The Populist Moment

What's up, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I am Dave Smith, good to be with you. Just me today. Rob is is traveling porch tour.com. If you want to go see Rob out on the road, that rub is very funny, by the way. Make sure to go check him out, porch tour.com. And of course, me and Rob, we, well, I leave tomorrow. And then so tomorrow night, I will be out in, in, in Alabama. I'll be out in a Huntsville, Alabama, tonight, tomorrow night, one night, only July 16th, that levity live out there. And then July 17th, 18th and 19th, I'll be out in Nashville at a zanies, which is one of my favorite comedy clubs in the world, really looking forward to this weekend. Comic Dave Smith.com. If you want to grab tickets, of course, Rob, you'll, I'll be with me on all those shows. All right. So by the way, my apologies, we missed yesterday's show. I, I do apologize for that right before we were getting ready to go on air. My wife, who was out with, with my kids, blew a tire, not just like a flat tire, like blew the whole thing. Um, and so yeah, my wife and my kids were stuck on the side of a road. And so I had to go, uh, to go get them and get a new tire put on my car. It's important kids. It's important to have a wife and kids and not leave them on the side of a road. So I do apologize for missing the show. We will make that one up for you, uh, this weekend and Rob will be together all weekend. So we'll get you some, some more content out. All right. So for today, um, I just wanted to talk about some things that are on my mind, uh, this was, I guess has been rattling around on my mind because of the state of the, the war. And, um, well, uh, the state of American politics. And so I was on, uh, I was on the young Turks last night. I, I filled in Anna was out. I filled it in co-hosted with Jank Ugar for the first hour and a couple of these topics came up on the show. And I was just thinking about it last night as I went to sleep and then, and then thinking about it a bit this morning. And we, we were talking about, you know, some of the potential candidates for, for 2028 and what they're doing wrong. All right. So I wanted to expand on that a little bit and then kind of maybe have a little bit more of a broader, um, uh, episode about where we're going with all of this. And, and so I guess the things, I guess I should say in the background, the reason why I'm thinking this way is that we'll look. Donald Trump is really, really relaunched this war in a major way at this point. Um, we're now, after losing phase one of the war and phase two, two of the war, Donald Trump is now in phase three, which as the Pentagon is claiming for the first time now were blockading the state of her moose and were bombing around. So we lost in the phase where we were bombing around. We lost in the phase where we were blocking the street, but now we'll do them both simultaneously. Um, there's a lot that's going on here and there's a lot of like political implications from all of this. And so I'll just say as, you know, somebody who's been on record, um, well opposing this war for a long time for many years. And I think that position looks pretty good these days. Um, I opposed the 12-day war. I said at the conclusion of the 12-day war for like seven straight months that we're at halftime and that the risk was going back to war and I outlined all the potential catastrophes and essentially where we are right now. And I also said at the beginning of this war that Donald Trump had destroyed his presidency, uh, and destroyed the coalition that got him into office. I think that's more obvious than ever. As Donald Trump is now launching back into this war, I think, well, look, Donald Trump in a sense focused group tested ending the war last week, right? He focused, I mean, he's describing this as I gave the Iranians a chance, but in a way, he, he, maybe a more accurate way to describe that is he gave JD Vance a chance to go out and sell this memorandum of understanding. Um, no, I'm not saying that's why it fell apart. I think the Iranian actions are what led to that, uh, which is interesting. We can learn a lot from that. But certainly we, we had talked quite a bit about how this was going to be very hard for him to sell even, you know, I had said from the very beginning that even if he stops, he's not going to be able to sell this, it's going to destroy his presidency one way or the other. And we just got to hope he stops and destroys his presidency that way. Um, I think that aged pretty well. But now that he's back into it, there's, it, it's just going to spiral worse and worse. This is, we're basically at, um, in, in, we're at a fork in the road and the decision is, well, maybe fork in the road isn't the perfect analogy, but the decision is how much longer, how much more pain do you want to cause the global economy? How much more do you want to push this until we're getting into the area of like legit catastrophe? Um, or do you just want to admit, cut your losses and just leave? I think that those are the options. I don't think we're getting to another round of negotiations because I mean, at this point, the Iranians are all signaling that they just don't even want to talk. Uh, the Americans clearly aren't going to follow anything that they sign. There's no reason to have negotiations. I think it's just, at this point, it's walk away or go down the road of doom. Uh, and on the other side of that road is, you know, if you push it far enough, it's global depression, world war three, something very bad. Um, so, you know, again, because those outcomes are so bad, I'm still left feeling like probably Donald Trump won't actually do that. Probably he'll stop somewhere short of that. But I do believe that the longer this goes, the worse the political price he's going to pay for it, which was already going to be pretty steep. Um, you know, Donald Trump, his, his approval ratings are in the toilet. He's about the lowest he's ever been. And I have a feeling it's going worse. I have a feeling it's going down. