Are The Wokes Coming Back?

What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the fire Bernstein. How are you feeling today, my friend? I am well. How are you, Mr. Smith? Cannot complain. I'm looking forward. Me and you got a back-to-back weekends coming up. This weekend will be in Louville, Kentucky. Really looking forward to that. Four shows out there. And then the following weekend will be out in Fort Worth and Dallas at the hyenas, respectively. They have two clubs. One night we're in Fort Worth, the other night we're in Dallas. And we had a great time in the Louville last time we were there. We're looking forward to getting back out into Thomas Massey country. And I would say, well, what's it been, Rob? I think every year for at least the last four or five years, I think me and you have, would Dallas and Fort Worth has been always one of our favorite stops down there. Maybe at least three years. I think this is our third or maybe fourth year. I think it's four. I think it's four. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, but we always have a great time there. That's always like one of our favorite stops. Dallas, the Fort Worth area. And of course, this weekend, Louville. So yeah, come on out. ComicDaveSmith.com. And of course, Rob is portioned all over the place. What do you got going on? This Sunday in Cincinnati. Then before our run, I'm out in the Dallas area at a fans brewery. Then I got Sacramento, Reno and Salt Lake City. You can find all these dates at porchtor.com. And I got a couple leads on San Fran area. But if you, uh, nothing yet, confirmed. So you can still shoot me a message. Robert the fire. Also, social media. You can still be the San Francisco hero on the 2026 porch tour. Um, dude. So I, uh, I'm sorry, I wanted to talk about this. I said, we're, you know, I mentioned, I end up recapping a lot when I'm on like Pierce Morgan on this show. You know, like it's just it's usually the way the timing works. I usually flow right from recording that into recording this. Um, but so I had mentioned that this episode, uh, why the last episode I did it came out yesterday after we recorded. And, um, as I said, the episode was just, um, you know, it was then Ferguson and Will Chamberlain defending Donald Trump. They just, they did terrible. I mean, they had, they had nothing. Um, I do want to give that, by the way, I want to start here with a quick shout out to breezy politics, uh, which is a good account. They do a lot of, um, a lot of viral videos and stuff. Um, but I want to give them a shout out because they did find the clip, which I appreciate. There's so much, I can't believe people haven't been doing more of this clipping just over 12 day war two now predictions. The hawks had made, but anyway, let's just play this real quick. I just wanted to show you this to you because it's really, I thought this was kind of interesting. So here's breezy politics clips up the thing, which I've alluded to a few times, but they got the date and the clip in there. So I do appreciate that. So here's the start. This is a little, uh, medley of, of my appearance yesterday and the, last time me and Will Champlin spoke. So here it is. In terms of getting things wrong, you did say back on this show, when me and you were debating, I believe in April that you were convinced that you would be shocked if the Iranian regime was still standing in a month. We have the ability to completely squeeze them and the idea that they can survive this for, I mean, I'd be shocked if they could survive it for another month, let alone six. Okay, you just said you'd be surprised if they have a month left. In a month, when this government is still standing, you will move the goalpost to something else. This is what you guys do through all of these wars. They did it for 20 years in Afghanistan. So now you're coming back here. You don't even acknowledge that anymore. So no, if you weren't wrong about everything, maybe Donald Trump wouldn't have destroyed his entire coalition, but you were completely wrong. Dude, there were six war aims for this war. Last time I talked about it, it's not, again, I do appreciate him just finding the clip of this because I will just literally did not address this the entire time. Here's not since, but it's not Rob. It's not just that you go out and tell me if I'm being unfair here. It's not just that you go out, oh, I should say real quick, Rob. I swearing up during the live taming on the show, which I do this all the time. I write a wait for the rest of the show. I was in my mind going, shit, was it in May? I couldn't remember whether it was April or May. I do this so many times or I have a great rant that then I get one little detail romp. Anyway, it wasn't April. I was right. But so the, but it's not just that he made a prediction, which is a big thing to make. That's going to make you look really bad in a war. If you make a bold prediction in a month, this regime will be gone. But it's Rob. It's the fact that he says, and of course, well, it's just a liar, but it's the fact that he says, I'd be shocked. Like it, it, like that is, if you say I'd be shocked, if this regime lasts another month, let alone another six. And it's six months later and they'll still hear. So you are shocked by what happened. Okay. Well, Rob, me and you are fucking not who we are not shocked by what happened. So doesn't this very clearly in some sense just show you? Yeah. One of you had your head wrapped around what was going on here. One of you are fucking out to lunch and delusional. You thought this regime was a month away from collapsing. Anything but was the case. And I told you to your face at the time. Obviously, you call referee Rob Bernstein. Hey, fans, clip more receipts. And if you end up doing another show with him on Pierce Morgan, you should demand that you guys play the receipts. And he responds to his previous claims about the war. I mean, geez, you know, Rob, if he's going to go on as a neck, as if he's going to go on as some form of an expert and give his opinion, he should have to acknowledge his track record before he makes the next bold statement. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is the wellness company. And they've just launched their new product smile. Say bye-bye to receding gums. Gum recession is not just cosmetic. Millions of people deal with bleeding gums, tooth sensitivity, and even tooth loss. And once gums start pulling back, most toothpaste do absolutely nothing to help. But now meets smile. The wellness company's next generation toothpaste design to support gum repair, strengthen teeth, reduce sensitivity, and gently whiten your smile. Smile is powered by healing peptides like BPC 157 known for helping reduce inflammation and supporting the repair of gum and bone tissue. The result of using smile is stronger gums, healthier teeth, and a brighter smile. So head over to twc.healthslashproblem and use the promo code problem to get 10% off. Once again, twc.healthslashproblem promo code problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Dude, so this is, so I see anyway, I, I, you know, it's like the episode's been out for 24 hours. It appears Morgan's a big show. So these guys are getting like dunked on a bunch. And I just happen to see this morning that Will's response is that he's outposting a bunch about how I'm wrong. Like he has, he just pinned to his Twitter this tweet about how when people like Dave Smith say nothing was accomplished in the war and they're wrong. And here's what was accomplished in all this. It's like this is how you're going to handle it. But the one post I saw today and I got to say this is, look, this isn't, I'm not even bringing this up. This isn't about the Pierce Morgan episode. And this isn't about Will Chamberlain. Certainly not about me. It's just that this was so much and you'll see when I play this. This is just it's the broader theme of what's