Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we take a look at the controversies and hate campaigns were seeing more and more in entertainment properties like Star wars and this idea of forced diversity in casting being a supposed problem with what's going on in Hollywood. And we'll also consider whether the latest revelations by Jack Smith show that for at least some people in the american public, unethical or bad behavior has just been normalized.
Hello. Welcome to the call it like I see a podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who can make things go so nice you might want to say it twice, you know, like, go, go Tunde ogon Lana Tunde. You ready to share some of your rare essence today?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah, man. That's a very culturally distinct reference for a certain part of this country, which I happen to be in Washington, DC. So thank you.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Turtleneck when I'm not in South Florida, that's for sure.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
But now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, we ask that you subscribe and like, on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out. Now recording on October 8, 2024. And over the past few years, we've seen a steady stream of controversies and hate campaigns centered around many modern shows and movies, particularly when they involve casts or storylines that aren't centered around, like, a white male. And a lot of these people go beyond expressing disinterest or saying I'm taking my attention elsewhere or even beyond saying I'm going to boycott or trying to push other people to boycott and end up in a place where they attack the studios or even worse, the talent, the cast of these shows or movies and go into these things about what they call a forced diversity or woke casting or woke studios or whatever in terms of who's in the movies or the narrative. And while there seems to be a market for this stuff in some circles, many people look at this behavior as simply toxic fandom and people whose entitlement basically is just, it knows, knows no bounds. So, Tunde, you know, I know you're, you're a big Star wars guy and, you know, follow a lot of that, that stuff very closely. So from the Star wars perspective and also just more generally, what do you make of these controversies and hate campaigns? Like, are our political agendas, you know, watering down storytelling, or is this simply like runaway entitlement that some people are expressing?
[00:02:41] Speaker B: That's a funny thing. The last one, I never heard that point. So I like that term, runaway entitlement. I think, I think, let's start on that yeah, there's some of that.
And you're right. As an avid, absolute Star wars geek and proud of it, I can say that I don't think their stories have changed much since 1977. I mean, it's still about people in a galaxy a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, humans that can use supernatural powers, and some of them a bunch of aliens. Yeah. So the story is generally the same, and it has a political undertones.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Also, though, the humans are aliens, too, because they're not from Earth. This is a galaxy far, far away. But.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Well, let's not get into it.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: They represent humans to us.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: There's. There's a lot of under, under underlying stories there. But no, but at the end of the day, on a serious note, it's. It also, since its founding in 1977, remember, you had rebels versus an empire. So it also made, you know, had its cultural comments about things like autocracies versus democracies and things like that. So that's been.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Just add that real quick. Just to add real quick, you have a. An oppressor and an oppressed, and then, you know, like, just to put it in more general terms, you know, and that's.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's been known since its founding in the seventies because George Lucas grew up, born in the 1940s and grew up in the backdrop of, you know, the, the post World War Two era as well as the Vietnam era. So he had his own commentaries about that, that he brought into the Star wars lore. But I think it's a. I think there's a few things to unpack. One is, I think it's, you know, Star wars, unfortunately, along with several other, you know, well known kind of stories or cultural, I guess, stories, I can say over the last few generations have been victims of, I think, the wider cultural wars that we've seen. And this is reflected also in things that we've seen and discussed over the years, in this recent years, like how we get our information, all that kind of stuff. And I think after preparing for the day, I got a little bit of another twist in here, which is I'm reading a lot, and the evidence reflects it. It seems to be a lot of the similar male, unhappy masculine culture, some of this toxic masculinity, some of the incel culture, that term that we've heard in recent years, that is also kind of being Internet trolls in this area of constantly commenting on not only culture wars in general, but things like Star wars and other, you know, whether it's popular media, movies, film, television, you know, these are the same guys that were upset because Taylor Swift told people to vote and who were making all these conspiracy theories around the Super bowl this year, for example. So I do think there is something there that crosses over some of these cultural war memes, that it all seems to be coming from a similar energy. I don't know if that's entitled energy or just frustrated energy, but it seems to be very similar.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: It's entitled frustration. Yeah. I don't know.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Hey, maybe it can be combined.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah, but I see what you're saying there. I mean, to me, I look and just kind of to add a little specificity, like, we look at, you know, like with Star wars and the most recent trilogy, you know, you've seen and then some of the other television shows, you know, with Daisy Ridley or John Boyega, even with the acolyte. The most recent show there, there's been this, this critique. Kelly, Ramiri Tran, excuse me, also in the movies with the Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey being cast as Ariel, upcoming Snow White, with Rachel Ziegler being cast as Snow White. And so it's, it's a lot of times, you know, like, and again, that term first, forced diversity, it's, it's interesting to me, though, because the, the term forced diversity is almost a projection in itself because these hate campaigns are trying to, presumably trying to force people to do something else, something that they wouldn't otherwise do. I didn't see a hate campaign that caused them to cast Hailey Bear, Halle Bailey in, in Little Mermaid. There was no hate campaign that preceded that that would force someone to do it. It seemed like that was just a creative decision that was made. Hey, let's tell this story from a different angle. And that's honestly what art is, is a lot of times you recycle similar stories or same stories, and you tell them in different ways, you recast them and