Pod Insights Behind the Bastards It Could Happen Here Weekly 235 About this episode All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.
- Bears! And the Guys Who Don’t Like Them
- How to Potluck Your Way to a Union
- What’s In the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy
- The War on Iran and Convergences of Fascism
- Executive Disorder: California Elections, SCOTUS Approves GOP Map, Greg Bovino Update
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Sources/Links:
Bears! And the Guys Who Don’t Like Them
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/news/missing-hiker-and-bear-encounter-victim-identified.htm
https://www.hcn.org/issues/49-9/zinke-went-to-bears-ears-to-listen-but-supporters-felt-unheard/
https://x.com/RepRyanZinke/status/2054303113549381650?s=20
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/10/25/16-30033.pdf
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/Endangered-Species-Act-at-50/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5829a2.htm
https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/16/dying-wolf-struck-by-snowmobile-shown-off-in-wyoming-bar/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261982557_Efficacy_of_Firearms_for_Bear_Deterrence_in_Alaska
https://www.bearwise.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/efficacy-of-bear-spray-smith-et-al.-2010.pdf
https://alaskapublic.org/news/environment/2026-05-07/after-legal-challenge-alaska-judge-approves-states-revised-bear-cull-in-southwest-alaska
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28097859-250506-mulchatna/
https://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Text/34? Hsid=HB0364A
https://propakistani.pk/2026/05/28/mma-fighter-killed-in-bear-attack-in-canada/
How to Potluck Your Way to a Union
https://www.gofundme.com/f/MujiWorkersUnited
https://www.instagram.com/mujiworkersunited.pdx/
What’s In the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy
https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May-20-2026.pdf
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/01/ken-martin-elected-dnc-party-chair-00201938
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-inside-story
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/heres-what-i-told-the-dnc-autopsy-biden-harris-2024-lessons-democrats-2028
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-takeaways-vis
The War on Iran and Convergences of Fascism
Mohammad Ali Kadivar on the Iranian regime’s popular mobilization - https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/why-the-iranian-regime-owns-the-streets/
Moustafa Bayoumi on the anti-Palestinian roots of Islamophobia - https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/may/23/islamophobia-us-palestine-history
Negar Razavi’s website - https://negarsrazavi.com/
Executive Disorder: California Elections, SCOTUS Approves GOP Map, Greg Bovino Update
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2061537793843532054?s=20
https://x.com/Tomhennessey69/status/2061343239794299374
https://remigrationsummit.com/
https://www.politico.eu/article/afd-vox-mingle-with-ex-us-border-patrol-chief-white-nationalist-leader-at-remigration-summit/
https://www.breizh-info.com/2026/05/28/260619/gregory-bovino-lhomme-qui-a-pilote-les-operations-trump-contre-limmigration-illegale-parle-a-leurope-interview/
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2061550046571528666?s=20
https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2061419519705223257?s=20
https://www.axios.com/2026/06/01/trump-netanyahu-israel-lebanon-call
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/iran-may-used-chinese-missile-shoot-us-fighter-jet-sources-say-rcna347555
https://www.patreon.com/posts/dont-confuse-and-159583359
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mndeoj7qnk24
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-11094.pdf
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/promoting-advanced-artificial-intelligence-innovation-and-security/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5905542-donald-trump-bill-pulte-odni-democratic-reaction/
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a1314_7m58.pdf
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-permits-alabama-to-use-congressional-map-struck-by-lower-court-as-racially-discrim/
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/03/nx-s1-5844678/trump-science-funding-omb-budget-office-rule-change
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aej3572
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz9553
https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/this-new-omb-rule-is-bigger-than
https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-changes-in-ombs-proposed
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance
https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-slam-hhs-report-gender-affirming-care-youth
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2026/05/29/omb-proposes-rules-establishing-political
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript 50,954 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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1:37 Robert Evans? Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.
2:01 Speaker 06 It's bear time.
2:02 Speaker 07 Yep, it's bear time. Hi, everyone. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where I talk to Molly Conga about animals. Hi, Molly.
2:11 Speaker 06 I am so excited to learn about bears. I've been thinking about it all week.
2:15 Speaker 07 That's fantastic. Good. I hope you've had good bear thoughts, because there are people who think about bears a lot, and I think it's not good for their mental wellbeing.
2:22 Speaker 06 I was trying to find if I took a picture of that time a baby bear was like standing on the median strip outside my old apartment, and I couldn't find it. But so I was thinking about him.
2:30 Speaker 07 Okay, yeah, I hope he's okay. I hope he's found a better place to be than the median strip. I bought a show and tell item today. Molly can see it, no one else can.
2:39 Speaker 06 I was hoping it was gonna be a live bear.
2:40 Speaker 07 It's not a live bear. I don't, I'm not allowed because of woke. You can't have a pet grizzly bear.
2:45 Speaker 06 If you're about to tell me that those are bear antlers, I'm leaving.
2:48 Speaker 07 Yeah, this is from, these are actually original jackalope antlers from the California jackalope. No, it's a mule deer shed antler. I just thought it was cool. Thought you'd like to see it.
2:57 Speaker 06 It's beautiful.
2:58 Speaker 07 Yeah, I think lots of people don't realize that their antlers fall off and regenerate.
3:03 Speaker 06 I feel like he spent a long time growing those.
3:05 Speaker 07 Yeah, he did. And then he just left them there as a gift for me in the wilderness. So I have a few of these.
3:10 Speaker 06 He's not getting laid this spring.
3:12 Speaker 07 Oh, no, he's gonna grow some more, and he's gonna fight another dude with them in order to get laid.
3:19 Speaker 06 So that fell off in a fight. So he's just walking around with one right now, looking at the unicorn. Oh, he shed, okay, he shed them.
3:25 Speaker 07 Yeah, that they shed them and regenerate them. Like, this is how, this is how they get bigger and more robust antlers each time. But they put a lot of the caloric energy into growing these.
3:37 Speaker 06 It seems like that would really take a lot out of you.
3:39 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, then they get horny and fight with other male deer for quite a while.
3:43 Speaker 06 No, those are antlers, not horns.
3:45 Speaker 07 That's correct. But the horny is not related to them. Yeah, they go, and then they, yeah, they lose a lot of weight in that rutting time, and then they have to gain it all back before the winter.
3:56 Speaker 06 Just so focused on fighting and fucking, they can't even eat.
3:59 Speaker 07 Yep, it's the, many such cases.
4:02 Speaker 06 Many such cases.
4:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah. So I'm not talking about mule deer today. They are cool. First time I saw one, I was like, I see why they call it a mule deer. Really got the ears going on. I want to talk about another type of charismatic North American megafauna, bears. So there are three species of bear in North America. Should we do a quiz, Molly? Do you know what they are?
4:24 Speaker 06 Okay, grizzly.
4:27 Speaker 06 Brown, black. Polar?
4:32 Speaker 07 Close. That's four. You've got to keep spraying.
4:36 Speaker 07 Panda.
4:36 Speaker 06 Those aren't even bears.
4:37 Speaker 07 Yeah. Nominally, they are, but I think, yeah. You did get them all during your period of guessing. Brown, black and polar. Within brown bear, we have grizzly bears, brown bears and Kodiak bears. We used to think that the California bears were a different species and not. They just lived here.
4:57 Speaker 06 They just have different politics.
4:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like they, weed had been legalized, so they just saw things differently. The brown bear is the one I want to talk about, so I'm going to use brown bear as like a blanket term for when they're on the coast in Alaska, they're called brown bears, right? And those are generally the biggest ones. I don't know if you've ever seen it. Have you been to Alaska, Molly?
5:19 Speaker 06 No, I would love to go to Alaska. I've never been.
5:21 Speaker 07 Yeah, Alaska fucking rips. I love Alaska.
5:24 Speaker 06 I found out recently that black bears can be brown and I just think we need, I think we need to reevaluate the naming system.
5:31 Speaker 07 It's not good, yes.
5:33 Speaker 06 Because like people are like, you know, the advice about a brown bear versus a black bear is different. But if a black bear can be brown and you're relying on a rhyming phrase to know what to do, you don't know what kind of bear that is.
5:44 Speaker 07 It's, they call them cinnamon bears sometimes, the, the brown, black bears. Yeah. You can tell a grizzly bear, right? They're bigger. They've got that more pronounced hump. They have a different shape to them.
5:54 Speaker 06 No, you can tell. I cannot.
5:57 Speaker 07 You'll fucking know the grizzly bear's coming. And like, they don't make themselves, you know, quiet. But yeah, the big hump, they've got a more pronounced hump. Grizzly bears can also really get into like a blonde coloration even.
6:09 Speaker 06 Well, yeah, in California, sure. Everybody's blonde out there.
6:12 Speaker 07 Yeah, they, they get frosted tips when they live by the coast for too long and they listen to Sublime here.
6:19 Speaker 07 Yeah, let's talk about bears. My bear interactions by way of establishing some credibility. I want to point out that like interacting with bears doesn't make me an expert. I'm not an expert and what we're going to talk about here is non-experts interjecting their inexpert opinions about bears and why that's actually a problem.
6:36 Speaker 06 I'm probably interacting with bears. It's not a desirable outcome for most listeners.
6:40 Speaker 07 Yeah, I love a bear. Like, I think, because I come from a place where there's very little that can kill you. Well, I mean, there are things, right, there are cars, and we have cancer in the UK as well, of course. But like, animal wise, you're more or less unclear. We have adders, which is a type of snake, and they are venomous, but like, I can't think of the last time I ever heard of someone getting killed, but I'm sure someone has been killed by an adder bite, but it's very rare.
7:03 Speaker 06 Yeah, you don't have, I mean, you have a lion on like a flag or something. Somebody has one. But there's no lions.
7:07 Speaker 07 We have a few lions. We've got some flag lions. Yeah, you know, the lions, the lions, in fact, we, I love the lions on a flag because they're drawn by someone who's never seen a lion. Then, just like a game of telephone has resulted in.
7:19 Speaker 06 But he knows they're very majestic.
7:20 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's majestic, kind of like a dog, longer hair. I think what was the input before he drew the lions. I kind of like being on the landscape with animals that are bigger than me and like they are the apex predator. First time I saw a grizzly bear, I had bushplained to a lake in the Wrangell Center Elias Wilderness. It's in Alaska, Southeastern Alaska, massive wilderness area. And we were gonna hike around a bit and then pack raft off the the end of the glacier there. It's into, goes into like a meltwater river, right? And so the river's kind of different every year as it melts and the river's streams braid together. Then we were gonna pack raft for a few days and then hike out, and that was a fun adventure.
8:03 Speaker 07 So we landed, we hiked a bit, we inflated our little boats, and we paddled across the lake at the end of the glacier. And then we got to a place where we're camping, went on a walk and immediately saw a sal grizzly bear and her cubs, which was sick.
8:17 Speaker 06 That's cute as hell. I would love to see that. I would love to see some baby bears.
8:21 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's sick. Best to stay away from them. That's when they, they can get angry.
8:25 Speaker 06 I would like to see them from like over here.
8:27 Speaker 07 Yeah.
8:28 Speaker 06 And then they can be over there, like maybe on the other side of a river.
8:31 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, bears can, bears, not afraid of water, but.
8:34 Speaker 06 That's true.
8:35 Speaker 07 And they do love to eat salmon. Yeah, it was sick. That was a sick trip. Generally, we got to see the glacier carving, so like,
8:41 Speaker 06 Hmm.
8:43 Speaker 07 It's when a little baby glacier is born, right? But the glacier. A section of it broke off and I'm talking a section the size of like a city block here.
8:53 Speaker 06 I bet it's so shiny when it breaks.
8:55 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's shiny and it's loud. It's like an earth shattering rumble, right? And then this thing, it was majestic, right? Like it looks like a mountain has fallen into the water and that was cool as fuck. And then you realize that like it has displaced a mountain sized amount of water.
9:13 Speaker 06 Okay, you better move.
9:14 Speaker 07 And now there are like fridge sized ice blocks coming at head height towards you. So yeah, we did some fast uphill running in that moment, but it was Alaska. So it was summertime, so it wasn't getting dark, right? You have like 24 hours sunlight, so at least it wasn't dark when that happened.
9:28 Speaker 06 Plenty of time to run from the glacier.
9:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, great time to run from the glacier. Wouldn't want to do it in the wintertime. I don't think they carve in the wintertime. Maybe they still do. I think it's to do with the temperature rising. So that was my, I've seen a lot of black bears. I'm a San Diego black bear truther, but that's another fun thing about me. For some reason, people don't think there are black bears in San Diego and that is not true. I have seen bear footprints. People have seen bears on game cameras. Bears pop up on top of Mount Palomar all the time.
9:56 Speaker 06 It's like the ongoing feud about whether or not we have Panthers on the East Coast.
10:00 Speaker 07 Oh yeah, you guys love to, it's like a Carolina Panther or something.
10:06 Speaker 06 People are very sure. I have no skin in this game.
10:09 Speaker 07 Yeah, I think that's a breeding family of mountain lions now, maybe in Michigan. So they're getting closer. They're coming your way. Soon will. I've seen a lot of bears or a good number of bears, seen a lot of black bears, right? We have them in California. The fact that I've seen bears does not make me a bear expert. And another non-bear expert has been diving into the discourse on bears after a tragedy. Like genuinely a terrible thing when a hiker lost their life in glacier. We're trying to say it the American way, glacier, national park.
10:39 Speaker 06 I was just saying, we're gonna get messages about this, this British word.
10:43 Speaker 07 Yeah, right. It's not like a buffalo issue. I'm just straight colonizing it. I'm sure it had an indigenous name and so, so are you if you're saying glacier. This is really sad, right? A hiker from Florida was mauled by a baron tide. Very shortly, in relation to that, serious injuries occurred in another mauling in Yellowstone National Park not so long ago. A contractor at a uranium mining site was killed by a black bear in British Columbia in Canada, a couple of weeks ago, maybe 13th of May, it looks like. Unusual to be killed by a black bear. Probably worth pointing out that very rare for black bears to kill people. And also, someone at that site clearly had a firearm because they euthanased
11:23 Speaker 07 the bear. Euthanasia is a phrase they use there. They killed it, right? Like, it wasn't suffering, I don't think. But they killed the bear pretty shortly thereafter, and it's undergoing a necropsy now. But that's another incident, I guess, to add to this list. And again, right there, there was a firearm present there, it seems, and that didn't prevent the person being mauled by the bear. And so, former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has decided to wade into the debate. Do we remember Ryan Zinke?
11:54 Speaker 06 He's not the one from Real World Road Rules, right? No, that's the transportation guy.
11:58 Speaker 07 I don't think so. If he is, I'm not aware of what Real World Road Rules is.
12:03 Speaker 06 I'm just having trouble remembering which members of Cabinet have been on reality TV, and I don't think this is one of them. Okay, sorry.
12:09 Speaker 07 No, not to my knowledge. Zinke, he was a Navy SEAL officer. He's now a representative from Montana. He was Interior Secretary in Trump's first administration. He presided over a series of attacks on public lands that we saw in Trump 1.0.
12:24 Speaker 06 Exactly what you want to see from your Secretary of the Interior.
12:26 Speaker 07 Yeah. Yeah. He's trying to rebrand himself as some kind of protector of public lands now. He's kind of too late on that one, in my opinion. But he's certainly not a protector of bears. Last week, he tweeted, maybe he zited, I don't know.
12:41 Speaker 06 We're not doing that.
12:42 Speaker 07 Yeah, we're not doing that. We're gonna keep dead naming it. Last week, two grizzly bear attacks claimed the life of a hiker in Glacier National Park and seriously injured two others in Yellowstone National Park. The tragedies are a sobering reminder that grizzly bear populations have recovered well beyond sustainable levels, and it is time for...
12:57 Speaker 06 Oh, so we should start killing them?
12:58 Speaker 07 Yep. It's past time for the federal government to de-list them and give states some management tools. Yeah, we're gonna kill them back. This is what we do.
13:08 Speaker 06 Eye for an eye for Florida man.
13:10 Speaker 07 Fuck off. I was speaking to a bear, a scientist who studies human bear interactions this week, and he referred to these as revenge killings.
13:18 Speaker 06 Yeah.
13:19 Speaker 07 Because they won't just kill, they often, in many instances, don't know which bear. Sometimes we can, we can, we can know the size of the bear, right, from like the, the, the size of the jaws. There'll be kind of several bears who have different sizes of jaws, things, the distance between the different teeth, stuff like this, right?
13:35 Speaker 06 Right, like if one bear is like, if it's like a jaws situation, like one bear just has it out for hikers.
13:40 Speaker 07 Yeah.
13:40 Speaker 06 Sure, I guess, go get him.
13:42 Speaker 07 But that's not like.
13:43 Speaker 06 That's not what's happening.
13:44 Speaker 07 Yeah, and they will end up killing a number of bears in an area when this stuff happens, right, which is, it's just a revenge killing, so we're taking out, like, uh, we're taking out our anger on that species because they came after our species.
13:54 Speaker 06 It seems like the problem is not that there's too many bears.
13:58 Speaker 07 That is correct, Molly. That is, that is why we're here today.
14:02 Speaker 06 He seems, he seems to be positioning this as, there's just too many bears. People just can't avoid the bears because there's so many bears.
14:10 Speaker 07 Then it's not the case. Millions of people every year visit the Greater Yellowstoneian system and very few of them see a bear, right?
14:16 Speaker 06 And even fewer of them touch a bear.
14:18 Speaker 07 Yeah, if you're touching a grizzly bear, it's a bad day for you, unless, I guess, it has decided it wants to be touched.
14:24 Speaker 06 I don't want to victim blame, obviously, like, these are wild animals, they're unpredictable, you're in their home, what'd this guy do? Why was he so close to the bear?
14:31 Speaker 07 We don't know exactly what this guy did. There are a number of bear safety things which I do want to talk about, and I spoke to Tom Smith last week, and I'm gonna turn that into another podcast, but like, this is the person who is the guy who writes the studies on human interactions with bears, right? And specifically on how those could be, like, de-escalated. And he said he's not aware of an incident in which someone has been killed by a bear in which they were adhering to all the best principles, right? Now,
14:58 Speaker 06 I'm not blaming the victim. Like, if you don't know, you don't know. You're an inexperienced outdoorsman or whatever, but I feel like there's a series of just like pieces of advice, and if you follow them, you're not gonna get in that situation. Most of the time, most of the time.
15:11 Speaker 07 Most of the time, yeah. I think if I was going into bear country, I wouldn't take a dog. A lot of people take dogs. Dog is a great way to find a bear. If you're looking for a bear, you could go send out your dog and it'll come back to you with a bear in tow. Some like hunting dogs can also tree bears, but that's not what I'm talking about.
15:29 Speaker 06 Is it because the bear sees the dog as a delicious snack?
15:32 Speaker 07 I think the dog sees the bear as a threat, right? And it'll start buck, buck, buck, buck, buck. And then like the bear then obviously sees the dog as what the fuck is this little animal doing? I'm the apex predator here. Yeah, like we're locked in. And the the the dog can smell the bear, right? So it's gonna find it. The bear can smell the dog, so they're gonna find each other.
15:50 Speaker 06 I guess I was thinking of my dog, which a bear would definitely see as a delicious snack.
15:54 Speaker 07 Yeah, your dog could see. Maybe it'd be sub snack size. It wouldn't be worth it, but.
15:59 Speaker 06 Like a little cocktail weenie?
16:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, a sausage dog would try it. It wouldn't give it like I've seen. I've sent you a video of a sausage dog.
16:06 Speaker 06 Oh, yeah.
16:06 Speaker 07 Chasing off a mountain lion. They didn't give a fuck. Very brave.
16:10 Speaker 06 So, yeah, don't don't take a dog. Don't try and pet it.
16:13 Speaker 07 Yeah, don't take a dog. Yeah, don't try and pet it. In this instance, I think the person was moving through thick country where the bear was probably foraging for berries. And they probably startled the bear. So you don't want to start the bear. If you're moving through thick country like that, that's when people will say, hey, bear, or they'll use a bear bell. Or they'll talk loudly and converse with people in their group. It is generally preferred to be in a group when we're in grizzly country, right? Not on our own. We don't know the details of this like incident. There have been some reports that the person discharged bear spray. And I want to get on to the bear spray topic later, because I have a lot to say about that. Let's go back and talk about bears in history.
16:56 Speaker 06 Yes, contextualize the bear.
16:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, Rensick, he wants to delist the bear from the Endangered Species Act, right? Bears haven't always been protected by the Endangered Species Act. That's why California has a bear on its flag that doesn't live here anymore.
17:09 Speaker 06 Oh, you don't have those anymore?
17:11 Speaker 07 No, we killed them all. We don't have brown bears here.
17:13 Speaker 06 So is he on the flag because you're sorry about it? Because you're proud of it?
17:17 Speaker 07 No, I think it's more of a pride thing. I think it's more of a
17:20 Speaker 06 Got him.
17:21 Speaker 07 Fucking, yeah, yeah. I don't actually know what he's on the flag. I'll do some, do some searching. I'm pretty sure it's not because we're sorry about it. We have a good source, right, of what European people did when they first encountered bears. It's not my story from Alaska.
17:35 Speaker 06 Oh, I bet they did not know about them.
17:38 Speaker 07 Well, they did, because as it turns out, as Lewis and Clark were moving across the plains, right, they encountered indigenous people who very specifically told them not to fuck with bears. Let me quote from Lewis's diary.
17:51 Speaker 06 I feel like you would not have to tell, like, if I have never, if I have no concept of bear and I see a bear, my instinct is gonna be, I'm gonna leave that guy alone.
18:00 Speaker 07 See, yeah, but maybe these guys are just built different. As it turns out, their bear poking, I don't know, desire is extremely, turns out, counterproductive for them. Let's read from the Lewis and Clark diaries, a first on the podcast. Quote, "The Indians give a very formidable account of the strength and ferocity of this animal, which they never dare to attack but in parties of six, eight, or 10 persons, and are even then frequently defeated with the loss of one or more of their party. This animal is said to more frequently attack a man on meeting with him than flee from him. When the Indians are about to go in quest of the white bear, previous to their departure, they paint themselves and perform all these superstitious rites commonly observed when they're about to make war upon a neighboring nation." I think he's talking about brown bears. He talks about white bears there, but
18:44 Speaker 06 I was gonna say, is he talking about polar bears? Because you definitely don't do that.
18:48 Speaker 07 Do not fuck with a bear. A polar bear will end you. That was on the 15th of April.
18:53 Speaker 06 So he's like, yeah, you take eight or 10 guys, usually one of them dies, they don't always succeed. I wanna go check it out. I got it.
19:01 Speaker 07 Yeah, yep. So by early May, Captain Clark and Dryer killed the largest brown bear this evening, which we have ever yet seen. It was a most tremendous looking animal and extremely hard to kill, notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts. He swam more than half the distance across the river to a sandbar, and it was at least 20 minutes before he died. Then they go on to say they thought it weighed about 500 pounds, but they didn't have any apparatus to weigh it. So that's the first interaction with a bear. Less than a month later, quote, "Six good hunters of the party fired at a brown or yellow bear several times before they killed him. And indeed, he had liked to have defeated the whole party. He pursued them separately as they fired on him, and was near catching several of them. He pursued two of them separately
19:46 Speaker 07 so close that they were obliged to throw aside their guns and pouches and throw themselves into the river, although the bank was nearly 20 feet perpendicular."
19:53 Speaker 06 Oh my god.
19:54 Speaker 07 Yeah. So enraged with this animal that he plunged into the river only a few feet behind a second man, he had compelled to take refuge in the water, when one of those who still remained on the shore shot him through the head and finally killed him.
20:06 Speaker 06 That's not fair. They should have let him have that guy.
20:08 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's eye for an eye. Like, it's fascinating to me, right? That like, you do see this sometimes in like indigenous, like in people's records, right? There was a guy, I forget his name. I forget. I was reading about this one indigenous American guy. He was like, every time I see a bear, I gotta go try to take it on. But like, he recognized that was like not a normal response, right? Whereas apparently everyone in Lewis and Clark's party was immediately after killing the first bear they saw, despite having been told.
20:38 Speaker 06 We found the murder monster.
20:40 Speaker 07 Yeah. It tells me so much about the American psyche, right? That the indigenous people were like, you know, they, they will kill you.
20:47 Speaker 06 And like, how much bear meat were they eating?
20:49 Speaker 07 Yeah. I mean, maybe a bit. I don't know. Like, you can eat bear meat. It's kind of greasy, from what I understand.
20:55 Speaker 06 So they're just going after bears just because it's fun?
20:57 Speaker 07 I do understand that Lewis and Clark had to collect and catalogue animals, which obviously they didn't bring them back alive, right? They brought back skulls and hides and that kind of thing, so that... The Western way of understanding the world could catalogue and understand these animals and there is a great deal of knowledge that that way of seeing the world gained from that expedition, but they also they also mixed it up with a lot of bears. You can read more examples in their diaries. There's this idea that still exists in parts of like the American sort of psyche that we don't have to live alongside nature, we have to conquer it, right? That we have to prove our like apex position and that doesn't always go well for us.
21:37 Speaker 06 I don't need to prove anything to a bear.
21:39 Speaker 07 Yeah.
21:39 Speaker 06 I'm at peace.
21:40 Speaker 07 I'm happy to coexist with bears. I'm happy that they're there. They're happy that I'm here. I hope we can have a nice time. I don't want to fight with bears. Lewis and Clark, by the way, I find the Lewis and Clark expedition fascinating. Like, at the time they were crossing the plains, they were meeting with indigenous people who had been to Paris to check it out and come home.
22:01 Speaker 06 I have no concept of that.
22:03 Speaker 07 Right. We see them as like questing into the great unknown and these people are like, yeah, no, I went over.
22:07 Speaker 06 But those people have, they've been out back.
22:10 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, they just didn't want it, right? They came back because they liked it. They were having, they were fine. It wasn't that they hadn't been exposed to the European world. It was just that the European world had not physically expanded to attempt to colonize the places that they lived. So like this idea that they're going.
22:26 Speaker 06 That really makes what they did a lot less impressive.
22:28 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean, it was a long journey.
22:30 Speaker 06 Sure, but like, I mean, people hike the Appalachian Trail every year. I'm not impressed.
22:36 Speaker 07 That does go a perpendicular to the.
22:38 Speaker 06 I'm just saying, people walk a thousand miles all the time.
22:40 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a lot of canoeing.
22:42 Speaker 06 It's a weird hobby.
22:43 Speaker 07 Lewis and Clark. It's just fun hobby. I like walking. But yeah, I mean, it's an impressive journey, but like, I think sometimes we have this idea of them like questing into the unknown and that's just not it. They'd have met people who'd been like, oh, yeah, I've been there. Like, what do you think of Paris? Sadly, the Lewis and Clark expedition was not the the low point for the grizzly bear population. But Molly, talking of low points, now is a time for us to transition to an advertisement for products and services.
23:20 Speaker 07 All right, we are back. I want to quote from a federal court case here on protections for bears. By the 1930s, just 125 years after European settlers moved into grizzly country, grizzly bears were found in only 2% of their former range. Nor did this mark the low point for the grizzly. Thirty-seven separate grizzly populations were identified in the contiguous United States in 1922. Only six remained in 1975.
23:47 Speaker 06 So is this largely habitat encroachment or overhunting? Or, I mean, obviously both.
23:52 Speaker 07 It's all of the above.
23:53 Speaker 06 So we were just going out there and shooting them just?
23:55 Speaker 07 Yeah, they're bounties. There were bounties for bears.
23:57 Speaker 06 By the millions.
23:58 Speaker 07 Yeah, they were paying, they were paying people to shoot the bears.
24:01 Speaker 06 We got a buffalo situation.
24:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, we got a buffalo situation here.
24:04 Speaker 06 So this wasn't just like people doing hobby hunting and like concurrent habitat encroachment. This was like an intentional destruction of bear.
24:12 Speaker 07 The bear doesn't coexist well with like the human habitation and specifically like animal agriculture, right?
24:19 Speaker 06 Yeah, it's not a great neighbor.
24:21 Speaker 07 Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't give a fuck. And it's a big animal and it will tear shit down and people are scared of it. Bears used to live all across the plains, right? It was only a small segment of the bears that lived in the mountains. They're the ones that survived just because those are the areas that it was harder to make amenable to capitalism.
24:40 Speaker 06 That never occurred to me.
24:42 Speaker 07 Yeah.
24:43 Speaker 06 That never occurred to me that they have retreated from the hills to get away from us.
24:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, I don't think it's that the plains bears went to the hills. I think it's that the plains bears are gone.
24:51 Speaker 06 Right, they're, they're just the ones that survived because they were like, that's crazy. The bears just used to be roaming around down here.
24:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, the bears would be out and about. Actually, the easternmost grizzly bear sow with cubs that I'm aware of is on the APR, like in the Missouri River Breaks, so the American Prairie Reserve, people who didn't listen to our buffalo episode.
25:11 Speaker 06 Callback.
25:12 Speaker 07 Yeah, that's what they call a callback in the industry. The bears used to be all around, right? Like, I guess maybe as the plains, right, are an area that's especially kind of appealing, especially when we look at like the The period after the nineteen twenties, right, when people were trying to bring the planet to heal through the application of technology, right? I think it's Aldo Leopold who talks about the way humans fuck with ecosystems as a bit like somebody who doesn't know how a watch works, taking apart a watch, just being like, I know that fucking cocked ass doesn't look like it's doing much to me. Let me whip that bad boy out, like, make it lighter.
25:48 Speaker 06 I always think of, um, what was it? Somebody who's colonizing and farming in Hawaii brought mongoose. Because they thought the mongoose would eat some, they thought the mongoose would eat something that was causing a problem for the crops. It turns out the mongoose don't even eat that. So now it's just like.
26:02 Speaker 07 Feral mongoies.
26:03 Speaker 06 Sometimes like around sunset at the beach, you'll see all these like mongoose just like coming out of the underbrush and taking over the beach.
26:10 Speaker 07 Okay, that's amazing.
26:10 Speaker 06 Because like they have no natural predators there.
26:12 Speaker 07 Yeah, right. Like introducing animals into ecosystems and removing animals from ecosystems has all these downstream effects that like we never think like. I am sort of Sophie about this today. Like, um, I grew up in the UK, right? Well, we have tons of rabbits.
26:27 Speaker 06 Oh, she has a rabbit in the garden today. Does she show you?
26:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, I've seen a rabbit. Yeah, I was able to identify it. The rabbit population is high in part because we've removed many of their predators, right? We, the wolves are gone in the UK. The bears are gone in the UK. We have some foxes, but not as many because they are dangerous to sheep populations, right? We have some raptors, but not as many. Uh, so now we have tons of rabbits. What do the rabbits do? Well, they eat crops in part, right? And they come in and eat your carrots, uh, as depicted in the Peter Rabbit.
27:00 Speaker 06 Oh, a Peter Rabbit is just tearing the garden apart.
27:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, every day.
27:03 Speaker 06 Mr. McGregor was right.
27:04 Speaker 07 Molly, that is a bold statement. Molly, Molly Conga, childhood villain. Now the rabbits have a disease called myxomatosis, which is horrific disease where like they sort of become almost like zombified. Uh, yeah, I think it came from Australia.
27:20 Speaker 06 They got a rabbit problem.
27:21 Speaker 07 Well, they were trying to eradicate them, right?
27:23 Speaker 06 So, so they invented a rabbit disease?
27:25 Speaker 07 I don't know. This is what I now I'm wondering if they invented the rabbit disease. Let's, uh.
27:30 Speaker 06 Cause they did that to another invasive animal, right?
27:32 Speaker 07 Well, they lost a war.
27:33 Speaker 06 Where they gave, they gave them all a disease?
27:35 Speaker 07 Uh, I'm not even, didn't they lose a war against emus?
27:39 Speaker 06 That's right.
27:40 Speaker 07 Yeah, the Australians really have a bad record. Yeah, so basically it is a disease that existed in American rabbits, only causes mild issues with them, but it is horrific in European rabbits.
27:52 Speaker 06 Yeah, it looks like they did it on purpose.
27:53 Speaker 07 Yep.
27:54 Speaker 06 You know, great job, guys.
27:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, myxomatosis in rabbits like is a thing that like genuinely as a kid would like. So I used to shoot a lot of rabbits when I was a kid, right? And you'd shoot these rabbits with myxomatosis and be like, what the fuck is this? Like, how have we done this to a living creature? They become so incapacitated that like sometimes crows will start eating them before they've died. Or like they wander onto the road and get hit, right? It's really, really, really horrible.