going on right now. And it's so obvious. Like I will say this rub. One of the advantages me and you have had as political analysts over the last, you know, whatever it's been said, me and you have been doing this together now, been years. We're not, we're not like loyal soldiers of the left or the right. We're not loyal soldiers of the Democrats or the Republicans. And so we don't have the same type of like emotional attachment that like 95% of people have, where they just want to fit this back into their team being right somehow. And so we're able to just kind of call balls and strikes and go, ah, the Republicans are totally toast at the Democrats are totally toast. Dude, I remember, and I'm sure you remember this well, Rob, we were doing the show together in the old Twitter. Do you remember the old Twitter 1.0 when it was Twitter? And there would be like blue check journalists and they kind of had the reign of the place, you know, and there was tons of censorship against all types of right wingers. But do you remember when like Taylor Lorenz, when she was at the Washington poster, she'd post something and just every comment was telling her how much they hate her guts. Like they just couldn't kick enough people off for every comment to not be like a fucking hate you. We hate the corporate press is the enemy of the people. And then the blue check journalist would say something like, looks like I triggered the trolls. Do you remember this was like a real dynamic on Twitter where they'd go, oh, looks like the deplorables are angry today. And this would be the way they coped with the fact that the entire audience hated their guts. And then CNN would be out at like a rally. And the chance would be like CNN sucks, CNN sucks, like it would just be. And it was like dude, the writing is on the walls is always like my favorite Simon Garfunkel lyric. Words of the profits are written on the subway walls and Tenement Halls. But this is like internet comments. And then Rob, we were maybe at the height of this, we were two years away from the entire culture shifting. The floor falling out from under those blue check journalists, they have lost all of their influence and legitimacy and all of this. And in the same sense, so just picture, this is what I see Will Chamberlain post. This is his response to the episode yesterday. And Natalie, if you could just pull this up. Well, I have to have this to be truly incredible. Will Chamberlain posts, "You know you did well," although let me see his comment on this, "You know you did well on the Pierce Morgan when the comments look like this." And it's just a bunch of comments saying how much they hate Ben and Well. And like, this is what we're up to now. It's just every comment that he focuses is just how they're insufferable, how they're hacks, they're, it's just embarrassing, how their proxies for the White House press secretary, like every comment is just how embarrassed they are. And he's posting this as like a badge of honor somehow that it's like, "Ha, no, don't get me wrong." I suppose, I don't know exactly what he means by this rub or if it's just kind of self-deprecating, but it's not, if you know Will Chamberlain, he's not being self-deprecating, he's being like snotty. He's going, "Yeah, I don't care. I'll stand up against everybody." And he's just like, "You look at this and go, "Dude, can you guys not see the writing on the wall here? "This is the losing game. "No one buys your bullshit. "This is going to crash and burn." But any thoughts rub? - I think he's doing you a service and letting the world know that he's a game to be the heel so that he can go on and say absolutely buffoonish things so that you can smack him down. And he's doing his job well because everyone's so upset at him. - Yeah, there was just what's his name? Is that big pollster? Oh God, damn, I'm blanking his name. Is Charlie something? Oh, is it Charlie Cook, I want to say? I don't know. Yeah, anyway, there's some big pollster who just had like one of their things was like, "Yeah, there's like a, like the nightmare scenario "for Republicans is basically at the highest odds "that it's been." I mean, I just, I just don't know how you could look at this and say when you look at the, you know, for all those maga polls, remember Rob? How they always love to maga? He's still, you know, at 89% with maga or whatever. It's like, dude, he is literally Donald Trump right now is pulling almost, I want to say identical to where he was right after January 6th. He's at his lowest. He's the whole political comeback has been completely undone. He's around where George W. Bush was after two disastrous wars and a financial crash. And then Rob, I saw a poll the other day that had him at 24% with independence. Understand that you typically have a bad midterm year. Anyway, so I guess this is just kind of, 'cause I wanted to get into some of these, some of these more ridiculous videos, but it's not just 'cause they're ridiculous 'cause there is a point to this, but I guess just like on the main point here that I really do want to harp on the framing of this as we go into these midterms. I'm sorry, but I am simply not going to accept as we've predicted this thing the whole last year. What's, what's, because it's already being built up here and you see it all around you that like people are going, oh, you'd rather side with the left. Then keep going and getting the benefits of whatever we're getting out of the Trump administration. When the reality here is so clearly that this shit that you guys are putting up can't possibly win. And so because of you guys, we're gonna get the left. Because of you guys, we're gonna give these Democrats more power, which I do want to stress. I am very concerned about Rob, very concerned about. >> Yeah, I just, I can't stand the team sport aspect of this, of hey, we're gonna do the exact thing that you guys don't want, don't want us to do. We're gonna get you guys involved in foreign wars. You have no interest in and didn't vote on. We're not gonna focus on America first. You are gonna have inflation, but the other side is even worse. So you got to make sure to stay on the team and not criticize. It's just, how do you ever make improvements under that model of hey, it's just the two sides get to work together. So it's, it almost be like in a, in tandem get worse and worse. And so the other one's always more of a threat. And so if you're on your team, you really got to dig your heels in just to combat the, what you don't want on the other side. And then just everything just keeps sliding down a slide and getting worse. >> Yeah, and I don't know if I'm explaining that right, but it makes sense. >> No, you're right, you're, no, I completely agree with you, but also that it's not, it's not just that. It's the, it's the exact opposite. Like in the same sense that forget even like being on a team, if you're just talking about delivering. Like if you were, if you were giving a good friend of yours advice, and you were like, dude, like I think you're really ignoring your wife and you're not like spending time with her and you're not listening to her. And he was like, don't spend your time criticizing me. Like then she's gonna end up leaving me for somebody else or something like that. You'd be like, no, dude, I'm giving you advice so that she doesn't go leave you for somebody else. Like the whole point of this is that no, if you don't do it that way, like yes, if you, this could have worked if you guys actually delivered some wins. If you delivered some wins, you could have staved off the left. At this point, I don't know how you're going to. I don't even know if there's a possible plan. I mean, look, dude, we've already, as we saw in the last episode, it's been admitted. This thing's going to be going on through the midterms. And who it's going to be very interesting, by the way, to see, there's a real interesting moment