so forth. So the idea that you object to that, it makes sense because artists are supposed to see things that the public doesn't see and then bring them to the public. That's what, that's one of the values of art. But at the same time, it's unfortunate that people, again, are, I do look at it as an entitlement. I'm entitled to have these stories be about me or to be what I expect. And, you know, art wouldn't be that interesting, you know, if it was just what everybody expected. So you're going to have that kind of resistance, but that it goes beyond, you know, what to me, and this is why I said this in the intro. Where you would see something like this, what would happen is if it's not for you, it's not for you. You just don't rock with it. You're disinterested, you don't follow it, you know, or if you're like, if you're offended by it, you boycott it. And you do stuff like that, going beyond that and actually attacking people, and you're creating this, like they're trying to ridicule, trying to make people feel uncomfortable, like, uncomfortable physically, like, oh, hey, you're, you're in trouble. We're coming for you. Stuff like that. That obviously, I believe it's obvious, goes well beyond a line. But I will say this. I don't think this is new at all. You know, I remember, like, you, you read, I wasn't alive at the time, fifties, sixties, stuff like that. But I've seen movies read about, you know, like the idea that in art then, it was musicians. Do you cross over a black musician, do you cross over and try to get a white audience? If you do, you don't want them to know what you look like or something like that. Or just the idea. I know the famous story with Bobby Womack. He makes a song, song does fine, does well, but then the Rolling Stones want to cover it, and it's like, he wasn't that crazy about it. Sam Cooke is like, no, no, you should let them do that. And he was, he reluctantly let him do it, and then rolling Stones cover, and he was all like, you know, upset about it until he got the first royalty check. So the idea that some members of the public prefer, you know, the art that they consume to look a certain way isn't something new in american culture. And what I think we're seeing now, more so, is that the people who may have disparately been like that have congregated online and are egging each other on to go into much worse places, necessarily, then they might have been going previously, at least on in mass.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're onto some there that just the Internet has caused them to, to kind of multiply, giving.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Them a community, basically.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's kind of like, like gremlins when you put the water on them and they start multiplying. Remember all that? I was dating myself here. But, no, you say a couple things I want to, I want to actually go a little bit deeper on.
One. Is the, the cause I'm thinking as you're talking about, actually, this is where things like race and the way that our culture in America has gone around, you know, just kind of developed this idea of white identity versus the rest of culture in the world. Because what we're also dealing with in America is the reality we're coming off of generations and decades prior to you and I, of a real whitewashing, for lack of a better term, and propaganda that Americans were sold by Hollywood from, let's say, the 1930s or even the starting with the famous one in 1915, birth of a nation all the way to, let's say, the 1970s. I mean, even in the sixties, they were casting characters like Moses and people in the Middle east who should look maybe Arabic or darker skinned by actors like Charleston Heston. So remember, movies like shows like the Lone Ranger did not depict that there were anyone other than whites in the west when we know from doing our own shows about black cowboys that in the 1870s through about 1900, about, you know, 25% of all cowboys in the west were black Americans. And, you know, the buffalo shoulders and what they did with the native american wars up until the 19, early 19 hundreds. So what I think we're also dealing with here is a misinformed section of our country that thinks that everything basically is white historically. And this is the pushback we're seeing with information why they're banning books around the country in certain states. Because when faced with actual history that says no, actually, more people contributed to, you know, the culture and the history of this country as well as the world than just west. The descendants of western Europeans, a lot of people get offended by that. And I think that we're seeing that translate when we bring it over to a fantastical story like Star wars. We're seeing that even in fantasy in space, there's people that get, like, you're saying people. Some people are okay with Lando Calrissian in the eighties, but when John Boyega had a starring role, there's people that got upset about that. And so what do we do with that story?
[00:12:01] Speaker A: The story wasn't sitting centered around Lando, you know, like. But the story is centered around Boyega or, you know, like the Daisy Ridley, things like that. And so it's. It's a bigger encroachment, so to speak. But I bet you there were people who weren't crazy about seeing Lando in the seventies. No, I'm sure in the eighties, you know, like.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: And so, but that's what I'm saying. You're dealing with consumers, at least these people upset who have been, who have been taught that everything that is good historically or indies in stories and fantasy has been. People look a certain way. Same thing happened with Lord of the Rings when they had the tv show and they just had a bit of a diverse cast. Some people were nuts over that. And I'm thinking like, well, this is a story about hobbits that live in a fairy tale.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Well, but no, and we're gonna see this coming up. Well, that's a good point because Star wars, you've made this point to me. We're like, any up? Well, no, no objection to some green dude with two heads walking around. Yeah, but if it's a dude with brown skin, it's like, ah, what's going on here?
[00:13:02] Speaker B: I'm just laughing that the people upset about Lord of the Rings, they're okay with the orcs being big black dudes.
They just upset when a black dude is actually on the boil.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: And we're going to see this. And I think it's already started some with gladiator. The, the second gladiator.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Exactly. That's it.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: It's like, yo, this is the Mediterranean, bro.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Original. Like, there were people all complexions running around.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: You know, it's funny, but, you know, it's great. This is the thing. I can't believe it. I went to the Vatican last year. First time going to, like, Italy and doing that stuff. The amount of Africans that are depicted in the Vatican in terms of sculptures and paintings is. And they're not slaves. They're people that look like they, you know, they were in the mix.
Yeah. Wearing nice clothes and jewelry and stuff. Like they were exactly equals and peers. You realize that. Yes.