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is the wellness company. When credible doctors start paying attention to repurposed medications, it's worth asking why? Dr. Harvey risk former professor of epidemiology at Yale and now serving on the president's cancer panel is helping lead that conversation. 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They throw JD Vance has to go out and sell the surrender document of a dumb war that no one wanted. Anyway, now the surrender document failed. And now they got Marco Rubio back out there selling the, we're launching back into war, which is clearly Donald Trump's kind of, you know, his wartime concierge versus, you know, whatever. Sorry, but should that word? Consecretary, how do you say? But, but so this is just, I think, destroyed JD Vance. And I already thought there was no lane for him to run in, but this is God of, you know, really boost the idea that Marco Rubio is the inheritor of this administration and the establishment support within the Republican Party going forward. JD Vance is now the guy who is out there attached to the weak deal that failed. That's, that's pretty tough. And so, okay. you know, that, that's where we are. Now, I, you know, rather than doing a whole episode on the war right now, maybe we'll do, I'm sure there'll be more to come. And that's been one of the challenges in covering this war is that Donald Trump has drawn this out so long and he has, he had, he lies so much in such a cartoonish way to the point that his word means absolutely nothing. And he's repeated the same cycle over about 15 times. Now, again, it's something out of a, it's like a, it's not even a sitcom. It's a cartoon. It's like he's declared victory 75 times and announced we have a deal 63 times and announced the straightest open at least a few dozen times. And you know, and like, so after a while covering it, it just gets boring and it gets what are you going to cover the latest thing that he's said for the day, but it doesn't even mean anything. Then again, it's the most important thing going on. So you can't like, just not talk about it. So anyway, but well, there'll be more to talk about as actions are actually taken over the next few days and we get more of an indication of where this is going. But the point I'm making is that we're just, we're there. And if you kind of, if you try, as I try my best to do, to kind of zoom out because that's when you, you see the big picture of things, like you have to understand what's going on in the intricate detail, but then to put it together, you kind of had to zoom out. And I, I look at it like this for at least the last decade. We've really been living in a populist moment in America. Now, populism for, for, you know, anyone who's not familiar with this lingo is that populism is an awfully vague term. All it really means is that, you know, you're kind of on your on behalf of the working people on behalf of the people against some type of corrupt elite. It's a vague term populist populism. But the reason why people use it and the reason why it's useful is because, well, for someone like my age, you could certainly see why it's useful to describe the last 10 years as a populist moment. You know, the Donald Trump campaigns, the Bernie Sanders campaign, the Mamdani campaign, the Ron Paul campaigns. These were distinctly populist campaigns, although they varied in terms of like the world view of the candidates widely. But they were distinctly populist campaigns in a way that like Bob Dole running just wasn't in a way that Mitt Romney running just wasn't. And there's a reason why there's been a big populist moment in America. Because look, I mean, it's like a kind of weird dynamic we have here where you have this incredibly corrupt system, this very small group of people who benefit from it. But then we have regular elections, you know, it's kind of a weird system. And so then you have elections. And then obviously what gets a lot of people to vote is to say, hey, these people are corrupt. And, you know, I've watched this. I grew up in this country. I've lived in this country my whole life. It was, I mean, obviously there's a lot that goes into this. But the broad strokes of the history is that the George W. Bush administration was a disaster. Got us into two catastrophic wars. And we lost both of them and took huge losses in both of them, both financially but also, you know, in terms of thousands of people and a more profound loss in the soul of your nation because we killed so many innocent people. And then the economy crashed. And then America turned around and really believed in this Barack Obama. Like after really believing in this George W. Bush and then he let down the country, we really believed in this Barack Obama. They both had like record high approval ratings at the beginning of their presidency. And then by the end, it was like just