28:22 Speaker 06 Oh, I'm I'm looking this up and I regret it.
28:24 Speaker 07 Yeah, no, you yeah, Google myxomatosis pictures at your own risk.
28:28 Speaker 06 No, don't actually don't.
28:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, it almost looks like they have like cataracts over their their eyes. It's a it's really, really horrible, right? But like, this is what happens when we continually try and mess with an ecosystem that has existed in harmony. And like it changes based on inputs and changes in the climate, right? Like, it's not like it's a fixed thing. It is it is shifted and changed through time, but it has found a balance every time. And then we come in and just keep pressing one side of the scale.
28:57 Speaker 06 This will fix it.
28:58 Speaker 07 Yeah, this is more, but keep chucking more on there and wondering.
29:02 Speaker 06 Kill the bears back. I just, I can't get over that's just like a child's approach to things.
29:08 Speaker 07 This is this is our policy, right? Like, okay, so let's talk about Zinky, right? Let's talk about, let's talk about the protections that he wants to take away. These protections were passed into law by the Endangered Species Act in 1973. And the Endangered Species Act lists grizzly bears in the lower 48 as threatened. If you're not familiar with the ESA, it prevents you from hunting, harming or harassing listed species without a special permit.
29:34 Speaker 06 Maybe he thought he's supposed to threaten them.
29:36 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, like harass them, like maybe it's gonna do.
29:39 Speaker 06 They're threatened.
29:39 Speaker 07 Yeah.
29:40 Speaker 06 These are threatening animals, we should threaten them.
29:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, he was gonna post a mean tweet about them. They didn't want to be accused of harassing them and violating the ESA. One thing the ESA does not do is prevent you from defending yourself against these bears, which it seems to be the implication in his post, right? That like
29:56 Speaker 06 Because you're allowed to defend yourself against a person. So I'm sure
29:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's likewise a bear. There was a ninth case not so long ago about someone who had killed three grizzly bears.
30:06 Speaker 06 So if you get arrested for killing an endangered animal, is it like a murder trial where you have to like prove self-defense?
30:12 Speaker 07 I think it would depend on where you did it, right?
30:15 Speaker 06 I was standing my ground, your honor.
30:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, sure. I was, I don't even want to make jokes about standing your ground because it's fucking horrible. The ninth second opinion says, we hold the good faith belief defense for a prosecution under, and then they give the legal code, right? It's governed by subjective rather than objective standard and is satisfied when a defendant actually, even if unreasonably, believes his actions are necessary to protect himself or others from perceived danger from a grizzly bear.
30:43 Speaker 06 That's interesting that the language, because you don't see that. And so in self-defense, like if I harmed you and
30:49 Speaker 07 Actual
30:49 Speaker 06 No, it doesn't have to be actual, but it has to be a reasonable assumption. Like my belief has to be reasonable.
30:55 Speaker 07 Yep.
30:55 Speaker 06 But in this, and they're saying it's okay if your belief was unreasonable.
30:58 Speaker 07 Yeah, if you're just scared of bears.
30:59 Speaker 06 You're dumb as hell.
31:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, if you, if you have no idea what you're doing, you can still kill these bears, right? Like it gives you a very broad remit for self-defense.
31:08 Speaker 06 Because you could just say you felt that way because it doesn't matter if that's reasonable or not.
31:13 Speaker 07 Yeah.
31:14 Speaker 06 So it effectively doesn't matter.
31:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, effectively, if you, if you're willing to state in court that you were threatened by the bear.
31:21 Speaker 06 I felt that way.
31:21 Speaker 07 Right, it seems like you can, you can shoot the bear. I was just scared. I'm a scaredy cat. Maybe it relies on toxic masculinity to like self, self-police itself. I ain't scared, no. It also, of course, the ESA does not include animals based on how dangerous they are. So like Zinke's argument that we should deal with bears because two people got hurt, one person got killed. It doesn't line up with why the ESA exists.
31:44 Speaker 06 And like, very sorry for those people, of course, but like, that's not like an epidemic of bear attacks.
31:49 Speaker 07 No, cattle kill more people by a factor of 10 than bears every year.
31:53 Speaker 06 Dogloos kill more people with guns.
31:54 Speaker 07 Yeah, lightning kills more people than bears.
31:57 Speaker 06 A dog shot a lady with a gun the other day.
32:00 Speaker 07 Oh, wow. Well, good for him. Like, it's good to see people pushing boundaries. I like, bad for her, I guess. I'm sorry to hear that. But I do think there are some best practices that could have been followed there that might have prevented the dog shooting.
32:12 Speaker 06 The dog was certainly not certified on the range.
32:15 Speaker 07 Right, yeah, the dog hadn't gone and taken his apple seed clinic or whatever. So the ESA, right, it distinguishes between a threatened and engaged species. An endangered species is, quote, "in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant part of its range." A threatened species is, quote, "likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range."
32:35 Speaker 06 Right, like if we start killing them?
32:37 Speaker 07 Yeah, or keep killing them.
32:39 Speaker 06 Right, yeah. Ryan Zinke just opens up on bears?
32:42 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, right. Zinke taking his Navy SEAL training and going, uh...
32:47 Speaker 06 SEAL Team Six is going to Yellowstone.
32:49 Speaker 07 Yeah, they're going after that bear. Then, you know, then they look at reasons for this, right? Disease, predation, destruction of habitat, commercial take, inadequacy of regulatory mechanisms to protect them, or natural or man-made factors, including Ryan Zinke killing them. Because grizzly bears in the Lower 48 are threatened, there are defined ecosystems. There are six of them, in which we're trying to recover the bear populations. And one of these is the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The Yellowstone bears have been ping-ponged around the ESA for some time, as it turns out. The bears were removed in 2007 and then returned in 2009 by a court decision. Then it was removed again, uh, under Zinke in the first Trump administration.
33:35 Speaker 06 I feel like if you're on the cusp like that, leave it alone. Like, obviously, if every time you de-list them, they become threatened again, like, leave them alone.
33:43 Speaker 07 Yeah, that's it. Well, in this case, it wasn't that the reason for the de-listing was challenged in court and found to be insufficient. Uh, it wasn't that the population took a dive.
33:54 Speaker 06 We're just changing our mind about how much we care about bears.
33:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, or like, in this case, basically what the court said, I can actually read to you from the court order. It's Crow Indian Tribe, Al versus USA. The policy implications of Greater Yellowstone grizzly de-listing are significant, but they cannot affect the court's disposition, although this order may have... Have impacts throughout grizzly country beyond. This case is not about the ethics of hunting. It is not about solving human or livestock grizzly conflicts as a practical or philosophical matter. These issues are not before the court. Then little ellipses where I've skipped a bit. By delisting the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly without analyzing how delisting would affect the remaining members of the lower forty eight grizzly designation. The service failed to consider how reduced protections for the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem would impact the other grizzly populations. Thus, the service entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem.
34:43 Speaker 06 So the bears got a good lawyer.
34:44 Speaker 07 There were two different court cases and they were combined in this Montana case that they got a good lawyer. Essentially, the word they're saying, though, right, is that like? This is an issue which we have to look at like nationally. Because if we have state controller and Wyoming or Montana, the three states, right, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. One of them says that we've got too many bears, killing too many cows, let's open it up on the bears, open season on bears. The bears don't know what state they're in.
35:10 Speaker 06 They simply do not respect borders.
35:12 Speaker 07 They do not. They, yeah, they refuse to.
35:14 Speaker 06 Jurisdictional boundary is meaningless to him.
35:16 Speaker 07 They engage in interstate commerce. So this one, it's got to be like a federally controlled issue. Unfortunately, our federal government right now is not one that's massively amenable to conservation.
35:28 Speaker 06 It's run by bear murderers.
35:29 Speaker 07 Yeah, they would love to murder. I mean, Donald Trump's son, right, is big into.
35:34 Speaker 06 Oh, he does love big game hunting, doesn't he?
35:35 Speaker 07 He does, yeah.
35:36 Speaker 06 He goes on those like rich boy safaris.
35:38 Speaker 07 Yeah, he's got, it's funny. Someone was like, oh, you should, someone was talking to me the other day about like, you should pitch this outdoor publication. And then I realized it was owned by Trump Junior. So that's a no from me.
35:46 Speaker 06 No.
35:48 Speaker 07 That's a clear no from me, dog.
35:50 Speaker 06 I bet they love conservation.
35:51 Speaker 07 Yeah, I was gonna, like, I would be down to pitch a hunting publication about like the damage that the border wall does to our landscapes and our, and our. Like, I've seen a mule deer try and get through the border wall and it's very, very, yeah, it's really sad because she had been habituated to going that way for, for water genetically, like for generations, right? And now she can't and, yeah, that's pretty fucked. I'd love to write that for a hunting publication, not writing it for Donald Trump Junior's one. I don't think he's commissioning it either, to be honest.
36:17 Speaker 06 I don't think they'd pay for it.
36:19 Speaker 07 No, I think they're probably using, if I'd had to guess, some artificial intelligence. But I've never actually read it. I'm not going to. Don't care. If you're interested in the ESA and what it's done for grizzly bears, I'm going to link to a Center for Biological Diversity report, which is pretty good. This was published when the ESA was 50, so it's a few years old now. But people will be thinking, I have seen pictures of people hunting grizzly bears. I thought that you couldn't do that. That's because those bears are in Alaska. So they are not considered to be threatened.
36:49 Speaker 06 Different bears.
36:50 Speaker 07 Different bears, yeah.
36:50 Speaker 06 Or like the same species of bear, where they just live somewhere else?
36:53 Speaker 07 Ursus arctos hauriblis, yeah, the same.
36:56 Speaker 06 Hauriblis?
36:57 Speaker 07 Hauriblis, yeah, yeah.
36:58 Speaker 06 That's bad PR for him.
37:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, they really screwed him on the name. This is part of the way the colonial mindset interacts with nature, right? Horrible bear.
37:08 Speaker 06 They named him Mr. Horrible.
37:10 Speaker 07 Horrible bear.
37:11 Speaker 06 That's mean.
37:12 Speaker 07 The other, like, I'm aware of like Ursus arctos syriacus, which is a Syrian bear. Fine, acceptable.
37:19 Speaker 06 That makes sense, that's descriptive.
37:20 Speaker 07 He also lives in other parts of the region, but that's okay.
37:24 Speaker 06 Misleading.
37:24 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, we could call him Ursus arctos alsham, I guess, if we wanted to get with it. But there are translations of the Bible that use Syria to describe the whole region as well. So it's okay.
37:35 Speaker 06 But like horrible bear?
37:36 Speaker 07 Yeah, horrible bear. They really did him dirty on that one. Could have called it nice bear. Maybe I'll petition for that.
37:42 Speaker 06 He should call up those lawyers from Montana.
37:44 Speaker 07 Yeah, get the coalition together again with the Crow tribe. The bear is not inherently horrible, right? We've just been horrible to the bear. He's just doing what he does.
37:52 Speaker 06 Maybe that's why he's so mad.
37:54 Speaker 07 Maybe.
37:54 Speaker 06 Right? He's like, you know, if you're, if you're gonna call me horrible, I'll be horrible.
37:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, maybe, maybe he's, he's playing to the stereotype. So the Alaska bears can be hunted, right? They are hunted. Things do get a little complicated in Alaska with different rules governing sport hunting and subsistence hunting at federal land and state land. There is a cull program in Alaska right now that is understandably very controversial. The idea is that they will cull the bear to help the caribou population recover. You are looking at a thing which is multifactorial and only, but this is like taking the part out of the watch, right? They was talking about like.
38:33 Speaker 06 Like there's other things going on for the caribou.
38:34 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, it's not the bear who moves into the caribou's home. It is, it is people, right? Like, it is not the bear who caused climate change.
38:42 Speaker 06 Right, like, there are, there are other factors we could address, but we're taking it out on the bear.
38:46 Speaker 07 Yeah, which will be a common theme throughout our discussion here today, but I, I, I understand that we, we want the caribou herd to survive as well. But if you're trying to manage the caribou herd for hunting by controlling bear populations to allow more caribou, I know, I, I, I don't think that's.
39:01 Speaker 06 We're modifying the wrong variable.
39:02 Speaker 07 Yes, yeah, there is Alaska legislation that I thought was interesting to make such programs go through peer review. That, that appears to be going absolutely nowhere. It seems stuck in the Alaska House.
39:14 Speaker 06 So we had to get a bunch of scientists to determine whether or not there'll be environmental impact of buffalo going back where buffalo live. But we can't get a scientific review of whether or not we should be killing the bears.
39:23 Speaker 07 Yes, I know that there are other reasons for us to do environmental impact studies like hydrology and stuff. Thank you, E I S people who reached out. I think we appreciate all our science listeners. But yeah, it is pretty sad that we can't get a, get a, I guess the argument would be peer review takes too long.
39:39 Speaker 06 Okay.
39:40 Speaker 07 But like, you could get a couple of people to be like, you know what? It takes a lot longer to get all the bears back. Get a couple of scientists who wouldn't take that long, that they need jobs right now. Get a couple of bear scientists and employ them, see how it goes. So let's talk about, I guess, like, why Zinky wants to de-list them.
39:58 Speaker 06 A bear stole his wife.
40:02 Speaker 07 Not like, you know, like in an eating way.
40:04 Speaker 06 No, she's fine.
40:05 Speaker 07 They live together happily.
40:05 Speaker 06 She lives in the woods now, yeah.
40:06 Speaker 07 Yeah, she's, she's living her best life. It seems that one incident was a sow with cubs who was foraging for berries. And the other one was a bear foraging for berries who was surprised. This has nothing to do with the population levels, as I said earlier.
40:20 Speaker 06 Right, it's just like, it's an unfortunate thing where somebody was in a bad situation.
40:25 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's a, we live in a landscape where things can kill you. Most of those things are cars, but some of them are animals.
40:31 Speaker 06 Well, we should start shooting the cars.
40:32 Speaker 07 Yeah, but like, we don't, we don't do a revenge attack on Ford every time someone gets in a motor accident, right? I looked at Bear Vault. So Bear Vault, if you're not familiar, money makes bear cans. You familiar with bear cans?
40:44 Speaker 06 So like tin cans you wear around your necks so you jingle jangle?
40:47 Speaker 07 Yes, yes, I see. You can talk to the bear, he holds one can, you hold the other one, there's a string.
40:53 Speaker 06 Oh, like he's in his treehouse, you're in your treehouse?
40:55 Speaker 07 Exactly, yeah. You say, I'm coming through, please don't eat me. No, a bear can is a thing that you put your food in when you're camping.
41:01 Speaker 06 I was picturing like a big necklace made out of like old tin cans.
41:05 Speaker 07 Like an old timey, like a lay, but for bear country.
41:09 Speaker 06 Made out of like cans of beans.
41:11 Speaker 07 Yeah.
41:12 Speaker 06 I don't know why you wouldn't need to buy that, you could make that at home.
41:14 Speaker 07 Yeah, you can make that for free. Bear Vault keeps like an open source collection of bear mallings. Bears, according to their data, have killed 66 people since 1974.
41:24 Speaker 06 That's not very many.
41:26 Speaker 07 It's not a lot of people, right?
41:27 Speaker 06 That's like one a year.
41:29 Speaker 07 Yeah.
41:29 Speaker 06 A little more than that.
41:30 Speaker 07 It's very, very hard to make a public health argument for delifting brown bears.
41:35 Speaker 06 More people, more people than that have measles, like in my immediate area.
41:39 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, that's a whole other fucking public health issue, I'm afraid. When they do ESA studies on what kills bears, it's human interactions. I noticed a lot of bears.
41:48 Speaker 06 Probably guns, mostly.
41:50 Speaker 07 Trains, trains kill a lot of bears.
41:52 Speaker 06 Oh, that's so sad.
41:54 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's really sad, so maybe.
41:56 Speaker 06 Wait, so you're supposed to make noise so the bear hears you coming? Trains are loud as hell.
41:59 Speaker 07 They come pretty fast, I think. And I think that they're not like super loud if you're just like, if they're not trying to be loud, you know, like if you're in a linear direction to the train. Maybe they're habituated to it because the trains come so regularly, I don't know.
42:13 Speaker 06 That's so sad.
42:14 Speaker 07 Yeah.
42:15 Speaker 06 Never thought about a bear getting hit by a train.
42:18 Speaker 07 Yeah, bears get hit by cars too, especially black bears. I mean, I'm sure brown bears too, they're just bigger. I wonder if that's part of why, you know, like there's a sort of, we can't afford to keep smashing our trains on bears situation here, I'm not sure.
42:31 Speaker 06 I think the train's probably fine.
42:32 Speaker 07 Yeah.
42:32 Speaker 06 The train, the train keeps going.
42:34 Speaker 07 Some of those bears are pretty big. I'm sure it delays their train operations.
42:38 Speaker 06 I mean, if there was like a massive train derailment, yeah, that's maybe we need to build a bear fence or something. I don't know.
42:44 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, we have these wildlife underpasses, right, that allow wildlife to go under or over freeways. A while ago, the right was getting really mad about one in Santa Monica. This was like, I think Benny Johnson had done like an investigation into this overpass. His theory here was that the overpass was allowing, I'm not joking, terrible cougars to come into neighborhoods and kill people's children.
43:08 Speaker 07 We came into the cougar's neighborhood. The cougars, Benny, are already fucking there because.
43:15 Speaker 06 And how many, how many children have been eaten by cougars in Santa Monica?
43:19 Speaker 07 I'm aware of one person in California being killed by a mountain lion in the last few years. And a few more people have been killed. Uh, I can think of a couple more people.
43:29 Speaker 06 But mostly on like hiking trails, right? Like not their yards.
43:32 Speaker 07 Yes, I'm not aware of a cougar coming into anybody's house. It's not really how the, uh, the mountain lion lives its life.
43:38 Speaker 06 I mean, sometimes people's chihuahuas have lost their lives to this scourge. I understand.
43:43 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah.
43:44 Speaker 06 But not their children.
43:45 Speaker 07 Not their children and like.
43:46 Speaker 06 Animals aren't coming to your house and taking your child.
43:48 Speaker 07 And the idea that they're not there anyway. Like they, if they want to come into your neighborhood, they can come into your neighborhood. They're good at moving across country. That, that's what they do.
43:57 Speaker 06 This will just keep you from running into it with your Lexus.
43:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, exactly. Like it is, and it's going to allow like the, the little mice and other small creatures, right? To, that can't so nimbly jump over highway barriers. The obvious other argument for de-listing bears is that people want to kill them.
44:15 Speaker 06 Get a different hobby.
44:16 Speaker 07 You can even kill black bears in most states in the Western United States, if that's your thing. Right? It seems like a lot of people just don't want bears around. And that makes me sad because I think sharing our landscape with bears is beautiful. And I think it's special that we have this thing in this country that like, uh, it's one of our like national symbolic mammals, right?
44:37 Speaker 06 I mean, he's like a gigantic guy who just wants to eat berries and hang out.
44:42 Speaker 07 Yeah, he, he wants to kill stuff.
44:43 Speaker 06 Sure, but like, just, I love the idea of just like this huge animal, just like roaming around, looking for a little sweet treat.
44:51 Speaker 07 Yep. Yeah, they, uh, they, they're.
44:52 Speaker 06 That's precious.
44:53 Speaker 07 They're incredibly adaptable, right? They can eat berries, they can eat meat, they can eat fish.
44:59 Speaker 06 I love when they just take one bite of a fish and throw it back. So wasteful. He's just like me for real.
45:04 Speaker 07 It's too fishy. Uh, he wants, yeah, he wants it like a fresher one. The other argument, I guess, is that certain populations have recovered, which kind of, it shows a misunderstanding of the importance of having a population for genetic diversity, right?
45:17 Speaker 06 But also, like, I just, I'm really stuck on, like, just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean you have to kill, there's a lot of squirrels in my neighborhood, but I'm not allowed to shoot them.
45:24 Speaker 07 And you can't just do a squirrel genocide, yeah.
45:26 Speaker 06 Oh, there's just a lot of these, I'm gonna do violence on them, just, don't do that.
45:31 Speaker 07 There are a lot of these, and it's been becoming convenient for us, like, and therefore, it's interesting to look at, like, the certain populations that are doing well, at the Yellowstone bears, the Yellowstone bears have a much higher meat content in their diet than they used to.
45:45 Speaker 06 From all the tourists they're eating.
45:46 Speaker 07 Yes, that's right, yeah, that's mostly it, they feed them into the moor, every year they drop off a bus at the bear cave as an offering, and then the bears violated the treaty, that's why they're mad. No, it's because climate change is making it harder for them to find their berries, right, and human pressure is pushing them further and further away from certain areas, eating more meat is gonna lead to more conflict with hunters, both in terms of them both being in the same space at the same time, trying to do the same thing.
46:14 Speaker 06 And honestly, it's so harmful for the bears that they've all been listening to Jordan Peterson, the carnivore diet is not for everybody.
46:21 Speaker 07 Just imagining a bear.
46:23 Speaker 06 It's not good advice, you guys.
46:25 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, they've become like terrible transphobes, that's really why we wanted to list them. I think we can look at like what happens when animals lose their protections, we can see the way that Wyoming, for instance, dealt with wolves, right? Are you familiar with this incident last year of that wolf that was like horrifically mistreated in Wyoming?
46:45 Speaker 06 No.
46:46 Speaker 07 That was really fucking gross.
46:48 Speaker 06 Did they like torture it?
46:49 Speaker 07 Yes.
46:50 Speaker 06 Why?
46:51 Speaker 07 Because I guess it made them feel big and strong.
46:53 Speaker 06 Right, so again, this isn't about like managing conflict with livestock, it's not about like, you know, ecological management, it's not, this is about people who just wanna hurt animals.
47:03 Speaker 07 Yeah.
47:04 Speaker 06 Because they didn't just kill this wolf because they didn't want it around. They did something horrible to it.
47:09 Speaker 07 Yeah, and this guy, there are videos of this, right? But this guy.
47:13 Speaker 06 So they tormented an animal and then they made a video of it. They made like an animal snuff film. This is just about torture.
47:21 Speaker 07 I'm not saying everyone who wants to delish Disney bears, grizzly bears wants to torture them in this way, but like.
47:26 Speaker 06 It is, it's this like this desire to engage in this violence.
47:29 Speaker 07 Yeah, like for certain people, right? There's an idea somehow that they can prove their like strength and virility and masculinity.
47:37 Speaker 06 Get into powerlifting.
47:38 Speaker 07 Yeah, so what this guy did, if people aren't familiar, his name is Cody Roberts.
47:42 Speaker 06 Never met a good Cody.
47:44 Speaker 07 I've met some nice Cody's.
47:46 Speaker 06 Oh, no, there's, okay, we know one.
47:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, he hit the wolf on his, he ran down the wolf on its snowmobile.
47:53 Speaker 06 So it wasn't bothering you, you pursued it?
47:55 Speaker 07 Yeah, he chased on his snowmobile. He taped its mouth shut and took it to a bar.
48:00 Speaker 06 Does this man has a wife, have a wife and is she okay?
48:04 Speaker 07 That's a good question. I'm trying to work out if he went to jail. Eighteen months probation.
48:09 Speaker 06 Permission?
48:10 Speaker 07 And he gets a prison term if he fails. He filed a guilty plea to felony animal cruelty. I understand that there are people like within the hunting, ranching, outdoor space who think this guy is a piece of shit. There are many of them, I know many of them.
48:24 Speaker 06 Because that's a very weird thing to do, like.
48:27 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's psycho. It's like.
48:28 Speaker 06 What's the thought process here? Like, what is, shooting it, I don't agree with, but I, I understand that you would do that. That's the thing people do, but why did you like chase it down and abduct it?
48:39 Speaker 07 Yeah, why did you choose to make this animal suffer? Like, like, did you just show no respect for life, right? Like, we joke, like, oh, does he have a wife? She's okay, but genuinely, this is a person who is like a psycho, like.
48:50 Speaker 06 No, I'm not joking. I'm not joking, actually, that like if you, if this is your first instinct for how you treat a living creature, like, I, I bet he's not good to women either.
49:01 Speaker 07 Yeah, like this doesn't seem like a person who, who people should feel safe around.
49:06 Speaker 06 Oh, it was a young female wolf too.
49:07 Speaker 07 Yeah.
49:08 Speaker 06 Oh, no.
49:10 Speaker 07 What have you found?
49:11 Speaker 06 Sorry, I just was, I found a picture of her.
49:14 Speaker 07 Yeah, no, it's really sad. The whole thing is really sad. Like to injure this animal, right? To, to the, to the extent that it can't get away or defend itself and then tape up its mouth and then drag it to a place where it's going to be in fear for the rest of its life before you kill it. It's, it's unconscionable. It's horrific. I'm not saying that that will happen to bears, but I'm saying that like.
49:38 Speaker 06 A bear would be a lot harder to do that, too.
49:40 Speaker 07 Yeah, it would be.
49:41 Speaker 06 You know, I think I think as his punishment, this guy should try to do this to a bear.
49:46 Speaker 07 What I am saying is that even if we like go ahead and deal with bears without serious controls, if we start to manage them just as like vermin, right, like as a pest, like this opens up all kinds of avenues.
50:01 Speaker 06 And I think a lot of people will find themselves in a situation that is beyond their grasp.
50:07 Speaker 07 Yeah.
50:07 Speaker 06 Right? Like if if suddenly you were, if you're a guy who's like, yeah, I'd love to shoot a bear. Now you're allowed to. I think people are going to find themselves in situations they didn't anticipate.
50:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, I know in Alaska, for instance, if you want to hunt a brown bear and you're not an Alaska resident, you have to go with a guide. That's probably a good thing.
50:23 Speaker 06 Right? Like, I think if we start killing the bears back, more people will get killed by bears. A lot of these guys are gonna die.
50:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bad deaths will go up without a doubt. Yeah, yeah. Already your your best chance of getting into an encounter with a bear is probably hunting. Right? Like if you're not hunting bears necessarily, but let's say you're in bear hunting. Yeah, because you're moving around the woods quietly. You could start one.
50:48 Speaker 06 Right. So that's already against the advice for not encountering a bear.
50:52 Speaker 07 And then if you then you're able to shoot something and then you use, let's say you're in a your back country hunting, right? You have to pack backpack the.
51:01 Speaker 06 Now you have meat.
51:02 Speaker 07 Meat out. Yeah. So but then now you're coming back to the carcass for your second load of meat. A bear may have found that carcass, right?
51:09 Speaker 06 Somebody might already be there.
51:11 Speaker 07 He might not want to give that up.
51:12 Speaker 06 It's his now.
51:13 Speaker 07 Yeah, that you, yeah, you're then find yourself in a difficult situation. Talking of difficult situations, Molly, I have to pivot to advertisements again. Yeah, hopefully this one's not for Wolf Tape.
51:36 Speaker 07 We are back. Let's talk, Molly, about safety in bear country, grizzly country specifically, right? After this tragedy where this hiker died in Glacier National Park, I have seen a number of articles claiming that bear spray is, quote, "a placebo" or that you, quote, "shouldn't bet your life on it."
51:57 Speaker 06 Well, I think if you think it's a placebo, you should taste it.
52:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of not only how bear spray works, but also what a placebo is, right? Like, you, uh, three of the words in your title, all of the nouns, you don't understand.
52:12 Speaker 06 The bear doesn't know what it is. The placebo effect will not work on bears.
52:17 Speaker 07 Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, the placebo effect actually does work on bears. You can spray things that are not bear spray and they still don't like it.
52:26 Speaker 06 Oh, if it's been bear spray before, yeah.
52:27 Speaker 07 No, it's just the, um, I guess not maybe the placebo effect. Yeah, it's a noise, it's the cloud. Like, I guess it's not really a placebo.
52:34 Speaker 06 Right. This is a bewildering, because it's startling to them.
52:38 Speaker 07 Yes. Yeah, yeah. But you're not saying it's bear spray.
52:40 Speaker 06 The placebo effect will not work.
52:40 Speaker 07 Not actually a placebo.
52:41 Speaker 06 The bear will not have its sort of imaginary symptoms of bear spray exposure due to their belief.
52:47 Speaker 07 Yeah. Yeah, that they have been bear sprayed. I should note that most of these articles are written by the same person.
52:54 Speaker 06 So what's his motivation here? Why is it, he's like, does he own a company that sells something that like rivals big bear spray?
53:01 Speaker 07 No, it's a person who is a guy called Wes Siler who used to write for Outside Magazine and no longer does. There's a escalating trend in the severity of his claims about the lack of efficacy of bear spray that correlates with him making income that is directly related to the number of views on the articles making those claims.
53:21 Speaker 06 That is really destroying the information landscape.
53:24 Speaker 07 Yeah. I mean, I think also people not knowing what the fuck they're talking about and being given a platform is also destroying the information landscape.
53:30 Speaker 06 Right, but like you
53:30 Speaker 07 Both of those are at play here.
53:32 Speaker 06 Really see this sort of escalating way people write because their income is dependent on clickbait.
53:38 Speaker 07 Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The clicks to cash pipeline is not helping us.
53:42 Speaker 06 I make the same amount of money even if none of you listen to my podcast.
53:45 Speaker 07 Yeah, you guys, you could all turn this off right now. I'd still be poor.
53:49 Speaker 07 This is not true, right? I take really strong offence at this. I don't know, quite a ways, this is bullshit, right? Like.
53:58 Speaker 06 If bear spray never worked and couldn't work, he wouldn't be the only one saying it.
54:04 Speaker 07 Correct.
54:04 Speaker 06 There would be, there would be scores of people saying, I tried this and nothing happened.
54:09 Speaker 07 Yeah, also, like, we have data on this, right? This is not a thing that we need to, to pull out of our arse. This is not a thing that we need to rely on individual anecdotes for. This is not a thing that will be determined by the outcome of a single incident in Glacier National Park. This is a thing that we have masses of data on.
54:27 Speaker 06 There's bear scientists.
54:29 Speaker 07 I spoke to one, Molly.
54:30 Speaker 06 I can't wait to hear that.
54:32 Speaker 07 I had a very lovely conversation. He has the two studies, and to be clear, Wes Seitzes, and I don't know if it's just that he didn't read them or he didn't read them well, or that he read them to the best of his ability, and this is what we're getting.
54:47 Speaker 06 I mean, scientific literacy is, is pretty poor.
54:50 Speaker 07 Sure. It's always okay not to write an article making claims about something that impacts people's safety if you don't know what you're talking about. It's always okay to be quiet when we're discussing the people's wellbeing. That's fine.
55:03 Speaker 06 The adults talk about bears.
55:04 Speaker 07 It doesn't impact your Substack in some, in the same way, but.
55:08 Speaker 06 Oh, it's a Substack situation.
55:10 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's a Substack situation. I would suggest that writing that bear spray is dangerous or useless is akin to saying that seat belts are dangerous or useless and that we can, if we, if we look hard enough, find one person who was killed by their seatbelt. I'm not, no one's ever been killed by bear spray, to my knowledge. I have been bear sprayed more than once, didn't kill me.
55:29 Speaker 06 When, when we were talking about this earlier, this, the most shocking fact of all to me so far, bear spray is less potent than police pepper spray.
55:38 Speaker 07 I believe there's less OC in bear spray, yeah.
55:41 Speaker 06 I would have assumed it's more, but it's less.
55:43 Speaker 07 Yeah, I think the idea.
55:44 Speaker 06 Because bears have such sensitive noses.
55:46 Speaker 07 Very sensitive noses. To be clear, it's still very unpleasant for humans. Like, I consider myself to have a nose of average sensitivity and having been a recipient of bear spray, it's highly unpleasant.
55:56 Speaker 06 Right, but I just, I, I thought, you know, I would have assumed you said, oh, I've been bear sprayed. Like, oh, that's like way more hardcore.
56:02 Speaker 07 Sure, yeah, yeah.
56:03 Speaker 06 Than getting pepper sprayed by a cop, and it's not.
56:04 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah. So the bear spray, part of the reason I think that it has less of the OC oil in it is that it. It has to be propelled out at a velocity that allows it to be used even if the bear is coming at you and the wind is blowing towards you, right? So the bear is coming with the wind. So you're spraying the paint and then the spray would be, you don't want the spray to all be blown back to you, right? You want it to be able to get out to create that barrier between you and the bear. And it does, again, Dr. Smith's studies have shown that best bait does work even with an unfavorable wind, right? I will link to both these studies. Everything he's done, which I think is really cool, because this stuff impacts like your safety in Grizz country. Everything he's done is available publicly for free.
