Hasan Piker Wants to Win

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I don't find the rhetoric to be that different, but here's Obama 2011. Of course, the Republicans in Congress, they call this class warfare. You know what? If asking a millionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber makes me a class warrior, a warrior for the working class, I will accept that. I will wear that charge as a badge of honor. Pelosi 2011. When we became the majority, the first 100 hours, we passed the minimum wage increase. The first time in at least 20 years, we passed the minimum wage increase. The first time in 11 years. So when they want to talk about class warfare, as Warren Buffett said, yeah, there was class warfare in his class one. Gore called Bush's tax cuts class warfare on behalf of billionaires. So I'm not sure that I think the rhetoric was so different. But the thing that I think was really different, I'm curious how this lands for you, is Bernie, particularly 2016 Bernie. I take a big part of his argument that the Democratic Party had abandoned its focus and prioritization of issues of class and economics for this kind of broad based post material. It kind of eventually becomes what people call wokeness. Hillary Clinton runs against him on this, right? You know, breaking up the banks won't end systemic racism or whatever the line was. That was the line. If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, and I will, if they deserve it, if they pose any systemic risk, I will. Would that end racism? No. Would that end sexism? No. Would that end discrimination against the LGBT community? No. Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight? And in the kind of post-inflation Democratic Party, right, the Democratic Party that got beat in 2024 on inflation, the recognition that the way you turn back the kind of geographic polarization of the country, the way maybe you can compete in more places is you moderate on culture and you go hard on economics. That's the old Bernie formula, right? Yeah. More pro-gun in Vermont, right? Yeah. He was an over performer in Vermont. It didn't strike me as so much like socialist versus liberal versus moderate, but economics first. Yeah. As the uniting threat of the party. I 100% agree with that assessment. And I think that's precisely what happened. And you're right. The reason why you're bringing up quotes from 2011, as opposed to the last decade, is because there was this big pivot, I think, that was relatively recent. One of the most unique factors of this swing that we saw, especially in former Trump battlegrounds and very safe districts, was not just the Hispanic votes shifting, and it wasn't just the youth vote shifting. We saw plenty of that. That was expected. That was predictable. I found it fascinating that rural voters were also shifting to the Democratic Party. For the first time, it felt like a lot of. Maybe. Maybe even non-college-educated whites living in rural areas were really impacted by the economy, and someone was seemingly addressing those concerns. And I think that's what's really important. This doesn't mean we should betray marginalized identities and do what even Josh Turek did. And I don't even know how effective that was, ultimately, to come out. Have an ad around transgender sports. Exactly. I believe that no Iowan should face discrimination. As a Paralympian, I also know it's important to have rules. It's why I oppose males competing in female sports, something that is already illegal in Iowa. I think any sort of focus on this stuff is a losing battle, because it's a tiny minority. And one of the things that I consistently point to is the fact that, I mean, one of the first executive actions that Trump took was banning. Why do you think he was focusing so much on this particular issue? Something shifted in the last decade or so where Republicans started winning the culture war battles. And I don't think we need to participate in those battles at all. And we need to call it out for exactly what it is, which is something that James Tallarico did very effectively, where he kept saying, like, these are unnecessary distractions. It's not about left versus right. It's up versus down. I think that is a very reliable and very truthful way of. The other thing that worked for Tallarico, you saw it work for Adam Hamilton. A lot of people just think Democrats don't like them, look down on them, don't share their faith, don't share their kind of not cultural positions, but cultural context. And one thing that it seemed to me Democrats did well in candidate selection this year was to run a lot of people who undermine the perception of what a Democrat is, right? A megachurch pastor in Kansas, a firefighter, right, in Pennsylvania, a Tejano crooner in South Texas, right? You know, Tallarico is a seminarian, Turek, a Paralympian, Mary Patola with her kind of, what was it? Family fish faith? Yeah, family fish faith. Yeah. That, you know, we all talk about moderation as a question just of ideological positioning, but what people apprehend really quickly, it's one reason. The other reason you wear a suit now is what kind of person you seem like. Do you seem like their kind of person? And the Democratic Party kind of undermining the sense of who is a Democrat and whether or not they're your kind of people seems to me to have cracked open the door for people to be able to hear a lot of the other things that were being said. Yeah, I agree with that to a certain degree, but I do think that the real story here is, at the end of the day, what Trump was doing. The chaos of Trump. I agree with that. And ultimately, it was, you know, you normally don't have a president press a button that just explodes the gas prices, but Trump seemingly had that button and he just kept pressing it. And I think that was a major part of the reason. Have you seen the charts of his approval rating and the gas price? Yeah, exactly. They track, basically, exactly. Exactly. And I think for what reason he was doing this was also important. I mean, their initial reaction. The initial rollout of the Iran war was fascinating because they didn't even try to manufacture any consent whatsoever. And as a matter of fact, on the first wave, they came out and were like, we're doing this for Israel. And then they came and then they went back and were like, no, actually, we're doing this for ourselves. But that was that was a unique moment because Americans were already frustrated with American foreign policy, constantly waging war endlessly. And and this was already unpopular from the start. And it became the least popular war that America's wage in a matter of months. This is historic stuff. Right. So I think, of course, there were going to be punishments for the admin that was engaging in this in this action after two years of chaos, two years of instability and outright corruption from the White House, the close associates of Trump and his immediate family members making billions of dollars in cryptocurrency schemes or or or the pay to play initiatives that are taking place in the White House. Some of which we knew about and some of which I hope we will learn more about with these investigations that will unfold. So the Democratic Party that's coming into power now remains an opposition party at the national level. Donald Trump still is the White House, even if they've got the House and the Senate. What do you think they should do? I've jokingly referred to this as. Files and trials belt the ass and hopefully a comprehensive legislative agenda. That is defining what the Democratic Party is. Two of those seem a little catchier than the third. Yes. Well, the third one is just for me. Let's go in those in in buckets. Let's start with the what was he called? Files. Files and trials. Files. I feel like that's that is a nod to the swing voters that were very frustrated about this. So I think like that is a high profile incident. I that that I know will cause. Many of the apoliticals or or many of the low propensity voters to to pay close attention to exactly what's going on. But more importantly, I think it's the trials that are a necessity investigations identifying what Christie Noam did and exposing the network of of pay to play initiatives that were taking place inside of the White House because we've never seen outright corruption of this sort, perhaps ever in the history of history. I often joke and say, like, you know, I'm look, I'm Turkish. I grew up in Turkey. I know our dawn is very corrupt. And so is Vladimir Putin in Russia, for example. But at least they hide it. And Trump was so in our faces with his corruption and with his lack of interest in in the overall economy. I