of the ball being in Iran's court here, because Iran has very openly said many times they've talked about the midterm elections and how they're going to keep this thing going through the midterms. And hey, does Iran do a little escalation around that time? Iran has for the most part in this war rub been responsive to us. But that doesn't mean they can't start up. And in fact, I have seen reporting of different factions within the Iranian regime, some of whom are arguing that they should take the lead and escalate the war. So just saying lots of different things can happen there. But I, you know, I do think that obvious. I just think for anybody, like if you're just even slightly thoughtful about this thing, you would go, hey, look, dude, look, you don't have to convince me and Rob, what a threat the radical left is. Like we're such anti-statists that we never vote for Republicans or Democrats. Like we're not, we're, and I got ended up getting on board with Trump. This, this is how, in part, how crazy the democratic establishment and the left wing in this country have gone over the last 20 years. It's been, it's, it's truly been a major destructive force. But then the point is when you sweep them out of power and sweep back into power, and they have a 24% approval rating and they're in the, in the toilet, you have a profound responsibility to govern responsibly and effectively so that you don't give these guys a chance to get up off of the mat. And the, okay, so anyway, that's over. The left is getting up off of the mat. AOC has announced Rob that woke 1.0 is over. Woke 1.0 was crazy, dude. Remember that? That was a little bit nuts. But now we have woke 2.0 and I'll, I'll be honest, Rob, I don't know that I completely understand woke 2.0. I don't know that they completely understand woke 2.0. You know, it's like, let me say it like this and then you tell me what you think, Rob. It, this is kind of more or less how I see it. Okay, broadly speaking, well, there was, I mean, I can't go through the whole history of kind of like cultural Marxism, but there's no question that the original view of Marx kind of failed, like in terms of his predictive power, like, I mean, a lot of Marxism was flawed, but Marx made very clear predictions about how the workers of the world were going to unite under their common, you know, economic class and that they were going to overthrow the bourgeois and, you know, there would be a dictator of the proletariat and then socialism would rise and eventually communism. And like the exact opposite is what happens. Like, what happened in the years after Marx's writings is that the workers of the world united under their nationalistic banners to go to war with the other workers of the world on behalf of the capitalist class, like it just, it just did not happen at all the way Marx said. And so there were a lot of like socialist and leftist Marxist thinkers after that who were like, hey, why didn't it happen the way it was supposed to happen? And many of them came to different conclusions and that, well, the capitalists like culture had so broken this whatever that they needed, they needed the long march, they needed these other like kind of a form. So anyway, what leftism really kind of, there's a lot of different chapters in very interesting history here, but what leftism kind of by the time it gets to America, wokeism 1.0 kind of molded into was something that people would call cultural Marxism back when I used to read about it back in the day. But it was the idea was essentially that if you take the Marxist view of like, you know, Marx's view would be like in economic terms, everything is seen through oppression versus oppressed, that there's always the oppressive class and the exploited class. And essentially they would take this and you could just think this is like what pop leftism is to most people over the last 20 years. Okay, take that, but apply it to black and white, now apply it to gay and straight, now apply it to men and women, now apply it to trans and cis. So everything is seen through the lens of like a presser versus suppressed. And that's where you get all these grievance, identity, and that's where you get this insane insistence on just cultural weirdness, like almost anything cultural that's normal is inherently oppressive. And anything that's weird is inherently, you know, the virtuous exploited one. Okay. Now this all blew up in their face because people hate all this stuff. It's just enormously unpopular. And so now it seems like woke 2.0 Rob is like, oh, no, no, we're just saying we're doing socialism. But it's also like a lot of those people have still been through the last 20 years. And they're still like these kind of weird questions where you're like, yeah, but what exactly are your views on all these other things? There's just, you know what I'm saying? It's a very weird woke 2.0 is a very strange thing where none of their leaders will just come out and kind of say this is what we're for. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is gold back. I've told you a bunch about them. I love this, this company. I had a great interview with Jeremy Corden, who's the CEO. And what they're doing is very interesting. Of course, we all know inflation is a major problem. You feel at every time you're at the grocery store and gold is the obvious answer. But for daily purchases, you're stuck using dollars that keep losing value. Well, gold backs fix this. They're real 24 karat gold that you can spend like cash. No accounts, no fees, no data tracking. It's a person transactions in a currency that's tied to gold that's already accepted at thousands of businesses across multiple states. It's one of the most affordable ways to own fractional gold and it's becoming the leading non crypto alternative currency in the country. I'm thrilled to have them on board as a sponsor. This is an easy one for me because it's a product I can hold in my hand. Go to goldback.com/dave right now to check out the new California series and the Utah refresh and pre order yours right now. One more time that's goldback.com/dave to pre order the new series or find a seller near you. All right, let's get back on the show. Yeah. Well, I guess luckily I haven't had to contend with that much woke loudness or woke shaming of me or that much of an infringement of whatever the woke values are in my life. So I guess I agree with you that I'm lost on what the agenda of woke to is. And luckily, I guess in my, to my purview, it's still kind of fringe and not really cool or mainstream or not really what people are coming forward and pushing all that much. So I guess I haven't fronted it in this morning's woke one. Look, I think that's a really fair point and if I'm being completely honest, me neither. I mean, no question about it, right? But I think we we're being completely fair. It's like the stupid's are brewing. Well, they're out of power right now, right? I mean, yeah, dude, like there's, look, man, I mean, obviously there's this, there's the DSA kind of wing of the Democratic Party here has the energy behind their back and they're winning. And it looks like they're going to win control of Congress in the midterms. And then there's a big question about what happens next. And like the prospect of a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress as crazy as that would have sounded a year and a half ago, now seems like perhaps Rob, perhaps the most likely scenario. And it does, it does, I guess the point is that, yes, you're right, Rob. I'm not dealing with it the way we used to it. There was a time when like things were very different. We're talking about like five, six years ago, things were very, very different where we were worried about censorship and and not just like ostrus being ostracized. Like, like, like, we were straight up legally second class citizens for a hot minute there. So I'm just saying like, I just, you know, I don't forget what happened in the 15 years before 2024. And yeah, I think that like, I'm very concerned about about power going back over to these people. Here, there's this kind of weird dynamic where people are like think, like, oh, Dave, like, oh, but you're saying we should work with the left or something like that. It's like, hey, man, I talked to leftists who I like who are good on the war. Because like, yeah, I have conversations with them about that. But no, that doesn't mean that I support any of this crazy shit happening. I'm very worried about the potential for censorship and central bank digital currencies. And I got to say, man, I think with, I think it's quite possible, Rob, that if the Democrats really do retake power, they may go much more hardcore than they did last time. I'm not saying that's a guarantee, but they might come in looking for revenge. