone, I can do it or something like that.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: You quote, I alone can fix it.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: I alone can fix it. Yeah. So he's created this kind of. He's almost adopted in a way, by.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: The way, my 10 year old that and he believed me.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Well, but he's adopted almost like a religious approach to that sense where it's like, look to me. And all of these problems that this ecosystem is immersing you in that you have, I can solve all of those for you. And so therefore that's the only thing I can make of it in terms of how he's transcended to be, you know, like, I see, I see that. I think whether this documentary or something else, it's like, yo, Trump was anointed by God.
By the way, if Trump's anointed by God, why are we having elections?
Well, I guess that part is not that important. But ultimately, the way he's looked at infallible, it Just blows my mind. Like, politicians I support are infallible.
I look at them, okay, they did this well, they did that well. I think they're a decent person. I think they're honest or whatever, and so I'll like them or whatever. But it's not like, oh, this person can do no wrong, and anybody that attacks them, I have to be just loyal to them.
We're lacking. And I mean, this may be a function of the ecosystem as well, but we're lacking loyalty to the nation itself. The abstract. And it's all about what parts of the nation that you identify with. And so if you identify with a certain thing in the country, that's what you identify your loyalty with. Not the abstract concept. The Constitution, which people are supposed to give the oath of office, oath of enlistment, all that stuff. Supposed to be the Constitution. That's not the way it's operating. And that's hard to do. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, that's not. That's something that needs to be encouraged and promoted and so forth.
So do you think, though, that enough has been done, like, in the last year or whatever to address the things that led to the Capitol being overrun, or are we just, like, kind of asleep at the switch here and just sleepwalking until the next time this happens? Because the right person, quote, unquote, doesn't win an election? And so people. And then that right person says, hey, it was stolen. And then it's echoed in the echo chambers. And then you got 10,000 people showing up to occupy the Capitol.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: No, I don't think enough is being done. I think that this is, like we've said a couple of different times in different ways already on the show today is, you know, this. This is all just. It's a rolling operation that's happening right in front of our eyes. I mean, you look at the state houses and state capitals, what's going on?
You know, they're just. They learn. A lot of people learn from what, how it didn't work out last time and are finding ways to perfect it.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: That's actually. What I was gonna say is actually we're going the wrong direction if we want free and fair elections. We're getting further from that now.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: No, and I think, you know, and I blame Democrats for that. I blame Republicans. Whoever's left, that's moderate. I think that's the issue that I've learned watching in this recent years. Like, all those things we used to hear when we were younger about, oh, democracy is not easy to Keep and da, da, da, and all this stuff, you know, you always wonder, okay, so what the hell are these people talking about? Now I realize, yeah, that's true. Like what, what, what surprises me over these last few years watching all this is how many Americans don't actually appreciate democracy and don't want to be in a democracy.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Really.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Like, that's something. I was kind of naive.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: I only want to be in it if they win.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yeah, if they win. Like I thought, like I always was. Like you said, I'm under the impression I've never bought a flag for a politician, no matter how much I liked him.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: You mean you don't have a politician or a flag with a politician smiling and cheesing.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: And just like now I, you know, because I'm on the water here in South Florida. We see there's all these F. Biden flags now on the water like every time you go out. And I've never had, as much as I've disliked a politician, I never thought to buy anything that had an F them on the, on the T shirt or flag. Like, what I'm saying is I never put my personal, like my ego into a politician like that before. And like you're saying like an idolatry looking at his. This diabolical thing, because in my mind, we're all Americans first. And also understanding and appreciating the system that we have and that the founders created is the whole point is for debate to be the way that you solve the issues and, you know, and.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: For things to go back and forth. Like that's kind of set up that this one party, one group isn't going to be in power forever. It's supposed to go back and forth.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: If you don't see it for what it is, as someone who might not like this direction it's going to, then I just think you're naive and this is going to only get worse.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Well, that's the problem.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: And I was thinking about this too. When the Republican Party tried to go a different direction under, you know, around the George H.W. bush time to the kind of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney time, when they said, we gotta open up the tent, get more minorities, do all this and be moderate in our, in our rhetoric, right?
They lost.