56:49 Speaker 06 Hell, yeah.
56:49 Speaker 07 Very unusual in the academic research space, right? But I think it's great because it allows you to look at this best player as a placebo article. And then you can go find the study. I will link it right here and you can say, huh, sure seems like this guy can't read a study.
57:04 Speaker 06 And does he, has he read those studies?
57:07 Speaker 07 He claims to, yeah, he quotes them.
57:09 Speaker 06 So it's not that he just isn't aware of them. He just doesn't believe the expert because of a personal experience.
57:15 Speaker 07 I think he either didn't grasp the table or didn't grasp. So the, so again, like the person who wrote these studies is extremely easy to contact and anyone doing reasonable journalism would do so.
57:28 Speaker 06 Right. So I guess I'm, is he saying, I read this study and it's wrong? Or is he saying, I read the study and it agrees with me?
57:33 Speaker 07 He's saying, I read the study and it says best brain doesn't work. It agrees with me.
57:37 Speaker 06 Oh, no.
57:38 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah.
57:39 Speaker 06 He could have just emailed the author.
57:41 Speaker 07 Could have just asked, could have just asked. Yeah. So like there were incidents in the study which are considered successful and non-successful uses. Some of the non-successful uses are with a black bear when you spray it and it comes back later. Then it's still, the brown bear is not killing you in that situation, right? I'm sorry, a black bear.
58:00 Speaker 06 It still worked. Like efficacy doesn't mean permanent.
58:04 Speaker 07 Yeah. And at some point, when you're right, making a study like this, you have to decide like what a, you're trying to create a binary relationship about a theories of things, right? The other study he wrote was efficacy of firearms for bad defense in Alaska. It's worth noting that in the efficacy of firearm study, more than 120 bears died out of a data set, something like 250. None of the bear spray bears died.
58:26 Speaker 06 Oh, that's a lot.
58:27 Speaker 07 Right?
58:28 Speaker 06 Yeah.
58:28 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's a lot.
58:29 Speaker 06 And I, I feel like it's better if everybody survives the encounter.
58:32 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's better for all of us if we use this extremely well researched tool, right?
58:40 Speaker 06 And again, having read zero studies, I read zero studies.
58:44 Speaker 07 Mm hmm. Yep.
58:45 Speaker 06 But I know only 1.1 persons a year are killed by bears.
58:51 Speaker 07 Yeah.
58:52 Speaker 06 So if this never worked and couldn't work, more people would have been killed by bears.
58:57 Speaker 07 Maybe, yeah, yeah. Certainly a lot of people who use the bear spray didn't get killed by bears, right?
59:01 Speaker 06 Like, none of them did.
59:03 Speaker 07 It is possible to use bear spray and be killed by bears, um, like especially, uh.
59:07 Speaker 06 It's happened to, it's happened to maybe 50 people.
59:09 Speaker 07 Resid- yeah, residues of bear spray will attract bears in the like.
59:14 Speaker 06 Well, that's unfair.
59:14 Speaker 07 Well, it's, it's an interesting smell, right? And they have an amazing nose. So I'm guessing like they will come check it out. And I know that like there are instances where people have, for instance, used bear spray in the way that one might use bug spray, i.e. spraying their tent.
59:27 Speaker 06 That's not gonna work. Yeah.
59:29 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, you're gonna bring them in.
59:31 Speaker 06 That's like saying I'm gonna use this gun to protect myself by making a circle around me with bullets.
59:35 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Smearing myself with it.
59:37 Speaker 06 With the bullets in a circle around my tent.
59:39 Speaker 07 Yeah. It's not quite cargo cult thinking, but like it's a, I know it, it's like magical thought process, I guess. Like, that's not how bear spray works. You spray it at the bear.
59:48 Speaker 06 A homeopathic gun is where you just lick the bullets.
59:51 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the things that you can do, right? Like, you can keep a clean camp. This is really big.
59:58 Speaker 06 Don't attract them.
59:59 Speaker 07 Yeah. So if we look at like Yosemite, right? Yosemite and that, that like Yosemite Kings Canyon Sequoia Park system. You can't bring bear spray in there, right?
1:00:09 Speaker 06 Oh.
1:00:10 Speaker 07 But you have to have a bear can. Uh, so I backpacked in, in that, that area. They, they have done surveys that showed that like, most people were acquainted with best bear practices, but were not following them on the trail.
1:00:20 Speaker 06 So it's not that they didn't know about it, it's just they don't care.
1:00:23 Speaker 07 I think people, it's, it's hard to like fathom a giant, several hundred pound, half ton creature.
1:00:30 Speaker 07 It's gonna come in and steal my cliff bars, right? But it will. Uh, and it's hard to fathom how good their smell is.
1:00:37 Speaker 06 Because they love a delicious snack. Like, they're berry boys. They're berry boys. They're gonna come get your little treats.
1:00:43 Speaker 07 Yeah, they love, uh, they love a high carbohydrate, like, energy snack. They're endurance athletes. They wanna eat your cliff bar. Um, if you're keto, you're fine.
1:00:51 Speaker 06 Oh, I bet they would like candy.
1:00:52 Speaker 07 But they love candy, yeah.
1:00:54 Speaker 06 I know, it would be unethical to give a bear.
1:00:56 Speaker 07 Yeah. No, don't be wrong.
1:01:00 Speaker 07 So we wanna keep a clean camp. We're in bear country, right? That means stuff with odors. It's not just our food, but also like the, maybe the clothes we cooked in. Uh, we have a scented toothpaste, stuff like that.
1:01:10 Speaker 06 Wow.
1:01:10 Speaker 07 Yeah, like if I had, uh, if I was in the habit of using a shampoo that smelled like, uh, I think I spoke to Dr. Smith about this. Like he said, if I used apricot shampoo, probably wouldn't bring it with me.
1:01:20 Speaker 06 Wow, cuz they just wanna come check out that sweet tree.
1:01:23 Speaker 07 Yeah, like it's, uh, if it's kind of, if you think that they eat berries, right? You make yourself smell like a fruit. Like, it's kind of on you. Like, I get.
1:01:30 Speaker 06 Yeah, it makes sense. Like, Winnie the Pooh, he's just like following his nose.
1:01:32 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:01:33 Speaker 06 Find a sweet tree.
1:01:34 Speaker 07 Yeah. I don't wanna blame anyone for not knowing things. We're not all, none of us are born knowing anything. And, and like, it's not like, uh, they, they issue PSAs about bears every day.
1:01:43 Speaker 06 I bet there's a pamphlet at the trailhead.
1:01:45 Speaker 07 Yeah, there's definitely. Well, when you go to Yosemite, you have to sign in with a ranger for a wilderness permit, and then they'll give you the once-over. But there are other things we would not do, right? I would not sleep alone in a tent in bear country. I said, and if there were two of us, I'd probably two tents, right? Like, just gives one of us a chance to deploy the bear spray if the bear does come in. We can get bear fences. We can try very hard not to surprise bears, right? So, um, I was trail running in Alaska last year in some pretty thick brush, right? Uh, I used a little bear bell. It's dorky, but like.
1:02:20 Speaker 06 No, it sounds cute as hell. I'm gonna look it up.
1:02:22 Speaker 07 Yeah, well. There's an unfortunate video that you'll probably see when you Google bear bell of a hiker who thought the bell bell was a repellent and so the black bear is charging him and he's waving
1:02:33 Speaker 06 Oh, just ringing the bell at it. No. So it sounds like people are purchasing these solutions, but not understanding the functions of them.
1:02:42 Speaker 07 Yeah. And like, I don't want to blame people for that because part of the way we get to a place where we could destroy so much of our megafauna is that so few people care about or understand it, right? That's an education issue that we can't solve quickly or like on a podcast. I think that it would behoove anyone who's going camping in especially like Gris country, right? So in Alaska, Wyoming, not all of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho. And like I've camped in those places. I've camped in all of those places to learn about these things, right? Because it's not just a negative incident for you. Like it's also a negative incident for the bear. Even if you have to bear spray a bear, right? That fucking sucks for the bear.
1:03:20 Speaker 06 I mean, I've been, I've been pepper sprayed and the bear can't even go like wash his hair with Dawn.
1:03:24 Speaker 07 Right. Yeah. He can't stand in the shower like looking down like, I know this, this, I guess the positive outcome of that is that the bear will be like likely to not want to come around people so much, right? Because they'll associate this negative attraction with the bear spray.
1:03:38 Speaker 06 Right. So this seems like it's that it does work. And then also if we're all doing it, you'll have, you won't have to do it as much. Cause the bears will leave us alone.
1:03:46 Speaker 07 Yeah. We have the solution for being in bear country, right? Like it is to carry our bear repellent.
1:03:50 Speaker 06 Unless the bears are like me, you know, I've been pepper sprayed by all kinds of cops and I'm, I'm still going to go look and see what they're up to.
1:03:56 Speaker 07 You just keep on, keep on tanking. Yeah.
1:03:58 Speaker 06 I'm a very stupid bear.
1:04:00 Speaker 07 He's like the Yosemite, I guess.
1:04:03 Speaker 06 They just keep spraying me.
1:04:05 Speaker 07 These people, why are these, there were some incidents where I guess brown bears got sprayed, charged a person, but like as they were charging, the person sprayed them and they came through to spray. But then as the spray got more condensed, like I know they knocked the person over and kept on charging. They were like, okay, I don't want any part of this. Yeah. Which is obviously not a great outcome, but it's a better outcome than, than you getting mauled by the bear, right?
1:04:28 Speaker 06 Better than getting eaten by a bear.
1:04:29 Speaker 07 But like, I, I really want to push back on this narrative that we should be all carrying firearms. First of all.
1:04:35 Speaker 06 Most people, most people don't need a gun.
1:04:37 Speaker 07 Yeah. I, I mean, like there were, there are reasons to wearing guns. I had lots of them, but like defending yourself from bears. Probably isn't one unless you're already very proficient with firearms. And even then, I don't wanna kill a bear like.
1:04:52 Speaker 06 But I just, I think if you're telling every casual hiker who goes to where bears might be that they need to own a gun, a lot of those people would not have otherwise owned a gun.
1:05:02 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:05:02 Speaker 06 Are not good at handling a gun in a situation where they need to use the gun against the bear. It's gonna go badly, but also.
1:05:07 Speaker 07 Hundred percent.
1:05:08 Speaker 06 Now there's a gun in their home that they would not otherwise have had in their home.
1:05:11 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:05:11 Speaker 06 And the odds of a firearm accident in the home are now higher.
1:05:15 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, yeah, infinitely higher than if you didn't have one, right? Like.
1:05:18 Speaker 06 So like, it's not gonna work out for you in this limited instance that you think you need it for.
1:05:22 Speaker 07 Yeah, and then you've introduced a dangerous.
1:05:24 Speaker 06 Now you have a gun you didn't need.
1:05:26 Speaker 07 Yeah, like, it is impossible, Molly, if you are getting, if I am getting mauled by a grizzly bear and you bear spray that bear, I will have spicy eyes and hopefully survive. If you shoot that bear, it is very possible, and it has happened, that you will also shoot me.
1:05:40 Speaker 06 Because the average person, not a good shot under controlled circumstances. Bear attack, not a controlled circumstance.
1:05:46 Speaker 07 Yeah, and like everyone, like, this is especially a thing with men, right? They will tend to overestimate their ability with firearms dramatically, in my experience. This is not a fuck around and find out situation. You don't wanna find out that you're not very good at shooting as a grizzly bear is charging you.
1:06:02 Speaker 06 And even if you are very good at shooting at the range, you're not in this situation.
1:06:07 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:06:07 Speaker 06 You're not.
1:06:07 Speaker 07 You have to deploy the firearm, right? Then we have to like.
1:06:10 Speaker 06 Your hands are shaking, there's piss running down your leg.
1:06:12 Speaker 07 We're scared, yeah, you have to incapacitate the bear. Like, I've been in up close situations with big animals. It's scary, like, thinking I'm going to die now. It has a profound effect on the human body. And it's, it's not one that.
1:06:28 Speaker 06 And it doesn't improve your aim.
1:06:29 Speaker 07 It doesn't actually enhance your John Wick characteristics, yeah. So I would highly recommend that if you're going into bear country, you, you get some bear spray. Don't fly, you can't fly with bear spray, so you're gonna have to.
1:06:40 Speaker 06 Buy it when you get there.
1:06:41 Speaker 07 Buy it when you get there. This is not like big bear spray. This is also an accusation that like, big bear spray sort of funded these studies or that.
1:06:49 Speaker 06 Oh my god.
1:06:49 Speaker 07 This is silly, right? The bear spray industry is not that big, guys. It works, it is statistically more effective than using firearms. It works.
1:06:58 Speaker 06 What, does it cost like forty bucks?
1:06:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, not even that.
1:07:00 Speaker 06 And how much does a gun cost? A lot more than that.
1:07:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, a lot more than that, especially if you're gonna actually practice with it, right? If you're gonna get bear spray, I would suggest you get a, you can get a dummy. It's just got water in it. And you can practice, right? There are a couple of safeties on a bear spray. I've got one. I do have one here.
1:07:16 Speaker 06 With like within arms reach in your office?
1:07:18 Speaker 07 Yeah, I've got one over here. Yeah, I've got my rack of stuff and some of my bear spray. But like, it's a it's safety on it and there's actually a zip tie when you get it to stop the safety coming off, just to stop it like
1:07:28 Speaker 06 Blowing your bag?
1:07:29 Speaker 07 Going off in the shipping container. Yeah, or in the Walmart or whatever. So you're gonna wanna remove that, right? And then they they sell packs which has the water one and the spicy one. And you're gonna practice deploying the water one, right? And like
1:07:44 Speaker 06 That's smart.
1:07:45 Speaker 07 Yeah, when you're carrying your bear spray, if it's in the bottom of your backpack,
1:07:50 Speaker 06 Oh, the
1:07:50 Speaker 07 the bear doesn't give you that much advance notice. Yeah. So the bear spray is like when I was when I'm running in places where there are grizzly bears, I wear a little running vest. I put it in the front here. If I have binoculars and I have a little binocular pack, I put it on the side there. I've done it on my belt before.
1:08:08 Speaker 06 I've Googled bear spray and the pictures?
1:08:12 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:08:12 Speaker 06 The pictures that are used to advertise this product.
1:08:15 Speaker 07 I gotta, I gotta see this once. Yeah.
1:08:19 Speaker 06 How do I send you this picture?
1:08:21 Speaker 07 You can just put it in the chat.
1:08:23 Speaker 06 This is not a real picture. Is this a real picture of a man spraying a bear? Because the bear is sort of enveloped in this cloud of spray. So it just looks like one of those soft effect paintings of the bear silhouette in like a cloud.
1:08:35 Speaker 07 Yeah, it looks like, it looks like, like, I'm a big fan of T-shirts of wolves howling at the moon.
1:08:43 Speaker 06 It's a bear and an old man spraying it.
1:08:45 Speaker 07 I don't know why, if you're staging it, this is bizarre.
1:08:49 Speaker 06 Because that's not a real picture of something of that happening.
1:08:51 Speaker 07 I don't know. I don't think so because there's no bear body and you can see this. You can see the bush, right? Like it's just its head. They haven't bothered.
1:08:58 Speaker 06 It's very close.
1:08:59 Speaker 07 Yeah. So, yeah. And the bear doesn't look too upset. It's kind of, yeah. That is a fascinating, okay, so if we scroll down, there are, there are better images of people using bear spray.
1:09:09 Speaker 06 Just incredible, incredible product photos.
1:09:12 Speaker 07 That, yeah, that is really quite remarkable. I would suggest everybody who is going into bear country, buy bear spray and practice. Just using it like it's better for you. It's better for bears. It's cheaper than a gun. You can, if you want, buy a bear fence, uh, through the electric fence that goes around your camp. If you're camping in the back country, I think that's a good idea. If you're in an area with lots of bears. They weigh very little now. I might buy myself one actually after talking to Dr. Smith. Well, I won't because I haven't got enough money, but I'd like to. Maybe I'll hear from the bear fence people. You can follow all the best practices, right? And you're not just going to learn it from a podcast. You're going to like, look up the park system. You're going to look at Dr. Smith's research.
1:09:56 Speaker 06 Ask a park ranger. He'll tell you.
1:09:58 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:09:58 Speaker 06 That's his job.
1:09:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, some of their jobs depends what, depends what kind of ranges they are. Some of them are cops. The overwhelming bulk of evidence suggests that, uh, the way to go with bears is bear spray.
1:10:17 Speaker 07 Until a bear kills an oil rig, uh, we will have, uh, we will continue to have bears on our landscape. Um, but it is something that we should like genuinely care about, right? Like the, the trophic cascade is not as much of a, uh, of a thing as it was once made out to be. That could, I'm sure you've seen that thing about how wolves change rivers.
1:10:36 Speaker 06 No, you have to tell me about wolves too.
1:10:39 Speaker 07 A, a, a whole other episode. Yeah. Well, fucking wolf management is a whole other thing. The bears have entered the discourse this week because a bear killed someone. We don't talk about it when someone kills a bear, right? Like, cause they're going Alaska, they're culling bears from aircraft right now. And I'm not saying that like a human life is equal to a bear life, but I'm saying that.
1:10:58 Speaker 06 Hunting from an aircraft is such bitch behavior.
1:11:02 Speaker 07 I know. If you want to take a bear, do it, do it with a knife, like a, like a hero, uh, or a bow, but.
1:11:07 Speaker 06 Or, you know, do a Lewis and Clark style. Use a musket. That's fine. Try it.
1:11:11 Speaker 07 Eight of your friends and a musket at the edge of the river, uh, and you don't have bear spray. So your only option is to jump into the river.
1:11:17 Speaker 06 20 feet off a cliff.
1:11:19 Speaker 07 Just with a bear that you could have left alone. So, yeah, I want to, I guess, like, end by saying that, like, the outdoors isn't entirely safe. And that's part of what makes it beautiful. There have been times when I have been in the wilderness where I have thought I was going to die. And I keep going back to the wilderness because like, it's also one of the things that makes me feel so grateful to be alive. And it's okay if it isn't entirely safe. We know that when we enter the wilderness and we do our best to mitigate that risk, right? We, we, we, we plan, we, we, we take safety precautions. We bring our first aid kit and our bear spray and we tell someone where we're going and when we're coming back and we do all this stuff, but we understand that there is some inherent risk.
1:12:01 Speaker 07 And that's all right. Like if we wanted to see wildlife and have no inherent risk and have it be comfortable, we would just go to the zoo.
1:12:08 Speaker 06 Right.
1:12:09 Speaker 07 And the zoo sucks compared to the outdoors, right? Like I don't wanna see a bear in a cage. It's undignified for the bear.
1:12:16 Speaker 06 It's so sad for them in there.
1:12:18 Speaker 07 Yeah, like it's demeaning to me to see something demeaned for my entertainment in that fashion. Like I, I, and we can't comprehend animals outside of the habitat. I think like seeing a grizzly bear in Alaska trying to eat salmon or seeing a black bear in California doing its thing, having some berries, like that's cool that, and I want you all to have that. I want your children and grandchildren to have that. And so like, I think we should be very skeptical about people making safety-based arguments for destroying our, our mega fauna here. Like you'll hear it with wolves, right? You're hearing people doing it with cougars, which is absolutely ridiculous, like.
1:12:59 Speaker 06 Most of these animals will not bother you if you leave them alone.
1:13:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, and like if very, very occasionally people have been killed by cougars who are not bothering the cougar, right? Like.
1:13:08 Speaker 06 Very occasionally, you know, a freak accident.
1:13:11 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:13:11 Speaker 06 Doesn't justify destruction of an ecosystem.
1:13:14 Speaker 07 People get killed by lightning, but we're not just killing clouds. People get killed by cars. We don't go bombing the Ford factory. I, I understand the desire to be safe, but like we will take away a lot of things that are really beautiful if we just wanna be safe.
1:13:26 Speaker 06 But again, we're controlling the wrong variables. If you're worried about people dying in unfair and, you know, terrible accidents, there are things we could talk about.
1:13:35 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:13:35 Speaker 06 There are policy decisions that could be made that would save thousands and thousands of lives.
1:13:39 Speaker 07 Yeah. If you want people to be safe and be concerned about free healthcare.
1:13:44 Speaker 06 Bears have killed sixty six people. I bet that many people died today from not being able to get their insulin.
1:13:50 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, there's a, there's a perfect example, right? Like, if you want to keep people safe, and then think about things that will keep them safe. And I think we can, we can very easily keep people, bears, safe. But the threat to the bears is us. That's it. The only other thing that kills bears really is other bears. And so it's on us, therefore, to advocate, right? Like, the bears can't advocate for themselves. Luckily, they had people who brought that court case in 2019. But like, if we want to continue to enjoy the outdoors in the way that they are, we need to stop randomly removing shit. And bears are one of those things, especially brown bears, that it's very easy to whip up fear about. But I think we should just leave them alone. I think we should be wary
1:14:34 Speaker 07 also of sort of anthropomorphizing them. Like, I see this sometimes with people and animals. Like, they don't exist for entertainment. They don't see the world in the way we do. And that's okay. They're animals. They have their own logic. We coexist with them. But like, it's not like a Disney animal. It's an animal which goes about the world using its own logic, using its own understanding, trying to pursue its own ends through its own means, right? Nonetheless, it is a majestic thing to see on the landscape, and something that we should take care that, you know, we don't let corporate interests and, and people who find it entertaining destroy.
1:15:11 Speaker 06 I would love to see a bear.
1:15:12 Speaker 07 Okay, we'll do that. We'll add that to our list. Okay.
1:15:14 Speaker 06 Yeah, take me to see a bear.
1:15:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, I am gonna take Molly camping. We will go, maybe we'll go to, then we'll go to Yellowstone area, like.
1:15:22 Speaker 06 I've never been.
1:15:23 Speaker 07 Haven't you? Have you not been to Yellowstone?
1:15:25 Speaker 06 I've never been out west.
1:15:26 Speaker 07 Wow, okay. I've got some friends who've got a cabin outside the park. Maybe we could have a little cabin trip.
1:15:32 Speaker 06 Sophie, send me to Yellowstone.
1:15:35 Speaker 07 We can go in there and like, look at the guys, enjoy the Yellowstone ecosystem. No disrespect to my, like, Yellowstone friends, but that's a lot of tourists. Like, I ain't going outside to be around that many people.
1:15:47 Speaker 06 Yeah, like there's Yellowstone style nature outside the bounds of the park. You go there.
1:15:53 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean, even if you're just, if you're getting away from, you can get it, we just get away from Old Faithful and that, let that park grow and you can get away from people just fine. But yeah, we can go, we could go to Yellowstone, see a bear, maybe see an elk, pretty cool. Elk make a pretty cool.
1:16:04 Speaker 06 I bet that's, I bet that's big as hell.
1:16:06 Speaker 07 Yeah, elk's a big as shit. They're like, like a cow with horns. Well, not the cows. Cows have horns, elk have antlers. Sorry, that's a mistake. But yeah, we could, we could go to, or like that, like the greater, yeah, like outside of the park, like that Wyoming area, just outside of Yellowstone. It's really beautiful. Be a fun place to go camping, maybe see a bear, have a clean camp. Maybe we can find our way to, find a way to expense that bear fence.
1:16:29 Speaker 06 That's what I'm saying. We'll podcast from out there. It becomes business.
1:16:33 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, we will podcast from bear country, proving that we can happily coexist with bears. Thank you to all the ferret people, by the way.
1:16:40 Speaker 06 I can't believe how many ferret people contacted you.
1:16:42 Speaker 07 Yeah, massive outreach from the ferret people. So, um, yeah, if you are someone who can help me get on one of the ferret counting surveys, I will count ferrets with you. Uh, we will make a ferret podcast and we will change America's perception of the black-footed ferret on your behalf.
1:16:58 Speaker 06 It's already working. You got me. I love them now.
1:17:00 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm. Yeah, Molly's Team Ferret. Yeah, you can't see this because it's a podcast, but she has a massive tattoo.
1:17:08 Speaker 07 It's one of the big.
1:17:09 Speaker 06 It just says. Around the neck, yeah.
1:17:11 Speaker 07 Yeah, around the neck, yeah. And there's a further one on the lip, but it says Team Ferret.
1:17:17 Speaker 07 Yeah. Uh, so yeah, Molly's become a ferret advocate. I hope you've all become ferret and, uh, black bear advocates. Send me pictures of your bears. Molly, do you know what Fat Bear Week is before we go?
1:17:27 Speaker 06 That is my favorite thing about bears is Fat Bear Week.
1:17:29 Speaker 07 Okay, sick, good. Yeah, bears getting plump in the, uh, in the autumn before they hibernate is, uh.
1:17:35 Speaker 06 I mean, how could you hate them? How could you hate them? They're just roly-poly little guys hunting for a little sweet treat.
1:17:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, their bulking cycle is incredible to me. Like the, uh, the, the, the way a bear just adds thickness uh, in a relatively short period of time. It's remarkable. Yeah, it's powerful. That is the power of salmon. Maybe we didn't have trawlers. We all eat more fish, but yeah, check out Fat Bear Week if you haven't, if you're not from the US. I hope this has been fun. Fun, fun little diversion into animals that live here. They used to live all the way down into Mexico, actually, but now sadly.
1:18:10 Speaker 06 Mexican bears.
1:18:11 Speaker 07 Yeah, well, there are still Mexican black bears.
1:18:13 Speaker 06 They have bears too.
1:18:14 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah.
1:18:15 Speaker 06 I gotta look up where bears live.
1:18:17 Speaker 07 Yeah, they live, uh, yeah, God, we could do a whole other one on the Jaguars that, uh, they're being fucked by the border wall right now, pretty badly, but, uh, that'll be a fun episode up in, uh, over in Arizona there. Uh, yeah, bears, pretty cool animals, our friends, don't kill them.
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1:20:15 Speaker 02 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about what workers can do when they try. I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me today to talk about a company known, I guess, in Portland for being a place where you shop and known most other places for being the people who make pens is Morgan and Renee from Muji Workers United. Morgan and Renee, welcome to the show. Thank you.
1:20:39 Robert Evans? Hi, thank you, Mia.
1:20:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, so and obviously, I guess, as you may have gotten from the word "union" and the title probably containing the word "union," I don't know, we haven't written it yet, is that, yeah, one of the Muji stores in Portland is unionizing. Can you talk a little bit about like what Muji is for people who are unaware of this slash don't follow pens and/or haven't been to the store?
1:21:04 Robert Evans? Yeah, so Muji is probably, I would describe it as a worldwide Japanese minimalist lifestyle department store, and that's a lot of words to say. It's a department store that is for essentially basics. Muji is short for a full name that essentially translates to no brand. And that's the idea that they're trying to push for. And they're trying to show to people that it's like an eco-friendly company, and they try and push like high-quality products. And at our location in Portland, it's the only one on the American West Coast, and we have a relatively small shop. There's only 32 people in our bargaining unit, and this is a wall-to-wall bargaining unit,
1:21:49 Robert Evans? which essentially means that everyone below the lowest management level at this location is involved with the union.
1:21:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, which is A, really cool, and B, so you're talking about how this is the only one on the West Coast. This is mostly a Japanese company that operates a little bit in the US and does things here, right? My understanding?
1:22:10 Robert Evans? So it is a Japanese company.
1:22:13 Speaker 02 It's actually primarily operates like all over the world. It was began in Japan in the eighties, I believe, if I know my company history correctly. But they pretty rapidly expanded to across Asia and Europe. And then have also since expanded into Africa and the Americas. The Americas were relatively late. I don't think that there was a store in the Americas before the turn of the millennium. And the Portland location itself opened in, I want to say, twenty eighteen, sometime like just pre-COVID. Yeah, so it's relatively recent. And I guess the thing that's even more relatively recent is y'all starting to organize a union. So can I ask sort of, how did that start?
1:22:58 Speaker 02 And what was the sort of things that started to get the ball rolling on it? So I guess the way that organizing started was back in November of twenty twenty five, maybe shortly before that. We had a round of appraisals. These are like yearly end of fiscal year appraisals that are technically supposed to be the end of the fourth quarter. Typically, they get pushed back by a month or two, just company practice, because the appraisals are tied to our raises. And each employee who's worked for a year or more at the company gets appraised. And so we're scored in the system of one to five. And if you get a three or better, I believe the system goes, you get a raise that is directly tied to the number that you got. They use decimal systems.
1:23:40 Speaker 02 So the thing is that this year, they gave us the lowest raise in memory of any of the workers that are currently there, myself included. For context, I'm one of the workers that has been at the store the longest and at four, no, more than four years now. We have a pretty high turnaround, which is how I ended up being the longest tenured of the lower the management workers. And this came in a year that was the best year in the Portland locations history. Yeah, there's this competition that Muji runs internally where it puts each store under like a group of stores worldwide,
1:24:22 Speaker 02 almost like, almost like World Cup groups in a way, where you're just kind of like randomly sorted into groups. And each year, one of the groups is chosen. And within that group, they examine the performances of each of the stores within that group. And select a winner to be the store of the year. So in 2024, we won store of the year. And it was kind of a shock to a bunch of us to have such low raises after that. Yeah. For example, my raise of sixty five cents last summer. Jesus Christ. Was the highest by a significant margin. What? Yes. It went as low as around like twenty five cents. Yeah, that's right.
1:25:04 Speaker 02 I I haven't done the math, but like, is is that subinflation? Like, I. Yes, that is subinflation. It tends to be. There are employees who have been working for more than two years who still get paid around minimum wage. Jesus Christ. In addition to that, the staff members who are key holders and full timers and above get bonuses. And the bonuses are directly tied to the amount of money that the store makes over the target amount for the month. And they drastically increased the targets for the year going forward, which meant that because of that, our bonuses were getting lower. So this year, for the last month since
1:25:48 Speaker 02 that raise, I've actually been making less money per month than I was the year before. Jesus Christ. So so you're it's you're getting pay cuts? Basically, yes. Jesus Christ. After winning store of the year. Incredible incredible stuff, incredible stuff from the people who are running their company in an extremely normal way. That was the spark that set this push for the union ablaze. And so in November, I contacted the I W W, Industrial Workers of the World, and received a response. And so at first, it was just me and one of the I W W representatives that we were meeting together to talk about forming a union. And we ended up having those meetings somewhat
1:26:32 Speaker 02 regularly, and the amount of people attending those meetings slowly started to grow. So it was maybe like, two people, three people here and there. And then we took a break for the holidays because people were just generally unable to make it out. And everything was super chaotic at the store.
1:26:46 Speaker 00 And after the holidays, I had the idea of of hosting potlucks essentially and inviting people to potlucks.
1:26:55 Speaker 02 Ah.
1:26:55 Speaker 00 I can't remember, Renee, were you coming to these meetings before or after the potlucks?
1:27:00 Speaker 02 The first meeting I went to was at the hall where it was essentially just us grieving about our working conditions while the seasonals were there and sort of it was, I don't know how much it was in the works for you, how much stuff you had done up until that point, but I think that was the moment where we sort of became confident as a body in our prospects for unionizing. Um, and then Yeah. the potlucks thereafter.
1:27:38 Speaker 00 Yeah. And the potlucks ended up starting to pull around around 10 people. I think the highest attended one was actually 12. And so when you have a shop that has about 32 people in the bargaining unit, that is about a third of the shop attending a, um, an early union meeting while we're still in the underground phase of organizing. And, uh, we managed to successfully remain underground up until we decided to go public on our own terms, um, on March 31st. We had a march on the boss, which slightly inconveniently, the boss had actually left the shop about 45 minutes early into her shift. And we had accounted for her leaving early, but we didn't account for her leaving that early.
1:28:19 Speaker 00 And so the march on the boss kind of had this anticlimactic moment where the manager just wasn't in the store anymore. And there wasn't anyone that actually had, um, supervisory authority at the store for the march.