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if, if they were to say like, you know, try to prosecute Trump and go after people in his administration and try to crack down on on tech censorship and stuff like that, crack down meaning, you know, have them do more of it. And that being said, now, I do want to, I want to play some of these clips from this event, socialism, 2025, excuse me, socialism, 2020, sorry, Rob, that's my father's socialism conference. Socialism, 2026, whichever, it was an event, they have thousands of attendance to, you know, this is their big socialism yearly event. Now, I don't want to be too unfair here, Rob, because I will say full disclosure, listen, we remember the libertarian party for quite a while and everybody's got their freaks out there, but these guys seem to be a little bit more influential. And I got to be honest, maybe at first of all, they will, if you spend time in the libertarian party, nothing will make you feel better about yourself than watching some of these socialism videos. We got our issues, but it ain't like this. But like, I don't know, Rob, I just, I remember the way it was during the woke years. And it wasn't, and I think this is true. If you, in fact, do you remember us talking about this, but one of the things that I think was, was very eye opening for me during the woke years and the COVID years was I had read a lot about, you know, authoritarian regimes already at that point, and I had read about this. So I knew it. Like I, I, I intellectually had read this and had known this was true, but it was a different thing to live through it. I'd always up until then kind of focus on my mind, unlike the policy, the institution, the government, and the citizen ray. And what you realize was like, which is true, like in the mass, a tongue model or the Stalin model or any of that, um, in the Nazi model for sure, is that it's not just that there's like the authoritarians who rule over you. It's like, they get your neighbor into it. And they get your neighbor into the fact that they're in it ruling over you with them. They get you remember those, the hotlines they would set up to rat people out about not wearing masks outdoors at the beginning of COVID before, you know, all the complaints were against black people and the blasio had to take it down. He set up a nice tip line, you know, and the way people would get in to like all taking part in the ritualistic humiliation of somebody else, the, the unpersoning of somebody else, like there's just something like very creepy about it. And these type of people, I feel like had like a front seat in being the little mal, you know, like the youth class that would go around trying to ruin people. So like, I don't know, just very concerned about this type of person having any influence anywhere. Does that make sense, Rob? Yeah. Uh, core female preference for social cohesion over freedom. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's, that's right. And, and, you know, and it's not just the preference. The preference would be one thing, but the willingness to kind of wield, you know, like authority to squash that, that freedom. Here, let's play, there's a couple clips we had here. We could play these in any particular order. You know, it's going to make the point no matter which one we start with. Let's get into it. You have to give up the fantasy of being fitter than the fascists. It's not just that it's cringe or strategically bad. So it is. Um, I think it's also politically revealing. Fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism. Our task is not to become less disposable, to become more useful to the ruling order. What we all need to be doing is rejecting disposability in all of its forms. The point is not to beat the fascists at their own game. It is not to lay a better claim on their own territory by being fitter, more eugenic. In fact, the more disgenic, the better, I think. Revolution is not a contest between optimizing properly prepared bodies. That idea is fascist in and of itself, and it races the history of less struggles around the world. So that's socialism, Rob. That's what socialism is now. Turns out the fight against fascism is also just a fight against eugenics. Like, I don't know. I'm not a fan of eugenics, but I'm certainly not a fan of disgenics. Like, what would that even mean? Is she suggesting that we breed all of the fattest dumbest people together to try to impose disgenics? I've never, like it is, you got to admit, man, there, there is something weird about leftism that like if you go far enough, you're just Satan. You know what I mean? Like, is that, like I'm not saying that that means, listen, I recognize there's some good people who are three clicks away from Satan. But isn't it a little bit of a weird bug in leftism, that if you just keep taking it a little bit further, all the sudden, you're literally saying that we should like, like, I don't know, this is something out of, you remember, do you ever see Toy Story? Sorry, I got little kids, but in Toy Story, there's like the bad kid next door who like burns all his toys and then they're like little freak things. Like that's what you think humanity should be. We should just like, like what is this? We're railing against fitness. I mean, I'm sorry, like, I'm not just, you can't just say I'm picking on crazy shit because this type of crazy shit dominated the national conversation for 15 years. For 15 years, like the national conversation was dominated by whether little boys are actually little girls. So I'm sorry, like, I have a zero tolerance policy with leftist pushing, pushing this insane shit at this point. Is this what we're coming back to? Because by the way, I swear to God, it's like Wil Chamberlain. It's like, I go, no, you, you dummy, you're going to get the socialist selected. And then you do look back at this and you go, they're actually making the best argument for Trump. Like, oh, this is what you got lined up on the other side. Jesus. Well, good luck to these people putting together a winning movement that's based on being fat and useless. Yeah. This, this reminds me of when you used to watch, you know, 40 minutes of interruptions of point of order, point of order. And they just couldn't even get their shit together to have a meeting. It felt like you're watching a Monty Python sketch. I mean, this is so, I mean, your Satan point is so on where, but at the core of this is just entirely giving up. And you've so bought into a worldview that you're being oppressed. You think that anything you do to make your life better or to even go out and earn a better income or compete or do anything is someone else taking advantage of you. So the goal should be for everyone to essentially become fat and useless so that no one can utilize your talent or labor. Good luck with that. I mean, you're talking, I, you're, you might as well say, have everyone go be homeless. We got to opt out of this society. It's not orchestrated in a fair way. So everyone take off your clothes, go