mean, there's so many instances where he just said, I don't care about inflation. I don't care about the prices. And I mean, even with with your former colleague, Ross, on the on the 60 Minutes interview where he he was, he had his own Mary Antoinette moment where he was like, well, you know, I made billions of dollars because I put money in the stock market. He's like, why don't you put your money in the stock market? There's a story that said that your net worth, maybe it's changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by three billion dollars. Well, since you since you returned to you already. So everyone's my net worth did not go up by three billion dollars. You should have had stock. I should have. I should have had stock. And it's like, well, that's not it's not exactly populist, is it? Right. He's not exactly the man of the people. And I think we have to expose all of that. I think the Democrats need to work hard to make sure that people fully grasp the the outright corruption that's taking place inside of the White House. We need law. And order. I'm a law and order Democrat. I believe in accountability. We need answers and we also need punishments. And I think this is something that people are demanding. So it's funny talking to you because your reputation is as a hardcore socialist. This slightly sounds like a no kings rally here. So is this your theory of like the next two years when you're just dealing with an opposition party? How do you think about the like what path you're trying to put the party, the country on? Great question. So I yes, I'm a socialist, but I also believe in good governance. I believe in the power of institutions, which is very interesting for someone like myself to say this, even though I understand that many of those institutions have turned on socialists historically at times. But I think they need to exist. It's the. It's the same concept behind policing. It's not a secret that policing doesn't work very well in this country. Now, this is probably the worst time to say that because, you know, crime is down even in this city, in New York City, the. murder rate is lower than ever before but i think those are historic trends you're a jessica tish socialist i'm not a jessica tish socialist i do disagree with uh the wonderful mayor on that issue having said that having said that i understand the necessity for policing as an institution i'm not uh a a police abolitionist right i want police uh policing as an institution to serve and protect and serve the people. And I also understand that we have to use these institutions against those who are corrupt, against those who are violating the law. And this administration clearly has. So in the interim, I am completely aligned with the anti-Trump coalition because that is an absolute must. That is a necessity for us to rebuild the social fabric, to restore American civilization, American society, because if we don't do that, then it's complete chaos. And I worry about what kind of fascist acceleration comes after Donald Trump. And then last but not least, I want the Democrats to design a definable, tangible 2028 legislative agenda. So I think there are numerous areas that Democrats should lay a stake on, like just plant their flag and say, this is what we're about. So I think right now, one of the biggest problems with the affordability crisis is health care. Premiums are completely out of control. As a consequence of the big, beautiful bill, in order to pay for the corporate tax cuts, there is tremendous austerity coming for Medicaid. That's actually happening right now. They timed it so that it would hit right after the midterm so they wouldn't get penalized for it. Right. So we have this major crisis that's imminent. It's going to make prices far worse, and it's going to lead to many other rural hospitals shutting down. That's another separate crisis in health care in this country. And I think the only solution to solve this problem is single payer health care. I believe in Medicare for all. Not only is it the most popular it's ever been as a policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, it's 66 percent, I believe. But I think it's the right policy initiative as well. Now, of course, Trump is going to veto it. I understand that. But I think it's important to define the Democratic Party with tangible economic policies that people can identify with, that people can associate with. Because I said this in 2024, this was one of Kamala's biggest weaknesses, was that she was not definable. She was all over the place. She had some policy prescriptions. She had some very good ones that were critically panned by this institution, like combating price gouging. I thought that was expertly communicated as well. She didn't say it's price controls. She said she's going to go after price gouging at grocery stores. That was broadly popular. But there was no real health care policy on the platform that at least was communicated on the campaign. And I think that was a major mistake as well, beyond just like subsidizing the existing marketplace. I think people are frustrated with that. If you're not a subscriber to The New York Times, we have some news for you. You can now explore The Times for free without any paywalls at all during your first month in The New York Times app. So I want to spend some time on health care, because I think health care is where you see the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party's shifting and a kind of synthesis emerging, but I would describe it differently than you did. So I want to see where we disagree on it. So one, I think for a while after the Affordable Care Act, the Democratic Party kind of had the view, not the Bernie wing of the party, but the main wing of the party of like, we did health care. It's time to do climate, time to do pre-K, time to do something else, maybe bolster Obamacare subsidies. But we already did health care, time to spend the political capital elsewhere. I think at this point, that's not true any longer. One is that Trump has to do something else. One is that Trump has gutted Obamacare in a bunch of different directions, taken out the mandate, cut the subsidies, you know, the insurance premiums in the individual markets are spiraling. The other is that I think in some ways, just some of the ideas behind Obamacare didn't work as well as people hope they will. Competitive private insurance markets didn't end up being a thing people are really excited about. On the other hand, the abolished private insurance side of the party, this is more of the Bernie side of the party, where people like Medicare for all, and they don't like Medicare for all, and they don't like Medicare for all, and they don't like Medicare for all. So I think you're going to end up with some kind of Medicare for more synthesis. Yeah, this is the, what is it called? The Medicare for America concept Democrats have pushed for. I am in opposition to that as a policy, because I see it as also deeply unpopular by the same exact entities that are going to say this is far too competitive with our product. Private insurance is not going to be in favor of a public option or an expansion of Medicare. So if we are going to have to face this inevitable resistance from moneyed interest, we might as well go all the way. The reason why we have skyrocketing premiums is because it's entirely, this is an inelastic service. You need healthcare or you die, right? And, and therefore we have this unnecessary middleman that is great for the GDP. It's great for the insurance executives. It's great for this industry, but it's actually horrible for the consumers. It's not even great for the healthcare facilities. It's not even great for the doctors themselves. It's just good as a money-making vehicle for the insurance companies. And of course, that is precisely the reason why our healthcare costs have skyrocketed. So I think that doing away with that and, uh, and making it much cheaper overall, much more affordable overall on every single American, uh, while still using the existing skeleton of those, you know, uh, middlemen that exists in all these different markets, but, uh, basically packaging it under some kind of public private partnership is the appropriate way to go. Have you looked much of what happened when they did try to do single parent Vermont? Uh, no, I'm not familiar with what, uh, the single pair initiative was in Vermont, but I will say this. Well, let's talk about for a minute, because I think it gets to where maybe I think this is going to end up. So I tried to do this a couple of years ago, Bernie Sanders, obviously being centered from Vermont, they had full democratic trifecta