1:28:35 Speaker 02 Which I think there's two things there. I want to, I want to come back to. One is the like, oh yeah, of course, of course, management, management never found out about the uni, but just left early because they're management. And it's like, oh, right. No, yeah. What, what happens if you leave, just randomly walk off your job site like 45 minutes early? You're fucked. But management is just like, yeah, fuck it. I'm just done. I'm, I'm just out. Like I'm just, I'm just leaving. Everything's going to be fine. Even if I'm not there, so I'm just gonna leave. Right. God, I wanted to talk about the potlucks a little bit because that's a it's a really good idea. As just a way to make sure you can consistently get a bunch of people there and. Yeah, can you talk about sort of what that was like and how they've been and what the effect of that has been?
1:29:20 Speaker 03 The potlucks came about because I had the idea that. People are going to be more willing to come to an event if it wasn't just going to be a meeting where they sat down and. Had to talk shop and they had to start talking about work while they're off the clock. But they'd be more much more likely to come if the meeting was framed more as a way to just hang out with their coworkers and eat dinner.
1:29:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:29:43 Speaker 03 So this actually came from my experience when I was a kid, I grew up Bahai. And even though I'm no longer Bahai, the way that our community did it back home was mostly through community feasts and having. Prioritizing like the feast first and then the religious discussion later. So taking that sort of idea and putting a more of a union spin on it was the idea behind that. And it was a massive hit.
1:30:09 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah.
1:30:09 Speaker 03 Renee, do you have any more thoughts on that?
1:30:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think the fact too that. Our worker body is. I don't know if uniquely is the right word, but especially tight knit and. Supportive of one another really just sort of helped things flow in a very. Natural and easygoing way. It was just super like salient for everything to come about. Out of these polacks. We just sort of like sat down and immediately started like complaining about work. Hell, yeah. So we got us going and and like pretty much every meeting since like that's how we just like start our.
1:30:58 Speaker 02 Our discussion or in our meetings is just what bullshit have you been facing from your managers? Et cetera. And we have to cut it short every time.
1:31:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, it feels bad sometimes to have to cut these complaints periods short because I think they can go on for two to three hours if um if we're not careful. And I think the early ones did actually go on for two to three hours and we had entirely pop rocks that we didn't get any actual business done. We just spent two to three hours eating food and complaining about work with each other. And honestly, that kind of helps people get more comfortable with the idea and it really agitated people in a
1:31:39 Speaker 02 Wow.
1:31:40 Speaker 03 in a way that I don't think we would have been able to do if we had just like tried to talk to people at work about unionizing or had like a more formal meeting. And it really just kept the momentum going.
1:31:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it has this effect of like realizing everything. Because I mean, even I would walk in and be thinking like, you know, this is like such a taxing endeavor, unionizing the workplace. And yeah, every once in a while you'd have some sort of hesitation, I guess. But then every time I would leave, it would just sort of be like, this is like, this is the only option and we're definitely going to do it. And we're all with it and it feels good. Well, yeah. Yeah, it seems like from everything that I've heard and everything that you're saying,
1:32:30 Speaker 02 it seems like it's a really powerful way to sort of both combat atomization, both as a just like, oh, this is like a social space where you and the people you work with who are your friends can exist with each other. And then also in a, we can combat sort of alienation and atomization stuff by just doing the union work of, oh, my God, we all have all of these issues with our bosses. Yeah. Yeah. And when we return, we're going to start talking and going to ask about the issues with the bosses. But first, to your, I don't know, the product services that support this podcast.
1:33:16 Speaker 02 We are back. I was like, oh, I have a good transition. I can go from complaining about the bosses to talk about what the bosses are doing. And then I was like, shit, I was supposed to cut an ad pivot into here. We didn't think of that one fast enough. But, you know, speaking of doing things fast enough. So, yeah, I wanted to ask before we get into sort of how things have been going more recently and where the campaign is going and election stuff, other than sort of the pay raise stuff, what are the kinds of things that people have been dealing with at Muji? So there's a lot of small things that have kind of piled up. And honestly, I say
1:33:55 Speaker 02 small things, but each one of these is kind of just like shocking on its own, but not surprising necessarily to anyone that's worked in the service industry at all. So beyond the raises, there's just been like a long pattern of emotional abuse from the bosses. People have been have been yelled at for pretty much no reason. The bosses have directly insulted workers' abilities like on the floor as they're doing stuff. They've done things like pressure staff not to use their sick time, even going so far as occasionally implying that getting sick is like your own fault and that people are able to perfectly prevent themselves from getting sick. Yeah. In your job, you have to be around people all the time because you're doing a service.
1:34:41 Speaker 02 God, I hate this like getting weird pseudo eugenicist shit about disease that's just everywhere now that runs the Department of Health and Human Services of the CDC. Like this, this, this weekend or this last weekend at the time of recording was Memorial Day weekend. And on Saturday, the peak day of that weekend, there were 3,000 customers approximately in store over the course of the day. And reminder that we are a team of 32 people in total. And so of course, not all 32 people are going to be At the store at once at the same time. And so when your crew was maybe ten, fifteen, if you're lucky, people big. Mm hmm.
1:35:25 Speaker 02 And handling a customer volume of about three thousand over the course of a day. You're interacting with so many people that it's worse than, uh, uh, maybe it's not worse than because uh, kids can get pretty um, pretty nasty sometimes. Um, much respect to all the teachers out there. Yeah. It can get to be a bit of a biohazard, especially when you're working in places like the fitting room that don't have ventilation. And you're possibly interacting the closest with customers. And you're constantly interacting with like clothing that has been like pressed up against people's bodies. Mm hmm. You're interacting with people that just aren't being super conscious about the space and you're maybe you're in this small confined area with two, three, even four other people for a prolonged period of time. Of course, the customer service team is going to get sick more.
1:36:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's like a small, medium sized like convention. That's just running through your store over the course of one day. It's like, oh yeah, everyone has like Paxpox or whatever the like convention plague is, but that's just like going to work. Uh, it's like, oh yeah, no, of course, apparently somehow you're supposed to like magically have the like anti-disease talismans. Yeah. It's like the plagued masses.
1:36:35 Speaker 02 And on top of that, I've called out maybe once a month. I think that maybe there is one month where it was twice a month since January. And I've already used up all the allocated sick time that I get for a year. Jesus. And that's with one of the better sick pay plans as a full timer. Mm hmm. And so I can't imagine what people are having to go through at part time where they're already not getting enough hours to pay rent off of their job. Yeah. And they're having to decide essentially between coming to work sick or calling out and taking that financial hit. Yeah. Um, I know one of our staff members has, has actually been evicted um, because they were not able to make rent because they didn't make enough hours. Oh my God. Or just having your sick hours rejected on the app. What? This is an app? Oh my God.
1:37:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's right. If your sick hours can get rejected, you don't have sick hours. Like. Yeah. What? And there's more too. It doesn't end there. They apply policies that we have this employee handbook that has this um, list of requirements that they, and expectations. And it is. Not really a huge part of our employment typically, but the policies that they have listed there are applied inconsistently. Stuff like the uniform code is one of the biggest examples of this, where they will more heavily enforce the the uniform code against people of color or people with alternative styles of dress. Jesus. Or even they can be, they can be fairly fat phobic. There have been multiple people that have said that the managers will pressure them to essentially cover up parts of their body
1:38:04 Speaker 02 that they will allow skinnier people to um to show. What? Jesus Christ. Oh, my God. That is so incredibly shitty. And that's gotta be illegal somehow, even under like unhinged American labor law. That just feels like it is, it feels like a very open form of discrimination, but Jesus Christ. Oh, my God. Yeah. Um, do you have anything to add, Renee? Along those lines, just sort of like being asked to profile people. All employees can be scheduled to cover the securities breaks, which basically just involves standing around one of the entrances
1:38:45 Speaker 02 and reporting anything quote fishy on the radios. Anything suspicious. They they say suspicious. So wait, so so they could just co-opt you into being a security guard? What? Yeah, the security guard doesn't have any duties regarding like loss prevention. All the managers do that as part of their duties, I guess. But um, yeah, so they just sort of say suspicious people. And on that note, too, there have been times where people have been maybe not strictly disciplined. I actually don't know for sure if there's been an incident of someone being written up, but there have been times where the managers have approached people and essentially just
1:39:27 Speaker 02 yelled at them for allowing someone to get out of the store with merchandise, even though loss prevention is very specifically not part of our job description and.
1:39:35 Speaker 03 That the official store policy actively discourages staff from engaging in active loss prevention like that.
1:39:42 Speaker 02 So you're getting yelled at for doing the thing you were told to do that is explicitly not part of your job. That's supposed to be the manager's job and the managers are pissed off that you're not doing. What's nominally their job that you also in the written thing you're not supposed to do.
1:39:59 Speaker 03 Exactly.
1:40:00 Speaker 02 Incredible, incredible, incredible catch 22 logic here. It's real just, oh yeah, you're explicitly not supposed to do this. So you could get punished if you do it, but also if you don't do it, we're going to yell at you. It's God, Jesus Christ. Yeah.
1:40:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, naturally, there's not really anything that we can do about this besides unionize. And besides start taking actions on our own, because the law certainly isn't going to help us for this.
1:40:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:40:31 Speaker 03 Even Oregon state law, which is which tends to be more protective of workers than other states are. They're incredibly overwhelmed right now with requests and going through the bully bureau of Oregon labor and industries, I think is the acronym. Going down the bully websites lists, there's a complaints box, but it says on the website that they have an incredibly high backlog of complaints that they're trying to process. And that they're going through a triage system and none of the things that we've listed so far would be placed very highly on that triage. In addition to that, we don't have access to like direct access to our HR department at work.
1:41:11 Speaker 02 What?
1:41:11 Speaker 03 They ask us to go through a third party reporting company called Lighthouse. And as far as I know, no one has ever heard anything about Lighthouse doing anything to resolve a situation between them and management. When management is treating them unfairly.
1:41:25 Speaker 02 Incredible.
1:41:27 Speaker 03 And it's it's essentially feels like just shouting into the void, interacting with Lighthouse. Because you're just sending a complaint to a body that you don't have any access to and just hoping that they fix something.
1:41:40 Speaker 02 So they've contracted out their HR department. So you're just like talking to their or is it that you can't communicate with them directly? And that that's very weird.
1:41:50 Speaker 03 So they have an HR department, the work. Workers at the physical location cannot communicate with HR. We are not given their their phone numbers or their emails or anything like that. All of our HR communication has to be done through our general store manager. So when we have problems with the general store manager or assistant store managers, we can't really go to HR because we have to go through the very people that we're having problems with in order to reach our HR.
1:42:17 Speaker 02 Incredible. It's almost make HR even faker, which is incredible. Oh, good Lord.
1:42:25 Speaker 03 It would also be remiss, I guess, to forget about the sexual assault.
1:42:30 Speaker 02 Oh, Jesus Christ.
1:42:31 Speaker 03 Maybe not specifically sexual assault, but um definitely sexual harassment, possible sexual assault that has been raised to management before where the um management supposedly pushed those complaints to HR. But then HR would wait for weeks before doing anything about it.
1:42:48 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:42:49 Speaker 03 This this happened a year or two ago. No, it it was probably more in the realm of two to three years ago. Um, if my memory is correct, where we had a coworker that was not just profiling people and calling security on people that were doing nothing, but he was also sexually harassing other coworkers.
1:43:08 Speaker 02 Jesus Christ.
1:43:10 Speaker 03 And the store managers told us that they had pushed these complaints to HR, but HR wasn't doing anything. And it took them about a month, I believe, to fire this person. And essentially what they were doing before is they were telling people that if they talked about the situation or created drama about the situation, that they would retaliate against the people that were talking about the situation.
1:43:36 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. Jesus.
1:43:39 Speaker 03 They didn't say outright, but they implied everything up to job loss for the people that were talking about this.
1:43:45 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:43:46 Speaker 03 And they started pulling people into the office and essentially having um one on one conversations.
1:43:52 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:43:52 Speaker 03 That were honestly quite scary to the people that were um trying to spread the word about this. And it would be created quite a hostile store environment for a long time. Around that time was actually the first time that we had attempted.
1:44:04 Speaker 02 To try and get a push to unionize, but that ended up dissolving. And that was essentially the end of that up until on this most recent push. Yeah, God, that's really hideous. Both the way in which they just pushed it up the ladder to HR and then just didn't do anything about it for like a fucking month. And that also just the only thing they did do about it was retaliating against people who were trying to talk about it. That is, Jesus, that's disgusting. Yeah, about the most that they did during that month to the actual coworker in question that was doing the harassment was they tried to maintain some degree of physical separation between him and the other coworkers.
1:44:45 Speaker 02 And that was it. They kept him on the roster. They kept him at the same positions that other people were working. He had essentially all the same job responsibilities as other people and still had a pretty high degree of contact with other coworkers during this whole time. Yeah. So the people who were trying to speak out against it until this guy was fired, we're getting punished more than he was. Essentially, yeah. Jesus. All the way up until he was finally fired. And I don't know what it was that actually got them to do it this time, but they wanted to wait until they had got something actually on camera. I believe, but it's kind of hard for you to catch something like harassment words on camera. Yeah.
1:45:24 Speaker 02 If their bar for sexual harassment is stuff that they can catch on camera, they're never going to get most instances of harassment. And they're not doing their their proper job investigating these accusations. Yeah. And that also means that their deliberate strategy is to wait for someone to get hurt again. Exactly. That's right. They're just throwing them to the fucking lions den. Your strategy to like detect that a bus is about to hit someone is to push someone in front of the bus and take a picture of it. Which is just so unbelievably unacceptable. Yeah. And I want to be clear too, that this whole list is very much non exhaustive. Oh my. There's been so many cases of just patterns of abuse from management and
1:46:08 Speaker 02 it's not possible for me to go down the entire list of things. I mean, as I mentioned previously. It would be two to three hours of people complaining about stuff that they had gone through at work during these meetings. And occasionally you get some repetition, but this is something that is very consistent. It's just a part of working at the store. Yeah, every day there's just another unique chore that someone is experiencing. And I guess this brings us to, okay, so how do you make the horrors stop? And that is unionizing. So, yeah, let's talk about what's been happening recently in terms of like,
1:46:46 Speaker 02 how the union is mobilizing and about the upcoming election, which will be a few days after you're hearing this, assuming you're listening to this the day it comes out. Yeah, so we've been sort of ramping up a little bit. It's been ebbing and flowing since we started, you know, last like November. But we're really trying to kick it into gear, get people aware, get people back engaged. So we have a few things we've been doing. On May 1st, for May Day, we tabled with the IWW and just started a petition
1:47:32 Speaker 02 just for signatures from the community, for support, for acknowledgement, if we ever need to, you know, pull it out and show our bosses that, you know, this is no light endeavor. This is not like something they can laugh off. Yeah. But it ended up being sort of successful beyond what I imagined. We got lots of attention, lots of people saying that they didn't know that we were unionizing, people taking lots of pictures of us, our big banner. Got one inquiry for a journal report that I think is out now. And we were also written about in.
1:48:16 Speaker 02 Was it Oregon Live or was it the Oregonian? Do you remember, Luna?
1:48:23 Speaker 03 We had a small article published about us by the Northwest Labor Press that was then picked up by the Portland Mercury.
1:48:30 Speaker 02 Hmm, that's right. Yeah, so we did that. And then, other than that, we're sort of fighting some recently published propaganda from our bosses with just a hilarious amount of misinformation. Oh, no. Yeah, average boss communication.
1:48:50 Speaker 03 The other big thing that's been happening is that the reason that the election is happening so long after our initial march and declaration of intent to unionize is that the bosses have been trying to divide up the bargaining unit in a fairly strange case where the employer has been contending that the merchandising staff, which is essentially the back of the house staff, but only like a subsection of the back of the house staff, are not eligible for unionization under the same union as the rest of the staff are. They did this under the notion that the merchandising staff don't share a community of interest with the rest of the staff. And the other thing that they tried to do is they tried to take the key holders,
1:49:30 Speaker 03 which are sort of like a shift lead position, away from the bargaining unit by trying to get them designated as supervisors, specifically Section 211 supervisors under the National Labor Relations Act. And we managed to shoot down both of those contests in a board hearing with the National Labor Relations Board.
1:49:52 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah.
1:49:53 Speaker 03 And the process took a little bit over a month, if I remember correctly. And without going too heavily into detail about it, the community of interest rule basically says that if employees don't share a community of interest with members of a bargaining unit, they have to unionize under a different union. And then the other thing is that the NLRA says that if you have supervisory authority, and there's a whole laundry list of authorities that are defined in the act. If you are a supervisor, then you don't get to unionize legally, period. And so what made this case strange is that typically employers try and add groups of employees onto the unit they believe are on the side of the employer, the anti-union side.
1:50:39 Speaker 03 And the union generally has to contend. That these people don't share community of interest or our supervisors or whatever. So it was kind of a bit of a strange situation where it's turned on its head, where instead the employer is having to prove that these people are not sharing community of interest or our supervisors. And so even though we couldn't afford proper legal counsel, and so the union representatives were myself and a friend of ours who is a member of IWW, we were able to essentially represent ourselves in this board hearing. And the case was decided in our favor on both counts.
1:51:14 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah.
1:51:15 Speaker 03 So.
1:51:16 Speaker 02 That rocks.
1:51:16 Speaker 03 It really does. I was, um, I was not shocked to find out that the case was decided in our favor on the community of interest issue because that would be like saying that the back of the house workers at a restaurant can't unionize with the front of the house workers just because they have different job descriptions.
1:51:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, this is chivalish.
1:51:35 Speaker 03 Right. However, I was surprised, at first I was surprised at least, that we managed to win on the issues of supervisory authority with the key holders. I thought that it would take a pretty solid case in order for us to defend against that. And huge props to our friend, who I'm not sure if they're comfortable being name dropped as an IWW member, like, um, live to the world, so I'm not going to name them. But it is a large thanks to, to this friend of ours that we won that case.
1:52:06 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:52:17 Speaker 03 So that's where we stand now. And the board hearing was decided in our favor. And the election has been decided for, um, next week. And both sides are now just trying to have our campaigns, um, in preparation.
1:52:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, hell, yeah. It's a sort of different version of like the very common tactic of, because bosses want there to be more time in between when you like file your paperwork to unionize and the election, because it gives them more time to do intimidation and fear tactics. And like, that period in between deciding to unionize and getting to actually do the vote is one of the periods where union is most vulnerable. And it's also really impressive that, yeah, you just sort of walked into the board hearing and beat them by just reading a bunch of labor law stuff.
1:53:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:53:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:53:05 Speaker 02 I don't know. Workers of the world two, fucking anti-union lawyers zero.
1:53:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, basically, yeah. It was very strange, um, cross-examining my manager under oath.
1:53:19 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah.
1:53:21 Speaker 03 And then going to work, I didn't manage to attend the entirety of either of the days of the hearing because I had to close. I had to go to work at noon on both days that the hearing was.
1:53:32 Speaker 02 That's so nuts.
1:53:34 Speaker 03 Which is why I wasn't there for the full hearing for either of the days. So I ended up having to log on in the morning onto the Zoom meeting and attend the first two and a half hours and then hop off call and leave and then go to work and see my managers at work.
1:53:52 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:53:58 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. It's also, that's so nuts that you didn't get time off to go to the union hearing.
1:54:05 Speaker 03 Exactly.
1:54:06 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, they were getting paid, right? That's wild.
1:54:08 Speaker 03 They were getting paid.
1:54:09 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:54:11 Speaker 03 The, the managers that were, that were testifying in favor of the employer.
1:54:14 Speaker 02 Capitalism, bad system. Wow. Who could possibly have expected this?
1:54:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was actively a challenge to find witnesses to testify for us because, um, the people who we'd be able to call as witnesses or coworkers are people who are maybe working the days of the hearing and can't actually get time off to come testify because they have to be at work.
1:54:37 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. That's so fucked.
1:54:40 Speaker 03 There was one person who we approached because we were hoping that they would testify for us, who couldn't because she was working that day.
1:54:46 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:54:46 Speaker 03 And it's too, um, too complicated of a process to want to try and like subpoena them and illegally get them to have the time off to come to the hearing.
1:54:57 Speaker 02 Jesus.
1:54:58 Speaker 03 So we ended up just having to figure out a way to present different witnesses and have a slightly weaker case because of it. And thankfully, that didn't end up mattering. But for a minute, I was worried that we wouldn't be able to have as good. Of a case as we could have because we were not able to get a key holder on the stand like we were hoping.
1:55:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm glad I'm glad you're able to pull it together. That's really impressive. And yeah, that you still just beat them even though they had. And I guess that is one of the lessons of this is like, yeah, if you're willing to put the work in and work together and figure out how to navigate the system and figure out where you can apply pressure like, yeah, you can beat a bunch of people who have way, way, way, way more resources than you do. Because they're usually just wrong.
1:55:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:55:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:55:43 Speaker 03 I want to actually really drive that point home that neither I or my co representative have experience in any sort of like legal fields. Neither of us are even law students. We are just the people that decided to step up and and take on this role. And I don't think that there is some like special unique quality about us that allowed us to do it. It was just putting in the work that was required. It's a scary thing being asked to essentially represent yourself in a in a legal setting. And I think it's a testament to how people are capable of things that they're not necessarily trained to do.
1:56:26 Speaker 03 And that this whole process of unionization does not necessarily require the the vast resources that you might think it entails. It requires some planning. It requires some tactics, but it is something that everyone is able to do.
1:56:44 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah. I guess if I was really on my game here, I would have something about like the concept of the organic intellectual, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't even think that's really what's going on here. It's just like, in the same way that like economics is designed to be esoteric. And, you know, like finance is designed to be difficult to understand. But in the immortal words of Dan Olson, there are plenty of C students who've gotten economics degrees. Like, you can't understand this. It's just, it just takes some work and it takes some dedication to fighting together. And it takes, yeah, people working together. But these people are not smarter than you. They're not better than you. They have more money, but that's ultimately not the fact that decides everything.
1:57:28 Speaker 03 And I don't want to discount the amount of support.
1:57:30 Speaker 02 That we've received from the rest of our our coworkers as well. Yeah. This was truly a group effort and everyone helped out in their own small ways, whether it was helping take care of social media posts, whether it was helping cook for us, host meeting locations. I've been dealing with a pest problem at my apartment, so I've been unable to for for about the amount of time that all this legal process has been going on. So I haven't been able to host potlucks anymore. Oh, no. And a former coworker of ours has been hosting instead and putting in the work for that. Oh. It really is something that works when everyone comes together and takes part in the process.
1:58:10 Speaker 02 Hell, yeah. So speaking of everyone coming together and helping to work for the process, if people want to help y'all, what can they do? We are looking actually at a bit of a financial struggle right now. Mm hmm. The biggest thing is that we don't have enough of the funds at the moment to go on strike, not for any significant duration, at least. Yeah. We have a GoFundMe, Muji Workers United. Yeah, we will. We will put that in the description. The other thing is that we are looking for a lot of social media support, actually. Muji is a very media driven company and we are trying to set up a an Instagram account that has a lot of visibility. You can follow us also Muji Workers United on Instagram.
1:58:55 Speaker 02 And it seems like people have been sharing our articles and across the internet, both the N W L P article about us. And then now you're interviewing us, which is enormous help to to us, Mia. Thank you. We super appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much. Of course. Happy to. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Renee? Yeah, just the Instagram. We have lots of very talented artists working Muji, like everyone. It's a great graphic design. A lot of just very fun and cool people.
1:59:32 Speaker 02 So yeah, I'm sure that will be expressed in our future social media posts. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we'll link that in the description, too. Awesome. Thank you, Mia. Yeah, one final thing, you want to plug direct action? Yes, I do. So we've had, we've spent a lot of time talking about the legal side of unionization, because our union is currently seeking federal recognition with the NLRB. I want to emphasize that this is not the end of unionization. The goal is not a contract. The goal is to use direct action to enact the changes that you want to see in your workplace. For what are probably obvious reasons, I don't want to talk about specifically stuff that we have planned, or maybe not even stuff that we've done in the past.
2:00:17 Speaker 02 But, for example, one thing that I can talk about is that we have an ICE response plan. Like, what do we do if ICE shows up at a workplace and tries to rate us? We have a plan for that. And I obviously don't want to go further into detail about that, but that is something that we did as an example of a direct action. There's also other stuff. There's lots of historical examples of workers getting gains in their workplace. You have examples of stuff like just a simple march on the boss has historically worked to sway the boss even without necessarily a change in the contract. Or you can have stuff that's all very legal and above board, obviously, of people like just agreeing to not be as friendly with their boss at work
2:01:02 Speaker 02 and emotionally sway their boss that way. Or having smaller outside of work actions where people are helping each other out and having a workplace mutual aid project. Or even something as simple as implementing like a workplace fitness plan. That's something that we've discussed a couple of times at.
2:01:17 Speaker 03 Meetings very loosely, like just going on hikes together or having like
2:01:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:01:22 Speaker 03 The community sports and stuff, just to keep each other in shape and keep our communities healthy. All of this stuff is stuff that exists beyond the contract. We're currently emphasizing the contract because that's what we are at the moment seeking. Because the contract helps this feel more real for people who aren't quite on board with the idea of unionization yet.
2:01:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:01:40 Speaker 03 But unionization at a workplace gets you much more than just a a better contract with your employer. And you can enact changes at your workplace faster if you work together with your coworkers and and organize your coworkers.
2:01:58 Speaker 02 Hell yeah.
2:01:59 Speaker 03 Anything to add, Renee? Everyone in the union is very aware, you know, regarding their respective capacities to help.
2:02:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:02:10 Speaker 03 What they can, you know, and cannot do their limits. And I think just after, you know, working together enough, everything marries in a very effective way. And, uh, and yeah, even just like, like all of these sort of direct actions that that Luna was naming are just came out of our meetings, just ideas that people think might be fun to do or or, you know, people sharing their hobbies and and want to share them with other people.
2:02:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:02:44 Speaker 03 And so, yeah, it really is just sort of a fun hangout.
2:02:49 Speaker 03 I don't want to trivialize it, but, but it's like, uh, you know, extreme hang hanging out.
2:02:57 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, I think that touches on something that's really important about all of this, which is, you know, people will in the abstract talk about unions as like social institutions, but like what what that actually means is this, like, yeah, it's a place where you and your friends and the people you work with go and do stuff together. And, you know, I, I, I guess, I guess I want to wrap up on like, if you want a way out of the stultifying boredom and isolation and crushing poverty of the modern capitalist experience, you too can create, you too could create a union and resist all of those things simultaneously.
2:03:37 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah.
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2:05:21 Speaker 02 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a show about things falling apart. The thing falling apart the past few years, the Democratic Party. That's what we're going to be talking about today. I am joined by Sophie Ray Lichterman. Hello.
2:05:37 Speaker 06 Hi, I'm not excited about this.
2:05:41 Speaker 02 This is great. The last time we were on an episode together, we were talking about our two favorite Democrats, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
2:05:48 Speaker 06 Ah, yes. They gave me COVID at the DNC. I'll never forgive them.
2:05:52 Speaker 02 Not talking about them today, but we are talking about the DNC, the other DNC, the one who puts on the DNC, the Democratic National Committee. So we're going to be talking about the DNC autopsy.
2:06:04 Speaker 06 Oh, boy.
2:06:05 Speaker 02 First, some background.
2:06:07 Speaker 06 Yes.
2:06:08 Speaker 02 After the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency in 2024, if I'm reading that correctly, including losing the popular vote, something that has not happened in 20 years, the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, wondered, why did that happen? So the DNC commissioned a report on what happened with the 2024 election, and this report came to be known as the 2024 autopsy. The newly-elected DNC Chair Ken Martin pledged to make the upcoming report public, announcing after his chair election, quote, "There has to be some lessons that we glean on that so we can operationalize it, not just here in DC, but through all the 57 state parties.
2:06:51 Speaker 02 We have to look backwards and look forward at the same time." The 2024 election autopsy was commissioned in early 2025 and was supposed to come out later that spring, but got pushed back to the end of summer and then the fall. And finally, in December of 2025, Ken Martin announced that the DNC would not, in fact, be releasing the autopsy report. In Martin's brief statement explaining, or rather not explaining, why he's backpedaling on his promise to make the report public, he claimed that the committee is, quote, "already putting our learnings into motion."
2:07:29 Speaker 06 Who votes Ken Martin in to be the chair? Because I know his career is basically Minnesota guy.
2:07:36 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:07:37 Speaker 06 Interning, government jobs, vice president chair, and then...
2:07:42 Speaker 02 Basically, around 400 members of state party chapters are chosen to be members of the Democratic National Committee, who then, in turn, vote on national party leadership and decide how primaries operate. Though if a sitting president is a Democrat, the president can effectively choose the chair. CNN reported that DNC officials had concerns that the report would, quote, "inflame ongoing tensions within the party at a time they felt they had begun to generate winning momentum," quote, and the committee officials decided that it would be a, quote, "strategic failure on the part of the DNC to publicly look backward."
2:08:25 Speaker 02 That was their reasons for not releasing the report. We're already winning elections in 2025, so there's actually no point in just looking back at why we lost to 2024. And this was alluded to in Ken Martin's statement announcing that he would not be releasing the report. Quote, "We are aligned on what's important, and that's learning from the past and winning the future. Here's our North Star. Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission." So the report would just be a distraction from letting us currently win going forward, per the DNC chair.
2:09:00 Speaker 06 That logic is ridiculous.
2:09:03 Speaker 02 No, because that's not the real reason why the report wasn't released. We'll get to why the report wasn't released.
2:09:10 Speaker 06 We'll get to that, okay.
2:09:10 Speaker 02 Very soon.
2:09:11 Speaker 06 That sounds like a majorly half-assed reason. So, okay, say more, say more. I'm listening.
2:09:19 Speaker 02 As the public release of the autopsy was continuously delayed in 2025 and then just eventually canceled, speculation about the contents of the report grew, that the DNC must be hiding the report because its findings on why the Dems lost so bad in 2024 must run contrary to the interests of party elites. So by burying the report, the DNC must be trying to protect the future political prospects of Kamala Harris, obscure the misuse of massive funds donated to the DNC and election campaigns, or the report must actually definitively prove the Biden-Harris administration's failure to act on the genocide of Palestinians while aiding and abetting Israel must have played a significant factor in the election, possibly
2:10:03 Speaker 02 the determining factor. So if the report found such things, then the DNC might want to suppress the report to not have that information be public. But now we know that's not the reason the report was not released. The autopsy finding that the Democrats' pro-Israel position cost in the election was not the reason the report was buried, because last month, the DNC begrudgingly released an incomplete version of the election autopsy, which actually does not contain a single mention of Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. It is not discussed in any way in a 192-page report.
2:10:45 Speaker 06 And what is in this report?
2:10:47 Speaker 02 We will also be getting into what's in the report.
2:10:51 Speaker 06 Okay. Yeah.
2:10:53 Speaker 02 A lot of bad statistics, for one, unsourced graphs, and discussions on whether you should spend more money on digital ads or TV ads is really, really the bulk of the report, honestly. But before we get more into the report's findings, let's discuss the circumstances that led to the publishing of the unfinished autopsy nearly a year after the finished version was supposed to come out. So this autopsy was authored by a guy named Paul Riviera, who's a longtime Democratic strategist and personal friend of DNC Chair Ken Martin. Now Riviera has not worked on a presidential campaign since 2004.
2:11:37 Speaker 06 Oh, wow.
2:11:38 Speaker 02 And despite being the sole person tasked with running the report, and it's unclear how many people actually worked on it, but it was led by Riviera and seems to be mostly redone by him. And despite that, Riviera only worked on it part-time while managing other contracts. With CNN reporting that Riviera would say that he would only be available to conduct autopsy interviews before 9:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m. or on weekends. That's when he conducted interviews for the report, was only before 9:00 a.m. in the morning or after 7:00 p.m. in the evening on weekdays and then also weekends.
2:12:17 Speaker 06 What's this weirdo doing? What's his problem?
2:12:19 Speaker 02 Uh, not much.
2:12:20 Speaker 06 Yeah, apparently.
2:12:21 Speaker 02 Not, not much.
2:12:22 Speaker 06 Sir?
2:12:24 Speaker 02 Because, yeah, this report was delayed almost a full year.
2:12:27 Speaker 06 Yeah. Sheesh.