shit in the street and be homeless and give up because if you do anything at all to be productive, you're contributing to the elites and you're being taken advantage of. It's, it's the political science equivalent of cutting. You're just cutting yourself. You're just like, uh, it's pain and I like to control it and feel like what is this dude? Just complete self destructive behavior. Like I'm sorry, man. It does not matter whether you're like, again, this is just always when, when you take it far enough, leftism is always a revolt against nature of some sort. It's always a revolt against reality. Um, the, the reality is that there are objectives truths and there are objective, preferential, preferential states of being. It is, it is objectively preferable to be healthy than to be unhealthy. I mean, I really want to know without this mask on, how ugly is this lady that she doesn't feel a sense of responsibility to get fat? I mean, is she actually that useless without extra weight on that she doesn't feel the need to go eat and become fat and become useless to this was always one of the things too. I got to say, but this is the first time I watch this is one of the first things I thought about. But, um, and I remember, I remember me and you talking about this all the time during COVID. And it was so like, it was really heartbreaking in some ways because I had, you know, I had just started a family. And so I just didn't, I was like, so through COVID, I was like, okay, guys, when are we getting back to normal? Like, we got to get back to normal cause fucking, we got lives to live here. And then seeing how many people actually didn't want to and how many people kind of got into it. And you're like, what do you mean? Like, you want to live like this? That dude, Rob, you know, because I told you on the, yesterday, like I had the sinus infection much better today. But I haven't had the sinus infection. I'm on antibiotics and steroids, which I hate. Um, but so I go into the other day just to go see the doctor to get the prescription. And they were like, uh, oh, you said you have a sinus infection and they're like, would you remind wearing a mask? And, uh, you know, you really can't say no to that when you just told them you have a sinus infection. I mean, I guess that's kind of reasonable. And so I put on the man. This is like the first time I've had a mask on since whenever the last time I was somewhere where there was a mask mandate. So, but the first time I've had a mask on, you know, since 21, maybe at a doctor's appointment. So anyway, I put it on for one second and I was like, oh, yeah, literally dude. It was, I sat in the waiting room for two minutes with it. And then I went in and took it off. But like, the two minutes with it was just brutal. You know, what do you do? Oh my god. I remember which I hate this remember where they were like Nazis about wearing this on a flight. And dude, the fact that there are people who are still into the mask. Like we're not having a political conversation. Dude, this is a psychological conversation. Like these are mentally ill people who wants to keep yourself in this state six years later for no reason. Rob, we got the studies that proved these masks didn't work in 21. It's 2026. That is weird. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health, a company I love who I've been telling you about for many years. Fall is here. And it's time to end the year strong, especially when it comes to your healthcare. What if you could get healthcare for under $100 a month? You've heard me rave about crowd health and they've just rolled out something game changing to help you take control as the year winds down, introducing the black swan membership, the healthcare alternative for those who want autonomy over their care, their costs and their lifestyle. For just $95 a month, you get a team of expert bill negotiators access to low cost prescriptions and lab testing, a curated database of high quality low cost doctors vetted by crowd health. There'll be no insurance middleman. So you have no networks dictating which doctors you can and can't see just you in the driver's seat. And if a major black swan event hits, you cover the first $15,000 and the crowd steps up to help fund the rest. It's like the freedom we had before Obamacare turned healthcare into a bureaucratic nightmare. So if you're ready to end 2026 on your terms, use the promo code P O T P at join crowd health.com and you'll get your first three months for just $80. That's right. Kick off the fall season with healthcare that puts you first. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out, take your power back. This is how we win. Visit join crowd health.com and use the promo code P O T P today. All right. Let's get back on the show. Yeah. It's so corrupt. Like don't guys don't improve yourself. Don't try and win. Don't try and live a better life. Be fat and opt out. You know what's going to happen? You guys going to be the ones without any jobs or fat at home and miserable. You know, or you really think you're going to win us some wealth redistribution game that the government just has endless money and they're going to provide for you. So you don't need to have any any useful skill sets. It's interesting in a way, right? And maybe part of it is because of the kind of like totality of leftism, the collectivism of leftism. And the way that by, you know, there's something really the in many ways libertarianism and leftism are are are distinctly opposite it, at least in modern forms in the sense that essentially our end goal is that politics be something we really never need even talk about. You know, now I know that's a little bit ironic because me and you talk about politics so much, but it's not really when you think about it. Like an abolitionist is going to talk about slavery a lot, but the abolitionists real goal is that there should be nothing to talk about here. There just just shouldn't even be a thing. Whereas like the leftists goal is that everything ought to be political. Your football game ought to be political in your TV and your comedy ought to be political like everything has to be part of this project of egalitarian, whatever. And because of that, it's like they have to make it this in, you know, this total thing that all of capitalism is is perverted and everything is corrupt because Rob, like look from, from me and your point of view, right? We would say that essentially from our point of view, we're basically living in like an 80% communist country, right? Like, like from our point of view, where well, the money is completely socialist and that's 50% of every transaction. So I could like just make an argument that just the federal reserve makes us a 50% communist country. I'm a little bit overstating it with 50%, but almost every single transaction is something for currency, almost all of them remove barter from the economy. And that's what you've got. So we've, so we then add in property taxes and income taxes and the regulatory burden and the, you know, all this other stuff. It's like, yeah, we're like a mostly socialist economy. Me and you would certainly say there's all types of things about the system that are unfair, that are rigged in certain companies favor. Me and you don't think that the big banks make their profits because they're so excellent at what they do or that big pharmaceutical companies or the green energy companies or any of that, they make money for being politically connected for lots of different reasons. So in other words, Rob, me and you also believe that the world is a very unfair place and there's a lot of corruption out there, but we would never therefore tell you, don't even bother trying. There's no justice in the world. You can't improve yourself. Everything you're doing must be perfect and everything the world's doing to you must be wrong. It's like, not dude, bust out 20 pushups, get