The last few hundred years, and I think the, the unfortunate effects of the african slave trade have, have created a culture in western Europe and America that just, you know, some people, if it's. If it's not white, they, they just don't look. They look down on it and, you know, and it's a shame.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: I mean, I think that you, you made that point. And what it really is is because of information that's been available or that, you know, kind of whitewashing and stuff like that or whatever. The reason there are people who, you know, like the story they tell themselves about themselves or about the place of people of the similar complexion is that it has to be central, it has to be that everything should revolve around that. And that's a big part of. And you didn't go this far, but I would add this just, that's a big part of their own identity. You know, like why they feel good about themselves. We see this in, you know, in other discussions where it's like, well, do you feel good about, you know, your country because of the constitution or because of the things, the contributions it's made to society over time, or do you feel good about your country because, you know, the skin color of people? You know, and so that can actually dictate what you value in different discussions. It's like, well, no, no, I don't. I care less about the constitution. I care less about voting. I just think that this is what things should look like, so to speak. And then we see that sentiment, you know? So, I mean, I think that you're never going to have everybody kind of be the same on this, but this, you know, the fantastical, you know, when you're talking about entertainment industry, like when it's, when it's Star wars or hobbit or the Little Mermaid, you know, it's like a mermaid. Like, again, you know, people, what should a mermaid look like? You know, it's like, well, you know, it kind of reveals that people like this, kind of, hey, this, everything, all of this stuff should revolve around me. Artists should not reimagine things. And this is, again, what artists, art should be. You know, what makes artists different from the rest of us is they see things that aren't there yet and they make it come true and so forth. And so you got all these non artist people trying to tell the artists, this is how things have to look. And, you know, that's the ridiculous of that. You know, the ridiculousness of that. It is better, is easily illustrated in the entertainment industry. I want to ask you, what do you make of the idea that, of the toxic fandom, people saying that, oh, you're trying to impose the idea of an inclusive society on me versus the response to them saying that, well, no, this is just, you know, this is kind of artistic decision. And the hate and the pushback you're giving is just you trying to impose your sensibilities on society. Like, what do you get? What do you take from that, that kind of tug of war? Because it is kind of both sides of an issue, pointing at the other, saying that they're doing what the other one's complaining about.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know how to deal with that, to be honest with you, because I don't know how you take people that are in a pluralistic and multicultural society and you've got companies that are trying to sell their products, meaning, let's say through this medium would be entertainment and tv shows and movies to a diverse audience, and you've got a minority of people in the country or in the culture who are angry that these companies want to do it. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the recent show we did when we talked about Elon Musk suing advertisers for not advertising with them, and then how the Congress did an investigation and when the companies told them, we're not trying to advertise on this platform because of, you know, just the type of platform it's become. And the Congress said, we don't believe your reasonings for why you're saying you're not doing this. And that's my point, is the people who have an issue with the way that some of these media companies are, have been diversifying their content.
I don't know how to speak to those people because what they're basically telling us is they're saying without saying it, that they're, like, you're saying they're hostile to these changes, and they, for some reason, they feel threatened in their own identity by seeing the direction that the society is going with, with this culture stuff. And so I don't know how to talk to them. I think that this is where leadership is important. And living through this era in the United States is the first time I've seen where in my life. Again, we're young enough where we didn't live through the sixties and prior eras, but we have leaders that are preying on these anxieties instead of helping people in this minority of the population that are anxious about the changing cultures and demographics instead of helping them understand that it's okay, you know, just come along for the ride a little bit and maybe you're not going to get everyone with that. But I think when you and I were kids in the eighties and nineties, I think the leadership in our country did a better job at kind of that.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: I mean, I think it just shows. And I think the toxic fandom thing, it's a good illustration also just of how this kind of mindset is toxic to trying to build something amongst different people. Because, you know, if you look at just kind of the, the idea of trying to build a nation and you say, you got some people that are saying, hey, I'm actually going to actively work against building this nation. If you guys don't do everything the way that I like it, that's a very difficult, if that's a person you're trying to be on a sports team with that person, that's a very difficult person to deal with your sports team may be better off without that person in some cases, because it's like, well, hold up, everything has to be your way or you're going to actually try to undermine us from within, you know? And so it's really unfortunate, but it is something you have to deal with. You know, it's something that you have to figure out a way in a pluralistic society, you're not banishing them. Like when we did the 48 laws show, talked about one of the ancient Greece, the people that would do that kind of stuff, they would banish them. We don't do that in the United States. So we got to figure out a way to work around it. And generally speaking, in a democratic society, the way to work around it is to just outvote them and to, when they come out with this stuff, you got to expose it for what it is and try to reassure the people that may be tempted by these types of things. But I think what it shows, actually, and, well, in addition to that, I would say it also kind of reveals the way that this comes from a place of insecurity and not confidence, is that what they're pushing for, again, is exclusivity, is homogenous, like a homogeneous narrative that's all around them. And so they are, when you're talking, again, the art part about it really helps illustrate these points. Art should be reimagined. Art should be like people have told the same stories in art for century, for millennium, and then they reimagine them and they tell it in a slightly different way. So, like, that's, that's how art evolves. That's how art evolves our society. And so the objection to art doing what art does, the attempt to try to put art in a box, art which is supposed to expand. So trying to put that in a box and say everybody has to do it this way because this is what makes me comfortable is, again, that that shows the fragility, the, how easy it is to make you uncomfortable and how if you're uncomfortable, your objective in society at that point is to try to make everybody else uncomfortable, you know? And so I think that when we, when we look at this and when we kind of, you know, kind of digest what's happening here, it's important to be able to see, to see what it is, you know, see what it is for what it is, and not look at this as this is not people coming from a place of strength or confidence or anything like that. This is people coming from a place of insecurity. And weakness. And this is what, this is what they feel like they have, you know, exclusivity, pushing people out, not bringing people in, like my way or the highway. And if we're all a team, you know, these are people that aren't really helping the team become stronger, but we got to figure out a way to keep the team moving forward in spite of their best efforts, generally speaking. One other thing that I think with this that just should be noted is a big part of this issue is that this isn't to say that art itself is immune, should be immune from criticism or anything like that. And one of the things I've seen, you know, even in discussions on this, is that people who want to make, like, legitimate criticisms of the art, you know, in these cases, a lot of times are drowned out or kind of trying to be lumped in. You know, like, Disney gets a free pass basically for the idea that it may not be advancing storylines in a way that is, that is good. You know, it's like they're actually doing the art well. They get a free pass on that stuff because they're able to sweep any kind of criticism. It's like, oh, yeah, you're just with these people that are mad because it's not centered on, you know, this identity or something like that. And so it actually is counterproductive for the critique and improvement over time of art as well, you know. And so, like, from us as a Star wars person, you know, like, in your mind, you know, do you think that, do you see this? Do you see this where, like, Disney's able to not maintain kind of that rigorous, again, art pushing the boundaries, showing us new stuff, reimagining things in ways like the Disney kind of gets a pass from, from, in the way that they're doing that because people take the focus off of kind of the quality of what they're doing and put it on the identity of what they're doing?