2:12:30 Speaker 02 Now, only after his initial spring 2025 deadline, did Rivera actually reach out to state party chairs in battleground states to interview them for the report. And he did not contact like key Harris campaign staff until September. And many were not even asked to be interviewed. Portions of the autopsy were first revealed at a DNC National Finance Committee Retreat for top donors held at a hotel in Millberg, Virginia, last October. Now, per CNN, at the donor retreat, Rivera himself gave a, quote, "hour-long presentation with slides, in part drawn directly from the report,
2:13:15 Speaker 02 in part via running his findings through an AI engine," unquote. There was AI-generated slides. He ran his report findings through an AI engine, according to CNN, which also generated slides. And that was what his presentation on the report at the donor retreat was based on, was the AI's regurgitation of report findings.
2:13:39 Speaker 06 Hold on, hold on a second. So he's not willing to do work after 9:00 AM or after 7:00 PM?
2:13:45 Speaker 02 Cannot conduct interviews in that time. No, too busy.
2:13:47 Speaker 06 Can't do any of that time, but yet he's just like using AI?
2:13:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:13:52 Speaker 06 Great. DNC, feeling really hopeful. Continue. What did CNN find?
2:13:58 Speaker 02 So one of the slides that Rivera presented at this, at this donor retreat tracked the candidate's, quote unquote, "area of focus" by, quote unquote, "content slash theme." CNN notes, quote, "Rivera used an unclear methodology for the breakdown, assigning percentages to 10 categories of content or theme for Trump, Harris, and their running mates. The percentages in every column, one for each candidate, added up to well over 100%," unquote. What he was trying to do here is like measure campaign themes, like, you know, how much Trump focused on immigration compared to Harris, right? So he had these like 10 categories of like what the campaigns were focused on.
2:14:40 Speaker 02 But the percentages did not actually add up to 100%.
2:14:44 Speaker 06 Of course they didn't.
2:14:45 Speaker 02 So he's just like making this stuff up, right? Like it's, it's again, they know there's like an unclear methodology for the breakdown. The fact these add up to over 100%, like you cannot trust the legitimacy of any of this research now. So after parts of the presentation were leaked to CNN, CNN then obtained even more information about the contents of the shelved autopsy. Before publishing their findings, CNN presented the DNC with what they knew about the report, prompting the DNC to just release the full report as submitted by Paul Rivera. And around this time, donors were also threatening to withhold funds for not publishing the report, so that probably also contributed. One of CNN's sources said that after the autopsy was published,
2:15:29 Speaker 02 Ken Martin informed DNC staff that Paul Rivera was no longer associated with the committee.
2:15:35 Speaker 06 These people, these fucking people. I mean, I did not read the entire report intentionally so that you could tell me about it, but the highlights that have been spread across the internet is, did not mention Gaza, did not mention Joe Biden's age, and did not mention when Joe Biden dropped out late.
2:15:54 Speaker 02 Effectively so. Well, we'll get into some of those in a little bit more detail. I think one of the most interesting parts about the DNC's publishing of the unfinished report is that the published version of the autopsy contains annotations and corrections marked in red that the DNC added to the copy of the report as submitted by Rivera. And these were added for its public release.
2:16:18 Speaker 06 Okay.
2:16:19 Speaker 02 At the top of every single page, all 192 pages, reads a disclaimer, quote, "Disclaimer: This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein, and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented," unquote. That is in red at the top of every single page. Ken Martin did issue a statement when the autopsy was published, reading, quote, "When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after-action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party.
2:17:03 Speaker 02 When I received the report late last year, it was..." Wasn't ready for prime time, not even close. And because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC's stamp of approval on the report that was produced. After last November's massive Democratic wins, I didn't want to create a distraction. But by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards. But I'm doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word. Unquote.
2:17:47 Speaker 06 I don't know, man. That doesn't really sound very trustworthy, bro. Uh, it sounds pretty bad. Sounds pretty bad. Here's a half-assed report. I, it's, it's not very good and I've delayed it for over a year. But yeah, I, I guess here it is. No, it doesn't include any of the big issue things. Enjoy.
2:18:07 Speaker 02 It's, it's a stunning sequence of events that kind of highlights all of the issues that everyone already has with, with the Democratic Party. Like the guy who was chosen to do the autopsy just happens to be a personal friend of the DNC chair? And said friend then fails to interrogate the institutional bias of the party? It's such a condensed, condensed little version of why the party has had so many, so many troubles. And the report as published seems unwilling to actually be able to learn from successes that have been happening since the 2024 election. Effectively, what this report actually is, is a poorly sourced opinion piece.
2:18:46 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:18:46 Speaker 02 That's dressed up as an election autopsy. It misspells names, it has typos, factual and statistical errors and unsourced claims. Multiple key sections are left completely blank because Rivera never submitted them. The report is less interested in collecting data and interviews to inform analysis, but rather starts with certain assumptions and then cherry picks data to support these assumptions. But it doesn't even do that well because the included data is often inaccurate and at times the analysis contradicts itself.
2:19:19 Speaker 06 Jesus Christ.
2:19:21 Speaker 02 A state party chair told CNN, quote, "It was very clear that it felt like Ken's theory of the case for the future of the party through the lens of 2024 as opposed to a quote unquote autopsy." And after reading the report, I agree, this is very much a report that's designed to fit in with what Ken Martin wants the message of the last election to be, and it tries to squeeze that into the, like, very rough shape of like an after-election report, but it's really not.
2:19:56 Speaker 06 It's just like reeks of like lazy AI work with all the like left out sections, that the things that don't add up, the misspellings.
2:20:06 Speaker 02 Specifically, the statistical and like factual errors.
2:20:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:20:10 Speaker 02 Are really confusing. It feels like someone's getting, if not the actual writing, but it feels like the research was like AI assisted in the way that, you know, AIs will shoot out different answers for the same question.
2:20:20 Speaker 06 Sure.
2:20:21 Speaker 02 So it feels like that in a few areas. And like, like you've already mentioned, right? The report never brings up Biden's age or mental state as a factor contributing to the election. And in as much as the report criticizes Biden, it critiques the Biden administration's failure to adequately prepare Harris to be a viable candidate.
2:20:41 Speaker 06 Does it discuss the debate?
2:20:44 Speaker 02 No.
2:20:45 Speaker 06 It doesn't bring up the debate where now we know that like from an interview from Dr. Jill Biden from a few weeks ago, that she legitimately thought that Joe was having a stroke onstage during that debate with Donald Trump.
2:20:58 Speaker 02 Even though she took him onto a different stage afterwards to tell him how good he did, and then they went to a Waffle House.
2:21:04 Speaker 06 I mean.
2:21:05 Speaker 02 The things you do after your husband.
2:21:08 Speaker 06 That's where you go.
2:21:09 Speaker 02 After you believe your husband has had a stroke.
2:21:11 Speaker 06 When shit has hit the fan, Garrett, you go to Waffle House.
2:21:15 Speaker 02 Maybe, maybe the Waffle House actually is the move.
2:21:17 Speaker 06 That's what I'm saying. The Waffle House is the least shocking of the entire situation, but that's not mentioned in there at all.
2:21:25 Speaker 02 No. It says, quote, "The White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and a half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch," unquote. That's all it says about about switching from Biden to Harris. That's all it says.
2:21:43 Speaker 06 I don't I don't disagree with that statement because, you know, the amount of people that we spoke to when we went to both political conventions, one of the common things that they said about Kamala Harris is like how ineffective she's been and how they don't use her and how how can we trust her when they don't even trust her to do basic things for the administration, which was one of the main like Republican talking points about her is like she has no skills, which is not true, but that was a position that was against her is not utilizing her enough. And then, you know, they're like, bibbidi babbidi boo, she's your candidate without a primary. Do they mention anything about there not being a primary?
2:22:26 Speaker 02 No.
2:22:26 Speaker 06 Okay.
2:22:28 Speaker 02 The report never interrogates or considers Biden's decision to run for reelection or lay blame on those who encouraged and enabled that decision, nor does it identify the lack of a legitimate primary as a contributing factor leading to the results of the 2024 election.
2:22:42 Speaker 06 We're gonna take a quick break while I have, you know, an attack of my mind. Congrats.
2:23:02 Speaker 06 And we're back.
2:23:07 Speaker 02 Let's now pivot to how the report describes its own research methodology. This is quoting from the start of the autopsy, quote, "The report analyzes a range of publicly and commercially available data to identify actual investments, actions, and eventual voter behavior. The analysis also includes qualitative data obtained in the form of in-person and virtual interviews with more than 300 organizations and individuals." After this sentence, the DNC has highlighted and annotated a little note that reads,
2:23:41 Speaker 02 No source material or data provided. Un-sourced claims cannot be independently verified. So despite claiming that 300 people or organizations were interviewed, which may be true, the report never says who these people are, nor does it allude to their relevant expertise.
2:24:00 Speaker 06 This is just an op-ed.
2:24:02 Speaker 02 A source at the DNC told CNN that Riviera did not even provide a list of names of the people he spoke to to the DNC, nor did he submit interview notes or recordings. So there's no record that we have of like who these people are or why they were interviewed or what they actually said. And it's not like he's like quoting from people like with quotation marks. It's like regurgitating maybe portions of interviews into different text.
2:24:31 Speaker 06 Right.
2:24:32 Speaker 02 Riviera also failed to provide data that he said was given to him by senior campaign leadership that he says is influencing the report, but we don't see it and he did not provide it to the DNC. So like, they don't know. It's just, it's just some guy saying, trust me, bro.
2:24:48 Speaker 06 That's what it sounds like.
2:24:50 Speaker 02 So after the introduction to the report is a section called "The Executive Summary." This section was not provided by the author. This section is completely missing.
2:24:59 Speaker 06 Great.
2:25:01 Speaker 02 After the missing executive summary section, the report moves on to the electoral landscape, which has just very basic stuff. Quote, "Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses and failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party," unquote. Just really basic stuff, very like average. A 10-year-old can say this. Next, the report talks about how the Democratic Party rebuilt itself in the 90s. How after three consecutive presidential losses, the Democrats embraced a new strategy which got Clinton elected in 1992. And we all know how well that went.
2:25:43 Speaker 06 Mm-hmm.
2:25:44 Speaker 02 Then there's seven pages of summarizing party history from 2008 to 2024. I don't know if he was getting paid by the word. But that's just like, it's just seven pages that just don't need to be there. And then the report reads, quote, "We must be careful to draw the right lessons from this experience and not miss opportunities to identify and build upon some of the positives of the 2024 cycle." We must acknowledge how close the margins actually were. The report then goes on to misstate how close the margins were. But on the other hand, it goes on to say that in the past 16 years, "Democrats have lost ground at every level of government. This remains true even in the face of the blue wave in the most recent elections.
2:26:29 Speaker 02 2025 gubernatorial and mayoral wins in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, Detroit, and elsewhere may lead to a false sense of security and a belief the Democratic Party has again found ways to bring voters back to the booth with their messaging. While these wins are welcome and point to optimism entrenched in the major party strategy, a dive into the details shows some of these elections were tighter than Democrats should be comfortable with and points to room for improvement in future efforts." Unquote. It never gives this dive into the details. So we don't even know what it's taking there. And to me, this paragraph just demonstrates an unwillingness to understand why some of these elections went the way they did,
2:27:13 Speaker 02 especially the one in New York City. Doesn't want to acknowledge why someone like Zoran ran such a successful campaign and claiming that the margins were tighter than what Democrats should be comfortable with also ignores the fact that Zoran's biggest opponent in both the primary and general election was another Democrat who ran as an independent, someone who was associated with the Democratic establishment. It's a bizarre little tidbit that they throw in there.
2:27:39 Speaker 06 This is so weird. Just like a highly unnecessary tangent.
2:27:44 Speaker 02 And it just shows this uncomfortableness and, you know, on one side being uncomfortable, on the other side, just, you know, also being curious about why those elections have gone the way they did.
2:27:56 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:27:57 Speaker 02 And what you can actually learn from them.
2:27:59 Speaker 06 This is baffling.
2:28:01 Speaker 02 I'm not going to go over every single section of the report because there's a lot. And the way that DNC annotated it gets interesting because at a certain point, they stop actually trying to address or annotate specific claims.
2:28:15 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:28:15 Speaker 02 And instead, just annotate the titles of entire sections, writing, "No sourcing provided for several claims in this section, and no evidence provided for many claims in this section. Public reporting and data contradict several claims."
2:28:29 Speaker 06 Wow.
2:28:30 Speaker 02 The introduction for the "What Happened? Electoral Overview" section is also completely missing, as well as the "National Review" section. These are just not included. The author did not provide those sections. The next section, the one on battleground state outcomes, contains very basic factual errors in just the second sentence. Quote, "States which had consistently and reliably voted for Democratic candidates, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, voted for Trump." Unquote. All these three states voted for Trump in 2016. I don't know if Rivera has a different definition of consistent or reliable,
2:29:13 Speaker 02 but these are notably swing states, and swing states that voted for Trump in 2016.
2:29:19 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:29:19 Speaker 02 Just like, a lot of little details like that just don't make sense. And later on, in this section and beyond, it gets dates wrong. It gets the percentage of votes wrong. It falsely claims that a Capitol Police officer was beaten to death by insurrectionists on January 6th. That's not true. That did not happen. An officer killed himself a few days later, but he was not beaten to death on sight at January 6th. The report uses the word "gaslighting", which I think is funny.
2:29:49 Speaker 06 I just kind of wonder if you uploaded this to one of the AI softwares to tell you if it's AI, or tell you if it was plagiarized and those kinds of things, how much of it would be flagged.
2:30:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, who knows, right? Like, those sorts of tools aren't the most accurate themselves.
2:30:08 Speaker 06 No, but it's just crazy.
2:30:10 Speaker 02 The level of errors is shocking.
2:30:13 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:30:14 Speaker 02 Like, for instance, the report claims that in the 2024 election, Democrats netted two seats in the House, flipping 10 seats from Republicans while losing eight. This is not true. This is just not a true claim. Democrats netted one seat rather than two, flipping nine Republican-held seats while losing eight Democrat seats. It's like, there's just small little errors like that, that I'm like, how, how, how did you do this?
2:30:41 Speaker 06 Unbelievable.
2:30:43 Speaker 02 There's also a bunch of just unfounded claims about the intentions or assumptions coming from the Harris campaign, which may be true, but they're not supported in the actual report. Like, you're not providing evidence, you're not providing citations for some of the claims about what the Harris party intended in some of their messaging or stances. But I want to move on to one of the biggest takeaways that the report had. It argues that anti-Trump sentiment was assumed by Democratic campaigns and that campaign ads should have hit Trump harder to remind voters of how bad he is. Quote, "The national campaign did not effectively drive Trump's negatives.
2:31:28 Speaker 02 The retrospective drop approval for Trump was too high, and the campaign and allies failed to remind voters of his incompetence. The idea Trump's negatives were quote-unquote 'baked in' is a major failure of analysis and reality, given how his favorability has cratered less than a year into this term." Unquote. The DNC notes that no evidence was provided for these claims and that this claim contradicts claims elsewhere in the report, because a lot of the report also criticizes Harris for only defining herself as not being Trump, as focusing too much on Trump and not defining herself. So, the report kind of tries to have it both ways here.
2:32:12 Speaker 02 The campaigns did not hit Trump hard enough, but were also too focused on Trump, never illuminating what attacks against Trump should have looked like exactly.
2:32:23 Speaker 06 Is there any mention in these reports about Epstein?
2:32:31 Speaker 02 No.
2:32:31 Speaker 06 No?
2:32:32 Speaker 02 No.
2:32:32 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:32:33 Speaker 02 No, absolutely not.
2:32:34 Speaker 06 Yeah, cuz it was baffling to me that because they needed to have Bill Clinton make the worst speech at the DNC, that they didn't target Trump over his relationship with Epstein at all during the campaign. So, you know, of course, it's not in there.
2:32:50 Speaker 02 I mean, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of things that you could hit Trump on, and a lot of-
2:32:55 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:32:55 Speaker 02 Democratic ads like did, maybe not in ways that people found convincing, you know, like when we were at the DNC, a lot of the anti-Trump stuff was based around like the horror of January 6th.
2:33:07 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:33:08 Speaker 02 Not his regular failures as president.
2:33:11 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:33:12 Speaker 02 Right? Like, like, like, like the day-to-day incompetence that he showed as president. It was like, Trump is a threat to democracy, which just did not turn out to be a compelling enough reason to vote against Trump.
2:33:24 Speaker 06 Oh, my goodness.
2:33:25 Speaker 02 The report claims that Harris struggled with defining herself beyond not being Trump, and just framing the race as prosecutor versus felon. The report notes, quote, "The truncated campaign timeline didn't help, but the campaign did not quickly resolve on how to tag Trump and define Harris." The report says that "the enthusiasm gap was predictable," that Trump just generated more enthusiasm than Harris. Does not provide evidence to support this claim, though some people may believe this to be true, but this claim is not supported in the actual, uh, report. And it reads, quote, "Anti-Trump sentiment alone was insufficient
2:34:05 Speaker 02 to motivate voters. The Harris campaign appears to have relied on Trump being unacceptable rather than building an affirmative case for Harris. Base voters needed reasons to vote for Harris as well as vote against Trump."
2:34:21 Speaker 02 DNC notes, no evidence provided for these claims. So like, I kind of agree with portions of this. I think, I think, yeah, you do need reasons to vote for Harris. You cannot be justified as not being Trump. This does contradict the previous takeaway that anti-Trump sentiment was not driven hard enough into voters. So perhaps this claim isn't necessarily wrong, but it is armchair analysis. It's not actually attempting to substantiate its claims. It's lazy and sloppy. And it ignores that there were also reasons to not vote for Harris. It's not just that the campaign needed to generate reasons to vote for Harris, but it also should have addressed or changed its course to address the reasons that people might not want to vote for Harris,
2:35:07 Speaker 02 which we will get to at the end of this episode. In terms of the election analysis included in this report, a lot of it is focused on comparing Harris's performance to state-level races, where Democratic candidates outperformed her, but also where she outperformed them. And the analysis often conflates the two. It reiterates that, quote, "lower-profile races needed affirmative cases to vote for candidates, not just opposition to Trump." And it credits successful state campaigns to local name recognition and digital presence. Things that Harris was not necessarily lacking in.
2:35:48 Speaker 02 Harris spent a decent amount of money on digital presence and, as vice president, had a degree of name recognition. There's more just odd errors here. The report gets the number of 2024 gubernatorial races wrong. It forgets that Delaware had a gubernatorial race. And it focuses much of this section of the report on Josh Stein of North Carolina, who's the governor.
2:36:11 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:36:12 Speaker 02 Quote, "While Stein was able to keep the governor's office under Democratic control, it is concerning how Robinson was able to capture 45% of the state's vote, even after his repudiation of equal rights for everyone, and proudly and loudly asserting he was a black Nazi," unquote.
2:36:30 Speaker 06 Man, I forgot about that guy. I'm mad that you brought him up. I forgot he existed.
2:36:37 Speaker 02 A lot of this section of this report is actually praising Josh Stein for how well he ran his campaign. While also finding it concerning of how much the vote Robinson was able to still get, except it gets the number wrong. Robinson did not get 45% of the vote. He got just over 40%. And later in the report, it says he got 42.7%, which is also wrong. So it has two different numbers. The report says 45 and 42.7, neither of which are correct. The correct number is 40. People, there's a lot of stuff like this. It's just kind of baffling. And it's even
2:37:17 Speaker 02 more baffling because of how much of a load-bearing section this Josh Stein bit is, right? It writes about how Josh Stein ran almost eight points ahead of Harris. And it says that, quote, "Stein didn't just win by default. He addressed the exact problems Harris did not." But it never actually explains what those are. It doesn't actually explain this. It just says it in a sentence. Later on, it says that, "Based on the North Carolina governor's race, Democrats should, quote, 'focus less on abstract issues and identity politics and connect with voters on the issues they say matter most, including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability,' unquote." But the Harris campaign was not
2:38:02 Speaker 02 actually focused on abstract issues and identity politics. They were trying to address these things, often inadequately, especially on the economy, because of how much Harris had tied herself to Biden. But she did address housing affordability for like a decent bit of the campaign. Whether voters actually knew that, that's a whole other question, right? It's whether they were successful in communicating her platform on housing affordability is a different question. But it's not that Stein's success was focused on this as opposed to focusing on abstract issues, which is not really what the Harris campaign was actually focused on. The report continues, quote, "Harris saw dramatic drops in support among
2:38:43 Speaker 02 young Latino men and young black men compared to Biden's 2020 performance. However, Stein recovered significant ground with both groups, suggesting his campaign found effective ways to reach these voters. Stein's results suggest it's possible to win women and compete with men with the right approach," unquote. Does it explain how Stein did this? No. No, it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. It doesn't say. Now, the report also praises Washington Governor Bob Ferguson, who was elected in 2024. Quote, "Running on a platform of housing affordability, reducing costs for families throughout the state, and improving public safety allowed him to easily capture the governor's office."
2:39:27 Speaker 02 His message resonated with voters concerned about how Bidenomics failed to lower the cost of eggs, and how the Trump administration would gut avenues of education and upward mobility. Stein and Ferguson, notably both then incumbent attorneys general for their states, had a definitive strategy to approach voters. Their wins provide a blueprint for candidates in other states seeking to align themselves with their voters, unquote. So Ferguson's win in Washington State is presented as a blueprint for candidates as compared to Harris's failed strategy. But in fact, Ferguson ran almost four points behind Harris. Harris did better in Washington than Ferguson did, but the report promotes Ferguson's
2:40:11 Speaker 02 strategy, or its opinion on Ferguson's strategy, as the winning blueprint, despite it doing worse in Washington. So that's what I mean in terms of there being lots of self contradictory claims.
2:40:22 Speaker 06 Yeah, did nobody proofread or edit or peer review?
2:40:28 Speaker 02 Well, no, I think that is a big part of this, right? Is that once the DNC received this, they saw how bad it was and it was like, we don't even want to proofread and edit this. Like, this is just so bad, we just don't even want to deal with it anymore. Like, it's just done, right? We're just putting on the shelf.
2:40:41 Speaker 06 But dude released it anyways.
2:40:43 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, they released it after public pressure because of, you know, accusations that they were hiding certain findings that were damaging to the Democratic Party or the interests of party elites.
2:40:54 Speaker 06 No, it's just, it's just that somebody did a bad job.
2:40:59 Speaker 02 When in fact, it's just like, oh, this was just like a massive fuck up. Like, that's, that's why you're hiding it.
2:41:03 Speaker 06 Right, right.
2:41:05 Speaker 02 Like, this, this, this section that I just like read and the section on like Stein,
2:41:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:41:09 Speaker 02 That's the only time where the word "cost" is used in relation to prices.
2:41:13 Speaker 06 Sick.
2:41:14 Speaker 02 This is, this is the only mention of affordability.
2:41:16 Speaker 06 Oh, my God.
2:41:18 Speaker 02 The report does not a single time mention inflation.
2:41:22 Speaker 06 Oh, my God.
2:41:24 Speaker 02 Except in adjusting like donation numbers for inflation, but like it does not, it does not mention inflation as an issue. It does not mention the causes of inflation, messaging around inflation, and how that may have been a factor contributing to the results of the election. The economy only gets mentioned six times.
2:41:43 Speaker 06 Okay, just thinking back to when we were at the RNC and I, I'm sure you had the conversations with, you know, newly eligible voters, young males.
2:41:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:41:55 Speaker 06 And you asked them, you know, why they were voting for Donald Trump. They would always say, the economy is the first thing.
2:42:04 Speaker 02 It's the first thing, yeah. And that's the core of Trump's ad strategy.
2:42:09 Speaker 06 How are they not understanding that, you know, bringing out Oprah at the DNC, instead of talking about how you're going to lower the price of milk and eggs and gas, and help people get jobs? Like, how are they not realizing that you're not reaching normal human connection?
2:42:27 Speaker 02 And, and this like continues to be a problem now, right?
2:42:29 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:42:30 Speaker 02 People will look at macroeconomic factors.
2:42:32 Speaker 06 Sure.
2:42:33 Speaker 02 And be like, by some accounts, the economy is actually not doing terrible.
2:42:38 Speaker 06 Uh huh.
2:42:38 Speaker 02 But those sorts of statements don't reflect the reality of Americans who are dealing with rising prices and may not be experiencing the same wage growth that some statistics show in the macro sense. And specifically the way that there's this like condescending messaging around macroeconomics.
2:42:54 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:42:55 Speaker 02 That really like polarizes people against you because they're having a very hard time. They don't have a lot of hope for the future. And just asserting that actually on a macros level, the economy is doing well, it feels like you're gaslighting them, right?
2:43:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:43:10 Speaker 02 So you, you see this in like the discussion of like, you know, the vibe session.
2:43:13 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:43:14 Speaker 02 Which, I mean, I have a lot of opinions on, but that's, that's, that's another episode.
2:43:18 Speaker 06 Oh, man.
2:43:19 Speaker 02 And right now, we're going to go to ads.
2:43:23 Speaker 06 Oh, boy.
2:43:35 Speaker 02 Okay, we are back. So after this section talking about the gubernatorial races and stuff, it has a list of strategic implications for Democrats based on these state-level races. And these implications are, quote, "Anti-Trump sentiment has its limits. Oregular voters are swing voters. Candidate definition is essential. Clear accomplishments and concrete plans matter more than vibes. State parties matter. Voters are sophisticated. The 8% to 10% who split tickets are decisive. They evaluate candidates individually. Geographic formula is non-negotiable. Strong urban plus competitive suburbs plus limited rural losses.
2:44:20 Speaker 02 You need all three." Yeah, no shit. In order to win elections, you must win elections.
2:44:27 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:44:28 Speaker 02 That's what this is saying, is that in order to win elections, you have to win the election. Yeah, we know. We know.
2:44:36 Speaker 06 Yeah, there's this announcer in the NBA that got slammed many years back for stating, "Well, you know, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins." And that's exactly what this is. They're like, "Hey, if you get more votes than the other guy, you win."
2:44:54 Speaker 02 It's crazy.
2:44:54 Speaker 06 It's lazy. This whole thing reeks of just like...
2:44:58 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:44:59 Speaker 06 ...laxadaisical, insufferable laziness.
2:45:03 Speaker 02 Yes. And I want to mention two other strategic implications.
2:45:08 Speaker 06 Please.
2:45:08 Speaker 02 One, "Elections remain winnable with the right candidates and strategies, even in difficult environments. Demographics are tendencies, not destiny. And voter support is impacted, good and bad, through campaign choices."
2:45:24 Speaker 06 Wow, thank you so much for saying that. If people...
2:45:27 Speaker 02 Genius.
2:45:28 Speaker 06 If people believe in and like the candidate, maybe they'll vote for them. Wow.
2:45:34 Speaker 02 Voter support is impacted through campaign choices.
2:45:38 Speaker 06 Just, just, oh my goodness.
2:45:41 Speaker 02 So that's obviously laughable.
2:45:42 Speaker 06 Yes.
2:45:43 Speaker 02 This last one is more interesting. Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed. Deploy male messengers. Address economic concerns. And don't assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.
2:45:59 Speaker 06 Men hate women. Men hate girls.
2:46:02 Speaker 02 It's not the messenger. It's not the messenger. It's the message. It's not about who the messenger is. It's the message itself and they can't grasp that.
2:46:12 Speaker 06 Why is that their take?
2:46:14 Speaker 02 They're doing the same identity politics.
2:46:17 Speaker 06 Yes.
2:46:17 Speaker 02 That is, that is like trying to critique. It's like, no, we need men to talk to male voters. That's the only way. That's also identity politics. You don't understand. It's not about who's giving the message. It's about what the message actually is. How did White Dudes for Harris work out? You literally tried this. You literally tried to do this. It did not work.
2:46:39 Speaker 06 Karrison, once again, I did block that out of my brain. I did not like hearing it. Yeah. Their take is, um, sorry, if you want to talk to the boys, you also have to be a boy.
2:46:53 Speaker 02 It's crazy.
2:46:54 Speaker 06 What? It's lazy. It's stupid. God. All right. What else? Hit me. I know that you're saving some of the worst for the end.
2:47:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, I am saving some of the bad stuff for last. There's a few other small errors I want to go through, like.
2:47:09 Speaker 06 Let's do it.
2:47:10 Speaker 02 Like it claims that tens of thousands of voters in a handful of states are who sent Trump back to the White House. That's not, that's not.
2:47:18 Speaker 06 That's inaccurate.
2:47:19 Speaker 02 That's just, that's just not inaccurate. And the DNC notes this.
2:47:21 Speaker 06 Not what happened at all. Okay.
2:47:23 Speaker 02 And out of 34 Senate races, the report only reviews six of them, which it attempts to extrapolate a pattern from. And it does not review Wisconsin, a key swing state. And the author also just did not include this section on House races. This section is completely blank. It's also missing. Cool.
2:47:42 Speaker 06 Cool.
2:47:43 Speaker 02 Now, it does have a list of, you know, lessons that we can learn from Senate level and state level races. The positive ones are that Democrats should maintain a year-round presence. We should kind of always be campaigning. Don't just wait till the end, just to always keep a level of engagement. And that engagement should be community oriented. It should be grassroots in nature. You should be establishing partnerships with local community organizations and groups in working class communities because member to member outreach is more effective. Rather than having strangers do door knocking, you should have people from that neighborhood be door knocking in their own neighborhoods. And their messaging should be bilingual and culturally competent. So like, all this stuff is like, yeah, like I, I
2:48:28 Speaker 06 Sure.
2:48:28 Speaker 02 This is like, I kind of agree, right? This is like
2:48:31 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:48:31 Speaker 02 Very, very basic, but yes, this is, this is a good idea. You should strengthen your connections in Latino neighborhoods and with unions. And you should lean on those to help win elections. Yep, that's how politics works.
2:48:46 Speaker 06 You learn very young stranger danger. And so it's like, if you are someone like me who has cameras at their house and you see a strange person coming to your door, you're not necessarily going to answer that.
2:48:58 Speaker 02 No, if someone with a clipboard is, is, is going to approach me, it's like, oh, no way, I'm not having, not doing it.
2:49:02 Speaker 06 I, I can't, you're, I'm already overstimulated, please leave me alone. But if it's like, oh, hey, it's my neighbor.
2:49:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:49:09 Speaker 06 I'm going to open the door for them and hear them out. That's, I fear that's just common sense. I don't think that was necessarily needed in this report. That's common sense, but it's something I don't disagree with for like the first time and all these things that you've said.
2:49:23 Speaker 02 Now, the sort of negative things that the Democrats can learn from.
2:49:27 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:49:27 Speaker 02 Include what the report calls the leadership voter gap. The fact that the Democratic Party leadership seems increasingly alienated from the priorities of voters. And voters may still support their local Democrat on the state level or local, local races.
2:49:44 Speaker 06 Uh huh.
2:49:44 Speaker 02 But maybe will vote for Trump because he's offering an alternative to the stagnating corpse of the Democratic Party, even if that alternative turns out to be also terrible and in some ways worse.
2:49:56 Speaker 06 Uh huh.
2:49:56 Speaker 02 So this is what they call the, the leadership voter gap. They also identify late engagement, doing the bulk of your campaigning from like September to November, seeding the entire summer for the Republicans to establish kind of the territory of the race, like what the issues are. The report mentions messaging misalignment. This is similar to the leadership voter gap, where there's tensions between the leadership of the party or the concerns of the president and what working class Americans are concerned about. Quote, "The Bidenomics framing emphasized macro statistics rather than the micro realities voters experience daily
2:50:38 Speaker 02 and specifically tied President Biden by name to actual economic anxiety." Unquote. I think that's completely fair. Another of the key challenges is Republican inroads with working class voters. This section has a typo, so it's kind of hard to read, but it essentially states-
2:50:56 Speaker 06 There's so many typos!
2:50:58 Speaker 02 But it essentially states that the Trump campaign targeted working class households with populist messaging, which distracted from his anti-worker record. And working class men, particularly manufacturing and construction, saw Trump as more aligned with their cultural values than Democratic candidates. To condense these down, Democrats need to have a year-round presence, more economic messaging, and address cost of living concerns that resonate more than, quote unquote, "identity politics." This is kind of where the actual election analysis portion of the document ends. The rest of the document is on how to more effectively spend campaign funds, debating door knocking versus text and phone banking,
2:51:42 Speaker 02 addressing dropping voter registration rates, comparing media and ad spending, digital versus TV ads.
2:51:49 Speaker 06 Is there anything interesting in those findings?
2:51:51 Speaker 02 No, not really.
2:51:52 Speaker 06 Okay.