out there and start looking for a job. What are you good at? Pick up a side hustle, like start grinding. It's not like there's, there is justice to be found in the world. And if you make yourself that much more formidable if you make yourself that much more skilled, that much more charming, that much more personable, that much more like precise as a thinker. You're going to give yourself an enormously better chance to have a meaningful, happy, successful life. Why would those like, you know what I'm saying? Like it's only the perversion of this stuff where you have to go into this like now self-destructive area where like even if your boss is ripping you off, put a smile on your face and be a great worker, whatever, get better. Why do they have to, like, why do they have to be so anti, like, good. It's so weird. Yeah, let's play the other clip. It's more the same job. I'm sorry, you go ahead and then let's play the other clip. There's also just, I mean, I think you touched upon this, but it is anti-nature because if you're advocating, hey, everyone be fat and ugly, you know what I mean? Like you can get away from the entire capitalist society whatsoever. If you were to put us on a desert island, the hot guy is going to try and have sex with the hot girl. And this is trying to so defy the laws of nature where it's like not only should you become less employable and show up to a job every day and do as little as possible and be physically incapable of doing the job so that they can take less advantage of you, but a product that as well is also like being less attractive, which that goes beyond the markets. That kind of just goes to you know, the root of human nature. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And just like, um, I mean, again, there's also, you know, like it reminds me about when that was a trend for a while, where the girls would like way are essentially like underway or to the gym and then get mad at guys for looking at them. And you're like, guys like, I mean, to some degree, like before, ozampic, there was all that fat shaming talk because all the people that were fat wanted it to be more socially acceptable. And then they all take down all the celebrities got ozampic and that went away real quick. Isn't that interesting? Here, let's play this other one. He loves being beautiful again. Oh, yeah, all of a sudden, it's not so empowering. Yeah, here, let's let's play the other one's more the same. The political deployment of GLP ones is fascistic, not because individuals take them, but because the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by a world fixated on genociding fat people. This is a structural critique that asks what happens when the conditions produced by capitalism, by public health, by the state apparatus, and by anti-black desire, align around a single bodily ideal that leaves little to no room for diversions and punishes anybody that does. Whereas earlier diet drugs were often associated with vanity or addiction, GLP ones are positioned as responsible medicine, promising relief rather than restrain. But to understand why the deployment of GLP ones as fascistic requires turning to fronts for knowns account of black flesh under colonial surveillance. The political deployment of GLP, dude, there's another real problem that the left has, which is that like they're never allowed to tell minorities and women that they're being stupid, you know? And like, don't give me wrong. It's not like, I'm, you know, I'm not suggesting that women and minorities are the only ones who are stupid, but like they, you know, you got to be able to tell them when they're stupid too. It's just, you ever see like a, you remember the black debate teams? Do you ever see that, Rob? That became a thing where they just let these black debate, there's like do, I don't know how to describe, they just don't debate. They just like preach. It's actually pretty hilarious if you've notified what the video is that not only try to fit the black preachy debate team. So if you can pull up one of those clips, it's pretty goddamn funny. But like, first of all, whatever he just said there is just absolute nonsense. You're just allowed to like pratter on with this absolute and it's black flesh is the, and you're just sitting there the whole time, man. Like what can you say? Dude, you're like a horribly unhealthy person sitting here about how everyone wants to genocide the fat people. Like no, dude, being fat will kill you, man. And ironically, and I'm sure there's a million people who have made this joke already. But like, man, communism really would solve all of your problems here, dude. Like, there's nobody, nobody ever looked like you in any of the countries who have implemented these policies. So like, perhaps maybe there's a little bit hope. But like, I don't know, man, there is just something about to like being like, I've never been overweight. I'm not trying to like, you know, be shitty to the struggles of being overweight. I know that I'm very well aware that people have different, like, you know, I have a good metabolism or whatever. Part of this is out of my control. It's just like, it's an issue that other people struggle with that I don't. But like, when you're like over a hundred pounds overweight, there is something. Do you remember Rob Greg Jeraldo had a great joke about this about Michael Moore? Because maybe if you're going to be the world's most famous critic of the excesses of capitalism, you shouldn't weigh 450 pounds. But like, there is something about criticizing like the excess of all of it when you're a hundred pounds overweight. You're like, dude, like, this is, I'm sorry, this is a personal discipline issue, not something that society has done wrong to you. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, all right. I'm going to start with this. Firstly, I'm not advocating for GLP ones. First, I'm not a doctor. I can't give health recommendations. But I think they exist on a range that if you're in a risk category of being older or significantly overweight, and you're certainly not going to lose the weight, they're probably worthwhile. And anyone that's taken them just to look a little bit better or to be losing, you know, I'm going to say 30 to 40 pounds or less. It's probably not a worthwhile venture. But he's not just talking about, he's talking about that GLP ones are the outpouring of the fact that society in some regards looks down on people being overweight. And once again, you're up again, firstly, you're up against nature. And secondly, you know, there is a large cost to everyone who pays their health insurance bill for everyone who decides to be recklessly unhealthy. It's not exactly like your non-healthiness. It's just a free ride for the rest of us. And also, nobody's walking around as adults bullying fat people. Like no, I listen, I've been, I've been heavier than I am now. I've been thinner than I am now. You don't feel good when you're fat because you know that you're fat and you don't feel good about it. That's in your head. You don't show up to places and everyone makes fun of you for it. Like maybe amongst comics a little bit or amongst your friends, you might get a ribbing, but like, you know, not, not, not any more than any other topic that, you know what I mean? Like it's in your head of, oh, I don't want to be this way. And society also kind of society which engages and enjoys excellence. And so, you know, when you're watching an action movie or watching some shredded dude, you're like, you guys are against the concept of like human improvement and excellence. Yes, it's hard to describe this. This is why I said it's politically the equivalent of cutting. It's, it's, there's nothing to this other than pure like victimology. You know, like that's all it is. It's just a, it's the science of why I'm a victim, you know, science with the quote around that. It's like, it's