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I do see it. Like, for example, any true Star wars geek should be able to acknowledge that the last three films from Force Awakens through, you know, they're, the last one, the Skywalker one I can't even name. It was. They were disasters. I mean, Force Awaken was okay. It's good and nostalgic, but, but the last two, last Jedi and the Rise of Skywalker, if you know the stories, like all of them going back, it's, it's definitely was a real tangent off the main Star wars kind of themes.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: But is not necessarily like, but also the critique is that they weren't well done. They were clearly.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: That's what I mean. Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: They're like, they were not part from the. They could depart from the original material if they were well done, but they.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Were not well done. And I do think you're right. The. It gets muddled. Disney does is able to escape. And some of the characters, the actors, the real humans that play these characters, are able to escape and deflect and say, yeah, you guys are just racist or sexist or homophobic without the real critiques getting into. And, I mean, you're right, that that does muddy it a bit. And that's where it makes it a little bit frustrating as a fan.
But that's where, you know, I just think that it's that tug of war and the tension as we go through these changes in the culture. I will say one thing, though, that the fact that you can say that art is something that shouldn't necessarily be critiqued is because you've never seen me paint a canvas in my garage.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: No, I said it should be critiqued. I'm saying legitimate critique. I'm cautioning that we shouldn't get rid of legitimate critique. Okay, throw it out, because then you have ill. You have critique that's based on things other than the quality or the kind of what the work is. So. But I think you can wrap this.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Up, then I won't let you come over and look at my painting because.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Hey, I can critique it.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: The point is, is that you're gonna blow myself better.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: No, no. So you can do the next one better. Without critique, you can't improve. You know. You know what?
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Maybe I'll start throwing a bunch of shade about you online once you critique it. How about that again, all my intel buddies will gang up on you, but.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: I think we wrap this topic from there. We appreciate for joining us on this episode. Call, like I see it, or this. This part, I should say. Join us for part two as well, and we'll talk to you then.
All right. Our second topic today wanted to discuss. We saw, you know, in the past week or so, Jack Smith filed a very large motion. And what it goes into is trying to make the case, in light of the recent Supreme Court precedent, their opinion that for official acts, presidents should be immune from prosecution. It's only for unofficial acts that they could be prosecuted for. And so, Jack Smith, all of the cases that had been brought against former President Trump had been put in peril with this, because you have to decide. Okay, well, what of the stuff he was doing was official acts versus unofficial acts. Was paying off Stormy Daniels, an official act or not, was trying to get the overturn an election, an official act or nothing. And so Jack Smith lays out in detail the, what would be, what he would argue are the unofficial acts involved in trying to overturn the election. And a lot of evidence was presented in this. You know, there's a lot, a lot of revelations. You know, they have access to his phone, access to his Twitter act, and then they have eyewitness accounts, you know, as far, as far as things that were said and so forth. And he lays all this out for the judge to try to put forth. Okay, well, here's the stuff that, based on the Supreme Court president, he could still be prosecuted for. So needless to say, this was, you know, there's a lot of headline grabbing things. I'm sure if you're watching this, you've seen some of the things come across. And so part of this discussion that we want to discuss the reaction to it or lack thereof, you know, and just, but I would just to kind of, you know, like kick us off here, you know, like just, was there anything in the filing that kind of, that was particularly notable to you or stood out to you or that kind of just either made you chuckle or made you pull your hair out or anything like that?
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Those watching the YouTube video, let's leave the joke about my hair aside.
No, that's the interesting part, James. I would say it's nothing really new. There was nothing earth shattering to me that was like, wow, I didn't know this. I would say it just served as a good reminder. I think for me, it was a good reminder. The level of detail about Mike Pence, I don't think this is new information. I think it was a little bit new to me that Donald Trump didn't know that the threat on Mike Pence's life, that was a little bit. And then before he made the tweet that Pence didn't have courage. So that one to me was a new one. But I don't think that was new kind of for just the main information. But I will say it was just a reminder, James, with the level of information kind of cross currents because of everyone fighting, or let's say both Democrats and Republicans fighting for the narrative as we have an election just a few weeks away here. It was a good reminder of the projection of voter fraud. You know, this idea with the fake electors and the lady recently, Tina Peters, who was, you know, who's the scene in court with a judge was, became a bit of a big deal on the news recently.