And the people that one in that party were the ones doing this. Now is the more rabid, emotional, less concerned about governing, right. And dealing with, let's say, a qualified opponent as a politician, like, okay, that's the other party. Let's negotiate. Let's do that and take More of a scorched earth mentality.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: But that's because the voter that's in the ecosystem, as we talked about already, is being fed a diet of, this is so urgent. This is the end of the world if we don't get this. If we don't. If you work with the other side, you're helping the devil. Like, when it's presented in those terms to someone over and over and over again, then the guy who's moderate, the guy who's willing to just have the government function, well, whether that involves bipartisanship or not, is seen as a weakling, is seen as a traitor. And so that's what I was saying, like, Trump is the solution to that, because he was saying, no, this is life or death, you know, stuff all the time. And once you think that, then it ends up becoming not life or death. Is. Doesn't. Is because of confirmation bias. Doesn't register to you, I'd say. Yeah. What I was gonna say is that it's going the wrong way. Like, if you think that things are better now and that it's going to be harder to pull to do something like this or for things to go this direction, then you're not actually paying attention. It's going.
Ultimately, some of the whole election being rigged thing appears to be a projection to me. It does appear that there's an assumption on behalf of a Trump or whoever else, that if he was on the other side, he would rig it. So therefore the other side must be rigging it. And so he truly believes, like, yeah, of course they're rigging it. I would. And so what we've seen, though, in that over the last year, all these state houses is doing a bunch of things to try to rig it, passing laws that say, okay, the people can vote one way, the legislature can change the vote if they want, like making it legal to do all the things that Trump was trying to get people to do illegally before. And so now what we're seeing literally is the grounds being set, the stage being set to rig an election if it doesn't go the direction you want. Like, oh, yeah, the people didn't vote your way. Hey, have the legislature come in, have them vote, that the election goes the way that we want. So that we're seeing that on one hand. The other part about this, again, why this is going the wrong way is the behavior isn't being punished and it's in many cases being rewarded. You know, the extremes are still being rewarded. And I've talked to you about this before when you talk about gerrymandering, how that leads to that, how when you do these gerrymandered non competitive districts, the primary election is more important than the general election. The primary election oftentimes is won by the person who, meaning that whoever wins the primary in whatever gerrymandered, whatever side the district is gerrymandered for, whoever wins the primary is going to win the general election. That encourages extremism because the primaries are going to be won by whoever is the most motivated, on whatever edge, whatever extreme, it's going to be won by them. And generally the general election will be the moderating force. You got to move to the center after the primary and so forth. That's not the case in a non competitive district. So we see in the House of Representatives this affects us, and in state houses this affects us, a continuing march towards more extreme politicians and, and what we see with that, basically again the cues and whether you're rewarded or punished for certain behaviors.
Politicians aren't standing up and saying we do not think the election was stolen. They'll go along with it, they'll fundraise on it whether they believe it or not. The person who talks the most about this actually is Adam Kinzinger, the Republican from Illinois who said he's not even running anymore. A lot of these guys, once they come, they say, look, this is what's happening, this is what's going on.
There's no incentive for them to stay in because he's gonna get hit from the right in a primary and he's gonna be out there talking reason and logic. And people aren't frothing at the mouth, not for reason and logic.
So to me, if you don't have leadership willing to stand up or they're not, they're disincentivized for standing up and refuting untruthful things. And then there's financial incentives to say things that are untruthful. As long as you don't try to take it to court, where being untruthful can get you in trouble, then we're going the wrong direction.
I look at all those like woo.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: No, I know.
I mean there's not really much else to say about it. In all honesty, it's very sad.
And I just feel like this must be what a lot of people want. I mean it's interesting because, and I get it how these ecosystems, it's over time they get people sucked in because I know a lot of people that I know that tend to 15 years ago they weren't as willing to accept information that isn't accurate as they are today.
So let me just leave it like that.
And so part of this is a responsibility on all of us to. When you see stuff that you know in your heart, it kind of doesn't look right to at least ask a question.