control. It fell apart. And there are different reasons to fell apart. My colleague, um, now at the times, then at Vox or Cliff did a lot of great reporting on this. But one of the things that happens when you try to ingest the entire healthcare system into, uh, a single payer system is all of these hidden costs right now become visible all at once to the electorate. In theory, the people you would think would want Medicare for all are employers, right? That, you know, a huge amount of my healthcare, um, spend is covered by an employer. I don't see it. That's true for most Americans, um, who are not in Medicare and Medicaid itself. And so you get everything that the employer is paying. It becomes a tax and everything that is kind of hidden in tax deductions becomes a tax. And so the price tag doesn't look less to people, even though it might be less on the national budget because a lot of the costs right now are hidden. So you have that problem. And the other problem, I don't know if you saw this, it was a, um, poll by Mediasans group, um, and Searchlight. So you had a kind of left and centrist, uh, poll and people, people want Medicare for all, but then you're like, do you want to, do you want your private insurance taken away? They say, no. Do you trust the government more than your private insurer? They say no. And so it has seemed to me that you're, even if you want to get to a single payer, you have to be in a kind of trust building period where you take it in pieces. When I had Abdul say it on the show, he talked about this is like climbing Mount Everest, right? You got to get to base camp and then a piece and then a piece. So first I'm curious which part of that political analysis you disagree with. Um, and, and if you don't, like what you see is a kind of, like what would be a progression towards what you want as opposed to biting it all at once? Yeah. I, I don't think that biting it all at once is, is something that, uh, is, is feasible or possible right now, but I think there's value in advancing that as, as, um, our, our legislative North star. The reason why there is this distinction and, and people get frustrated when you, or people, or more negative about Medicare for all, when you tell them that, uh, they might lose their private healthcare is because there's not a lot of confidence in good governance right now. And that has been, uh, I would say the defining feature of the post Reagan neoliberal era. But I think there's some real changes coming right now, but it requires great communicators to diligently talk to people, not treat them as stupid, but to explain to them the situation ahead. Cause the reason why Medicare has become much more popular over the years is because healthcare premiums are unbelievably costly. People hate healthcare. People hate, their private insurance companies they love their health care providers they love their doctors they don't want to lose their doctors but they despise aetna and and blue cross blue shield although that is their experience that makes us harder though right because the cost is coming i mean there's some cost that sits in the private insurer but the costs are coming from the providers first and foremost and because the insurers lose when they fight the providers they just don't fight the provider so they just pass along the cost yeah and then take a cut on top of that and then we spend a ton you do medicare for all in a way that saves money what you're doing is price controls on providers right that is that is the mechanism of money saving but i do want to do that yeah but then they're going to fight you right that's always been the hard part about health care when the doctors come after you yeah because you're cutting their salaries fully fully aware of that and i think that that is an inevitability it's a necessity but that's also why the the complementary policies that are being used to fight the providers are being used to fight the providers are being used to fight the providers are being used to fight the providers so that's so that's why the complementary policies that are being used to fight the providers are being used to that is also a free college education because i think i mean look i i grew up in turkey we have a nationalized health care system but then we also have private insurance on top of that we have private hospitals and public hospitals right and you can get free college education all the way to medical school but in exchange for getting your doctorate getting an md then the government will send you to one of these different uh places where you have to do a residence and you don't really have a say on where that residence is after that you can work in whichever facility you want to and that i think is a much fairer system and much more efficient system ironically enough because like at least you are no longer saddled with debt uh right out of the gates uh and and um of course this would be a uh a seismic shift in the way that we currently live in our society but there are initiatives uh paid for by benefactors in places like nyu and many other colleges right now where people are trying to pay for medical school specifically so i think there is a there is definitely a need that people recognize that exists here let me ask you about how you apply vulgar burnyism to places where you can have more conflict within priorities that democrats hold at the same time yeah so right now there's a permitting reform bill making it easier to build both clean and dirty energy moving through congress's bipartisan bill you have sort of democrats who negotiated it republicans who negotiated it i don't want to go super deep into the details of a super complicated bill but the the challenge it is posing to democrats right now is i think the studies show it's on net kind of modestly good for climate but let's even say we didn't know right let's just like use a kind of stylized version of the bill if you make it easier to build dirty energy and republicans win again in 2029 and they kind of subsidize it whatever you could get a big build out of dirty energy on the other hand it does reduce energy costs and people are mad as shit about energy costs and you know when the democratic party ends up facing this set of questions right what if you can make things cheaper but maybe it means you get more natural gas plants maybe you can make things cheaper but maybe it means it's easier for corporations to produce how do you think about those kinds of trade-offs i mean my attitude on this stuff is that we need to demand more in exchange for the subsidies that we offer to these companies to begin with i think that was a huge issue with the biden administration when i i remember uh when the first oil shock happened uh after russia invaded ukraine biden went back to the oil and gas giants and basically begged them to increase supply and uh the petroleum industry came out and said no we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders we're not going to we're not going to increase supply and and maybe ease prices i find that completely unacceptable especially considering the the sheer amount of subsidies we offer these companies and i think the way i would go about it is or rather the populist way of going about it is like there are areas where we could potentially make demands of the oil and gas industry uh to to at times even increase supply if necessary uh and and lower prices overall um but it's not uh the the current order of business the current way that we go about it is is through incentives but but it sounds even in the example you're choosing here it sounds like you're saying prioritize affordability over emissions reductions um i think that there are ways of doing this yes i think uh again this goes back to how much control we have over private enterprise how much control we have over the oil and gas industry and currently we have none uh in my opinion i mean look the the example i use is again going back to norway right so uh on the one hand they make a lot of money off of oil and gas but also on the other hand some of the profits go back to building out an electric uh an electrical grid that focuses on like the oil and gas industry photovoltaics and wind energy and renewable energy overall and i think that is something we can do here in america as well how do you think about questions where you're dealing with a conflict between consumer prices and production here right so maybe a an easy example this is it would become cheaper to buy an electric vehicle if we allowed chinese cvs into the country without ruinous tariffs on them on the other hand it could be really really bad for the american auto industry and the jobs and places it supports