completely let us down. And ever since then, the country's been in a very populist, in a very populist moment. Because almost no matter where you are on the political spectrum, it is pretty much not universally agreed upon. But man, there is consensus, like there's never been consensus on anything else that Washington DC is corrupt as shit and has completely mismanaged. Everything has lied to the American people about crises after crises, many of which they created themselves, all of which they failed to solve. And because of that, there's a lot of energy in people who oppose it. Now, the question kind of becomes what type of populist movement do you want to have? Now, right now, all of the fundamentals for a populist movement are stronger than they've ever been. And what I mean by that is just that we live in this world where the propaganda apparatus has been completely destroyed. And this is the big experiment. This is the big exciting thing about the time we live in. And there's lots of, and this is why, as I kind of mentioned on the show the other day, this is why I think the people who just sit here and focus on like how, oh, there's conspiracy theories online or Candace Owens is, you know, going too far at our podcast, I think they're missing the forest for the trees. What's actually going on here is that the way that the American people consume media has been revolutionized. And this obviously had a huge impact on the 2024 race. But even if you could think about something, say something like this, right? The, say, the awakening on the Israel question. Okay. This has only been going on since what? Well, October of, of 23 is when October 7th happens. The, I guess the, that process goes into 2024 when people are becoming aware of this situation and going, wait, what is Israel doing in Gaza? What's going on with the relationship here with, with the US and Israel and all this, right? This is, it was only really, if you remember, because I remember I was a part of this, in 24, we were debating. It was like by 25 that we had won the debate, you know, but that's last year. This is a very, very new phenomenon. We haven't had like a decade of elections after that to see what are the impact on voting patterns from all of this awakening. I mean, we just don't know. And man, is the Democratic establishment in a crazy weird pickle right now, where they're me and Jake, we're talking about this a bit last night. But you listen to like what Hakeem Jeffries says about Israel. If there is, I mean, there is a grand canyon between where the leader of the Democratic establishment is and where 80% 90% of Democratic voters are, okay. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is Trollco. Trollco was built by two guys from the oil patch who were sick of clothing companies, pretending blue collar workers didn't exist. While most brands chase trends and influencers, Trollco was made for the people who work with their hands, solve real problems, and keep the world running. It's built on that simple dirty hands, clean money mindset, show up, work hard, provide for your family, and earn everything you've got. No handouts, no shortcuts. Trollco makes tough, comfortable hoodies, tease hats, and real workwear that actually holds up. And you don't need to be in the trades to wear it. If you value self-reliance, responsibility, and honest hard work, Trollco is for you. Go check them out at trollco.com/problem. That's T-R-O-L-L-C-O.com/problem. Use the promo code Dave25 for 25% off your first order. Trollco, dirty hands, clean money, support a brand that supports real people. Now, I should say a word here about left-wing populism and right-wing populism, because there are differences between the two, and I do have a real preference toward right-wing populism. Now, this might bother some of my friends on the left, but I gotta be me. I gotta tell the truth as I see it. And, you know, this is, I think that right-wing populism is preferable for the health of a society. I think that in the United States of America, it's got a much higher ceiling. And that's part of the reason why it's such a shame that Donald Trump's administration is going down and flames the way it is. You know, whatever you feel about Donald Trump, it's almost like if you're, well, in a similar way, if you're a democratic socialist maybe, you may have a certain way that you feel about Bernie Sanders in 2016. Maybe you don't like him for whatever reasons, but he's also the only game in town. He's the guy running that. And if you care about democratic socialism, then you don't root for Bernie Sanders to crash and burn, because that's not good for your overall cause. Well, likewise, this isn't good. Don't get me wrong. I should, with like the caveat, once you launch this policy, then yes, we want you to crash and burn, because that's the only thing that can help at this point. But we didn't want this to happen to begin with. Now, I got to say one of the reasons why I like I prefer right-wing populism to left-wing populism is that, and believe me, to be clear here, it's not that right-wing populists are great on economics. They're not. That's one of the battles that we get into quite often. But with left-wing populist, you almost always get a marriage to socialism that is really tricky. And, you know, as I laid out many times here, they're just played, I mean, these are just destructive economic policies, and they don't make sense on paper or in practice, and that's why they have