2:51:53 Speaker 02 It's filling, it's filling the page count. Like, the Democrats got a lot of money. The problem isn't the funds. We have the funds. It's that there's small ways that you can use them better. And sure.
2:52:05 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:52:06 Speaker 02 But all of this is just treating the symptom, not the problem. The problem wasn't that you were spending more on digital and not enough on broadcast. The problem was the candidate and the message, not differences in ad spending.
2:52:21 Speaker 06 It's not that you you had ads running. It's that the ads you had running weren't connecting with the people whose votes you needed. The people that were going to vote for you already, that's who those ads were targeting to. As opposed to bringing in voters who were like, oh, man, I'm really not sure. Trump was pretty bad last time. I'm on the fence here. Or just your first time voters.
2:52:47 Speaker 02 The first time voter registration was was down significantly.
2:52:51 Speaker 06 Yeah, the fact that you ran ads in certain places, that was not the problem.
2:52:56 Speaker 02 No.
2:52:56 Speaker 06 You weren't advertising to the people that needed to be advertised to. Your messaging was wrong.
2:53:01 Speaker 02 And there's, yeah, there's this more core issue that people did not get to actually pick the Democratic nominee. And the Democratic nominee had a lot of issues and direct ties to the many failures of the Biden administration, which brings us to our final section here.
2:53:17 Speaker 06 I'm afraid.
2:53:18 Speaker 02 Based on three polling studies, the campaign pollsters concluded that it was, quote, "important for the vice president to find separation from the status quo." They recognized voters were looking for change and felt it was necessary to find ways to demonstrate how a Harris Wells administration would be more effective in addressing American needs. The pollsters acknowledged the loyalty demonstrated by the vice president, but also suggested it was contrary to strong signals in their data about how even measured breaks would help position the vice president to win, unquote. And the vice president, Harris, did not do these measured breaks.
2:53:59 Speaker 02 She remained extremely loyal to the legacy of the Biden administration while she was vice president and while she was campaigning for president in 2024. Now, these campaign pollsters were also part of discussions on how to respond to Trump attack ads. Quote, "In particular, the attack ad focused on the vice president's prior statements on transgendered Americans." You can't call them that, bro.
2:54:25 Speaker 02 They all recognized the attack as very effective and felt the campaign was boxed in. The ad was a video of her saying what she said, and it was framed as an attack on her economic priorities. If the vice president would not change her position, and she did not, then there was nothing which would have worked as a response, unquote. This polling section is also missing its conclusion, but let's get into that a little bit more. Okay. Before the autopsy was released, Rob Flattery, I'm gonna say Flattery, I don't know what it actually is, but I'm calling it Flattery. He was Harris's deputy campaign manager, and he wrote an article in The Bulwark about what he said in his autopsy interview, also noting he was one of the few Harris staffers
2:55:10 Speaker 02 who was actually interviewed. Flattery argued the main issue of the 2024 campaign was branding, and he clarified that the Kamala is for they/them ad was not actually the most effective attack ad. According to campaign data, it was the Trump ad from July 2024 with clips of Harris saying that, quote unquote, "Bidenomics is working." Flattery wrote that, quote, "The brilliance of the Trump team's ad strategy was that everything was a proof point that leveled up to a core narrative. She cares about liberal shit, not you. Her position on immigrants? She's focused on the wrong thing. Harris talking about trans prisoners? Focused on the wrong thing. Says Bidenomics is working? Focused on the wrong stuff.
2:55:55 Speaker 02 It was brands, not messages. The trans ad worked because of what it implied, not what it said." Rob Flattery, like the autopsy, insists that there was no way to directly respond to the Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you ad, claiming that they tested five to six response ads against ads about the economy, and the economy ones tested better. Quote, "So not wanting to make the fight about an issue we were losing, we talked about the economy more. A literal rebuttal would have been a loser. I absolutely stand by this decision. Look at the 2025 elections in Virginia, where Republicans made trans issues the core of their advertising strategy. It failed because voters didn't find it relevant."
2:56:40 Speaker 02 Unquote. Except that's exactly what Trump did with the they/them ad. That was a big part of his ad strategy as well. So there's this sort of learned helplessness with how to address both like the trans issues as well as the Israel-Palestine stuff, which we'll get to in one sec. Like Harris not seriously addressing the they/them ad also did not seem to help. And you don't need to run an ad directly opposing that slop. But through media appearances, you can pull the old uno reverso while affirming that you'll stand up for the rights of all Americans, no matter their gender or race. And that includes making healthcare more affordable and more accessible.
2:57:24 Speaker 02 And it's Trump and the Republicans who are focusing on bullying a disadvantaged small minority of Americans to distract from the fact that they have no real economic plan. You can talk about the economy while still standing up for trans people. It doesn't need to be the focus of your campaign, but it sure as hell was a key focus of Trump's campaign, and you not addressing it did not help and contributed to real harm and negative polarization against trans people.
2:57:53 Speaker 06 Yeah, I mean, a trans person did not speak at the 2024 DNC, which was weird and not normal. Trans people have spoken at many DNC conventions in the past, but in the 2024, nope. And trans issues were barely even mentioned, largely absent.
2:58:13 Speaker 02 And like, it doesn't need to be a key issue, but the fact that Republicans made it made it a key issue means that it is worth addressing in some way and affirming that you will actually stand up for the rights of trans people beyond making very kind of vague, confusing statements like Kamala made that she'll follow the law.
2:58:30 Speaker 06 That's no.
2:58:31 Speaker 02 Which just does not make sense to anyone. This sort of learned helplessness around like not being able to address these issues, this is the same thing with Palestine.
2:58:40 Speaker 06 Yes.
2:58:40 Speaker 02 Altering course is simply not considered possible, and in part with Palestine, because Harris was the vice president. Flattery wrote, quote, "Given the..." Biden administration's position, Gaza was an impossible issue to communicate around. Protesters drove coverage away from campaign events. Digital creators or even supporters were afraid to say anything nice about Biden because their comments sections would get rocked. For many voters watching the horrific painful footage out of Gaza, it became a moral question, one we didn't have a good answer for. In ways that may not be reflected in a poll, it meaningfully reduced enthusiasm.
2:59:22 Speaker 02 As one person from the campaign told me, we spent the entire election with a giant rotting fish around our necks.
2:59:29 Speaker 06 Is Joe Biden the giant rotting fish?
2:59:32 Speaker 02 Well, no, I mean, it's in part, yes, but like the genocide in Gaza, like this, like, you know, well documented mass death.
2:59:40 Speaker 06 They didn't let a Palestinian person speak at the DNC either. They had they had one panel on it, which I attended. It was phenomenal. It was the largest attended panel of the convention. And then they refused to let a Palestinian person speak.
2:59:55 Speaker 02 I mean, and even beyond just letting people speak, it's like there was no real plan to actually stop this from happening. Like you can you can cut off aid to Israel, you can do serious things, you can you cannot send them weapons. You can take away weapons, you can do more things. As we've seen, America is not afraid to occupy territories in that region. You could literally invade and be like, no, you have to stop. But like the not being able to even consider that you could have an answer for this moral question. You you could just change your position, not being able to even consider that. And the compounding difficulty of Harris being in the VP role made this the giant rotting fish around the campaign's neck.
3:00:40 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:00:41 Speaker 02 And the fact that the autopsy does not actually address this question and flattery does, I think, is another damning indictment against the autopsy and its sheer incompetence of the deputy campaign manager. Himself acknowledging that this was a serious, a serious issue that meaningfully reduced enthusiasm. And like, the whole deal in this Bulwark article is that politics is now about brands, not messages. And this is kind of silly, right? Because these two things are related.
3:01:10 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:01:10 Speaker 02 But the brand of the Harris campaign was largely defined as not being Trump and just being more of the same, which in 2024 wasn't exactly great.
3:01:20 Speaker 06 No.
3:01:21 Speaker 02 Another of Trump's main ads featured a clip of Harris saying that she wouldn't have done anything different from Biden. So the branding issue certainly wasn't helped by the campaign's unwillingness to sever ties with Biden and criticize his policy.
3:01:35 Speaker 06 No.
3:01:36 Speaker 02 Flattery argues that would have been hard, if not impossible, because of Kamala's position as sitting vice president. If she doesn't go against Biden's policy, it puts fractures within the party and the White House itself. But also, it would demonstrate how she effectively held no power as vice president. So like, there is, there is these issues. But if you actually have principles, that would not actually be an issue. You could just blaze through that. You could actually take the real, correct stance on issues like Palestine and acknowledge the massive failures that the administration had. And you are now going against the status quo of the administration despite being the vice president, right? That, that could have been an option, one that was just never actually considered, for whatever reason, right?
3:02:20 Speaker 06 I mean, statistically speaking, at that time, Joe Biden was, had a very low approval rating. And so, you know, Kamala running as the pro-Joe candidate doesn't really resonate with voters because they're unhappy.
3:02:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly, right? And if your message is just more of the same, then it seems pretty easy for your opponents to define what your brand is.
3:02:43 Speaker 06 And whenever she tried to say, you know, I'm going to change this, I'm going to change that, they were like, but you're in office now.
3:02:51 Speaker 02 And like Harris herself did not actually campaign on like progressive immigration policies. She did not campaign on trans rights. She didn't campaign on identity politics.
3:03:02 Speaker 06 No.
3:03:02 Speaker 02 But in absence of a real message, it's all too easy to associate the campaign with the concerns of like liberal elites disconnected from the economic realities of most Americans. And her previous statements on Bidenomics and how she wouldn't have done anything differently absolutely compounded this. Flattery wrote that the campaign underestimated just how disillusioned people were and the widespread degree of anti-institutionalism. But unlike the autopsy, he at least acknowledges Biden should have never have run for reelection in the first place and that Democrats should have run a real primary, which would have provided an opportunity to actually address all of these, you know, issues about feeling tied
3:03:45 Speaker 02 to the death worshipping aspects of the Biden administration with Kamala being the VP.
3:03:52 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:03:53 Speaker 02 Now, speaking of the autopsy, let's get to the final sections of the autopsy.
3:03:57 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:03:58 Speaker 02 Near the end of the report, a paragraph reads, "Building to win requires new thinking and building to last requires thinking about more than the next election. It requires finding the best way to connect with the right voters in the right places. And if 2024 has proven anything, there is enough money to do it all the right way." And that's kind of the end. That's not the conclusion of the report because the final conclusion section is left blank.
3:04:29 Speaker 06 Super.
3:04:30 Speaker 02 It's missing as well. So that sentence is kind of the last piece of analysis because it actually has no conclusion. I think that's the perfect, the perfect representation of what this report is, is that it does not have a conclusion. It's literally missing the conclusion. There is very little you can actually take away from this report positively to improve election strategy going forward because there is no conclusion. Anyway, that's the, that's the 2024 autopsy that turns out was real, but was just really bad.
3:05:02 Speaker 06 And didn't address anything real.
3:05:06 Speaker 02 No, did not address what I, I would argue were the key issues affecting the campaign.
3:05:13 Speaker 02 Biden's decision to run again, his age, the lack of a primary and Israel Palestine.
3:05:19 Speaker 06 Yeah. That and honestly, people like to choose their candidate.
3:05:24 Speaker 02 In a democracy, really?
3:05:26 Speaker 06 Mm-hmm. And this entire thing really is very frustrating because who knows when a non-cis male will be the candidate again after that?
3:05:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, at this point, I think anyone who can address serious economic as well as these moral issues where like imperialism and the US military, it's going to serve a better, a better chance.
3:05:54 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:05:54 Speaker 02 Because that is the, the situation we have, we have found ourselves in.
3:05:58 Speaker 06 Yeah. The Democratic National Committee. It's a bummer.
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3:07:45 Speaker 07 Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Dan Alkurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. And today I'm joined by Dr. Negar Razavi. She is a political anthropologist at the, I'm gonna get this right, Musavar Rahmaney Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University. And her work is on the role of think tanks in shaping US security policies towards the Middle East and Iran specifically. And I've recently had the pleasure of being at a symposium with Dr. Razavi, and I thought she would be a really welcome viewpoint for our audience. Thank you for joining us.
3:08:22 Speaker 06 Thanks so much for having me.
3:08:23 Speaker 07 So I think in regards to the war on Iran, there's been such a focus on the Strait of Hormuz and the economic impact of that, that conditions on the ground have really slipped from our radars. Like, I don't see it as often, and I think I'm a very well-plugged-in person. So can we start there? Can you tell us more about the situation and what it's like for like, the average Iranian right now?
3:08:46 Speaker 06 Yeah, thank you so much for leading with that, because I do think that is absolutely missing in not only mainstream media, but in much of the policy discussions that both of us follow closely. It's very bad on the ground for ordinary Iranians on all fronts. Economically, it is very dire at the moment. Inflation is now at unbelievably high rates. The level of damage that happened to the country, the physical damage, caused a lot of people to lose their jobs, if not their lives, because They hit hospitals, they hit schools, they hit factories. These are places where people work.
3:09:30 Speaker 06 So now all of those people are without a job. The cost of living again has skyrocketed. People who depended on the internet somehow to do their work are also now out of a job because it's been the longest internet shutdown in Iran's history at this point. So that's the economic aspect that implicates every single person inside Iran at the moment. And we're hearing that even people can't exchange the dollar. So things are really, really bad at this point. And then you add on the layer of the number of people who have been killed. By the latest count, I think I saw 1,700 civilians have been killed. 3.5 million Iranians were displaced.
3:10:14 Speaker 06 And this is mainly people trying to escape major city centers. They went to areas that were very under-resourced. And so they were also suffering from lack of water and electricity wherever they were going. Those people have now slowly been coming back to the major cities. Many more thousands of people were injured or maimed. And then, of course, the entire population has been terrorized by this war. And the uncertainty of whether it's going to start again. I mean, the threats that Trump has given up until just a few hours ago was at any moment that the bombings could start again. And then lastly, I want to say in terms of I touched on the infrastructure,
3:10:58 Speaker 06 but they hit desalination plants, they hit hospitals, they hit oil depots. People's quality of life right now inside Iran is pretty bad. And then you layer on to that a now even more repressive government that has been executing people they accuse of being traitors at unbelievable rates. A total clampdown on levels we haven't seen previously. So again, short story, it's very bad inside of Iran right now.
3:11:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, I really wanted to make sure that people got that full scope. You know, we forget that there's an internet blackout. We forget that Iranians have already dealt with such a Repressive crackdown right before the war started, you know, like I want people to make the connection that like conditions are super, super dire. You know, since you did mention that point, maybe we can elaborate a little bit. How do you think the Iranian regime is using this moment? I know short term they are utilizing it to just crack down on any dissent. But how do you think it'll be used kind of medium and long term?
3:12:06 Speaker 06 Yeah, so, you know, in our line of work, it's always hard to make predictions, but we can use past experiences as a somewhat of a guide here. So just to remind your listeners, in January, there was a major uprising of Iranians against their government. And there was one of the most massive crackdowns since the 1980s, when there was a massacre against political dissidents. And so going into this war, there was already one of the most brutal crackdowns happening. And then what people who are much more knowledgeable about Iran's domestic politics are telling me
3:12:46 Speaker 06 is that the people who are essentially replacing the leaders that were killed by US Israeli strikes are more hardliner and are more aligned with the hardline factions of the IRGC or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is one branch of the military in Iran that is very, very powerful and is loyal to the Supreme Leader, who is now the son of the previous Supreme Leader who was killed on the first day of the war, actually. And so using the last time Iran was at a war, which was in the Iran-Iraq War, repression is going to get so much worse under war conditions.
3:13:27 Speaker 06 Because anyone who they don't like or who anyone who speaks out can then be made a traitor and an enemy of the Iranian people. And so they can use warfare as the grounds to essentially go even further in their oppression. And that's what a lot of human rights activists and people on the ground are worried about.
3:13:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, I also read a really interesting article, I'll put in the show notes, about the popular mobilization that the Iranian regime has like really fostered over, you know, many years through a variety of ways, whether it's through inserting, you know, their forces in universities or through particular kinds of Cultural practices around martyrs and things like that. So like, the Iranian regime is also kind of mobilizing its supporters in a way that, I mean, obviously, for people who like want democracy and freedom, like, this is the worst-case scenario. We, as in the United States, I shouldn't take responsibility for that at all.
3:14:24 Speaker 06 Neither of us should.
3:14:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, neither, really. It's not our fault. But we really have, you know, given the worst actors a huge victory.
3:14:33 Speaker 06 And also to that point, if you don't mind me jumping in.
3:14:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, of course.
3:14:36 Speaker 06 It's also, you know, triggered nationalism among segments of the population. The war has made many people who were even protesting in January against the government now coming out and defending at least the sovereignty of their country or the integrity of their country.
3:14:52 Speaker 01 I mean, it makes sense.
3:14:53 Speaker 06 Yeah, so there's all these strange now alliances forming. And the government is actually playing some parts of it smartly, where you'll see them having women without hijab coming to pro-government rallies and having a Lebanese woman singer's voice at their rallies, which, for those of you who don't know, women are not allowed to sing as solo artists in Iran. They can be part of a chorus. So they're also playing this interesting
3:15:23 Speaker 01 Imaging.
3:15:24 Speaker 06 Game where they want to also show, look, we can also be open and inclusive at the same time that they're executing people at the highest rate since the 1980s.
3:15:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm gonna have to look for that video of the Lebanese singer.
3:15:39 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:15:51 Speaker 01 So we participated, both of us, in a symposium at Princeton. I think it was titled like "The Long Arc of Fascism." Very interesting set of presentations. And your presentation was about the different kind of political strands that facilitated this war on Iran. So I just wanted to just start off with, could you outline the argument of your presentation for our listeners?
3:16:11 Speaker 06 Yes. What I argued in the conference, which was fantastic, and I really learned so much from your presentation as well, was the idea that this war was made possible, in a sense, because several different strands of fascism have
3:16:28 Speaker 06 Come together in this moment, and I called it converging fascisms. Just to go quickly through it, because I don't want to drill on and on. But the idea is that one of the core strands has been this growing anti Muslim sentiments that really goes across so many different fascist movements that we see. Whether it's the far right in Europe, here in the United States, Islamophobia is so central. And of course, the shootings at the mosque in San Diego is just the latest of a long string of violence. The Hinduism in India, anti Muslim sentiments, racism is central to the fascism that we see there.
3:17:10 Speaker 06 And then, of course, in Israel, that's been a core element of their anti Palestinian racism generally, but also specifically anti Muslim racism. So that's kind of the big strand that I identified as coming together. And within that, there's an inflection of anti Shia sentiments. And there's lots of scholars who have talked about how really the anti Muslim project starts with the 79 revolution. This like modern manifestation of it. And so it's always had this anti Shia sentiment to it.
3:17:43 Speaker 01 Inflection, yeah.
3:17:45 Speaker 06 Inflection, thank you. The second strand that I wanted to highlight was this white supremacy and Aryanism, which is interesting because it actually loops in the far right of Iranian actors and Iranian diasporic actors in particular, those that are tied to the former Shah of Iran's son, Reza Pahlavi, who are really linking their wanting to overthrow the regime in Iran to restoring this Aryan nation.
3:18:21 Speaker 06 That existed before, and this is their words, not mine, the Arab invasion of Islam. And this is really important for the far right movement that supported this invasion, was this idea that they're going to save Iran from Islam, which again, the Islamophobia, but also the racialized violence against Arabs in the region, and particularly against Palestinians. There's this very strong anti-Palestinian current in this movement that I'm talking about, where they are actively recruiting and aligning themselves with Israel in the genocide, which is so horrible. The third strand that I wanted to talk about was settler colonialism and nativism.
3:19:06 Speaker 06 And I think your listeners probably know enough about this, but this is essentially the bringing together of both the settler colonial violence that we see in Israel, the United States, Australia, et cetera, with the anti-immigrant sentiment that has swept across much of the world, including in places like South Africa. Then the next strand that I talk about is nostalgic paternalism. I call it that.
3:19:33 Speaker 00 You always need a little bit of patriarchy.
3:19:35 Speaker 06 Right, right?
3:19:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
3:19:37 Speaker 06 And it's basically like the people who call Trump daddy, you know, this idea that we need some strong man in our lives. And like Egyptians had this with Sisi, you know, this, this idea that we just need this strong man to guide us forward is, is so dominant in a lot of these fascist groups. Modi is somebody's, you know, paternal figure. And again, Reza Pahlavi, this, the self-proclaimed leader of the Iranian opposition in exile, has numerous times called himself the father of the Iranian people. And he's used really cringe language around how Iran is this abused woman and he's going to come in
3:20:21 Speaker 06 and save it and completely out of touch with this amazing feminist movement that came out of Iran organically in 2022 called the Woman Life Freedom Movement. He's put himself in direct opposition against that movement, which is wild. To think about. And then the last kind of fascist strand that I identified, and this really also links to Naomi Klein's work, who was also at the conference, are these techno fascists. And that's like the Palantirs, the anthropic dystopian future that a lot of these techno bros want to impose on the world. That is very anti-human.
3:21:02 Speaker 06 And so all of these strands come together at this very particular moment to justify and advance a war that some actors have wanted for a long time. And I say that it's kind of the blending of these at this particular moment that enabled this war.
3:21:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think the convergence is is a is an apt description. And yet, especially the patriarchal stuff, like cringe is the right word. Like, it's extremely cringe, but also, you know, dangerous, that all of these things are coming
3:21:35 Speaker 01 coming together to facilitate this kind of violence. And then the war in Iran is facilitating the expansion of fascism here and vice versa. I wanted to just kind of get your opinion of something. I read this article by Mustafa Bayoumi in The Guardian about how in the United States, what actually drives Islamophobia is, at its root, anti-Palestinian racism. I mean, and you certainly, you know, in your presentation, talked about that strand as well. In the Iranian context, is the anti-Palestinian racism kind of tangential to the kind of broader racialized Islamophobia? Yeah, how would you see that?
3:22:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, no, I agree to a large extent to what Bayoumi is saying. I think anti-Palestinian racism is central to how the opposition in Iran views itself. This hasn't been helped by the fact that the Iranian government, the current Iranian government, has been, at least materially and ideologically
3:22:36 Speaker 03 One of the biggest supporters of Palestinian liberation and has used the issue, as many other dictators in the region have, by the way, has used the issue to actually suppress and oppress their own people. And so for a long time, there was a sentiment inside Iran that the Iranian government is sending its resources, sending its weapons, making Iran an isolated rogue state on behalf of the Palestinians, while we, the Iranian people, suffer. And so this created this people-to-people tension, where anti-Palestinian sentiment grew inside Iran and outside Iran, obviously, in these fascist movements.
3:23:21 Speaker 03 And then that feeds back into the Islamophobia, this idea that we have nothing in common with the Palestinians because they are part of a religion that has also oppressed us or a part of an ethnic group that has oppressed us. So it's this feedback loop. That's pretty horrible.
3:23:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, that's good that we outlined kind of the different mechanisms there. And it's really, you know, it's so unfortunate because like, you see polling of like Palestinians and Palestinians were very much against what the Iranian regime did in Syria, for example.
3:23:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
3:23:54 Speaker 01 But like you said, there's a weaponization of these different causes, just like the United States weaponizes the Women Life Freedom Movement. You know, every regime uses things for its benefit.
3:24:06 Speaker 03 Just to add like a slightly hopeful note is that I actually think the experience of this war has actually made more thoughtful Iranians see more of themselves now in the struggle of Palestinians.
3:24:20 Speaker 01 Interesting.
3:24:21 Speaker 03 Because they are actually seeing the hollowness and hypocrisy of what the US and Israel say and do. And so now-
3:24:30 Speaker 06 Now, I think there's been a little bit of a shift back in the direction of solidarity with the Palestinians.
3:24:37 Speaker 01 Oh, that's excellent to hear. You know, we could talk about this all day. Like, there's such a disconnect between diasporas and what happens on the ground, and this is not specific to the Iranians. But I imagine, even if you lean that way, but you're in Iran being bombed by Israel, that's going to change your opinion in a way that like, if you're in Los Angeles waving the Israeli flag, it's a little bit different.
3:24:59 Speaker 06 Absolutely.
3:25:00 Speaker 01 There's kind of stakes there.
3:25:02 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, you're like, who's the one dropping the bombs?
3:25:04 Speaker 01 Exactly.
3:25:05 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:25:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, that is actually a very hopeful note before I turn it to a less hopeful one.
3:25:20 Speaker 01 So your research is on, as I said earlier, like, kind of the think tank landscape in DC. I remember, by the way, finding out about you back in the heydays of Twitter and being like, somebody's studying think tanks? Like, that's so cool. That's so clever. Like, yes, we should be studying them in this way. And basically, like, your research is like, the types of knowledge and the sources of knowledge that become hegemonic in these spaces, and then that, of course, impact American policy. So could you, I know this is kind of a hard ask, but could you tell us, like, some basic findings of your of your research the past couple of years?
3:25:53 Speaker 06 Yeah, so thanks for that setup, because I actually have a book coming out on this, and it's called The Geopolitics of Expertise. And that's one of the central findings of the book, is that this think tank landscape needs to be understood as a transnational space. That's one of the key findings, in which a lot of actors and stakeholders, especially from the Middle East or Swana region, are invested in Shaping the narrative from the inside out. And this is something that I think traditional models of understanding US empire, for example, failed in understanding, which is that,
3:26:32 Speaker 06 you know, when you have Arab Gulf states or Turkey or Morocco or Israel, invested in ensuring the debate in Washington is shaped in a particular way that meets their interests, which is not always aligned with the US. They're going to throw millions of dollars into think tanks to essentially shape what I call the common sense on any number of issues. And so they are co-constraining the imperial imagination. And this is one of the key findings. And then when it comes to Iran in particular, they paradoxically want to ensure that Iran remains an unknowable enemy. That's the other key piece of the book,
3:27:17 Speaker 06 which is that this constructed unknowability is key to ensuring that the US maintains a posture of confrontation with Iran. And that means that you want to have this enemy that you can never fully figure out or this enemy that's always unpredictable, this enemy that never follows the rules. Because if you had a predictable, rational enemy, you'd eventually have to make some type of peace with them. Because that's actually the rational course of action. But when you have weapons manufacturers, when you have foreign governments, when you have all kinds of interests shaping the debate in Washington, you don't actually do what's quote unquote,
3:27:59 Speaker 06 "the rational policy for US national security interests as narrowly defined." So sorry if that was too rambly of an explanation of the book, but.
3:28:10 Speaker 01 No, not at all. I mean, it's interesting because we come at it from different disciplines. You know, I'm a political scientist and in the international relations landscape, there was, you know, well, first and foremost, like, American empire is not really recognized in like, American political science. But there was this argument that percolated. And like, I remember going to grad school and learning this, is that like, the United States is hegemonic and we can like, study hierarchy. And there have been political scientists who have studied. Like global hierarchies, but it's a liberal hegemon and it can't be considered an empire because it does provide these voice opportunities for our subordinates essentially to come and shape policy.
3:28:51 Speaker 06 Interesting.
3:28:52 Speaker 01 And so it's an interesting, not a flip on its head, but it's like a kind of a nuancing of that argument here is like, yeah, they are here and they are shaping policy and shaping kind of US empire, which I think, you know, poses some questions about like the agency of these actors, of course, but also like what is the broader project of US empire? Like,
3:29:14 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:29:15 Speaker 01 We don't need to think of it all the time. It's like kind of top down in a way.
3:29:18 Speaker 06 Exactly.
3:29:19 Speaker 01 There's lots of actors implicated.
3:29:21 Speaker 06 Or coherent or you're right, or
3:29:23 Speaker 01 Right.
3:29:24 Speaker 06 Or, you know, even the Iran war is a clear example, right? There's been winners and losers, as people in DC like to say, of this war. Oil companies are reaping the greatest profits of like the last decade because of this war, because of the shortages coming through the Strait of Hormuz. Weapons manufacturers are doing really well right now. Private equity and AI are doing well. But the damages that we are now seeing coming out of the production side across the Gulf, including inside Iran, is going to have very long-term detrimental effects for all of these same industries, paradoxically. But in the short term, they're winning.
3:30:07 Speaker 06 Meanwhile, everybody else is losing. Food prices are going up. Gas prices are going up. I have a friend who works in research with helium. There's no helium in the world right now. So if you want to go get an MRI, good luck because there's not much helium. Most of it comes out of this one facility in Qatar.
3:30:23 Speaker 01 And I was just reading an article about how Qatar has lost so many billions of dollars as a result of this war, as a result of the attacks on some of its facilities. And it's like Doha is a ghost town. And I used to live in Doha and for anybody who has, you know, been there or whatever, I mean, Doha, like at its best is a ghost town. Like often it is a ghost town if it's not like a busy season. So like, what even does it mean that these places? I can't even fathom what's going to happen long-term, given the impact of this war.
3:30:51 Speaker 06 And that was with just 60 days of war.
3:30:53 Speaker 01 Right. Yeah. So we don't know.
3:30:55 Speaker 06 It's like in such a short amount of time, the amount of damage it caused is unbelievable.
3:31:00 Speaker 01 Yeah. Like you said, it's good to start to disentangle who's.
3:31:05 Speaker 06 Who is benefiting? In service of which actors here are we attacking Iran? Yeah, and this is like the most corrupt administration imaginable. It really is like kind of breathtaking, the the level of corruption. So, yeah, hopefully, you know, historians and political scientists and political anthropologists will have years and years of research to study this moment. All right, well, is there anything else you think people should keep an eye on when it comes to the situation in Iran? Moving forward, I think we need to be much more critical about who is shaping the narrative on Iran moving forward. A lot of the figures who are now disavowing the war in these think tanks and saying, you
3:31:48 Speaker 06 know, war was such a bad idea, Trump fumbled it, and this was a terrible idea, had essentially been, I say, hedging for this war for a long time, which is that by constructing Iran as this unknowable enemy, you can't negotiate with an enemy that you can never predict. You can never negotiate with an enemy that lies about everything. These are the narratives that these Iran experts have been advancing for years. And now we're expected to go and turn back to that same group to get us out of this mess. And that's what I would urge all of the listeners, is be much more critical about who is analyzing Iran in such a moment. Look at who they work for, look at what types of analysis they've done in the past. How do they access Iran?
3:32:33 Speaker 06 How do they know what they know about Iran? It sometimes takes five extra minutes when you're reading a New York Times piece to just go through and highlight who they're quoting as experts, for example. And New York Times has all kinds of problems, but pick whatever, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and just do five minutes of due diligence on who that piece is citing as an expert on Iran. And that's my key takeaway for people. Yeah, that's such a good takeaway. I mean, I think there's so many aspects of our politics in which people are trying to convince us the same people who got us into these messes are the are like all we have, like Democratic Party operatives that like led us to Trump. Exactly.
3:33:18 Speaker 06 Are the ones like now pretending they really dislike the genocide in Gaza and whatever. And it's the same thing, these Iranian experts, they're not even Iranian sometimes, it's it's just Iran experts claiming expertise.
3:33:29 Speaker 01 And it's like, the way that you have shaped this discussion is why we're at this point. So yeah, that's a very good takeaway. I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so much, Negar. This has been really enriching.
3:33:40 Speaker 06 Thank you so much, Dana.
3:33:42 Speaker 01 I will put all of the things we talked about in the show notes. Does your book have a publication date yet?
3:33:46 Speaker 06 No, but I signed the contract, so.
3:33:49 Speaker 01 Okay, good, good. So people be on the lookout.
3:33:51 Speaker 06 But it'll be with Stanford University Press, so, yeah.
3:33:55 Speaker 01 Excellent, excellent. So I will make sure to note that and flag that.
3:33:59 Speaker 06 Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
3:34:01 Speaker 01 Of course.
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3:35:47 Robert Evans? Welcome back to Executive Dysfunction Could Happen Here.
3:35:52 Speaker 07 Nope.
3:35:52 Robert Evans? No? Is that all right, Garrison? I thought we were, I thought we were pretty close.
3:35:55 Speaker 02 There's another, like, show or column called Executive Dysfunction Now.
3:36:00 Robert Evans? Oh, is there?
3:36:01 Speaker 07 Yep.
3:36:01 Robert Evans? Sons of bitches, they stole it from us?
3:36:03 Speaker 02 That covers, like, legal issues relating to the Trump administration, so...
3:36:07 Speaker 07 Okay, well, that brings us neatly into our first story.
3:36:10 Robert Evans? Who did it?