like, don't have sports because that creates a structure in which people want to be better at something. It's literally like everything should, everything that we have in the world should not exist because it pushes people to try and be great at it. And that's anti-socialist, which is that I guess everyone's supposed to be equal. And if you've achieved greatness, then you're taking from someone else. It's like, it's like zero correlation to work or effort or, you know, I guess even genetic gifts, but it's like literally every, everything that we watch and entertain and every sport, every everything is because we're interested in watching people who struggled and became great. That's right. That's right. And it's also kind of like bullshit. Like, they just claim, you know, the idea of it's one of these things where there's, there's kind of these like contradictions in life where you just, you kind of can't escape it, right? And anytime you're going to say that you want to get rid of hierarchies, which essentially is what the egalitarianism is, you just catch yourself in, in glaring contradictions and performative, you know, kind of like hypocrisy is because you, you kind of like, you can't act in life without a hierarchy. Like every second of every moment, as I'm saying this sentence to you, I'm choosing to say this sentence rather than saying another sentence. And we've got a couple thoughts in our heads, but we only have 15 minutes left in the show. And so we're going to like, we're constantly choosing something rather than something else. And even if you're going to say like, I don't know, if leftists get control of the government, you're like, okay, well, the number one priority is egalitarianism. Okay, in other words, you have a hierarchy of priorities. And at the top of the priority is that we get rid of hierarchies. It's like, you find yourself like in a time travel movie. You know what you're like, wait, but this contradicts the last thing. If I go back, then I never existed. And then I'm not here. And then I'm not like this, it does. So the problem is that, and they'll catch themselves in these things where it's like, you go, look, dude, you can't judge fat people, right? Because like, that's just, you can't judge someone for living an alternative lifestyle. It's like, okay, well, can you judge someone for being really in shape and judging fat people? Maybe that's their lifestyle. Okay, you're in a contradiction now. Like they don't, you don't believe any of this shit. That's like, that's why the people who preach inclusion are the ones who push cancel culture. The people who are worried about worker exploit, the people who are worried about worker exploitation support the IRS. I mean, what it, it's just too, it's like, it becomes anti. reality. The whole thing. And so look, I will say, man, and this is part of the reason why I wanted to bring this up. I saw a couple people, a couple good people. One of them I will shout out is Ryan Grimm. Now I thought about catching Ryan Grimm's back in this argument on Twitter, but then I thought that's probably not doing him any favors. But he posted a thing where he goes, you know, Democratic socialists are finally getting wins. And now this is what you guys want to do. You know, like basically essentially standing up and going, this is insane, dude. Like, what are you doing? You're going to turn off all normal people with this shit. And then leftists are furious at him. The response that is Twitter, they're angry at him for calling this out. So like, look, I appreciate guys like Ryan Grimm who will maybe at least like draw a bit of a boundary. I understand that that's a tougher thing inherently for leftists to do than for right wingers to draw a boundary, a border wall, if you will, and go, Hey, these clearly mentally ill people don't speak for me. But I got to say, man, and I've been talking about this for quite a bit. But you know, there is something about how, you know, they've been, they, there is something I think that's just very dishonest about this democratic socialist movement where they call themselves democratic socialists, but then revert back to like, no, we just want free healthcare. Like, what are you talking about? It's just like free healthcare and maybe like a few free supermarkets. That's all we're talking about. But then you see the socialism conference and it's like, wait a minute, what the hell is this? Like, first off, the term socialism means something. It means public ownership of the means of production. You're all called, like if I just come out here and call myself, Hey, guys, I'm a democratic fascist and I'm starting the democratic fascist party and then you start going, whoa, fascist governments did all this evil shit and fascism means all this evil shit. And I'm like, dude, fascism just means like whatever, no tax on tips or like whatever. You know, just like some random little policy. Is that honest? Is that fair? And then by the way, at the big fascism conference, they're talking about all. So like, are you guys talking about socialism? Are you just talking about healthcare and some supermarkets? Are you just talking about as the guy in Michigan? Say he says, Hey, our tax dollars shouldn't be going to the Middle East. They should be staying here in Michigan. Are you talking about, you know, democratizing the worst place? Or are we talking about a war on healthiness and how obesity and black flesh must not be harmed? If someone could just inform me which one of these wacky things you believe in, it would make it a lot easier for me to argue against it. And I don't think that's an unreasonable ask. Alright, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is prize picks. Football is finally back and prize picks is bringing out their best offer yet new users who sign up will get $150 lineups. 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And there that is kind of uncomfortable, I guess, for some people to acknowledge, but I always loved what Thomas Sol said was that he, I believe it was Thomas Sol said that even if you had, if somehow a socialist could wave a want, imagine you didn't need the enormous amount of violence that it would take to completely equalize everything to make sure that everybody had the exact equal amount every single human being. Now, of course, this has never been done. It's impossible to be done because that by definition, the people who would be implementing the redistribution would have more power than the people who are just hoping to get it. But anyway, you could wave a magic wand. Everyone has the exact equal amount. Okay, one day later, there's going to be tremendous inequality. You know, one day later, there will be a certain percentage of people who have blown all of their money. There'll be a certain percentage of people who have doubled all of their money. There'll be a certain percentage of people who got up and went to work the next day and a percentage of people who just did not. Some people were more productive. Some, you know what I'm saying? Like literally inequality will come again. It's like the second you take your finger off the scale, that's what it'll be because that's, you know, that's human nature. And I will say, Rob, it is hard. You know, it's like one of the things that I think going forward, we're going to have to deal with is that like, look, in in the first version of blocness for everybody who wasn't trapped into it, for everybody who wasn't like caught up in the spell, you pretty early found out that like, this isn't really a political debate. You weren't really, I wasn't really having a political debate with Lisa Tragger in 2017. You know what I'm saying? That's not what it was. And in fact, you weren't really having a political debate with Karen Fisher in 2020. That's not what that was. It was not a political debate. Well, I mean, you were having a political debate. She was having an exercise