never worked anywhere, and they will be a disaster everywhere they're implemented to the extent that they actually are implemented. I'm happy to debate. People who don't agree with me on that topic suggest, I want to get a good economics debate going. Suggest some people, if any of you have anyone in mind. But I also prefer right-wing populism because, well, quite frankly, I think some of the social issues that left-wing populism has gotten involved with over the last few years have been ridiculous and destructive and indefensible. And there is also, I will say, there's something in America today, one of the things that I really think we need is normal, say. Now, I understand that that can be a vague word. But I think that there has been something remarkably unsustainable about the trajectory of our society for the last 25 years. Glenn Greenwald has pointed this out before. He had a great rant on this about living in an emergency society post 9/11. He was specifically referring to the Patriot Act. When the Patriot Act was first passed in the wake of 9/11, even though it was in the wake of 9/11, it was still a very controversial piece of legislation. And part of that was because it really repealed major parts of the Constitution. And it's like, wait a minute, you're telling me we don't need to get a judge's warrant before we spy on people and all these things that were considered fairly foundational to the American system of law of justice. And so what they said was essentially that it had a sunset provision on it or like a renewal clause. So the Patriot Act had to be reissued. I think it was every six years. And they basically said that look, this is right after 9/11, there's an emergency right now. But we'll have to come back and justify to the Congress that there's an emergency in order to pass this. Now the immediate emergency you could imagine after 9/11. Are we still living in that immediate emergency? Well, the Patriot Act got passed every single time. They changed the name of the law at one point, but it's still passed. All those provisions are still being passed. And in fact, they've been strengthened several times over. And so the point Glenn Greenwald was making is that we essentially said implicitly, you have to accept a permanent emergency society, everything's an emergency. And this is what's justified the entire global war on terrorism. This is what justified all of the financial, let's say the financial fiscal and monetary response to the 2008 financial collapse, the spending levels during COVID, all of these things were justified at the time. On the grounds that there's an emergency. There's an emergency. We just said 9/11. We just had the biggest financial crash in 100 years. We just had the biggest pandemic in 100 years or whatever. But with each one of those, we never stopped with the emergency policy. We're still in a state of emergency. We're still our spending levels, we're going to spend $7.5 trillion this year. That's more than we spent in 2020 or 2021. The emergencies over and yet the spending is even higher than it was then. Quantitative easing, 0% interest rates persisted for like a decade after the '08 crash. And of course, with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security and all those things still exist. And then, of course, culturally, there's just been, well, I don't know, what do you say? A lot of weirdness that's been pushed over the last 15 years. And it was right-wing populists for the most part who were standing up against that. There is something where I think you get more of a sense of normalcy with less of the socialism attached to it. And there's something about that that's attractive to me about right-wing populism. And not to mention the immigration stuff, but maybe we don't have to fit all of this in. But for lots of different reasons, I'm more likely going to be like, look, if mom Donnie is running an election with Tucker Carlson or something like that, I'm the Tucker Carlson. I'm going to be on his side. And anyway, the other point that I wanted to make there is that I also believe, and I think this is something important that that, you know, look, we're going to we're going to find figure this out because things do change. But I also do believe that right-wing populism has a much higher ceiling than left-wing populism does nationally in the United States of America. Like, again, you know, I think there's a reason why Trump won and Bernie Sanders didn't. Now, it is true that they cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination. But at the same time, they would have cheated Donald Trump out of that nomination. And in fact, Ryan's pre-buss and the rest of them were floating out the idea of trying to. The reason why they couldn't cheat Donald Trump out of the nomination was simply that he won it too overwhelmingly. I also think that the, I just think that right-wing populism has much more broad appeal across the country. And that I think at times, particularly like in the DSA crowd and in certain progressive circles, I think they fool themselves into thinking that their policies are more popular than they actually are. For example, you can count the times, you cannot count the times that you've heard like left-wing commentators brag about how popular, how popular Medicare for all is. But if you actually look into the details of any of the polling, it's really misleading. You know, like if you Medicare is a very popular program according to its