That's what it reminded me of is this projection of having to hear about voter fraud and that just it being focused on one side that it's all the Democrats letting in these illegal immigrants to vote. And again, language being important, focusing on how Donald Trump always says, and the Republicans always say they had a record number of voters in 20, 2070 something million. And I love how Kamala Harris reminded voters during the only debate they had that he was fired by 83 million Americans. So again, it's this idea that sort of reminded me of, wow, this elector scheme was really a true attempt at a coup, a true attempt to overthrow voters in these states. And just the votes and saying, like, no, you, we, even though Joe Biden won this state, we're going to take, we're going to make up the fact that he lost and try and get the vice president, United States to sign off on it. I, and so, yeah, this was, it's just a reminder. So it's nothing new, but it's like, wow, okay, yeah, this was serious. Yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Like, and you bring up the Tina Peters piece, you know, which is the lady in Colorado that was just convicted, you know, dealing with all the schemes related to trying to flip this 2020 election. And yes, it is. It is that reminder. As far as the project, like, hold up. There's only one group of people that keeps getting caught for election fraud and doing all funny stuff with the election, and that's the Republicans. Yet they're the ones who constantly talk about the other side is gonna do this and gonna do that. And it's like, yeah, we see why this is on your mind. Cause this is what you guys are trying to do. You just assume that everybody, anybody would do it.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: It's like a cheater in a relationship that keeps blaming the other person. Exactly.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Because they can't imagine a world where somebody wouldn't.
So, but not like, the thing that stood out to me the most, actually was how far the extent to which they were like, that Trump was willing to go to overturn the election on top of the fact that he didn't all go all the way through with it or that he didn't, that he didn't pull it off, you know, because, like, the idea, you know, that you're looking at it like, okay, Trump says, the eyewitness account says, Trump tells his daughter and son in law, it doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You have to fight like him. All right, so he's saying that and that's what they did, you know, and it's just like, well, it seems like at a certain point, once you get down far enough down this road, there's just no way that you're going to stop. So to me, the bigger, the thing that surprised me the most is seeing all of this stuff that was done, that they, during this, during this time period, you know, from November to January, and that he actually did leave in January. You know, like, I'm surprised because it seemed like he was going down a road where it was like, yo, I'm not leaving. Like, that's what it seemed like he was doing.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: And, and he did, you know, so I, like, that part is, to me, is just like, okay, well, what happened? Because surely people from, from November to January, we're trying to talk sense into him the whole time. They didn't just say, hey, on the 20th, like, hey, man, you gotta go. Like, so he didn't listen to them that whole time. And then he got to the point, you know, like, Biden's getting inaugurated. Like, all right, I'm not gonna try to disrupt the inauguration. I'm just gonna go. And so that, to me, that was the part, to me, that kind of just, it was, I was just surprised of how far he was willing to go. But then, you know, that he didn't go all the way.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: You know what it speaks to, and I'm sorry that, like, I don't mean to be mean to the guy because, you know, I want to respect everybody, but it speaks to, literally, his incompetence at everything.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: The guy who loses money in casinos.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Except for being a great con man and sales, you know, a snake oil salesman type. But no, because it's even his incompetence of being a dictator because as you said it, like, no, but it's like, as you said it, it's like that he won't leave. Like, I'm thinking about what just happened in Venezuela with Nicholas.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great example.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: He was like, man, no, I won this thing. And he just didn't.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: He pulled the Trump, and then he was like, all right, come get me.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah. He's like, y'all come get me, man. And, and the thing is, but think about it. That's why I say he's incompetent about being a dictator, because we talked about this privately. Like, when Putin got an office or any of these guys, what do they do? The first thing they do is they clear the playing field of opponents any way they can. So if Trump was serious, he would have locked Hillary up in 2016, 2017, or after he won in 2017. He would have been doing all that. He wouldn't have left in 2020. And also, think about it. He wouldn't be showing up to court, sitting in trial. You think Vladimir Putin was sitting in trial in Russia? Hell, no. So.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: But I mean.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Weird, because that's what makes it. Yeah, it's a half step of being a dictator and then a half step of being running the democracy.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: But that actually portends to the idea of, okay, well, so getting a second bite at the apple, I wonder what that would mean. You know, like, then I just.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Chaotic, man.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: How is that lesson learned? Basically to say, oh, I should have never, somebody walk away saying, I should have never left because now I got to deal with all those other stuff. I don't know. But that's, to me, what stood out.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: I get the feeling, oh, go ahead.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: No, I just want to. The idea that, you know, like, the reaction to the public, you know, particularly, like, I would say people who are in the camp of Donald Trump, by and large, seems to suggest that, you know, like, there is, no matter what, there is bad and unethical behavior that's described in this evidence. You know, not argument, but actual evidence. And so then we're seeing that this doesn't really move the needle, you know, and obviously, as you pointed out, a lot of this stuff, the general strokes of this stuff, we kind of knew already anyway. Like, this adds more specificity, you know, like, oh, well, like you said, the timing of, like, he hears Pence's life maybe in danger, and then he says something else, publishes something else that did to amp people up against Pence. And it's like, well, hey, man, what.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: What are you trying to accomplish there?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: You know, I got, I realized why.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Pence didn't endorse him. I was like, yeah, Pence knows a lot more than we know.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Like, there's timing things and little things like that. But, you know, and on the flip side, like, the people that are out of Trump's camp are not in Trump's camp. You know, it's like preaching to the choir, to them. They're like, yeah, this is all the reasons why we're not. Well, for many of them, this is why we're not here. So, you know, do you think, you know, like, the, the idea that Trump has normalized bad behavior, meaning the people who are against bad behavior are already against him, and the people who are with him have decided that bad behavior, for whatever reason, is, you know, either they're not going to believe it or they're going to, you know, like, it's all, it's all a scheme, you know, against him or I, or the other side is so bad, the accusations against the other side are so bad that the proof against their side is not, is not enough for them to change their mind, you know, like, for politicians in America, by and large, like, do you think this could, is bigger than Trump potentially, where bad behavior is condoned? And, you know, like, this is just, you're just on a side. You pick a camp, you know, or it's the good behavior. It's the side that is against bad behavior and the side that's okay with bad behavior. Like, what do you think is happening here from a big picture standpoint?