3:36:11 Speaker 02 This is It Could Happen Here, executive disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis, today joined by James Stout, Robert Evans, Mia Wong, and Sophie Lickdorman.
3:36:22 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm.
3:36:22 Speaker 02 We're covering the week of May 27th to June 3rd.
3:36:26 Speaker 07 Let's talk about intellectual property lawsuits.
3:36:28 Speaker 02 Let's.
3:36:29 Speaker 07 Right, right off the bat. Anyone who is in any capacity using ED or unnoticed, it is going to be us against the Viagra people. I'm talking today about Patagonia, the brand suing Pattygonia, the drag queen.
3:36:46 Robert Evans? God damn it, this is, god damn it.
3:36:48 Speaker 07 Yeah, I've successfully walked you into my little world. This is a situation very reminiscent of, people remember the North Faces lawsuit against the South Butt.
3:36:57 Speaker 06 Yes!
3:36:58 Robert Evans? I would, I would argue it's actually kind of different, but okay, I get, I get what you're saying.
3:37:02 Speaker 07 The South Butt lawsuit was funny, if people aren't familiar.
3:37:05 Robert Evans? It's really funny.
3:37:06 Speaker 07 They were bound to arbitration, they arbitrated, they settled, and then the guy turned around and launched the Buttface like a few weeks later, and they sued him again.
3:37:15 Robert Evans? That was a beautiful case of somebody trying to troll a company and also, like, trolling the concept of, like, intellectual property laws.
3:37:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:37:23 Robert Evans? In like, a really creative way, which is, which is different from what's happening, yeah.
3:37:27 Speaker 07 Yes, what is happening here is that Win Wiley, whose drag persona is Pattygonia, right? Does a lot of fundraising for outdoors causes, environmental causes, public lands, that kind of thing, has attempted to trademark their use of Pattygonia for clothing. Patagonia is suing Wiley to protect its trademark on its logo, because some of the logos that Pattygonia has used are very obviously, like, they're mirrored Patagonia logos.
3:37:57 Robert Evans? Yeah, she's trying to get a trademark for her Patagonia logo, which is just Pattygonia instead of Patagonia in the company logo for Patagonia.
3:38:07 Speaker 07 Yeah, I'm not sure she tried to trademark like the, it's a Sarah Fitzroy, right? Like it's a mountain scape, or she just tried to trademark Patagonia.
3:38:15 Robert Evans? It looked like it. Well, I'll double check that right now.
3:38:17 Speaker 07 Yeah, because I think what she has offered as a settlement right now is to stop using the logo, but continue using that name.
3:38:22 Robert Evans? Yeah, the second is whether Patagonia should be entitled to trademark registration. And at least they have a picture in the trademark application of her Patagonia logo.
3:38:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, and they've claimed it's confusingly similar.
3:38:32 Robert Evans? Yeah, and you made, you made a good point when we were talking about this earlier, James, that I hadn't thought of because you are a better mind than I am in this way, which is that, it is, because my initial thinking on this was like, when I saw that she was trying to trademark just like her version of the Patagonia logo, I was like, well, you just took their logo and put your name on, like, that is fucked up.
3:38:51 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:38:51 Robert Evans? But you pointed out, well, Patagonia's logo includes this like actual mountain range that she includes, and Patagonia doesn't really have the right to trademark the silhouette of a mountain range. It is a little more nuanced than I thought initially, yeah.
3:39:04 Speaker 07 Yeah, there are a couple of things at stake here that people perhaps don't understand. One, like-
3:39:08 Robert Evans? I'm at a moral level, not a legal one, folks.
3:39:09 Speaker 07 Yeah, morally, I think we should be asking the question, is it okay for a company that grosses 1.4 billion a year to own the rights to a skyline?
3:39:20 Robert Evans? Yep.
3:39:21 Speaker 07 Like, I think we should be asking that. I think also, like, people maybe should look a little bit deeper into, I've written about this a bunch in a bunch of outlets, but like, Patagonia has millions of dollars of military contracts that they don't like to talk about, and they did through a different company called Lost Arrow. And like, I know people just need to stop seeing a giant company like this as woke. That's like, the companies ain't gonna save us, the sustainable shorts aren't gonna save us. Like, buying a fancy fleece is not the way that you're gonna make the better world that you want to live in. That's my take.
3:39:50 Robert Evans? Yeah, I feel like Patty was kind of poking the bear here.
3:39:54 Speaker 07 Yeah, 100%.
3:39:55 Robert Evans? Like, in a massive way, really?
3:39:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Clearly, she knew what she was going for here.
3:40:00 Robert Evans? Yeah, and Patagonia clearly doesn't want to be fighting this lawsuit.
3:40:04 Speaker 02 Where are you seeing this stuff? Is this like a Blue Sky News story? Where are you seeing this?
3:40:08 Robert Evans? No, this is like a big, this is, I came into it, I saw it first on Reddit, but it's also just been pushed into my newsfeed. Like, I've had four or five different articles. It's, it's a big story right now, unfortunately.
3:40:20 Speaker 07 I've followed her, just generally been aware of her for probably six or seven years.
3:40:25 Speaker 02 Six, seven.
3:40:26 Robert Evans? The New York Times has a feature that's just on this right now. It's a sizable tale.
3:40:31 Speaker 02 Interesting.
3:40:32 Speaker 07 I did note that most of her merch is sold out, so the Streisand effect is in full force here.
3:40:38 Robert Evans? Yeah, yeah.
3:40:38 Speaker 07 And like if you wanted to find a way to sell as many Patagonia stickers that look like the Patagonia logo as possible, you would sue her.
3:40:46 Robert Evans? This is the way to do it.
3:40:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, they're suing her for $1 plus legal fees. People don't seem to have grasped, but that doesn't mean that all that is at stake is a buck here. The fees will be very substantial.
3:40:58 Robert Evans? Yes. Yeah. Although the fees will be substantial, that said, this is clearly a fight Patty wanted to have.
3:41:03 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:41:03 Robert Evans? So like I am not in a situation where like I feel particularly angry or disturbed about this lawsuit. Like this is something that any company would have done some version of this in response.
3:41:16 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:41:16 Robert Evans? It's not good that Patagonia is doing this. It's just what any corporation would do that has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders. And that shouldn't change your opinion of Patagonia from what it was previously, but your opinion of Patagonia should never have been that it's like an altruistic entity, right?
3:41:35 Speaker 07 Like, yeah, 2% of its shares are held by its purpose trust, which are all the voting shares. And 98% of its shares are held by the Holdfast Collective, which is a 501(c)(4). So like, I think people see that as like, you know, they'd like to say the earth is our only shareholder. But like the purpose trust is, as you say, Robert, duty bound to make a profit, to give to the C4. This is not the same thing as like activism. It's different. It's a company, it's a company that has to make profit, like you said, Robert, and I think people need to grasp that.
3:42:04 Robert Evans? Yes, and if they, I mean, literally if they were not, if they were to not fight what she's doing here, like this could cause serious issues for them.
3:42:13 Speaker 07 Yeah, I think someone tried to put their logo on a gun. I've heard, I couldn't find reporting on this, but a couple of people have mentioned it to me. And obviously they'd sued about that and like, you know, so if they didn't, if they hadn't done this one, they couldn't do that.
3:42:24 Robert Evans? Right. And it's again, this should not, I'm not, you shouldn't be like, well, Patagonia is in the right. And but also you shouldn't be like, wow, I completely changed my opinion about this company, you know?
3:42:34 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah. It's just that they're doing what they do.
3:42:37 Robert Evans? Yeah. I think the underlying structural thing here is something we've talked about on this show. But some length is just the underlying violence of the intellectual property system. Like irrespective of this case, this is a
3:42:50 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:42:50 Robert Evans? Kind of silly case of it, but you know, like there are a lot of people in the world who are dead right now because a bunch of A bunch of corporations get to hold like patents on vaccines, for example.
3:43:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, or insulin.
3:43:02 Robert Evans? This has always been an extremely violent regime that is enforced by Quite like one of the most powerful international bodies that has ever existed. And yeah, if you want to hear more about this, a friend of the show, Vicky Osterweil, released a book called The Extended Universe about how Disney pioneered a whole bunch of this. That, yeah, you should read about because the entire system is just pure violence and always has been.
3:43:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, we have some episodes from years ago that I made about drug IP and evergreening as well.
3:43:35 Robert Evans? Yep.
3:43:35 Speaker 07 And that's a very good point, Mia. Moving on, we learned this week that the F-15E pilot who was shot down over Iran in April had been shot down the week before over Kuwait.
3:43:46 Robert Evans? What?
3:43:50 Speaker 07 Horrible, horrible week.
3:43:53 Robert Evans? You think you've had a bad week at work.
3:43:57 Robert Evans? This person is joining just the list of all timers, like that guy who got nuked at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's that guy who got sunk on four consecutive ships. Is there such thing as a reverse ace? Like if this guy gets shot down three more times, is he like an anti ace?
3:44:11 Speaker 07 If he gets shot down three more times, he ain't going to be able to reach the controls of the plane. Like he's already compressed his spine so much.
3:44:19 Robert Evans? Yeah, I'm surprised. I didn't think they would let them. I didn't think period after getting shot down and ejecting, you would be allowed to fly a plane at all. Like, yeah, quickly.
3:44:29 Speaker 07 I know. I, I was not aware that it was a protocol.
3:44:32 Robert Evans? My understanding is you're not normally supposed to. Like, I don't think this is how normally things would be done, which kind of suggests that there was, like, they didn't have enough pilots.
3:44:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, right. It's kind of remarkable that they were able to get him another F-15 quickly, I guess. But, uh, yeah. Yeah, he probably not flying any more planes for a while.
3:44:49 Robert Evans? I would imagine not.
3:44:50 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean, who knows? Maybe, maybe the F-15s are free, I found, etc.
3:44:55 Robert Evans? Yeah, it sounds like he's just Eating F-15s.
3:44:57 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:44:58 Robert Evans? Anti-aircraft.
3:44:59 Speaker 07 To the desert. Yeah, like, he must, uh, yeah, the desert gods demand an F-15 sacrificed every six days. Marco Rubio in the House has claimed that Afrikaners, we spoke about this last week, right? They're raising the cap to admit Afrikaners as refugees. Afrikaners should be admitted and others not because they, quote, "have a high likelihood of assimilation."
3:45:22 Speaker 06 We have gauged that there is real interest from a unique subset who would be interested to come in the United States and who we assess have a high likelihood of rapid assimilation and success in our society. And hence, this program was created. Now, that's not a program that's going to exist in perpetuity. It's a program that's designed to the fact that we are seeing the demand. We are seeing applications from South Africa, people willing to enter the United States. And we think this is a group of potential refugees.
3:45:47 Speaker 00 So our Afghan allies are refugees. They have been vetted, 1,100 versus this new 17,000.
3:45:57 Speaker 06 But it's more than just vetting. We're also trying to determine, again, is the immigration policy of the United States, like everything we do, has to be geared by the national interest. And it is in our national interest if we are allowing people to enter our country, be people that can quickly assimilate into society and be successful and not become public charges.
3:46:12 Speaker 00 Why can't they assimilate into society?
3:46:14 Speaker 06 A background check is not the same.
3:46:16 Speaker 00 I've been to their centers in my district in Queens. They have assimilated and contribute and pay taxes.
3:46:23 Speaker 06 Yeah, but we've already assumed a lot of Afghan refugees. As you said, you have them in your district. We've already assumed a large number in the past. The point is that the general policy has been to limit the entry of refugees from all over the world and then to create the special track because of a unique circumstance in the short term of a high demand from a number of immigrants that we have determined if they pass the vetting and the checking, we will very quickly assimilate and contribute to our society.
3:46:47 Speaker 07 I think it's really interesting. It's one of the more clear elucidations of the way they see immigration that we've had. Yeah. Like he said, it's not about vetting. It's not about background checks. It's specifically about people who can, quote, unquote, "assimilate."
3:47:02 Speaker 02 I wonder what the economic strata of the Afrikaners getting refugee status are.
3:47:08 Robert Evans? It's in terms of the way that Rubio is looking at it, their economic stride is white, which
3:47:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, I wonder what I wonder what their actual economic stride is. That is an interesting
3:47:17 Robert Evans? Yeah.
3:47:18 Speaker 02 Aspect.
3:47:18 Robert Evans? Like, South Africa is a place where that maps on very, very cleanly.
3:47:22 Speaker 02 Yes.
3:47:22 Robert Evans? A lot of ways, right? Like, that's what I'm saying, right? Like, it's like, yeah, like, definitely a lot.
3:47:28 Speaker 07 Yeah, and I think just having the means to apply for this.
3:47:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, that's
3:47:32 Speaker 07 Yeah. Clearly, like Rubio is saying, like, he's doing this because there is a demand. Let me tell you, there is a demand all over the world. Like, I have seen demand to live in the United States in every continent on the planet, apart from the ones that are covered in ice. This is as clear as you're going to get to them saying, these folks are white, they're coming to America, and we're going to lock out the folks who are not. Like, I thought it was very interesting to see him go right up to that line. Next, I have Medicaid work requirements, work study of volunteering requirements of 80 hours a month will be imposed by the 1st of January for the 40 states who expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act. This is according to a notice published today in the Federal Register, today being Wednesday.
3:48:17 Speaker 07 This will impact millions of Americans, and the speed at which this is being done will also be very hard for state bureaucracies to keep up with, right? We have less than six months for a massive change, and like, the requirement for states to monitor this. It's going to be very difficult for them to retain the stability and pivot to this, and that's going to impact people, whether or not they are working.
3:48:47 Robert Evans? Yeah.
3:48:47 Speaker 07 Which sucks.
3:48:48 Robert Evans? This is something that, like, particularly impacts trans people because there are a shit ton of trans people on Medicaid, and a lot of those people are also disabled, and that's just been an absolute nightmare for them. If you are in a position where you can hire someone for, I think the worker, what's the word, it's like 30 hours a week, I think, is the requirement?
3:49:11 Speaker 07 80 hours a month is the requirement, so it's 20-ish a week.
3:49:15 Robert Evans? Yeah, like, if you're in a position to just hire someone for that, you should do it because That's the difference between these people like having food and not having food.
3:49:26 Speaker 07 Yeah, this is a potential. This will kill people.
3:49:28 Robert Evans? Yeah.
3:49:29 Speaker 07 Like just the just the fuck ups in the bureaucracy, even if people are able to find the work of volunteer or study or whatever.
3:49:35 Robert Evans? Yeah.
3:49:35 Speaker 07 But the delays that that will cause will kill people.
3:49:38 Robert Evans? This is this is also a thing, by the way, that some unions have historically done like I W W has done this, which is like you get like getting people positions to be able to do volunteering.
3:49:47 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:49:48 Robert Evans? And if that's the thing you can do, you should do this because this is a unfathomable humanitarian crisis.
3:49:55 Speaker 07 Yeah.
3:49:55 Robert Evans? For a bunch of the most vulnerable people in the U. S. And yeah.
3:50:01 Robert Evans? It's real bad.
3:50:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's it's not good at all. I think that is a good point, Mia, that like if you're in a place to help people coordinate their volunteering and document that like that was a good. That's a good thing to start thinking about.
3:50:12 Speaker 07 Yeah. So you got any small things?
3:50:14 Speaker 02 Few more small things. Trump signed an executive order to expand A I. Cyber security capabilities and protections. And last Friday, Tulsi Gabbard resigned as Director of National Intelligence. Citing her husband's recent cancer diagnosis. Trump has selected Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte is a Trump loyalist with no intelligence background. And even Republican senators don't seem too keen on this choice. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, quote, "Well, we don't need a weaponized D N. I. We need professionals there.
3:50:54 Speaker 02 If he's somebody they wanted that position permanently, he's got, as you know, a lengthy road ahead of him."
3:51:01 Speaker 07 Let's catch up with the war in Iran. Iran this week hit a commercial vessel with an anti-ship cruise missile in the Persian Gulf, as well as firing at U. S. Facilities and hitting the international airport in Kuwait, or they've killed at least. One person there, this comes as talks are continuing to fail to reach a resolution, at least in part because Israel refuses to stop attacking Lebanon and committing war crimes. Axios is reporting that Trump said in a call to Netanyahu, quote, "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
3:51:40 Speaker 02 Sure.
3:51:41 Speaker 07 In recent days, the IDF has explicitly threatened Beirut and further expanded its ground campaign. Again, right, like this war is now becoming very much a regional thing, has been a regional thing since it started, but like the peace deal is also a regional thing and the fact that Israel refuses to do anything other than exactly what it wants, which seems to be killing more and more people in its neighboring countries, means that it's going to be very hard for this war to come to an end, which is going to have long-term economic consequences for the whole world. NBC has also reported, talking of the whole world, that it was a Chinese manned pad that shot down the F-15E, that's for the
3:52:23 Speaker 07 second time in April, that such equipment, along with long-range radar, was possibly supplied to Iran in the early days of the conflict by China. Obviously, this, this makes any kind of detente with the US and China more difficult, right? And it's not clear if the particular actual manned pads, manned portable air defense system, if people aren't familiar, if the particular service to MSR used had arrived recently or had been in stockpiles for some time, but it appears that China, at least right before or early on in the conflict, was perhaps supplying some air defenses to Iran. Maybe this can explain just a little bit about how the bombing campaign has been relatively unsuccessful
3:53:08 Speaker 07 in its objectives in many ways.
3:53:10 Speaker 02 Let's go on a break and then we could talk about the California elections and the Supreme Court.
3:53:28 Speaker 02 Okay. Elections in California. Why is California like that? What is going on over there?
3:53:36 Speaker 06 It's because I left. It's my fault.
3:53:38 Speaker 07 Yeah, we're all grieving, Sophie.
3:53:41 Robert Evans? That was the last thing holding it together there.
3:53:43 Speaker 06 I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
3:53:46 Speaker 02 Let's start with the LA mayoral race.
3:53:50 Speaker 06 I want to talk about it. It's my duty to talk about this. I would like to talk a bit about Spencer Pratt.
3:53:57 Speaker 02 Who may, may be advancing.
3:53:59 Speaker 06 Who may be advancing, that's what I'm saying. At time of recording, which is Wednesday, June 3rd, at around 3:30 PM Pacific time, Pratt is currently in second place with 30% of the votes. Bass is at 35% and has already been guaranteed to move forward. And Ithiel Rahman is in third with 22%. And like I said, there's 60% of the votes counted. So why the fuck is Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV cast member, I'm not even going to give him star, running for mayor? Pratt grew up in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and lived there until the fires happened. And he and his parents' houses were unfortunately burned down.
3:54:40 Speaker 06 And he started making videos on TikTok, was getting a lot of attention for it, and decided that it was his destiny to, it was his, according to his website, his mission to run for mayor. For his own campaign website. Pratt is a media entrepreneur, questionable, outspoken advocate, depends on who you're talking about, and an emerging political leader. He does have a political science degree from USC, I will say that. But he, he does claim to be Karen Bass's worst nightmare. Now, if you're not a millennial who had television in the late 2000s, you're probably unaware of how unhinged Spencer Pratt is. Here are some highlights.
3:55:21 Robert Evans? Uh, listeners, we apologize for what Sophie's about to make you experience.
3:55:25 Speaker 02 This is a lot of audio, Sophie.
3:55:28 Speaker 06 We need all of it.
3:55:30 Robert Evans? Oh, God.
3:55:31 Speaker 07 Oh, no.
3:55:32 Robert Evans? Just do it, Garrison.
3:55:33 Speaker 02 Are you getting copyright struck?
3:55:35 Speaker 06 We're just do it. Just do it. For me, that was the best, like, I was proud of myself for not doing what I wanted to do to you. Because what I wanted to do and say to you, dear?
3:55:46 Speaker 06 I didn't, because I was praying.
3:55:48 Speaker 02 praying like I do every day to not say the things that I want to say to you, to your mom. No, no, I do, I'm not. That's why, do you see how I'm not saying them?
3:55:56 Speaker 06 Yeah.
3:55:56 Speaker 02 I'm very proud of myself.
3:55:58 Speaker 06 Look like your head's about to explode.
3:55:59 Speaker 02 So, I am sorry if I disrespected you, but I'm very emotional these days. Very, very. So, I say things that I feel.
3:56:08 Speaker 06 I was the one that wanted to kill anybody that would ever talk like that about my sister, and I still would. But that goes for my mom too, and as a family, that's how we all should be.
3:56:17 Speaker 02 Well, I didn't say anything negative about your mom. Your mom is just the vagina that made Heidi come on to earth. Your mom is not Jesus or God or the creator. So why can't I say that? So why can't I say that? Why can't I say that?
3:56:29 Speaker 06 Because you're disrespecting your mother.
3:56:31 Speaker 02 No, it's not. It's my opinion. It's my opinion.
3:56:33 Speaker 06 The Bible says honor thy mother and father. That's one of the ten things.
3:56:35 Speaker 02 Hey, preacher, preacher, this isn't Bible study. This is earth. No one's preaching. No one's preaching. No one's preaching here. This is life.
3:56:45 Speaker 02 You're not her sister, you're not her friend, you're a liar. Now, walk away from these lies, because she's gonna sit here and keep lying to you. You're the biggest poser in this town. You know it, you're gonna burn for it.
3:56:55 Speaker 06 Stop it. Stop it, Spencer.
3:56:56 Speaker 02 I know, I know.
3:56:57 Speaker 06 Spencer, that's so out of line.
3:56:58 Speaker 02 No, I know. She's a f- go back to your real estate job, you f- liar.
3:57:04 Speaker 06 Yeah, that was Spencer talking to his sister-in-law about his mother-in-law.
3:57:08 Speaker 07 Oh, wow.
3:57:09 Speaker 02 But all this is fake. This is all acting. Like, this, this, I don't, this, this doesn't move me at all.
3:57:14 Speaker 06 Half of this is acting, half of this is not acting.
3:57:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, yes, that is, that is how.
3:57:19 Speaker 06 Here, here he is talking to his own sister.
3:57:22 Speaker 07 Okay. Oh, no. We've already cataloged this shit. I'm gonna leave, but I didn't get to say hi. How are you guys? Good, how are you?
3:57:34 Speaker 07 Excellent, how are you?
3:57:39 Speaker 03 What are you crying about, Seventy? What the f**k are you crying about? That's why you're not in my life, you crazy bitch. Because you come do barbecues and just start crying. I was just enjoying myself with my wife and I get crying sisters in front of me?
3:57:52 Speaker 06 She just wanted to say hi.
3:57:53 Speaker 03 But that gets us crying away. What the f**k do I need to do to you?
3:57:59 Speaker 03 Drama, huh? He just ignored me at the party, man!
3:58:08 Speaker 06 What just happened? We're over here having a little conversation and then all of a sudden I got people storming out of here. And I can't even talk right now. I know it's your brother, but he's off his rocker. I don't know what's wrong with him.
3:58:19 Speaker 03 Here I'm talking about my little f**king sister who's not relevant to my life.
3:58:25 Speaker 02 Oh, God. Oh, no.
3:58:27 Robert Evans? Hey.
3:58:28 Speaker 07 I like to fade out.
3:58:29 Speaker 06 And just to say, just to say, she has told people not to vote for her brother in modern times. Just to say.
3:58:37 Robert Evans? That's great. Shacking, shacking stuff.
3:58:38 Speaker 07 Yeah. He seems like he's an even tempered guy.
3:58:41 Speaker 06 Yeah, one last clip, just because I'll, I never want to talk about him again, so I'm gonna get it all out. He's gone so deep on this. I am the managing executive producer of this podcast. Let me have this. Thank you.
3:58:52 Speaker 03 Girl in this club.
3:58:55 Speaker 03 Dude, relax, bro. What the hell is wrong with you? I hate that bitch. Excuse my French. Hey, you're crazy. You're fucking being a weirdo, bro. You just yelled at me very gnarly. I've said the loudest somebody's yelled in my face in three years. I'm over it. I don't want to hear anything other than "You're up in my face, son." Walk away from me before we have a problem. Walk the f**k away.
3:59:18 Speaker 03 God.
3:59:21 Speaker 03 People don't know how dangerous I am. Like, I just really had to, like, hold myself. Smashing his head off, you know, like, this is like...
3:59:34 Speaker 06 Alright.
3:59:34 Speaker 02 So this is, so this is like if, like, Levicula ran for office in, like, ten years.
3:59:40 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:59:40 Speaker 02 Twenty and eighty, but yeah. Twenty years, yeah.
3:59:42 Speaker 06 Yeah. And, and, you know, it's a reality TV show. You're, there's parts of it that are scripted, there's parts of it that are enhanced, there's parts of it. But you can't, you can't fake that fucking vein popping out of his head.
3:59:55 Robert Evans? A lot of it scripted, but you don't get cast, so to speak, to be that kind of character if you're not already a giant asshole, right?
4:00:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's in some ways less explicitly scripted than like WWE. But you you fall into certain roles because that's what you are getting paid to. Like that is your job is contingent on performing this kind of real, not real thing. And I honestly, you know, like the sort of like, like I O L streamer thing is a very similar version of that for the contemporary age. And so it really, there was, there was one specific like, like line there that really reminded me of like, one of, one of Clivica Killer's like on camera meltdowns. I'm like, oh, this is really just if, what if you had a guy like that just run for office? Yeah, for like the mayor of whatever city in like 20 years. Yeah.
4:00:40 Speaker 06 Yeah, well, I want to talk a little bit about his campaign style. He shared this, this video on X, the everything app. And it got millions and millions of views with people saying it's the best campaign video of all time. And so we're gonna play it for you now.
4:00:54 Speaker 02 Oh, no.
4:00:56 Speaker 07 There's more of him than I've ever seen.
4:00:58 Speaker 02 This is the Batman one.
4:01:00 Speaker 06 Mm hmm.
4:01:00 Speaker 07 I haven't seen this.
4:01:02 Speaker 02 To be clear, he did not make this video.
4:01:04 Speaker 06 He did not make this. He shared it and he, he's big on the AI sharing video trend.
4:01:10 Speaker 02 Yes.
4:01:10 Speaker 06 His website is, is filled with it. Yeah.
4:01:12 Speaker 07 There have been a lot of AI videos in LA races time.
4:01:16 Speaker 02 There's been a lot of these LA election, like Batman videos.
4:01:20 Speaker 07 Yes.
4:01:20 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:01:22 Speaker 02 Let's, I guess, let's watch this one.
4:01:24 Speaker 06 Sure, until, until we get bored with it. Yeah.
4:01:30 Speaker 07 Wait, hang on. Just, just break that down. Yeah.
4:01:33 Speaker 02 I think this makes sense to watch a little bit, then pause and talk.
4:01:36 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah.
4:01:37 Robert Evans? Yeah, we have to explain first, we start with the entire Hollywood sign aflame.
4:01:43 Speaker 02 And the next thing you see is these, these goons dressed in all black tactical gear with white text that says DSA, which is.
4:01:55 Speaker 02 One of the best things I've ever seen. What my favorite part about this video.
4:01:59 Robert Evans? Yes, the paramilitary DSA forces in Los Angeles.
4:02:04 Speaker 02 And then it goes into this sort of Dark Knight Rises, like courtroom.
4:02:07 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:02:07 Speaker 06 Karen Bass in the middle.
4:02:09 Speaker 02 Except Karen Bass has Joker makeup on.
4:02:11 Speaker 06 And Kamala Harris is, I think, drinking alcohol on one side and that's Newsom.
4:02:16 Speaker 07 She's like, straight from the bottle, too.
4:02:18 Robert Evans? I'll say too, I think there's a little bit of district fucking.
4:02:22 Speaker 06 Hunger Games?
4:02:22 Robert Evans? The Hunger Games.
4:02:23 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:02:24 Robert Evans? The Hunger Games capital in that design, too.
4:02:26 Speaker 06 Pan Am.
4:02:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, and Gavin Newsom's in like, you know, like.
4:02:31 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:02:31 Speaker 02 Aristocratic garb.
4:02:33 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:02:33 Speaker 07 Okay, that's Gavin, okay.
4:02:38 Speaker 06 Please, I'm begging you. There's homeless drug addicts in front of the schools. My children aren't safe.
4:02:46 Speaker 04 Look, if you were a transgender migrant, I could get you a free pussy.
4:02:49 Speaker 02 All right.
4:02:50 Speaker 07 Wow.
4:02:51 Robert Evans? Wow.
4:02:53 Speaker 06 I know.
4:02:55 Robert Evans? Holy shit.
4:02:57 Speaker 07 Holy shit, I'm fascinated by what we've got here.
4:03:00 Robert Evans? Amazing.
4:03:00 Speaker 02 James, have you not seen this before?
4:03:02 Speaker 07 Absolutely not.
4:03:03 Robert Evans? No, I haven't seen this either.
4:03:05 Speaker 02 I shared this video in our work chat like, like a month and a half.
4:03:08 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah.
4:03:09 Robert Evans? No shit, I have seen it, oh god. I, I didn't watch it.
4:03:13 Speaker 07 I gotta control my exposure to this shit. It's made me very angry. So we now have a marionette of like a Latina.
4:03:19 Speaker 06 Mythia ramen.
4:03:20 Speaker 07 Okay.
4:03:21 Robert Evans? God, yeah, that makes sense.
4:03:23 Speaker 02 But no, this is like DSA people, DSA thugs in tactical gear, like pushing people around.
4:03:27 Robert Evans? Yeah, they throw the woman on the ground who's complaining about, yeah, the homeless drug addicts. I think we're good.
4:03:33 Speaker 02 It's, it's all that kind of stuff, like it's.
4:03:35 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:03:36 Speaker 06 Whatever, there's like a fake Batman scene, they ask for Spencer, Spencer in a fake Batman costume, blah, blah, blah.
4:03:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, Spencer Pratt is Batman, that's what, that's Spencer Pratt's Batman.
4:03:47 Speaker 06 Yes, you know, that's the kind of stuff they're sharing and, you know, one of the biggest things he's run on is that his house was burned down and he was, didn't have a place to live and he claimed that he was living in a, a trailer on the property where his house used to be. And then it turned out that he was actually not staying in that trailer, but he was staying at the Hotel Bel Air, which is one of the nicest hotels in Los Angeles.
4:04:11 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:04:11 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, I bet.
4:04:12 Speaker 06 And in response to, to that, he made this video.
4:04:18 Speaker 03 Wow.
4:04:28 Robert Evans? Oh, God. Oh, God.
4:04:30 Speaker 02 I don't want to.
4:04:31 Robert Evans? Get me. Get. No, no, no.
4:04:34 Speaker 06 You get the picture, though.
4:04:35 Robert Evans? No.
4:04:35 Speaker 06 Millions of views, millions of views and and this like weird rogue, no, no qualification, political candidate thing is working. People are like, we need a change. And I'm for the BBC in terms of fundraising during the race. Pratt has blown away the other two. And he raised $2.7 million between April 19th and May 16th. That's nearly 10 times what Bass, a longtime politician, raised in the same period and approximately seven times what Nithya Raman raised.
4:05:09 Speaker 07 I mean, no one likes Bass, right? It's the other thing, right? The Democrats have like doubled down on doing exactly the same shit they've been doing for decades across California.
4:05:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's this like feckless, moderate liberalism.
4:05:21 Speaker 07 Yeah, like castor oil libs would be how I'd describe the Democrats.
4:05:25 Speaker 06 Yeah, and just to say like Nithya Raman did enter the, the race late and she is far, far left from Karen Bass. So we're seeing that. But the thing that's really interesting to me about this is there's 9.69 million people in LA County. And, you know, I, I'm comparing it to what I think will probably be about what it'll be for 2026. But in 2022, you know, Karen Bass got 278,000 votes. Rick Caruso only got 232,000 votes. And Kevin DeLeón only got 50,000 votes. Out of 9.69 million people, that's the amount of people that actually voted in the primary in 2022. And it's, and it's looking to be very similar for 2026.
4:06:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, maybe even a little bit lower.
4:06:09 Speaker 06 I mean, I agree. I think it might be a little bit lower.
4:06:11 Speaker 02 Not only has 150,000 votes, but he's, he's in second place.
4:06:15 Speaker 06 But he's in second place. Yeah.
4:06:16 Robert Evans? Again, this is interesting because you're seeing higher than, and a lot of places, higher than average turnout. And I think part of why is just because most people voting know that like, with both the California mayor and gubernatorial elections, the likeliest outcome is like someone who isn't the worst possible choice, but isn't going to like make things better. Like LA is not going to have a good mayor. Most people are fairly confident of that. And so there's just not a lot of.