recipients. And so if you say Medicare for all, people go, yeah, that's great. But as soon as you start caveatting that with like, you know, like for example, if you were to say to Americans, do you want socialized healthcare? You wouldn't get a very popular response. But if you say Medicare for all, you do. But if you go, do you want Medicare for all, but your taxes go up a little bit, all the sudden, that doesn't become very popular. And if you say, we're going to, that's been the big kicker for a while. But if you say that you have to get rid of the insurance you have right now, that really hurts the popularity of it. In other words, there is, I think that, okay, I think that a right-wing populist message, an America first message that says, hey, these criminals in DC are ripping you off. And here's how they're ripping you off. You know, it's these foreign wars, it's these these rackets of government spending. It's this banking complex, the pharmaceutical industrial complex, like it's this whole cabal. And what we need is to have, like secure borders, get rid of foreign aid, not fight stupid wars, get our currency. Like I think something like that can have popular mass appeal in a way that I don't think mom Donnie or his movement can. So I just, okay, anyway, I say all that to go, look, not only do we still live in a very populist moment, we live in a populist moment now where, hey, look, man, think about this for 2028. The war that the establishment is conducting, this is the most unpopular war in American history. This is, I mean, there is, there's such fertile ground. There's the 80% almost of people who oppose this thing. There's such fertile ground right now. And think about it like this, when the 28 election actually comes around, where's the media source right now? Well, what did Donald Trump use in 2024? Dude, you cannot tell me that it was not a huge part of Donald Trump winning the presidency was the fact that he went on Rogan. And of course, that he went on Theo Vaughn and he went on Andrew Schultz and he went on, you know, like all these, all these different huge, huge, huge shows on the internet. All those shows are still there. That's still where all the action is, okay? And just think about how wide open the ground is for some candidate who's going to deliver this message running in 2028, which by the way, again, think about this. I understand, but it's July of 2026, okay? By next year, by a year from now, we're in it. We're in the race for 28. This is not that far off. And think about somebody, a candidate out there who goes on all of those shows, who's delivering this message that were against the wars, against the corruption, against all of this insanity. It's gonna be the hosts of those shows and the audiences of those shows are going to be primed to be receptive to that type of inventory. I mean, it's like, it could not be more set up that all of these guys, and I'm thinking a lot of ways on these issues, they represent super majorities of the American people that they're like, it's like, yeah, we hate wokeness and the open borders and the COVID restrictions and the entire, all the fruit that the Democratic establishment gave us. We hate all of that. And we also hate that Donald Trump has turned his back on his own people and launched this stupid war. We also hate all of that too. That is exactly where they're all at. And tell me that that's not perfect, fertile ground for a populous candidate. Now, I will say that in, within that dynamic, it is in within that context, that I was just so interested to see what happened with Rokahana and Jeremy Skahill yesterday. You know, I brought it up, I was interested. Jank hadn't seen it yet, but I saw then today it was going super viral and everybody, of course, all of the Zionists are flipping out over it. But so the drop site guys who I've been promoting for quite a while now, I mean, they really just have been doing incredible work, but Jeremy Skahill and Ryan Graham, and they got a great team of people over there. But they had Rokahana on. He was talking about this incident in Israel where he was held up there by some settlers in the West Bank and then some IDF guys evidently came along and weren't of much help. But at one point, Jeremy Skahill, who is a great journalist and was doing his job here, started pushing Rokahana over his support for Iron Dome and the apparent double standards in when self defense is justified and who has a right to do what exactly. So here, let's go to this tape here. Here is Rokahana who in many ways is filling that lane of like a populous candidate who seems to have intentions on running in 28. Here's him sparring with the great Jeremy Skahill. - Israeli civilians are dying in these attacks because of the apartheid. - Palestinians have a right to kill Israeli soldiers Congressman. On October 7th, when they attacked the military bases in the Gaza envelope, did the Khassam Brigades and Serial codes have a right to kill Israeli soldiers? Yes or no? On October 7th, did Palestinians have a right to attack Israeli military bases in the Gaza envelope? Yes or no? - I mean, I think October 7th's attack was a terrorist attack. So I don't just-- - Was it a terrorist attack when the first targets that were hit on the morning of October 7th where multiple military bases did Palestinian forces have a right to attack those military bases? - I am not for violent violence again in any way. I mean, I am for making sure that we end the