so how do you think about a trade-off like that um i am fully in favor of protecting domestic manufacturing look i'm a socialist i i am in favor of trade protectionism so i i believe that uh there are some tariffs that are necessary especially considering that we don't really have a lot of domestic manufacturing that remains here uh anyway so um i i don't mind uh shutting off uh chinese electric vehicles uh from from entering the american market however i think what we should be doing is focusing on investment in r&d to ensure that we have competitive electric vehicles a fleet of electric vehicles that we create as well that we could potentially sell to the rest of the world rather than uh engage in what donald trump is doing to to eradicate some of the trade surpluses that we've seen with other countries and then i guess like forcing them to purchase our f-150 pickups and then we're going to be able to sell them to the rest of the world so i think that's what we should be doing and i think that's what we should be doing and i think that's what we should be doing and i think that's what we should be doing and i think that's what we should be doing uh not exactly compliant with uh the the needs that other markets have so i think of a lot of places where the democratic party is rowing in the same direction and then there are debates about political strategy and how far to go and trade-offs i want to go to the the democratic coalition because not everybody believes things in the same direction which is israel particularly the issue of whether israel can and should exist as a jewish state and whether that can coexist with freedom and self-determination for palestinians so let me try it this way tell me how you understand the different positions here inside the democratic camp and then sort of after you do that where you place yourself yeah um i mean i'm an anti-zionist and uh you know i'm an anti-zionist and i'm an anti-zionist and i'm an anti-zionist and i'm an anti-zionist and i'm an anti-zionist uh that that obviously means that i i want israel to no longer exist as an apartheid state uh as an occupation uh and uh i hope that the most just and equitable solution is one that you know every party involved in this conflict can can agree on um that could be a single solitary secular state where everyone has equal rights and representation uh it could potentially be a binational commitment or a two-state solution even though it's not a two-state solution it could potentially be a two-state solution even though that seems less likely as a consequence of the the uh occupation in the west bank and how there's no contiguous palestinian statehood any longer uh and the settlement project has almost rendered that impossible um the democratic party or at least the base of support the voters themselves are not in disagreement uh so much as the the politicians are on the issue of israel there's definitely uh a divergence between where the base is versus where the party is and i think there's a couple different factors at play here obviously one is uh the the corrosive influence i want to hear the factions first right i want you to describe what what you understand the various opinions sure i mean you have the the die-hard uh ideologues like the ultra zionists or the zionists that are uh legitimately invested in this ideological project i would put biden in that camp um he seemingly uh he's not going to be able to do anything about it for one reason or another and this is very interesting because he's you know irish catholic and that's um probably one of the last demographics you would expect to be so um so invested in the israeli project but he is in the ultra zionist camp in my opinion and there are a lot of people who um are worried about their re-election let's say and are worried about at least up until this cycle we're worried about uh apac and and numerous other uh israeli lobby uh um front organizations dumping loads of money into their races and potentially unseating them. And then you have people, and this is a growing coalition within the party, many of the candidates that I backed that are in favor of delivering accountability to Israel for its crimes of genocide and demanding an arms embargo on Israel. Or I guess there's other versions of this where people want to apply Leahy laws evenly to Israel, although there are limitations on those restrictions. And yeah, I would say that I am closest to that camp, the camp that wants accountability for what Israel has done, the camp that wants to pressure Israel because we have profound amounts of influence. But that camp isn't primarily anti-Zionist. At least not all of it is anti-Zionist. Like Brad Lander, for example, is a self-described liberal Zionist. And I don't know if he's a Zionist. And I would put him in that camp as well. I want to get to, this is where you've become most kind of electrically controversial. And so I want to play a clip of, I think, where some of this has become tricky. This is you talking to Rashida Tlaib at last year's DSA convention. Zionism is an exterminationist ideology built around ethno-religious supremacist values. So when people say like, oh, well, you know, I'm a liberal Zionist. Like, I want there to be a Jewish. I've heard that so many times. And I'm like, okay, like, what do you mean? It's like saying you're like a liberal Nazi. You want an Aryan majority ethno-state? Like, what are you talking about? There's people there. So a minute ago, you were saying you're sort of in the camp with Brad Landers, a liberal Zionist, incoming congressman from Brooklyn. You're also kind of here saying liberal Zionists here are like liberal Nazis. Put that together for me. All right. So great question. Zionism, by my estimation, and I think this is becoming a more popular, uh, position overall is a racist ideology. It is, it, it, it differs the way that people see it, uh, depending on their social conditioning differs, but its impact ultimately is, is undeniably a racist one. It's an exterminationist ideology because it's led to the extermination. Brad Lander is an exterminationist. So with Brad Lander, the reason why I say he's a part of this coalition is because I find him to be a fascinating figure because on the one hand, he says he's a liberal Zionist, but also on the other hand, he's a liberal Zionist. On the other hand, he recognizes the apartheid. He recognizes the occupation and seeks out the end of the apartheid in the occupation. He recognizes the genocide and wants accountability. The areas of disagreement between myself and Brad Lander is when, for example, I love that he went out to the West bank and wanted to do protective presence during the olive harvest. We're in the West bank this week as part of that protect the harvest effort, we're helping Palestinian farmers harvest olives rather than be ethnically cleansed from their land. I think that's great. That's wonderful. And, uh, more politicians should do that, especially politicians who, uh, are, are, uh, self described as, as liberals on it should do that as well. Um, but then during that experience, he gets detained. I think that was more so, uh, the Israeli government trying to save that group, uh, so that the, the settlers didn't attack them and it became much worse. Uh, and much bloodier affair, but then someone attacks a checkpoint in the West bank and, uh, there are occupying forces, uh, occupying force soldiers at this checkpoint. And I believe they got killed. Brad Lander came out and said, you know, rest in peace to the, uh, to the IDF soldiers that were at this checkpoint. Now, my expectation isn't for Brad to come out and be like, get wrecked to those people. But my expectation, I think the expectation of many people. On the anti-Zionist side is, uh, to approach the issue with the understanding that it is illegal for those soldiers to be there. The entire franchise is illegal. The settlement project is completely illegal. But what you're describing here, I'm not arguing with this part, but what you're describing here, I understand there's a difference between being an anti-Zionist and a liberal Zionist, right? When you described what Brad Lander believes, you're just describing what liberal Zionists today believe it's an occupation. It's an apartheid. I wouldn't say all liberals. I'm not saying all. I agree with that. The genocidal dimension is the part where people part. But a couple of times I've called liberal Zionists akin to Nazis, right? That's a very specific thing, right? Sometimes I'll hear you defend the argument by saying, well, Zionism in all of its versions is a ethno-nationalist. And I'm just saying I don't like ethno-nationalism. What made the Nazis