Prosecutors presenting evidence, you would think, in many respects would have some effect. Again, even more effect than just news reports, but actual evidence of stuff.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: I don't know, man. I think it's just very difficult to tell because of all the cross currents in our information landscape. I mean, it's even hard to tell, really what the polls are and what's real and what's not. Saw something this morning where Harris is up 11% to Trump and that doesn't seem realistic. And then there's others that say that it's tied, you know? So I think the election will say a lot. I think that if it's a landslide on the popular vote, no matter how the electoral college goes, that'll tell you at least the general public how effective this stuff is or not. And if it's a close race, it'll tell us a lot as well, you know? And so it's, but I do think you're right. I think there's a part of it that is the ecosystem stuff that if more people got exposed just to what it is on both sides, they'd probably look at it different. But I do think there is a healthy amount of, because it's been now almost a decade of not only Trump, but remember, we now have a generation of culture wars, and we actually have 30 years. If you put people that really are into politics, going back to the class of 94 with Newt Gingrich of really winner take all combat politics. And so, yeah, I think there is a certain, well, I think it's always.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Been winner take all, but I think it's more you maybe, like no holds barred.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but, but, yeah, like really attacking your fellow american politician like they're actually an adversary from a foreign country. I mean, that's, that's what we saw starting in the nineties, like they're worse.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Than an adversary from a foreign country, you know, honestly.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: And so. No, but I think so. So I do think there's a part of the electorate that will just say the other side is so bad that no matter what my side does, I don't care. I think. But I think the well has been poisoned. I think all the attacks on the media have been very effective. So there's a lot of people that just don't want to believe anything that doesn't come out of their trusted messengers.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Phil Jackson, former coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, famous for working the refs, would be very proud.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. The well has been poisoned.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: I think, you know, this is why we saw, you know, I mean, that's why that things like the Dominion lawsuit where you saw the text between host of Fox evening shows that they didn't believe what they were telling their own people on the show. And I think that speaks to a certain level of rot, I mean, in our culture. And that's why these are things that you can't legislate. I'm not saying we got to regulate things and all that, but clearly we have the culture of journalism, media and a respect for truth and transparency has gone.
And I think we're at a very interesting inflection point. I do think something happened between the attack on the haitian migrants in Springfield, not just because it's attack on the Haitians. I don't think that was it. I think a lot of people were disgusted by the disruption that caused the city of Springfield, more so than just the attack on the Haitians. And I think this is what I want to get your thoughts on. I thought about this in preparing today. I think that what we're seeing currently, right now in October of 2024, with the reaction to the hurricanes and the misinformation being spread by Donald Trump, let's call it that way. And the leadership on the republican party, some of them, and a contrast to the republican governors and mayors who are, who are beating against it. I think the public's really getting a chance to see and make a decision here.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I mean, I think this is the significance of the culture wars. I mean, I think this is the power of the culture wars is that you make these political battles about something other than truth, honesty, integrity, things like that. Like it's not about if you're, if you're engaged in a culture war, then your guy telling lies or your guy doing stuff that's bad or unethical is not really that important. You know, that's just the general in the war. And you guys still gotta, you still got to take that, that position. You still got to fight this battle. And so you're not gonna abandon, if you're fighting a war for real and you find out, you know, that, that your general was screwing around on his wife, you're not gonna stop following that general. It's like, yo, we still gotta, you know, I don't have him in place. He's not my general leading me in battle because he's a good husband and, you know, he's, he's there because I want to follow this person in the battle. So I think the significance of the culture wars and keeping people engaged in the idea that what they're fighting for is something bigger than the, the having truth and integrity in government is what we're, this come or how we see this manifested. And what we see actually in many respects is how far, like, people are willing to take this. And that's what, that's when, you know, when you talk about the claims that were made about the haitian migrants that were demonstrably false or even with, like, you got Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene talking about that, throwing out that Democrats are controlling the path of hurricanes, like, stuff that to most rational, reasonable people is, like, laughable. It's like this person couldn't be serious, but she's serious. And, you know, like, that's, that's saying, how far can we take this stuff? How far can we, can we go in saying things that, you know, to, again, to an observer who has some level of perspective would be, be like, yo, I can't take this person seriously anymore. That said this. But if we have people engaged in these culture wars, then maybe that's what they're more so looking for. And so I do think you're right, though, that because the boundaries are being pushed right now, we are going to see in this election a lot. We're going to learn a lot because I even look at, like, the governor candidate in North Carolina, you know, with the Mark Robinson, you know, like, and the, like stuff can't stop coming out about this guy. And again, just about the character of the person. And so I'm old school in this sense. And that I think that the character of the person is probably the most important thing when you're ahead voting in a system, you know, voting in a system like ours because the, you can't go based on just their platform because you need people that can react to changing circumstances. Like, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to put this tax code in. We're going to do that. It's like, well, okay, that's all well and good when, when nothing bad happens, but what are you going to do? What kind of person are you when things go bad? Are you the kind of person that brings people together, that gets the best out of people? Are you the kind of person that points fingers and blames people? You know, and so the character piece I'm looking at, but it does seem like if you're, if you feel like you're engaged in a culture where character, integrity, that stuff doesn't matter because all you're trying to do is make, is take that next advance, you know?