occupation. - You have a right to do it Congressman. Do they have a right to attack Israeli soldiers? - No, I'm not gonna say that Hamas had a right to attack Israeli soldiers or kill Israelis. I don't think that advance peace or advance is Palestinian statehood. - Is Israel have a right to drop a single bomb in Gaza in response to October 7th? - I believe Israel had the right to get people who killed this civilians, but not in the way they went about it, which I've said is genocide. - But the Palestinians don't have a right to attack the very military bases that are running the killing operations on October 6th, 2023, or October 5th, 2023. It's a double standard. You're saying, there are ways that Israel should be able to kill Palestinians, but there is never a condition under which Palestinians can attack armed, uniformed soldiers of a force that is still considered an occupied force under international law. I don't make it make sense to me how those two things are from a tradition of King and Gandhi. My father, grandfather, was in jail. - All right, here, he can pause it there. - So, I mean, part of the reason, now this is interesting, there's a little bit of an aside from the broader topic today's rant, but I loved this moment. I don't know why part of it, and I guess it is part of why I just love this, why I am, why I host a show like this, and why I do this. It's a logic, and I love these kind of interesting, little moments where someone's fanned in consistency and someone's thinking. I particularly like this question also. I completely forgot this, and I did not, this is not something I've used a lot in debates, but I did ask this exact question of known dwarf men, the owner of the comedy cellar, when I was on his podcast, and it's one of those ones that does cut right to the chase. If I remember, he had a lot of trouble with it, and ultimately wouldn't answer. I think he just said, I don't know, or something like that, and wouldn't answer it. But I think I asked a more specific version of the question, like I started getting into like, hey, Wenda, since you sit here, and you're always talking about Israel's right to exist, and Israel's right to defend itself. At what point do we ask about the Palestinians right to exist, and they're right to defend themselves? When do they have a right to defend themselves? When is it legit for a Palestinian to kill an IDF soldier? And the reason why it's an interesting question to ask is because it gets into a lot of these double standards. It's like, look, man, if you, nobody, right, including, I mean, I've never heard anyone, I've heard some wild shit. I've never heard anyone, no matter, even the most pro-pally leftist you could think of, has ever said that Israel didn't have a right to shoot militants in Israel proper on October 7th. So if Hamas militants broke into Israel on October 7th, and let's say they killed a few girls at a music festival, and then they turned around, and there was an IDF soldier with a gun, and he just shot that guy. Nobody denies. He had a right to kill that guy. He was in the middle of committing a violent act, you know? But okay, well, what about just like the people of Gaza? Do they have a right to kill IDF soldiers over the last three years? This is a military force that is systematically slaughtering your people by the tens of thousands. Do you have a right? And of course, the question, you know, because Rokhan is gonna sit here and say, Israel has the right to go kill those Hamas. They have a right to drop bombs in Gaza, as long as they're attacking the people who came here and killed people on October 7th. So then Jeremy Skahil goes, okay, but then two gozzans have the right to kill IDF soldiers in Israel. And as he correctly points out, there were a lot of IDF soldiers killed on October 7th. Now, that's not the extent of it, but Jeremy Skahil is very clearly here saying, what if it was, you know, thought experiment? What if that was the extent of it? Would you then be sitting here and saying that was there right to defend themselves? 'Cause if you support Israel dropping bombs on Hamas, but you don't support gozzans being able to target IDF soldiers who are enforcing a goddamn genocide over the last three years, and a brutal occupation for decades before that, then there's an obvious contradiction. So of course, anyway, one of the things that I find interesting about this is that all of the Zionist freakout over at this morning. In fact, I just, I think the tweet that I just sent you that you just played, how did they characterize it? It was, I'm sorry. Here it's a leftist, help us kill the Jews, Ro, Ro, Kahana. No, that's way too crazy for me, sorry. You know, they're characterizing this as if, you know, yes, that's what happened here is that Jeremy Skahill said come kill the Jews. No, he was, actually, it was secratic questioning is what Jeremy Skahill was doing, finding a contradiction in his own policy. But this is what they have to pretend. Listen, I believe me as you guys know, I've done a lot of debates on this topic over the last few years, less recently, just 'cause it doesn't, I don't know. You know, I'm actually, by the way, I'm kind of itching. Let's get a big debate going. It's been a little while since I've done like a big one. But it also just seems like all of the topics I've been debating have been so clearly just, what are we even debating anymore? Or should I go debate whether, let's get into a debate over whether the 12-day war was halftime or we had totally destroyed the nuclear threat, like what are we debating? All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolong. 