the Nazis was gas chambers. Like, just like straight, right? Liberal Zionists who believe there's an apartheid scenario happening in the West Bank, who believes that Gaza was a genocide or at least war crimes. I don't really understand the defense of calling them akin to Nazis. Now, it's hyperbolic. But the reason why I'm not so precious about the utilization of the term is because of its historic significance. The entire principle behind Holocaust studies is to understand. How society could move in a direction where people could turn a blind eye to such devastation, to such systematized forms of violence, this machine of death and destruction. It's utility is in learning about it so that we don't repeat those mistakes. And right now, obviously, it's not to the same degree as the Holocaust. But right now, we are watching a genocide unfold. I don't mind using this kind of incendiary language with the hopes that people understand exactly how devastating the situation has become. I think I'm actually take the sufficient response against it to try and stop it. Well, I think I think there's agreement here on how bad the situation actually is. Yeah. But I guess I'm actually more confused about your position inside this conversation than I was coming in. Because when you said at the beginning, look, you don't really care. So long as you have a just and equitable outcome, whether it's one state, two state, binational, confederacy, right? There's all these different ideas out there. I mean, the two state solution is like the liberal Zionist solution. I just don't think it's sincere. Well, you don't think it's sincere. You don't think it's likely. I different. I will both. I think that people that say they want a two state don't actually map it out. What does this look like? What do we do about the 750,000 Jewish? Settlers that live in occupies East Jerusalem and also the West Bank. And they don't actually talk about how to get there or what those two states look like. And that's what that's the point of frustration. So I feel like it's just a way to simply say, no, I want to do people who want to one state map it out. Some people do. I mean, I certainly haven't. And to one state also goes through a potential binational commitment as well. And then and then continue to build from that. But what you're describing here, and I mean, this is a place that I sit in a lot, is the impossibility from where we sit right now of imagining any solution passing and holding. Again, given what the situation looks like at the moment, you're not going to move to a one state tomorrow. Nobody's got a pathway to do that. Not to a two state, not to a confederacy. You're sort of. You're doubting the sincerity of people who believe in something. That they don't quite know how to get to. But in the way I would say you believe in something you don't quite know how to get to. I don't think you got a plan for how in Israel right now they can't even imagine how it would integrate Arab Israeli parties into a governing coalition when they're not even going to get coalitional, like full coalitional membership. How that becomes a peaceable, multi-ethnic, one state, secularized, you know, from the river to the sea. You do recognize the setback here is is not the fact that these Arabs. Israeli parties are the, you know, Palestinian citizens of Israel have some part of this political coalition that already exists, but it's it's actually the societal attitudes. Yes, I do. So that is the the unchecked racism that exists in Israeli society that's gotten worse over the last couple of decades. Racism and fear. Yeah. I think the thing that you often under racism is fear. It's both right. It's sometimes fear and I think fear drives a lot of it. The question is. Do you find that fear to be justifiable or not? I personally don't think that that fear is justifiable, even in spite of the the horrific actions that took place on October 7th. I don't think that the place Israeli society has gotten itself into is justifiable morally or from a security perspective. I think in the long run, all of this is completely ruinous. And I think that Israel being forced to confront the question of even. Within Israeli society as it is currently composed, can you actually have a pluralistic, multi ethnic governing coalition is showing things that probably Israelis would have preferred the world not see. So like my despair over this is very deep and how we get from where we are now to something I consider even modestly better, like on a path. But if the position here is to believe. in a two-state solution because you want to see Jewish self-determination, Palestinian self-determination is akin to being a modern day nazi then you've got a that that coalition cannot hold together no i i agree um like i said the if the underlying argument revolves around uh dehumanizing palestinians or in any way shape or form justifying as a as a consequence of security concerns for example or the demographic concerns that israeli society has broadly as a as it builds out a jewish ethno state right jewish majority state because that is the the underlying problem that's why uh when zoran says oh i believe that israel should exist as a you know pluralistic liberal democracy where everyone has equal rights and representation and people go wait a minute but you didn't say it's a jewish state it has to be a jewish state in character when there are indigenous inhabitants there that are not jewish that is the real problem and i think the reality of the matter is um and i understand why the the deployment of nazi as a terminology is is so powerful right it because we're talking about um a a jewish state engaging in fascist actions well not just fast i can't tell if you just used a provocative thing but you don't want to climb down from it like actually talking to you well it is it is fascist i do believe that no no but but nazis were more than fascist right the reason i call them fascist is they were the nazis i understand i don't think you think liberal zionists are actually the same thing because every time i push you you don't quite seem to think that there are absolutely in my opinion people who self-identify as liberal zionists that have turned a blind eye to the atrocities or outright celebrated them and demanded more of it in israeli society and in american society as well uh but not all of them while the no of course not all of them there's varying degrees of that and i think that's the reality of it and i think that's not the reality of it and i think that's the reality of it and i think that's the reality here but but you do sometimes describe people here in really really sweeping and to them really offensive ways i mean one that came to me non-politically just through jewish people i know as when you describe abdul sayyed canvassers in a jewish district as akin to people arguing for miscegenation in a kkk neighborhood and and maybe it's worth just playing that clip trying to convince people that al-sayyed is the right candidate is this has got to be the wildest door-knocking operation of all time trying to get perhaps the most zionist district in the country well not the most but like one of the more zionist wealthy districts in the country to vote for a muslim anti-zionist brave soldiers all of them thank god they don't probably own any guns you know this is the equivalent straight up look i don't think this is insensitive to say this is the equivalent of going to that like klan kkk neighborhood to stump for like a black candidate who's running expressly on a you know pro-miscegenation campaign or something like to abolish anti-miscegenation laws i think it's crazy to describe an entire neighborhood of jewish people whose positions you actually don't know as akin to kkk members okay like i think among other things what is i think offensive to many jewish people about this is just the like describing a district where you actually don't know what the people think you don't know what their relationship to israel is like that's where sometimes you'll talk very much about policing this boundary between what people think about israel which is i think up for political contestation and just judaism and among the things that i thought were a problem about that was like the demolition of that boundary yeah um this was a jews for abdul canvas um that was uh going to homes with democrats for mike rogers signs outside of it um and from my estimation i don't think that i mean we also found out that there were plenty of people who uh did not find it unconscionable to vote for a muslim anti-zionist so that that wasn't uh the case at all and i and i have talked extensively about how much uh this this this