in social ostracism. You know, she was having an exercise, like, like, she was doing a thing where it's like a social pecking order type thing. And then you were like tearing down the bullshit. It's like, this is so much of wokeism, so much of this. This is, this is mental illness. This is a result of having a society where families have broken apart. Kids have been overmedicated and they've essentially been become wardens of the state just being raised by government schools and government colleges. And I'm just saying, Rob, after the years of COVID and the years of wokeism, a lot of these leftists men are still really crazy. Like, they've been sidelined for a while now during this Trump moment and now Trump has blown it and we're about to hand it back to them. But just to be clear, it's like, yeah, Rob, as you said before, these guys aren't winning anything with this program. And in fact, these guys are only, you know, this existing only helps the right wing calls, like this video's like this being out there. But what these people do end up being are like the shock troops of the democratic establishment. And I'm very concerned about them getting back in there, you know, I think that if the democratic establishment is to get back in there, I got to believe that they're going to realize that they got to plug up this whole of free speech on the internet. You know, they, and they did go after that very hard last time, very hard. And I wouldn't be surprised if they double and triple those efforts if they come back in. So I think that's what we're up against. And we should be, we should be taking notice of that. Yeah, I'm hoping that the, if the Democrats come back in, they're not really all that interested in whatever this nonsense is, but I guess it remains to be seen. And I say that in part because even, I mean, listen, it's funny that the Democrats put out a document and why they lost in the front page. Just wasn't Kamala Harris was too stupid to win. But some of it did reflect on people don't really like being shamed. Some of this stuff does not appeal to everybody. And people did recognize that the democratic establishment was just getting wealthy and not actually helping people. And I think that this is, this is not a cultural movement right now. Like eight years ago, whatever it was, I, you know, it was kind of shocking to see how many people seem to have been on board with whatever the hell this was. And it was weird to, I mean, you know, it happened four years later when was go, go broke, but in real time, we watched Comedy Central platform essentially a version of this instead of any comedy that we thought was funny. And you know, two years later, Comedy Central failed or three years later, Comedy Central essentially didn't exist. But in real time, we're like, oh, is this actually, is this the new Grunge music? Is this what's cool in the world? Because it was being kind of forced to top down. I don't really even know all the logistics of how it happened. But when you were living it, you know, it was being portrayed as if this was like the honest cultural movement in temperature of where the country was. And when you performed in liberal areas, there's certainly was a feeling amongst the younger people in the crowd that they were really living with these ideals. I don't see that happening right now. It just, it just doesn't feel to me like that's where the country is. I do think a lot of people are outraged over Trump, and I do think that there's an economic lie to people of, hey, socialism is actually going to represent you in terms of wealth redistribution, and every other system is the elites taking your money. But I don't think we're actually looking at, you know, full scale woke nonsense again. I just, I, you know, no, I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. Look, it crashed and burned so hard that first time. You know, as you're saying it, do you remember, I remember one of the things that was so interesting because like me and you were like, especially in the early days, like we were like coming up in comedy, like very new younger comics, like climb in the ranks. And it was down at our level of the industry. It'd be like, you know, how like lower levels of industry are really kind of supported by the higher levels of industry. So like, when you're, if you're, whatever it is, like if you're, if you're doing the Fox News show at 3am, like red eye, like I used to do back in the day at 3am on Fox News, the show has a budget, and the show has a producer has all this, but it's because Bill O'Reilly and Hannity, and there's these big things. And then you have this little bit of a budget at the end of it. But so whatever, it's kind of an artificial market in a way, like it's not whoever's getting booked there isn't really about who's driving the ratings. It's just like who the book are like to no one's driving the ratings. This is 3am or whatever. So like at our level of comedy, Rob, do you remember how much they just love the leftist nerd bullshit? Like dude, that was all, it was like guys like me and Rob would just get passed over for everything. And then they would just love these leftist nerds because they were like, yeah, these guys are going to be big. They're, had I even liked some of those leftist nerds, like some of them were funny guys. I've not even tried to trash up or name them or nothing, but like it's amazing how none of them developed audiences. Like no, they were just so swept up in this thing that they were like there is actually no market for this, like no market for it. So it's, so I do kind of agree with you. And I think I wouldn't go as far as to say like I think this is about to take over again, but I do think it's something worth keeping an eye on. And like it's also worth like, it's worth it's just not forgetting what happened back there. Like we should be able to walk in chew gum. We should be able to be like, yeah, Donald Trump betray it is base and totally ruined his presidency and as a disaster. Also, we should not be going back to the catastrophic mistakes of the previous 15 years. I'll also say I used to say this years ago on the show, but you know, I hate the left because they infringed on my life more. But if you actually gave me a Christian right wing government of like more of like a 1990s flavor where they're like, Hey, we can't, you know, they want to censor filthy comedy. They want to censor action movie. They want to censor remember music and video games and all that stuff. They want to go fight wars. Then all of a sudden you're going, oh, shit, this is even worse. But then it flips the other way to the lefty nonsense. And you go into it. So a lot of times what's worse is just what's actually in power because they can go full ham on on their stupidity. And so, you know, yeah, like we said before, and one side feeds the other, you know, and everyone pretends while they're on the sidelines of, oh, no, no, I'm not going to force anything down your throat. I mean, they always pretend like they're libertarians on the sidelines. And then you get them pushing an agenda. So it's easy to look at them now and go, no, they would never push this on us. But, you know, I don't think AOC is winning a presidency, but that an AOC or a Newsom might might flirt with this nonsense because it tried kind of shames people into their agenda. And that if you're questioning them, it's because you're not nice. And it's because you're, uh, you know, you're you're preaching for the hierarchal structures and whatever other, yeah, shit. You know what I'm about now. Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massey, 2028. It's the only answer. Um, all right, guys, Louisville, Dallas Fort Worth, come see us, comment Dave Smith dot com, porch tour dot com to come see Rob, any last plugs? Uh, new runner mouth. How tomorrow? Check it out. Hell yeah. All right. Can't you guys? Manny Anna. Peace.