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So, if you're ready for your own reset for a limited time, Prolon is offering hour listeners 15% off site wide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five day program. Just visit prolonlife.com/poTP. That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F-E.com/poTP to claim your 15% discount and your $40 bonus gift. Prolonlife.com/poTP. Anyway, but this topic has come up a lot over the last few years, and it really always is right at the heart of the Israel-Palestine debate is that the only way to defend the Israeli status quo is on some level to just value Israeli life more than Palestinian life, to give them super rights and the Palestinians not full rights or something like that. So Israel does have the right to defend themselves. They don't. And part of the reason why there's so much freak out over Jeremy scale leading this line of questioning is that it goes right to the heart of the entire Zionist worldview. It really destroys it. You know, it's funny because they have been trained in their Hasbro training. One of the things that they say all the time, you may have noticed, is they say moral equivalency or whatever reason this is something you just shout. It's, well, the idea, it's not for whatever reason. The idea was always that if you ever, this was like back in the day. I think this doesn't work as much anymore, but they used to do this a lot was they would just shout, you know, blood libel, moral equivalency. So if you ever start talking about any Israeli atrocity that they committed against the Palestinians, they go moral equivalency. And what that means is what they're accusing you of doing is equating the two sides. And that's an automatic sin because we all know that you have to come in this as the Israelis are up here and the Palestinians are down here. So as soon as you start mentioning that Israel did something bad, you're guilty of trying to equate the two things. And you can see the obvious tactic in that. And it's interesting because I don't think any critic of Israel has ever been trying to equate the two things. The violence that the Israelis commit against the Palestinians should not be equated to the violence that the Palestinians commit against the Israelis because they are not equal. They are not the same. And one of the differences that Israel kills far, far, far more. Oh, no, you could also argue that another one of the differences is that Israel does it in a more advanced systematized, stateless manner. Like Israel does their killing from orders down, you know, command of the chain command to an air force that delivers a bomb. Whereas non-state actors yelling a la Akbar coming and kill whatever they can find on the other one is more brutal and primitive. I will certainly grant that. They're all intentional killing. And one of them stacks up much higher numbers. But anyway, the thing that's interesting is that while they will yell moral equivalency, they recoil at the idea of a universal standard. You know, like why, as the great Scott Horton once said on this show, why do we need two standards when one will do just fine? You know, when is it right? You know, this is a conversation about when is it morally justified to use violence? And I think that the only real coherent answer to that is in self defense. You know, and that is what that is what has been the obvious norm in civilization, like aside from state actors, just among civilized people, that's what we all know that when can you use violence? Well, I mean, to thwart an attack. Like if someone attacks you, you can defend yourself other than that. You can't just go be violent toward people. You can't be, you know, that's aggression. And that's wrong. And so if you want to say that the Palestinian or excuse me, if you want to say that the Israeli has a right to kill a violent Palestinian who's invaded Israel, like, okay, fine. But then the Palestinians also have a right to kill a violent Israeli invading Gaza or the West Bank. Anyway, none of that is really the point of the episode just some thoughts that came up there. What is the point of the episode is that you're watching something here. You're watching, um, you're watching a politician who, by the way, and, and I think Jeremy, there was a period, it was a real interesting episode. I recommend people go go watch it. I recommend people watch the drop site, uh, shows in general, read their stuff. They're great. They're free by the way, too, if you want to sign up. Um, but one of the things that was interesting there is that you have, uh, a politician, you know, so Jeremy, when he was talking about this after Rokahana got off of the show, he even was kind of saying, look, man, like, I'm not sitting here trying to like ruin Rokahana. He's done a lot of good stuff, but I'm just doing my job here and I, I agree with him on that. And Rokahana certainly has been one of the best members of Congress on this topic. Um, and he's just in general been a good one of the best members of Congress. And I very much appreciate the fact that he's been right there with Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene and trying to push transparency on Epstein and being against this war and Iran and he's become a real spokesman. In a lot of ways, he's filled a vacuum that