uh false conflation and loyalty to israel is exaggerated in the news and ironically enough how dangerous that is in terms of creating and fomenting more anti-semitism um but this is very specifically about um people who are like outwardly and expressly antagonistic to any criticism of israel and yeah at the end of the day i think it is uh coming from a racist place i look i live in a very i live in a very pro-israel neighborhood and the things that i've heard from my neighbors that i've known for decades at this point about who i am from their eyes now because of what they've seen what they've heard is genuinely alarming and is outright racist but you don't think some of what they think about you comes not from the fact that you're anti-zionist but because maybe you describe them as kkk members or nazis i think there is no difference between a kkk member and what i'm describing in my personal experience and what i've seen and what i've heard and what my my anti-zionist jewish friends have uh talked about in terms of their own conversations i'll give you one example i go to a dog park my dog and this other lady's dogs play all the time one day my uh i'm at the park again and my assistant is is uh barking my dog i'm playing basketball she comes up to her and says how can you work for that man she says what she goes i know who you work for how can you work for that man this woman i've i've met many times had long conversations she says he wants muslims to rape you and every other you know all of our daughters there is this tremendous amount of islamophobia that has grown in the last two years or so one of the funniest parts about this is like i as a socialist it's almost like a jewish tradition like all of my favorite thinkers are are radicals the revolutionaries are all jewish and and not only that but all of my closest friends are jewish i live in a very jewish neighborhood so like it's it's kind of sad to see the the attitude shift from people who are otherwise very progressive people that i've i've known for years and i mean it sucks okay there is racism there is islamophobia i'm not but that feels like an interesting shift in in the topic there because what you're talking about here are people who have not said to you or not said to your assistant that they believe muslims are here to rape all their their daughters but i think probably a lot of those democrats for mike rogers you know homes to even narrow it to that more limited group rather than the whole neighborhood of jewish people do you think a democrat for mike rogers is a lifelong democrat is uh obviously making the calculation that the odious forms of white supremacy that they're seeing from the republican party is still nowhere near as consequential i think what they are for an arab i think no i don't think well i'm not going to say i know what's in their heart because i also don't think you know what's in their heart i don't but if you if you hold this in a slightly more generous space or i think a more straightforward space the way you described it as um they don't want to vote for a muslim anti-zionist right and i would say it's probably the anti-zionism part is pretty important there and what a lot of the jewish people i know who hold politics that look more like that belief is that the jews in israel are endangered and that if it loses american support if israel loses american support that there will be mass slaughter there at some point right and it may not be about what anybody else is doing or believes it is a much more security or a much more security or a much more security or a much more security or oriented view that was vastly worsened after october 7th and you may not agree with that i'm not asking you to agree with it but but suggesting that they all believe that what's going on is you know you want to rape their daughters is i think uh point jump into something they haven't said the point well first of all the reason why i brought that up is it's anecdotal but the reason why i brought that up is because it's coming from somewhere and it's obviously very clearly a a that many people that i know have also reflected on but what i was going to say is the concept of security right there's never been a point throughout history where atrocities have unfolded where those who are responsible for those atrocities have not made the security argument of course there are security concerns i mean the nazis made a false security concern argument as well they didn't say oh we're going to go out and kill jewish because evil they said jewish people are evil that they're uh the organized jury is is uh in control of the banks but also the labor unions they're doing socialism they're disrupting uh you know the the german folk and and their good nature we don't have to believe the security concerns and my argument is i don't believe in the the security concerns that uh justify the continued support to israel uh and its uh current belligerent form i don't agree with that because i think The occupying force still controls the pacing and the intensity of the violence, both the violence that it subjects the occupied people to, but also the violence that is born out of the retaliation to the form of apartheid, which is a system of violence. You know, one thing that I wonder how you respond to it is you've often said you find Hamas to be a thousand times better than the Israeli government. Putting aside the question of comparison. There used to be a strong, even majoritarian, peace movement in Israel. Now, maybe it wouldn't go as far as you would want it to go, but it did want two states. It did have politicians. Israeli politics was not nearly as far to the right as it is today. And much more seemed possible then. And it was a very long period of suicide bombings that destroyed that movement, right? And that was an incredible success. And that's why I think what's so accelerant to Benjamin Netanyahu and his politics, right, is explicitly what he ran on again and again and again, right? Likud, strong on Hamas, right? That was the campaign slogan. And so I understand your critique of the security argument. And I'm not saying you got to buy it. But the view of Israeli Jews, when I talk to them, what they say to me is easy for you, sitting in your podcast studio, hanging out with them, to say, you know, I'm not going to buy it. I'm not going to buy it with Hasan Piker, which they're probably not going to love. The most dangerous man. Easy for you to say, why don't you just figure out a political settlement? But we're here. And it was my nephew who died in a bombing of a discotheque. And I had been out there in the streets protesting for a two-state solution for years at that point. And that there is agency on the other side. And what we simply don't believe is that if we let up on the repression, right, the occupation, that we'll be safe. Hasan Piker might believe we're going to be safe, but I don't believe we're going to be safe. Yeah. So the appropriate way to go about this is to understand how the Palestinian resistance's tactics has shifted over the years. Obviously, I think it's completely unacceptable to engage in violent actions against any group of civilians, right? Like international law does not allow that. That's obviously illegal. That is what we would largely, consider to be terrorism, right? Even though it's a vague definition. So October 7th was terrorism to you? Absolutely. There were war crimes that took place. I mean, it was horrifying. I've never condoned October 7th. Having said that, I understand the ways in which October 7th unfolded almost became an inevitability, really. And this is not that controversial of a perspective. It's one that Gideon Levy has also talked about. So Haaretz columnist. Yeah. And it's the Haaretz editorial board's opinion immediately after October 7th. It was one conversation that I had with Ofer Kasif, an Israeli minister of the Knesset, that was warning about this happening. There were former heads of the Shin Bet that talked about the squeezing of the Palestinian existence in the West Bank was making it an inevitability that the Palestinian resistance from Gaza was inevitable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably going to do something because they were getting written out of the equation in its entirety. Abraham Accords obviously accelerated this process. Well, why am I talking about all this? Well, because Palestinian resistance, the age old adage is a bit of a cliche is that the first intifada was fought with stones and then the second was fought with bus bombings. Right? So how did that evolution take place? Baruch Goldstein and the massacre. Yeah, that took place for 29 Palestinians