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Well, that's why the, I mean, this goes back to the, the role of the messengers in our current culture world, whether it be the cable news or the, or the, or the, you know, the people controlling algorithms like Elon Musk is to show, is to create such anxiety that people are just constantly in fight or flight so they're not slowing down to think about certain things and they're not able to be rational in their thought. And I think, James, that's why it's a good point.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Fight or flight is a good, and it's a good.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: This is why I do think this is interesting. I mean, this will play out. We're in the middle of it now because we have this hurricane milton now coming and barreling down on Florida after Helene two weeks ago.
But what does the public do with a leader like Donald Trump and certain people like a Marjorie Green, that make these outlandish assertions that Democrats are withholding aid or that Democrats somehow can control the weather?
Contrast to republican mayors and people like their local elected officials who are of their party saying that's not true. FEMA and the federal government is helping us and this and that. And you're right. I wonder if, how the population will respond to a contrast in leadership in our face. One that's trying to divide people at a time when a lot of people are hurting and another that is, that is not trying to divide people. And whether you want to say uniting or not, I'm not here to advocate for anyone, but it's just that they're not behaving like this type of division. So, you know, I think we'll see that play out in the next few weeks in the election. But it's just interesting as you talk about Mark Robinson, I think that's such a great example of how this has spread to an entire political party, because it's not just Mark Robinson. The fish rots from the head. So I was reminded recently that Donald Trump's son in law, sorry, daughter in law, who was the head of the RNC during an election year, recently came out with a single pop song. I'm not sure what the purpose of spending your time on that when you were trying to win an election, but that's okay. Think about what's happened this year just from Trump. He sold sneakers, he sold a Bible, he sold nfts, he sold trading cards of himself. And let me stop you real quick. Yeah.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Better off listing the things he hasn't sold, all the things that he has.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: And the point is, James, the reason I name all that is because these are things that I would have thought for most Americans would just be seen as a bad faith and bad character of how you're even behaving in that role. Like.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: To the people that support him, they. That bad character doesn't appear to matter. Yeah, that's.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: And so that's why I say it's bringing it, because it. Bad character. That's what I mean. That by the fist rods from the top is, well, he's behaving like a con artist, snake oil salesman, selling like cheap Chotzky's, you know, to America. Like, this is a disgusting. Then, of course, guys like Mark Robinson creep in through the ether because there's no vetting. His daughter in law is the head of the RNC, so that no one's really vetting these people. And so think about it.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: This.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: This is, this was the logical conclusion because as you're talking about Mark Robinson, remember in 2018, there was a guy called Roy Moore who was running for Senate in Alabama.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: The state of Alabama gave this senator seat to a Democrat for the first time in our lifetime after.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: But hold on. That's after Roy Moore won the republican primary.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: I know a guy who was a pedophile.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So another guy, allegations could. So he won the republican primary with all that about him. And then the state of Alabama voted.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: And that's what I'm saying. So, so that's what I mean by this has become the logical conclusion of how the party has drifted into this since the tea party, because this party didn't used to elect people like this, you know, 2025 years ago.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Well, what it is I was gonna say is, like, what it is is that on the Republican Party side, it seems like they've lost the ability to self correct for these kinds of things. You know, like, and you look, in the current environment, Nixon wouldn't resign. You know, like, and so, but during that time, there was a, if bad behavior was done, you tried to get away with it. If you got caught, you, you kind of got caught, and your party members will come out and say, hey, man, we might have to cut loose of you so that we can keep the larger ship running, you know, and, like, they weren't celebrating Iran Contra, you know, it wasn't like, hey, yeah, yeah, we did it. You know, it was, it was something. It was like, oh, no, we got caught. You know, like, yeah, but that self correcting mechanism has just been, has gone away. And maybe that's the design of Roger Ailes, you know, who said, you know, like, who saw a problem with what happened to Nixon and created Fox or designed Fox News to be a solution to that, so to speak, but without the self correcting aspect of it to say, okay, when people step over a certain line, we as a political party have to say, hey, hey, hey, we don't, this doesn't represent the best of us. We need to go in a different direction that's been lost or been broken, like, whatever you want to say, but that piece about it, because I don't know that this isn't a case where the people really can save. When you're talking about from a political apparatus standpoint and a two main political parties, because you have one side or one party take all, you know, winner take all elections, it's difficult to correct that just from the people, so to speak. Your political parties play an important role in that as gatekeepers, as vetting for stuff. And so that's just been, that that mechanism has been broken. And so we'll see what happens. But my concern moving forward is always just that I want to make sure that we're all doing the same thing here, you know, like, and so are we trying to win elections so that we can have pop put in policies and so forth? Are we trying to do this and we trying to punish the other side? Are we trying to, like the rhetoric that I'm seeing again, like, talking about right now, 2024, the limits being pushed on all this stuff saying, oh, yeah, the Democrats are controlling the weather and they're trying to go kill people with, no, seriously, go kill people. Like, well, what's the ration? If that's really true? You can easily get to a point where these people need to, like, these people are evil. Thanos love evil, you know, and if, like, this is that. So if we're going down this direction, we, I would hope that the country as a whole maintains this self correcting mechanism that can say, okay, yeah, we can't reward electorally people who, you know, again, will cast their political opponents, their fellow Americans, like, in this way. Like, and my point overall being is are we still doing the Constitution? You know, is that what we're still doing? Or have the culture wars overtaken the constitution to where now some people have decided that by any means necessary, basically, is how they're going to operate from a political standpoint, because the, what they perceive as the other side being so evil and, you know, weather making machines and all this other stuff like bond villain stuff is the stuff that's driving their political agenda.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: Well, I think you're onto something, and I think you're right. This is how, you know, the Third Reich turned into from, you know, kind of a political thing into what it turned into. This is how Rwanda happened. This is how the Balkans happened in the nineties when we were kids, where it becomes where the people you just have a disagreement with or a philosophical, you know, you know, whatever, with tete a tete, with actually become enemies, seen that they have to be literally just destroyed or exterminated.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: So let me add, just people you have a disagreement with in the context of a constitution then become, you know, what you're saying?