4:06:43 Speaker 02 There's not, I don't think people are very motivated because they feel like what the fuck is the point of caring about this, you know? And I don't, I'm not saying that's the right way to look at it. I'm just saying that that's what I think is part of what's going on here.
4:06:55 Speaker 07 Yeah, like I know, like just from the discourse around San Diego, like people, they're tired of being shamed into vote for like some mediocre ass candidate who will just give all their money to the cops like the last five mayors have done.
4:07:09 Speaker 06 Yeah, we're going to keep seeing these kind of candidates. It's going to become a regular thing. We even have, you know, Jersey Shore star, Mike the Situation Sarantino saying he's thinking about running for New Jersey governor. I hate this trend. This trend sucks. And in the, the words of Lauren Conrad, he's a sucky person. He's a sucky person. I hate Spencer. I'm never going to like Spencer. Please don't make him your mayor of Los Angeles. Do better. He's awful. He's horrific. He hates unhoused people. Terrible person. No, bad, shame. I'm done. I hope to never have to talk about this person ever again.
4:07:45 Speaker 02 Yeah. But in case people don't know, the, the two top winners of the LA mayoral primary advanced to a runoff. So Bass is going to be there. She is, she is in the lead. And right now it is between Pratt and Ramon. And Pratt's lead in second place has been sliding as more and more votes come in. But as of Wednesday afternoon, he's still in second. As for governor,
4:08:08 Speaker 07 Yeah.
4:08:09 Speaker 02 Steve Hilton, Republican, is in the number one spot with 1.3, almost 1.4 million votes as of Wednesday afternoon. Sarah is in number two with 25% of the vote. Tom Steyer is in number three with almost 20% of the vote. And this is about 55% of the vote in. Sarah is a former Biden cabinet member, Health and Human Services Secretary.
4:08:37 Speaker 07 Yeah.
4:08:37 Speaker 02 So more of kind of moderate liberal Steyer, Steyer, the more progressive candidate. But it seems because he is a billionaire that did in some ways affect like enthusiasm to vote for him on the Democratic side.
4:08:50 Speaker 07 Yeah.
4:08:51 Speaker 02 There's another Republican candidate who's in fourth place with over half a million votes.
4:08:55 Speaker 06 But again, the amount of votes that are actually happening compared to the amount of people. Is insane. It's so low.
4:09:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's really bad.
4:09:06 Speaker 07 There's a massive field of candidates, but no one really captured the imagination of people here. No one would intuit the hashtag for this.
4:09:14 Speaker 02 No.
4:09:14 Speaker 07 I guess I can cover a couple of small San Diego things quickly. San Diego Measure A. Measure A was a tax on second homes defined as unoccupied for the majority of the year.
4:09:25 Speaker 02 Heat a tear.
4:09:26 Speaker 07 Yeah, it uh, it looks like it's going down.
4:09:28 Speaker 02 It's sweeping the nation. Oh, it's not sweeping. Sorry.
4:09:31 Speaker 07 Yeah, unfortunately not. Like it's uh, I mean, there is nothing that unites San Diegans more than hating tourists. But I think you have this interesting alliance of like boomer homeowners thinking this will mess with their property prices and generally not wanting to pay taxes.
4:09:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:09:47 Speaker 07 And people who understand that any money we give to our city is just going to go directly to the cops.
4:09:53 Speaker 02 Where do you get that idea from? That that is a sentiment among the people who voted for this? Like, is this like demonstrated anywhere?
4:09:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, like if you go, if you look on social media, right, like uh, let's say San Diego, Nextdoor, Reddit, etc., right? And then from meetings, like, we've had discussions within unions I'm part of, like. So if you look at what our city is doing right now, it's slashing the arts budget, it's slashing the parks budget.
4:10:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:10:16 Speaker 07 It's slashing everything apart from the police budget, which is continuing to increase, right? Most notably in San Diego, they have started to try and charge for parking at the park and at the beach and on major thoroughfares, which like. Charging San Diegans to go to the beach is the most radicalizing thing that any politician could ever do. It's incredibly stupid as a revenue generating measure. Like people have, people have vandalized parking machines in very bushy neighborhoods, uh, because this is just like so offensive to people. And I think there's like just a growing disgust with our mayor. And then like the idea that giving them any more money would result in better outcomes for people just isn't gonna fly anymore, if that makes sense.
4:11:01 Speaker 07 Like they've, they've done all these revenue generating measures.
4:11:04 Speaker 02 It's like a loss, loss in faith that any revenue will actually just go towards improving their like standard of living.
4:11:11 Speaker 07 Our city spent, I think, a hundred million on a building filled with asbestos, which is worth less money than the land would be if the building wasn't on it. And from years and years tried to kind of play political football with the fact that they bought a cancer tower, like.
4:11:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:11:25 Speaker 07 There's a reason that San Diego is sometimes referred to as Enron by the sea. And I think folks are kind of having enough of it. They're reissuing Under the Perfect Sun for folks who want to read more about San Diego politics.
4:11:39 Speaker 02 This sort of like alliance between like small capital, you know, people who don't want to pay for a tax on the second home. That alliance with people who've like lost faith in C services, right? Who are going to oppose oppose funding because they don't think it's actually like worthwhile. That's an interesting coalition of the modern moment.
4:11:56 Speaker 07 Right, yeah, yeah. And it's definitely like a creation of, specifically in California, right? This idea that we don't get to choose, basically, we're going to get a Democrat and that Democrat will just do whatever they want. It's made that position very appealing to people, I guess. Moving on from California, I do want to mention just briefly that Sam Forstag won the Democrat primary for Montana's House District. This is really interesting. He's a progressive union organizer. He used to be a smoke jumper, Forest Service firefighter. He is one of those folks who was like, I guess his entry into national politics came from Doge. Doge was cutting all these guys, like GS2 people, right? People, people at the Forest Service, people at these big public lands management agencies,
4:12:39 Speaker 07 who are making, barely making a living.
4:12:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:12:42 Speaker 07 And who have struggled for a long time in places like Bozeman, right? Where the second homeowners have driven up the prices significantly. That sort of pathway to progressive politics is one that's very interesting to me and one I want to do a lot more reporting on. But I thought it was a positive sign to see him winning that primary.
4:12:59 Speaker 02 Speaking of elections, before we go on break, I do want to talk about the Supreme Court, following up on a story from last week. Last week, our final segment on the show was on the five-year battle in Alabama over two different House maps, or technically three, but the Republican ones were very similar. It was about these Republican drawn maps that have only one black majority district and a court ordered map that has two. Following the Supreme Court's weakening of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, late last month, a federal district court ruled that the GOP drawn map in Alabama intentionally discriminated based on race. And diluted the voting power of black Alabamas. So they placed an injunction on that map and ordered the state to use the court approved
4:13:43 Speaker 02 map that was already in use in previous elections for the upcoming primaries. This ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court, who on Tuesday night overruled a district court issuing a four-page unsigned shadow docket ruling, allowing Alabama to use the GOP map that eliminates a black majority or a black opportunity district. Supreme Court said that the state is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims. Quote, "At this preliminary stage, the state has shown that it is entitled to interim relief from the district court's injunction," unquote. So this is the first time the Supreme Court has evaluated another court's interpretation
4:14:24 Speaker 02 of their Louisiana ruling, and in this case, the Supreme Court is saying the district court got it wrong. In the updated rules for Section 2, as a part of the Louisiana ruling, in order to succeed in arguing a Section 2 violation, plaintiffs have to submit an alternative map that must, quote, "meet all the state's legitimate districting objectives just as well as the state's own map, including, quote unquote, 'the state's specified political goals and any other goal not prohibited by the Constitution.'" Yeah. So the alternative map that plaintiffs need to submit when challenging a map based
4:15:05 Speaker 02 on Section 2 has to have the same partisan goals represented, is what these updated rules in the Louisiana ruling said, and Supreme Court said that this was not followed by the district court's ruling. Section 2 challenges must also, quote, "provide an analysis that controls for party affiliation" and, quote, "show that voters engage in racial block voting that cannot be explained by partisan affiliation," unquote. So basically, the Supreme Court claimed that the district court ordered map fails to do all this by not maintaining the state's, quote, "constitutionally permissible community of interest on the Gulf Coast."
4:15:48 Speaker 02 By cutting into a section of the Gulf Coast in the Black Opportunity District, also failing to avoid contests between incumbents. The Supreme Court said that the district court's ruling, quote, "departed from the updated standards set in the Louisiana ruling," quote, "as to intentional vote dilution, the district court did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith because it interpreted the state's legal disagreement with the court's earlier remedial order as proof of discriminatory animus," unquote. SCOTUS is basically saying that just because it was definitively demonstrated to Alabama
4:16:27 Speaker 02 Republicans that their map had a discriminatory effect, and then they pass it anyway, that itself does not qualify as intent. So showing, quote, "intent" is effectively impossible, like, at this point, because maps can be sliced up like crazy and they can just do that based on party. And this is what the Supreme Court is saying, quote, "The district court also failed to follow our instructions, that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns," unquote. This was specifically the thing I was most curious about, is if this idea that the district
4:17:10 Speaker 02 court wrote, if this idea that showing someone that their map is doing discrimination, if you show someone that and then they pass it anyway, does that prove that that person then had intent because they knew it was discriminatory? And the Supreme Court is saying, no, that does not, that does not actually show intent. That is the main way that the Supreme Court has overruled the district court ruling. They also argue that the district court meddled in the state election too close to the primary, even though it's actually the Supreme Court ruling that is greenlighting this redistricting midway through the primary process. But that's kind of the added on at the very end of the four-page unsigned shadow docket ruling.
4:17:51 Speaker 03 The macro-level implication of this is that the Voting Rights Act is unenforceable. Like, the parts of the Voting Rights Act that are supposed to protect from literally this specific thing, this specific thing of intentionally dilution.
4:18:05 Speaker 04 Alluding black people's votes so that they can't elect candidates was the Jim Crow practice that this part of
4:18:11 Robert Evans? Yep.
4:18:11 Speaker 04 Of the Voting Rights Act was specifically designed to do and you can't do that anymore. It is just the Supreme Court has decided that this part of the Voting Rights Act doesn't exist.
4:18:21 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:18:21 Speaker 04 And they've decided this because they want to, they think they want to do racist gerrymandering so Republicans can win elections. And that's, I don't know, I mean, like arguably the death of multiracial, like any semblance of multiracial democracy in the US, which is not great.
4:18:37 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:18:38 Speaker 04 I don't know. It's, it's really, really bad.
4:18:42 Robert Evans? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's what they've been working for, for decades, right? It's what Yarvin's always talking about, right? It's repealing the 20th century, you know, like that's, that has been the goal for a very long time. And they see this as one of the most important steps towards doing that.
4:18:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is pretty devastating.
4:18:59 Speaker 02 I think there is a way to do, I think, some more in-depth analysis like on this topic. That might have to be in the future.
4:19:06 Speaker 04 Yeah. I mean, I did, I did a full episode on this like a couple of weeks ago.
4:19:10 Speaker 02 I mean, specifically the way that the interpretation in the Shadow Duckett ruling, how it clarifies certain things like, you know, just because statistically different races may vote for different parties. That does not actually prove racially polarized voting pattern. Like there's, there's certain things here that we can do a lot more analysis of. And like in terms of proving intent, a lot of states don't even need to do like mustache twirling. I'm going to look at race maps and draw it based on race maps. They can just draw based on party affiliation. And that is going to get the party, the actual effect, right? Cause these maps are passed by the party that's in control of the state legislature. And they want to maintain power with their party. So that's going to be the most effective way to do that.
4:19:55 Speaker 02 And if they just do that, then there's, leaves very little ground for these maps to be challenged on any sorts of racial grounds, even if there is racial discrimination as an effect, right? And this, this was the biggest change of the Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana. It was Alito, right? Who, who technically wrote that one?
4:20:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
4:20:12 Speaker 02 But being like, like we are in a different place, we are in a Different social, social place now than when the Voting Rights Act was passed. And so therefore, we are, we are going to update these rules accordingly. Even though literally, you know, three years ago, the Supreme Court was ruling in the opposite way in Alabama, in a very similar situation. The change in those few years is very stark. And this is all goes downstream from the ruling in 2019 that specifically allows partisan gerrymandering. Because there's no law in the United States disallowing that. So like the Supreme Court is like, we cannot make a new law by saying this isn't allowed. Because there's just no law on the books. So if legislation wants to pass laws against that, then they can.
4:20:53 Speaker 02 But we cannot disallow partisan gerrymandering in the courts effectively. Because there's no law preventing it. Yeah. And it's worth keeping in mind that the, the specific standard in the Voting Rights Act literally says effects, which was specifically an effects based test and not an interpretation or like not a like proving intent test. And the Supreme Court was just like, no, fuck you. So that, that's sort of just where we are now legally is that they're just making up what they think the test should be and making everyone else follow that.
4:21:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, three, three justices did dissent in this recent ruling, sort of more Kagan and Jackson. They wrote, quote, "Before the court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election held under a tried and tested congressional map that protects black Alabamans right to vote and with which all voters, election officials and candidates alike are familiar. Down the other lies a chaotic election held under a never before used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against black Alabamans that Alabama adopted in unabashed defiance of a prior court order directly affirmed by this court. And that will require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters in just days at best.
4:22:08 Speaker 02 A task Alabama previously represented would take months. The majority chooses the second path and disregards both democratic values and the rule of law. I respectfully dissent."
4:22:21 Speaker 02 We'll go on a break now and conclude with one more, one more section of this.
4:22:38 Speaker 02 And we are back. So, all right, we need to talk about a fairly obscure bureaucratic rule change that is being rushed out by the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, which is where, it's the like management bureaucracy office that's currently headed by like one of the guys who wrote Project 2025. This change that they are proposing right now is effectively the formalization of all of the sort of Doge cuts and then sort of post-Doge departmental cuts of grants from the US government. The way this is largely
4:23:23 Speaker 02 being covered right now, and I understand why we're going to run through that one first, is that this is effectively the death of American science, because one of, one of the things that this does, it's like a 400-page document, one of the early sections of it is that instead of the current system where grants, grants for scientific projects go before a peer review committee of scientists that are usually independent, and then those scientists give their recommendations to the department on whether or not this is a good use of funds, and then the department executes those recommendations, right? So grants, grants are determined by scientific, by a scientific peer review process. This
4:24:04 Speaker 02 kills that and says that instead of, the way that it has worked, which is that agencies adopt the recommendations of it, this has not been how it works. Formally, like it hasn't been a legal stipulation that this is how it works, but this is just literally how all science has worked since World War II, basically with the exception of the McCarthy era, is that these independent committees do the review of the grant and the federal agencies submit the grants. Instead of that, the heads of federal agencies will appoint one person who will individually look through every single grant and approve or deny them. So this is the formalization of the Doge process. This is the administration basically centralizing control of the entire scientific grant process.
4:24:49 Speaker 02 And this actually turns out, it turns out is for all grants, which we'll get to in a second. But what this means is that instead of, again, like scientific peer review being the thing that decides what science gets funding, it's now political appointees. And specifically, Trump administration political appointees, there are a whole, in this ruling, there are a whole bunch of absolutely, or not this ruling, the proposed change. There is just a bunch of just absolutely unhinged screeds about the US anti-AIDS programs turning into woke left mobs in Africa that support like gender politics and stuff. I sound very incoherent explaining that.
4:25:32 Speaker 02 I swear to God, I am more coherent than actually reading out the quote. It's just, it's completely unhinged, like weird right wing conspiracy stuff for like half of it and half of it is like extremely technical budget change stuff. I know that in the Doge stuff, this has been talking about like, you know, sexual health clinics in like a country in Africa that's supported by the US government, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're pulling all these examples and then just like screaming stuff about how they're like abortion centers and, you know, like doing like genital mutilation or whatever. There's been some good reporting on this by Elizabeth Jenexy, who used to do like program reviews for the NIH.
4:26:10 Speaker 04 NIH before a lot of things, including this administration, took over. This is effectively the centralization of all of the grants given up by the US government, right? And if we remember, if we think back to like the early days of Doge, right? Where you'd find these giant lists of grants that they'd gone through and just cut. And they had absolutely no legal authority to do that. They just did it. Yeah. This is the formalization of that process, right? This is, this is, this is setting up the bureaucratic apparatus to allow just one random griper they've like hired and stashed off in a room and like NIH or something to just go through and cut whatever grants they want. They also have the power to terminate grants that have already been given out at will.
4:26:55 Speaker 04 There's other even weirder things where they're also very paranoid about like scientific collaboration with other countries, which is just the basis of how all science is done. There's like restricted countries effectively where you can't collaborate with scientists from those countries. Which even by US standards is like not how things work. That's like messed up by the standards of like American foreign policy.
4:27:24 Speaker 04 And then also, if you are doing any collaboration with any scientist from a, from another country and there's money involved in it, that grant has to be individually approved by like this person that they've set up. So this makes scientific collaboration effectively impossible. Right? Because most of those things aren't going to happen because this is going to, you know, reproduce the sort of Doge bottlenecks that we saw where suddenly all these grants are disappearing, even ones that would eventually get approved. The people who were supposed to be getting them are completely screwed because their reliance on that grant coming in in order to do their research. And the pivot in control of, of how, how these grants are being given out from people who are at the very least scientists
4:28:07 Speaker 04 to, you know, just the people who are currently running the NIH, who are like RFK Jr. Right? It's those kinds of people who are going to be running these kinds of grants. And they are going to be Able to do damage to this that
4:28:26 Speaker 04 is quite frankly incalculable.
4:28:29 Speaker 04 This is the destruction of the entire system of American science. Like almost like it vast, vast percentages of all the science in the US is done off of government grants. Either it's either it's done by like the NIH or like by by government institutions. Or not entirely all, but a huge portion of science is done at research universities, which is again how like most science happens is also supported by these grants. And if we're in this situation now where all of these grants are again, going through one person who is like solely motivated by political factors as to whether or not they're going to approve this, which is what the system media attempting to set up. This is the death of American science.
4:29:10 Speaker 04 And it's worse than that, too, because and this is the thing where I'm going to do a full episode about this next week because there are a lot more implications, but the section of rules that's being changed here by by the Office of Management and Budget, this is not the section for the grant allocation for science, right? This is the section for all grants given out by the US by the US government. So for example, Medicaid.
4:29:33 Speaker 07 Oh, wow. That's huge.
4:29:35 Speaker 04 Yeah. So all of that is now subject to this stuff, right? Like disaster aid.
4:29:39 Speaker 07 Yeah.
4:29:40 Speaker 04 You know, like any money the government is giving out. Right? That this going through the grant system is now going through this process. Yeah, there's, I think, public comment on this ends July 7. So I guess if you want to scream at them, that's technically possible. It's really not clear if democratic politicians are going to actually try to substantively do something to stop this, which there's no direct legal mechanism for them to stop this. They could do another government shutdown or something.
4:30:12 Speaker 07 Right.
4:30:13 Speaker 04 But yeah, this is, this is just sort of the state of things, which is that a lot and a lot of this stuff has already been happening. It's worth saying, right? Like a lot of these funding for everything from like vaccine programs to like the very small.
4:30:27 Speaker 02 To help research that was going in trans healthcare or like queer healthcare in general. Like those grants are just gone and you know, we've already seen a whole bunch of chaos from the interruption of the grant system on the sort of university level for scientists. But this is all just going to get significantly worse as this real change rolls out.
4:30:45 Speaker 07 Yeah.
4:30:46 Speaker 02 Yeah. So on, on that happy note.
4:30:49 Speaker 07 Last week, the former chief patrol agent for the El Centro sector and also commander of Border Patrol's operation at large Gregory Bovino. Took to X, the everything app to announce that he was on his way to Delaney Hall. Wasn't exactly clear why, because Bovino is no longer a serving law enforcement officer. In fact, he was on route to a remigration summit in Portugal. At the conference Bovino joined politicians from Fox and Afde. They spoke sort of behind closed doors. Journalists who wanted to cover the event had to stay in a car park outside where they were harassed by a drone.
4:31:30 Speaker 07 He's not listed on the website, but it's like a sort of mystery speaker and I'm guessing that that was him, right? Remigration, if people aren't familiar, we're going to do a whole episode on this next week, but the, the website for the conference sets it out as a set of fiscal, cultural, economic, social, political and logistical policies. Whose objective is to prevent population replacement through the reversal of migratory flows. It is very explicitly about undocumented, documented and naturalized people. It's not about following the law. It is explicitly racial. It's about race, ethnicity, religion, and the idea of like national purity and cleansing the nation of people who it considers not to be pure. If you think this is something that has maybe happened before in European history, you would not be alone.
4:32:12 Speaker 07 Greg Bovino took the chance to compare himself to Rommel in one interview.
4:32:17 Speaker 02 Great.
4:32:17 Speaker 07 Also compared himself to T Lawrence and Patton, which is a fairly remarkable set of.
4:32:23 Speaker 02 Rommel and Patton. Yes.
4:32:26 Speaker 07 Yeah, rightly without, without skipping a beat. Maybe he's one of those guys who's like a clean, fair marked guy. He also sort of, it was interesting, like I said, I'm going to break. More next week. I think what was more interesting than like Greg Bovino talks to Nazis about Nazi shit, which like, come on, what, what, what, what does one expect? Is the way he talked about stuff in terms of like the role he sees Border Patrol having. He referred to them, he said, they are often referred to as the federal law enforcement Marine Corps. The Border Patrol can operate anywhere in the United States and associated territories and simultaneously fulfill all enforcement missions. It goes on, he goes on to talk about them. He says that they are the only organization capable of planning and executing this type of operation.
4:33:12 Speaker 07 He's not wrong. They are the only agency that could do something like a mass deportation campaign like we're seeing. But like this, this Marine Corps of the, of the internal Marine Corps is interesting, right? That is how they have been used, especially by the Trump administration, right? Think of Portland in 2020, right? Like, yep, these are the government's goons.
4:33:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:33:31 Speaker 07 Like when they need a hit squad to fuck people up, this is who they go to.
4:33:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:33:34 Speaker 07 Yeah. And that identity is something that Bovino at Al have clearly embraced, right? Bovino was in Bortak, not, not extremely recently, but he has points in his career been in Bortak. He also kind of tried to, to set distance between BP and ICE, which is interesting. He called them, he said, the Newark fiasco last night in New Jersey illustrates what happens when untrained investigators are sent to handle a situation that is a responsibility of uniformed specialists. He's there suggesting that the ICE employees lacked the, the necessary training to do what I guess they would call crowd control.
4:34:10 Speaker 02 Which, which is really funny because that's also the Democrats' line.
4:34:14 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah.
4:34:15 Speaker 02 Stuff inside that. It's like, oh no, these people aren't trained well enough.
4:34:19 Speaker 07 Yeah. Well, his line is therefore like turn it over to the people who are well trained enough so we can fuck them up. Which I guess is also kind of what the Democrats were. It's not, not a million miles apart.
4:34:30 Speaker 07 Bovino has also been doing some right wing podcasts, one on a Border Hawk podcast, where he appeared seemingly from his office. Behind him, he had a shadow box. Does anyone want to hazard a guess what was in the shadow box?
4:34:43 Robert Evans? Military memorabilia.
4:34:45 Speaker 07 Of a certain kind, yeah.
4:34:46 Robert Evans? Is it German?
4:34:47 Speaker 07 Nazi crosses. It is contemporary. It pertains to his career.
4:34:52 Robert Evans? That's good. Is it his, one of his challenge coins that he got from fucking Chicago or wherever?
4:34:58 Speaker 07 They're probably smart enough not to put their challenge coins on public display anywhere.
4:35:02 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:35:03 Speaker 07 No, it's a bunch of left lethal grenades.
4:35:04 Robert Evans? Ah, okay, of course.
4:35:06 Speaker 07 Great. Like the thing with which I guess he wishes to be associated.
4:35:10 Robert Evans? I have a lot of those at my house, too. The used ones.
4:35:14 Speaker 07 It's just like taking pride in being the guy who's stamped down harder on the First Amendment than anyone has in recent history. Cool. He's also been very critical of current DHS leadership, right? After Bovino and Noem took to the national media to lie about Alex Prety in the hours after Alex Prety died, they both became too toxic even for this administration. And he clearly has some hard feelings about this.
4:35:38 Speaker 03 He mentioned the 20 million figure. My figure's 100 million, his is 20 million. Now, let's take a look at that number, Dan. So we've got, by Tom Holman's estimate, 20 million illegal aliens. If that's the case, then he's already arrested 1/10 of all illegal aliens present in the United States. Do you see that with your eyes on the streets? Do I see that with my eyes on the streets? If it's really going that good, a 10th of all illegal aliens, and they're all illegal aliens, they're not immigrants or anything else, illegal aliens, a 10th, if there were a 10th already deported, the rest would be buttoned up tighter than you can imagine. Those lying southbound for self deportation
4:36:23 Speaker 03 would be out the door. That's not happening.
4:36:25 Robert Evans? This is really interesting.
4:36:27 Speaker 07 Yeah, we'll go into this in our specific episode. The way he arrives at that number is through the number of traffic delays in Charlotte, North Carolina during the Border Patrol operation there.
4:36:38 Robert Evans? What?
4:36:39 Speaker 07 This is the evidence he cites. Yeah.
4:36:42 Robert Evans? Okay.
4:36:43 Speaker 07 It's fascinating. Like, he talks about how he thinks the number is higher because of his time at Border Patrol, right?
4:36:48 Speaker 02 He may think there is like 100 million illegal immigrants.
4:36:51 Speaker 07 He believes this in his, yeah, like, deep down in, yeah, like,
4:36:56 Speaker 02 Interesting.
4:36:56 Speaker 07 Yeah, this is 100% what he believes, and he wants to deport that many people.
4:37:01 Robert Evans? Yeah, I don't know if that he believes there's that many people who are illegal in the way.
4:37:05 Speaker 07 Yeah, but he doesn't differentiate.
4:37:07 Robert Evans? Or he's just considering everyone who is not, you know, white here. Yeah.
4:37:12 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, he, he, he did differentiate in this video, which is interesting. He, he, he did.
4:37:17 Robert Evans? No, no, no, that's not what that meant, but yeah.
4:37:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:37:20 Robert Evans? He was making the case that anyone Border Patrol goes after, after is an illegal alien, I think.
4:37:26 Speaker 02 I mean, that, but that's not what he said.
4:37:28 Robert Evans? Well, I mean, what he said was the term that you should use for these people is illegal aliens, not migrants or something like he, he does not like that. A lot of folks think it's wrong to refer to a human being as illegal. That's specifically what he's saying. Like, he's not making a deeper point than that. But I do think his belief is that that 100 million number includes a lot of people who were, for example, naturalized, or who were made citizens through, like, jusoli, which we've seen, like, he thinks should go away, and so does the administration.
4:37:55 Speaker 07 Yeah, or indeed, like, people on visas, right?
4:37:58 Robert Evans? Yes. Well, but I mean, more like, like, if, if you're, if you want to get to 100 million, you're, you're deporting people who are just non-white. Like, you can't, there aren't 100 million, like, natural, like.
4:38:08 Speaker 02 But, but it's, it sounds like he just believes there is, like, way more undocumented immigrants in the United States than what there actually is. Like, that is
4:38:16 Speaker 07 Yes, he does.
4:38:17 Speaker 02 in this short clip, but that is what he's, like, referring to.
4:38:19 Robert Evans? In part because he believes a lot of people who everyone else would consider legally immigrating have not. Like, that is part of why he's saying that. Now, there's also a belief that, like, the, that the government's lying to you about how many of them there are. There's vastly more. But part of it is he does not believe a lot of the ways that people become citizens who are not white are, are legitimate. Like, that is an aspect of what he's saying.
4:38:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, he, he spoke about this at length in his interview, right? He was saying how many people he'd seen, he talks about whole villages in Mexico coming across the border. Like, lots of this is fairly familiar rhetoric, right? And I can, I'm just scrolling down here if I can find his, his 100 million claim. A 100 million, Pew researchers figure hasn't changed since the 1970s, he said. He says 30 years ago, illegal immigrants were absent from large portions of American territory. I don't know where he's getting that information. He said he began seriously examining these numbers in 2008. He then says that around 2006, he found some information from Bear Stearns, that's a bank, they're like an investment bank, I think.
4:39:25 Speaker 07 He claims that drove his number. He saw an uninterrupted flow of illegal immigrants across the border without any internal application capable of producing mass expulsions from 2006 to 2026. Our borders were nothing but speed bumps. Illegals and smugglers knew that once they crossed the border, they were virtually safe from any consequences. Of course, that does include Trump's first term. But then he, he goes on to cite these bizarre statistics, like, I'll just, I'll give you the Charlotte traffic example. One of the indicators that we're looking at is commuting times. For these times to be considered, quote unquote, good, between 15 and 20% of commuters must be taken off the road. In Charlotte, there are 153,000 commuters per day approximately. As soon as we launched Operation Charlotte's Web, travel times did not move into the good
4:40:09 Speaker 07 category, they moved into the excellent category. Estimates indicated that 30% or more of commuters were no longer traveling. This means that at least 30% of them were most likely illegal immigrants. That is a logical leap. Yeah. Across the grand canyon of logic.
4:40:24 Speaker 04 Jesus Christ.
4:40:25 Robert Evans? Yeah, I've read that that's how he's calculated, which, you know, in, cuts out a lot of obvious reasons people might not drive during this who are legal, like the fact that ICE has undeniably deported citizens and taken people into custody for long periods of time who were citizens, you know?
4:40:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, that they've pulled random brown people out of cars.
4:40:44 Speaker 04 That they've shot and killed people.
4:40:45 Speaker 07 Yes. Yeah. This happened also in late November of 2025, a time where people travel, a time where people get sick.
4:40:53 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:40:54 Speaker 07 Commutes generally go down in late November.
4:40:56 Robert Evans? Commuters fluctuate, yeah, like that's.
4:40:58 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is just gibberish.
4:40:59 Robert Evans? It's an insane way to draw the conclusion he's drawn.
4:41:02 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, it's, it's bonkers.
4:41:03 Speaker 04 It's also, it's also this thing where it's like, in order to like, think this is what's going on, like, one of the premises of this is like, oh, it's like the illegal aliens that are like making every single problem bad. Like, you see this with.
4:41:15 Robert Evans? Yeah.
4:41:16 Speaker 04 The people, the people who support this align who are like, oh, the housing crisis would end if we just deported everyone. And it's like.
4:41:20 Robert Evans? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:41:21 Speaker 04 Obviously, no, but like, they're, they're coming at it from the motivated reasoning of, I want to do an ethnic cleansing. And then they're sort of post hoc, creating justifications for it.
4:41:29 Speaker 07 This is what fascism does, right? It blames all the, all the problems of the chosen group on the scapegoat.
4:41:33 Robert Evans? Blames these economic problems, yeah.
4:41:36 Speaker 07 Yeah, yes, like they've seen a quanon of fascism and it's very core is this this idea of a chosen group and a scapegoat group and the scapegoat group are responsible for the decline of the chosen group. And if they can be removed, the chosen group will return to its former glory. Like that is, yeah, fascism in five minutes. Like, and that's what we're seeing, right? Unsurprisingly, given that he's at a conference with straight up Nazis. But I think this this 100 million number is interesting. And like, what's interesting is him talking in a way that he didn't talk to the press when he was in charge of Border Patrol, but he probably did believe. But Vino is popular among Border Patrol agents, right? There are a number of them who feel that he was the leader that they needed. He
4:42:21 Speaker 07 showed up in the field, right? He had the support of agents because he was there with them. And like, him believing this tells us a lot about the agency. And I think that's something I want to dive deeper into next week. Okay. And email us with your news tips, [email protected] .
4:42:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, put a trans girl on your couch.
4:42:43 Robert Evans? Well, friends, that's going to be it from all of us at It Could Happen Here ED this week. We'll be back with more episodes on the normal schedule that we put out episodes. And you should keep listening to them because we love you and we reported the news.
4:42:59 Speaker 06 We reported the news. We reported the news.
4:43:08 Robert Evans? Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
4:43:14 Speaker 06 It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
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Previous Part Two: Mark Fuhrman: The Most Racist Cop, or Merely Normal Racist Cop? Next Part One: The Rise of the "Activist" Investor Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