that were praying inside of a mosque were ruthlessly slaughtered by this American Israeli was when the Palestinian resistance saw a turning point, a point of no return. It's an act of desperation from their perspective, but they recognize that there was no other solution. I think it was wrong. I don't just think that it's morally wrong, which I do, but I also think that it was tactically wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was morally wrong, which I do, but I also think that it was tactically wrong, which I do, but I also think that it was morally wrong. There's a reason why even Hamas itself, which is a fundamentalist group. Right. And I probably wouldn't do so well living under Hamas governance. Right. And there's plenty of problems in their civil governance, which, again, many of which is still born out of the occupation. Having said that, the attitude is that they are expressly animated by Jew hatred. That's not the case. If Israel was a Christian nationalist ethnostate, then the violence and the attitude would look like it's anti-Christian. It is a national emancipatory front. That's all they care about is the end to the occupation. And I think this is a real issue in the way that we've discussed it in Western media. And it's obviously beneficial to So I think that's an answer with more both understanding and context than the everybody who lives in that neighborhood is akin to a KKK member, which I recognize there's like your short clips and your long clips. But in this clip, in a part we didn't play, you're like, I know this is going to get clipped out of context. You're like, well, you're you're inviting it. The reason to the point you're making here substantively, though, the reason I actually don't get into a lot of debates about Zionism is I find the word itself outdated. There just is this state called the state of Israel. It exists. States do not give up their territorial integrity or their future willingly. And this state has factions in it that are highly racist. It also is a lot of people in it who genuinely care about security and who had a friend die or a child die or a nephew die in October 7th or in a bus bombing. And they're genuinely scared. And the one of the hard things from the position that I know better, right, I'm less I go to the West Bank when I go there, but I don't my understanding of Palestinian politics is not as strong as my understanding of Israeli politics. But unless, you know, if you just sort of dismiss the security question as well, every occupier believes they are doing this on behalf of security. There's legitimacy to that. But there's also the political reality. No, there's also the physical reality of your friend was butchered or blown up or you were at the funeral. Right. And saying to that person, security is an abstraction. It's not an abstraction to them, just like oppression is not an abstraction to the Palestinians. Israeli security concerns. But what is always not discussed in this conversation is how can Palestinians live alongside those who have slaughtered their family? across the river by feeling the stones underneath your feet, as opposed to being hard on a two-state solution or one-state solution or a land for all or any of the other ideas, because you're going to have to find your way to something that you've got to build confidence, like step by step by step by step, just saying to people, hey, in most decolonization instances, I mean, the Israelis don't believe what they are, colonizers. There was colonization in that period. No colonizer believes that though. Right. But they also have their own connection to the land and they're not leaving to go somewhere else. They're not moving back to Britain. I do understand that. If Palestinians are capable of coexisting and cohabitating these spaces with those who were previously responsible for pogroms and their demise and the destruction of their land. The echo side that has taken place, the destruction of their futures, then I think Israelis can do that too. However, in order for this to happen, there needs to be outside partners that incentivize and sometimes push in that direction. And that's where we come in as American taxpayers and as even, you know, Zionists living in America that have a connection or have family members that live in Israel that don't want to live in Israel. And that's where we come in. But think this is a good way to show support to Israel. We should do everything in our power to not only restrain Israel in the interim, but to to offer some kind of restitution so that we could potentially build a real civilization there that is pluralistic, a pluralistic democracy that offers equal rights and representation to everyone. What do you think? What would you be happy to see happen? The actual action? What would you be happy to see? Given like the different parts of the Democratic Party that exist won't have to be brought into the same fold on this. Yeah. Shut off all aid, all arms transfers and the memorandum of understanding immediately and apply maximum pressure to the Israeli government and and make demands of the Israeli government to slowly but surely. One retreat from Gaza in its entirety and to to create a process of of trying to address what happened. A system of accountability, a truth and reconciliation committee inevitably and and to move away from the the current occupying structure that exists to one that is hopefully more just and equitable. And what is the pressure you want to see America sanctions? I want. Well, the threat of sanctions alone, I think, would be enough for Israel to to react exactly how America would want it to. This is precisely the reason why under the Biden administration, we had so much power. And now there's more and more coverage coming out about exactly how we avoided using the pressure points that we had and the profound amount of influence that we have over Israel. Many people in America think now that Israel runs this country. That and it is is obviously anti-Semitic tropes galore. The further you go into that argument, the more, you know, people talk about organized jury and whatnot. I have the exact opposite perspective that we are the top dog and that Israel is an imperial satellite. And it's been quite beneficial for American interests, the interests of American empire for a very long time in this resource rich region. And as a consequence of that, Israel has obviously been able to make certain domestic changes and domestic demands at the legislative agenda that we've never seen from any other foreign ally or foreign adversary. I'm, of course, referencing anti BDS laws in thirty eight different states. The the former primacy of APAC in American politics and just the the the lobby and it's. Numerous functions in an advocacy groups that exist in American society. This has a unique relationship. Israel and America have a very special, very unique relationship because of Israel's utility to the American agenda in this region. But that means we still hold all the cards. We can tell Israel to restrain itself. And I think we must tell Israel to restrain itself to. To. To. Save the the lives and livelihoods of the remaining Palestinians, but also to save Israel from itself. One of the things that that strikes me about the way you put this is it. You actually do see a lot of coalitional room on this issue. I mean, you've come out saying you want to see Chris Van Hollen be the Senate majority leader rather than Chuck Schumer. Holland has been very strong on this issue, but is very much a two state solution kind of guy. Well, I'm pragmatic. You have rhetoric that on the one hand is very strong and honestly, I find fairly offensive on the liberal Zionism Nazi question. But, you know, you want to see politicians who are going to push for accountability and push for pressure to move the conflict in a more just direction towards some kind of solution that we don't yet know its shape. Like, is that me basically getting your position right? Yeah. I mean, I have a goal that I want to achieve, but any step in the right direction that preserves life is is appropriate and good and I'm in favor of it. That's that's my that's my position on everything. That's why I say I'm a very pragmatic person overall. Like I have I'm a socialist, but I, you know, want modest nominal social democracy in America in the end. And I think that's a very good thing. achieve but any step in the right direction that preserves life uh is is appropriate and good and i'm in favor of it um that's that's my that's my position on everything that's why i say i'm a very pragmatic person overall like i have i'm a socialist but i you know want modest nominal social democracy