[00:49:45] Speaker B: And so enemy that needs to be vanquished. Yeah. And I think that's where maybe one, this is why I say we're in the middle of this now. So I can't tell how it's gonna play out. You know, but maybe these people are becoming so extreme in their rhetoric that maybe it's becoming enough that the majority of Americans will say, yeah, I don't know if someone can control the weather, all that, but I think the trap, and I want you to speak to this, James, because you get me off this intellectual ledge sometimes, because when someone like a congresswoman says that Democrats control the weather, my intellectual brain kicks in. And then I start thinking about the forest fires in the California, for example. If they're that good, how come they don't control that right. In the democratic state?
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Well, but she's.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I know you're right. But, but, but, no, but you're good at saying, like, because I think this is a trap a lot of people fall into. And I'm not to say only intellectual people that are smarter than, but I think when you, when you're kind of have more of a rational mindset you tend to think, oh, well, that's a stupid argument. Who would believe that? And then you wake up and you're surprised, or you're walking around in your community and there's people like, yeah, maybe people are eating other people's pets, or maybe there is, maybe there is a way for someone to control the weather. And it goes back to like, I think about the contrails, conspiracies. Like my brain says, oh, well, maybe planes flying very fast at 30,000ft, you know, they kind of, the way that the metal starts shaking on the airframe, creates heat and steam comes off the plane. And that's the contra. Other people say, no, the government spraying stuff in the air.
So speak to that, James. Cause I think it's more of how do we as people, maybe more rational minded people, help other people in our own community that are really on the fence about this. Because I'm really being serious. I don't like calling people stupid. I don't like making fun of people's intellect. I think that we have a responsibility, all of us in our society, when we see people that want to fall into believing that maybe a certain political party can control the weather, instead of making fun of someone about that, we should actually have a different way of approaching, oh, you know what? Why don't you come in here, let's have a conversation about this and let's see. So, so, because you're good at telling me that sometimes, like, well, rational mind, like, because look at this, people.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: That is so far fetched. It's so far fetched that it's self disqualifying. Like, it's just like, okay, that's a person you cannot take seriously. No one would take it. So you go from that to then saying, no one can take that person seriously. And that's the trap that you can't fall into because things are complicated in the world. And so if people that are, that other people trust or that are on their side in a culture war, say certain things, if there's trust there, then you people will willing either whether they believe it or not, or whether they believe it in part, so to speak, where it's like, oh, okay, yeah, I kind of believe it. But you know, it raises some interesting question, or it puts them in a certain direction either way. Like you have to make sure that one ridicule is not the way necessarily, but what you have to be able to do is understand that that's you're not the target audience for that. There is a target audience for that. Of people, that would be some, that's something that could be used to manipulate them or to sow doubt in them. And the goal is to further remove the people who are the target from that, from society as a whole, from this whole american experiment that we're doing where we have elections. We respect the results. The other side isn't the enemy. You know, we get another shot at the election in two years or four years and so forth, trying to pull people out of that mindset and into this mindset of, we gotta win. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, you just fight like hell. You know, like, that's the, that's where they're trying to pull people in that mindset. And so the goal, honestly, is to try to keep people into the mindset where, hey, what we're doing here is constitution, elections. You win some, you lose some, you share power. If other side has the power, you know, unfortunately, you just gotta, you let them do their thing. You know, you, you, then you, you go back at it in two years. So it's more of about, it's more about trying to keep people pulled in, not to you personally, but into this joint thing that we're doing called the US Constitution. So, I mean, I think that's a big part of it. You know, as far as, when we hear things like this is, we can't dismiss it as being so obviously because we're not the target, target audience. Can't dismiss it as being so obviously ridiculous that no one, that this person can't be serious and no one could take them seriously because that's just not the case. You know, I'm not saying that because I want that to be. I'm saying that because that's just what it is. And, yeah, we stack on top of it, the information bubbles and so forth, and it become, actually becomes very dangerous.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: You know, there's something that I didn't realize, but I do.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: But we got to, you know, we got.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: That. I think, you know, we got it. All of us. Be careful of projecting how we think to, on to other people. You know, the fact that we might not believe that somebody can control the weather doesn't mean someone else can. And I leave with this last joke as you're talking. It makes me think of the, the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington generals. We don't want that in real life.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Pretty boring.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: Not for sure, so. All right, well, but I think, yeah, we'll wrap up from there. We appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of call like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Check out part one as well. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: And I'm tuned, everyone. Lana. Waiting for that outro. Here we go.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: We'll talk to you next time.