The next is, you know, until there is some sort of regulation on the way that discourse can be, you know, had. And I'm a big fan of the First Amendment and freedom of speech, so I'm not here to give a solution to that. I'm just saying that as long as we allow, like, as long as the.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: Incentive structure is set up to not tell the truth, to incentivize people to not tell the truth. Yeah.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: And it won't change. And it's like you're saying, like, the cat's already out of the bag. And I just don't think that a lot of Americans who don't want to see this continue really get it. I mean, like I said, I think we had 100 and over 110 Republican congresspeople after the insurrection, after their place of work was stormed by a mob and a vice president of their own party was being threatened to be hanged. They voted to still not certify the election, that they had no proof was not, you know, and many of which.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Many of them, in a very lawyerly way. And I say that as an attorney, but I could just see, I could read through what they were saying in a very lawyerly way, said, oh, well, I'm making this vote because this is to represent my constituents. My constituents think this. And so therefore I'm gonna vote. This is like. Well, hold up.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: Is it true?
[00:47:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Is it true or not? If it's true, then, you know, say you're doing it.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Cause you think it's true. Where are the real leaders? Yeah.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: And if it's not true, then you need to go tell your constituents that it's not true. And so just passing the buck. But again, that's because of the incentive structure that's in place.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: And ultimately, at what point are they not traitors? I mean, I mean, serious, like they're, they're actively disrupting their nation's democracy and, and the government operation in this country.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: Why would once they attack the seat of power in the government.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: That's the other thing too. Like I was, you know, I'm preparing for today. I started.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Before you go. Before you go to another thing, one of the things.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: No, this is the same thing. That's why I'm just saying it Here that as I was preparing and reading some of the transcripts, you know, I like to say, okay, well, it's like that old saying, when people show you who they are, believe them. And I'm reading the people, the 700 people or so that have gone to court now been arrested for the insurrection. And when the judges are asking more, why did you do this?
100% of the people are saying, I did it either because President Trump told me so directly, like, or they're saying it because of things that you and I know are lies in the ecosystem. Right, because the election was rigged, because Democrats are pedophiles, because whatever the issue is.
So you've got all these people arrested for a seditious act, going against their own government and wanting to stop the operation of government, doing a constitutional procedure, illegally trespassing the Capitol that are telling us, the society, the rest of us, this is why I did it. I was radicalized by either this politician directly or through this ecosystem.
And that's what I mean. Like, it's all out there and it's crickets, you know, like, yeah, it's all in crickets. And that's what I'm saying.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: It's still going on. But this is the piece you had mentioned as far as, you know, like, just the ecosystem itself and how, you know, people that have been slowly marched down this path towards radicalization, whether they're all the way there or not or whatever. But remember from the Social Dilemma documentary, when the people who created the social media networks were talking about. And one of the important things about the social media is that it can create, and this is a, quote, an imperceptible change in behavior. That's what they were talking about. The power of this stuff whiz is that it can change who you are without you recognizing that it's changing you. And that's basically propaganda has been powerful for centuries. Like, it's. That's been. That's. That trick is known to be there. People have tapped into that and used that various points all throughout the world. But all of that's on steroids now because of the enhancements, quote, unquote, enhancements and our communication tools. And so right now, we're still marching down towards the edge of the cliff. And as I agree with you that I don't know that enough people realize that we're on this, we're marching towards the edge of a cliff where it will fall off and it's going to be something else. And I don't know. I don't know what that something else is going to be, but it's not going to be what we are now. And, like, that basically is what we're dealing with here. As we see this fracturing of reality, this ongoing radicalization of people, the fracture of reality being step one. Okay, it doesn't have to be true to tell people something. And then the radicalization, meaning, and this stuff that's not true is life or death. And if you don't act on this stuff, everybody you care about is going to die or something like that.
That type of stuff is if that continues to happen the way that it's going to happen. We haven't seen the beginning of how this can go because people are relatively predictable. If you tell them, if you make up fairy tales about people that they shouldn't like or other people that want to do different things than they want to do, and then you push them, amp them up, amp them up, amp them up. 10 out of 10 people aren't going to act on it, but if 1 out of 10 act on it, you're in big trouble.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: So. But we can, you know, we wrap it up from here, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us and, you know, wish everybody a happy New Year, and you can get us wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: I'm Tunde One. Lana.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: I.