in america in the interim where would you want to go in the whatever the opposite of the interim is in the long term long term for for israel or no for america i'm pushing us off of israel yeah i think uh we need a stronger state in general that uh is is far more representative of the interests of the masses um i am not worried about a centrally planned economy in the way that many are. I think that even in order to compete with China, we have to adopt some of the Chinese forms of managing the economy. I think having stricter controls over the flows of capital could possibly be a good thing. I mean, this is super idealistic and very far in the future. But I think that making sure that we have a more performance-focused form of governance is also not a bad idea either. More responsiveness is something that I feel like is lacking from our current theoretical democratic project. If we say we want to eradicate poverty in the Appalachian region and we send our party representatives to that region, they have to accomplish that task. So one of the things I find interesting about this moment, we're here in New York, Zoran Mamdani, of course, is mayor in Los Angeles, and Nithya Raman has just won the mayoralty there, running on a very, like, a builder socialism, is the way I would describe what she's doing. Sewer socialism. Yeah, sewer socialism, but specifically building, right? I mean, her early ads, a lot of her campaign was about how much more she was going to build. There's a bit of abundance in this, but I wouldn't just call it that. I am seeing this highly technocratic, highly pragmatic, highly managerial sort of approach in very left-wing governance of, you know, various big cities across America. I mean, you know, this is working out differently in different places. It's also about showing your work. Showing your work, being caught trying. Yeah. And I do find this to be a pretty interesting movement right now because, like, we can talk ideology all day. But if people don't trust the government and don't believe it will help them, then they're not going to let it take over their health care. They're not going to let it take over capital flows or whatever you might want to do. So I'm curious to kind of hear your reflections on that, this sort of this like technocratic bent in modern socialist municipal governance. I think it's great. You nailed it. I mean, this is a real problem. lack of confidence that people have in governance is born out of the government not really helping people or rather when it is helping people it's doing it in very invisible ways right the regulatory agencies that are tirelessly working i think it was uh adam conover's uh series that was executive produced by obama the the was it the g word oh yeah i i love that i love that show because i think it's very important to uh to to understand exactly how the government works in ways that we don't fathom at all or take for granted we only recognize uh that the government is supposed to be there when it fails right when we have recalls for example because the fda is falling apart that is a real problem and i think we have to reinstill confidence in good governance and socialists are doing that they're more responsive to the needs that people have and they are seeking out solutions and also showing every step of the way, every step of the process and creating a level of confidence in municipal governance, at least. What changes in their own approach to coalition building or policymaking, whatever it might be, governing, is this forcing? I mean, you're much more inside this world than I am. So when people are discussing what is being learned here, like what was done poorly in the past and what is being done well now, when you hear people talking about what they should learn, not just from the way Mamdani communicates, which is what the rest of the Democratic Party wants to learn from him, but the way he actually governs. What are the actual lessons, the principles? If he's a Harvard Business School case study for socialists, what is being ran up in that study? I mean, I think on the election side, when he was campaigning, the five definable policies was perfect. It's exactly what I've demanded Democrats do for the longest time. And I was so happy that he was able to accomplish that. And then when it came down to governance, he very quickly had to, I guess, make certain decisions to build a broad coalition in order to ensure at least some of that agenda was accomplished. Very, very pluralistic. Yeah. Universal child care being the immediate, tangible change that people wanted, people voted for, that ended up boosting his profile as well. And it ended up delivering a little bit more confidence in the political process, not just good governance, but also the political process as well. Because I think there's a sense of apathy that we breed in our political- Although he's not past universal child care. He hasn't, but he's started- They're piloting. Yes. The implementation of it. But he's also, again, marketing it very effectively. So people are very excited about it as well. But you're right. It is a pilot program and it's supposed to expand. And a part of that- Yeah. A part of that is obviously creating a funding vehicle for it. So on that front, that's been quite difficult to accomplish. But broadly speaking, I think the executive role is an exceptionally difficult one for socialists. It's the one area where you can make immediate impact and associate this broad movement with deliverism. However, it's also an area where you have to build these coalitions. And I think that's a really important part of it. And I think that's have to build these coalitions and therefore compromise quite a bit jessica tish remains the police chief for example the srg is still not disbanded um i i'm sure the srgs uh the strategic response group is this counterterrorism group inside of the NYPD. They were most notably involved with the Columbia student protests. And there's a lot of surveillance that they engage in. And this is something that Zoran said he would seek to disband as well. Because I do think that our police force is unbelievably militarized. And I think that is a real problem. But everything that he does that that everything that he does well in new york has positive reverberations for the rest of the democratic party and certainly the democratic socialist movement i think that is a good place to end always our final question what are three books you'd recommend to the audience yeah um mao the man who built china by philip short it's dense like 800 plus pages but i think it does a very good job of explaining his his development his history without um without veering into like state propaganda or anything like that but it also doesn't like automatically demonize him he just looks at him as a historical force and i think it's a fascinating book another one that's even more controversial uh than that and that one's not really controversial um is uh And I thought about whether I should recommend this or not, but I recently reread it, Black Shirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. He is somewhat of a controversial figure. He recently passed away. I think it's good for the New York Times readership to try to develop a different understanding of countries and systems that are so foreign, so alien to us. Can you describe what makes that book controversial for people not familiar with it? it what it's about it talks about how fascism and and capitalism serve the same masters and that it has uh what i would say is a more sympathetic approach to the ussr to communist forms of governance um but i think it's good for those who are intellectually curious to to read something like this and then uh perhaps try to comprehend what some of the the positives were within this this otherwise like dystopian form of governance that we have a very different understanding of and the last book is also somewhat controversial because i haven't finished reading it um but i think it's very timely book is um american socialist a life and legacy of Eugene V. Debs. I feel like that's a really timely book that just recently came out about the OG American socialist, someone who was profoundly impactful in Bernie's personal ideological journey as well. I think it's timely because of the American socialist resurgence that we're currently going through right now. And back then, I mean, they had far more political representation that we do now, even though the Democratic Socialist of America has, I believe, become the largest socialist party or organization in the history of this country now. Hassan Piker, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. you Thank you.