you would have thought AOC or one of these other people might have taken, but they've kind of proven to be frauds. Um, that being said, what's going on here is that he's taking a populist position and then he's being pushed, um, on the obvious logical conclusion of that position. And he's being a politician about it. That's what you're watching here. You know, you're watching when Jeremy Skahill goes, well, what if October 7th was just an attack on military? Then would they have had the right to do that? And he goes, I think October 7th was a terrorist attack. And you're like, yeah, but that's not, you're not engaging with the question. You're giving a political answer. I'm in the tradition of Martin Luther King. Yeah, you're not, you're not really giving an answer to the obvious question here because again, you're willing to say that Israel has the right to bomb Gaza, but you're not willing to say that Gazans ever have the right to defend themselves. And I guess, there's a point to be made here. Look, whenever, whenever someone, when I say he's being a politician, meaning he's being political, he's like, well, let me really calculate what I say here. You're not just thinking in terms of like, what do I believe? What's the answer to this? You're going, let me think about what I say and what will be most advantageous to me, factoring in all the different, you know, interests and voters and pressure campaigns and all of these things. And when you're being political, what you're inherently doing is you're weighing out the, the very real factors that are all around you. It look, I'm not coming out against ever being political. That's something that every movement is going to have to do at some period in time, no matter what movement you are. If you ever get past the phase of just talking about shit and you start getting into the phase of trying to take some type of political action, assuming you're a political movement, you're going to run up against pragmatism. You know, it's going to be a force of danger. There's going to be, as they're always are with all projects, there are going to be constraints based on reality that you're going to have to deal with. And so, but so for example, right? Let's say, I don't know, hypothetically speaking, let's say you're, you live in a, in a country where there's slavery and you're an abolitionist, but the abolitionists represent like 2% of the population. Oh, this was the case in like 1840, in America, 1840, something around there, 1850. And okay, so in that case, you may have a politician who's like, look, I'm an abolitionist too. I also, you know, and with you, I think slavery should be abolished, but I'm proposing a bill that says like, I don't know, you know, I'm posing a ban on excessive beating of slaves because look, there's majority support for that. And even though I don't think there should be slaves at all, just like you, I'm proposing this bill that says like, you can't excessively beat your slaves because this could get passed and this will at least make life better for some of the slaves. I mean, it won't give them their freedom, but hey, it's better than that. Now look, that might be a thing that, you know, in my heart of hearts, I'm more of like the young radical. And, and, you know, for those of you who want to be purest, that might, you want to grit your teeth and go, man, that sucks. And I'm going to keep fighting to be an abolitionist. And I'm going to try to change it from 2% of people agreeing with me to try to get that number up to as high as I can. You know, and maybe that's the correct way to go. But there's at least an argument to what that politician is saying in that moment. You know, look, these are the, I'm just one guy in this system. And this is what the best I can do. And this is better than not doing it. So maybe we ought to do this now. take that same scenario, except 80% of the people are abolitionists. And now you got a congressman coming over here going, hey, I'm going to introduce a bill that says no excess beating of your slaves. Well, this now, it's, it's appropriate in that dynamic to go, no, stop being a politician, dude. Just get up there and tell the truth because like 80% of the people are with you and the people who are against you already hate your fucking guts. Like, do you think rocahana won over any support in the Israel lobby because he said, yeah, you guys have the right to bomb Gaza? No. So just tell the truth. You know, I see this, I watch AOC supporting Hakeem Jeffries and all this. Look at them. They're so out of step with just where their own voters are. Why not just tell the truth and be their champion? Well, for whatever reason they're not doing it. In the case of AOC, I think it's because she's for she's a fraud and she wants the power. And in the case of rocahana, I don't know him well enough to, but I know that right there, there was a cowardice that I saw. He didn't want to say the thing that maybe would get him in trouble, even though it's obvious. It's obvious from his own. I mean, look, dude, he's supporting iron dome. He's supporting funding Israel while calling them a genocidal regime. I mean, what sense does that make? And why would you run in that lane? There's no, there's no energy to that. That's not where the base is. No, of course. Well, how do you feel? There's a basic question. You're not even running for office. You feel a regime's been genocidal. Where do you stand on funding them? You're against it. There's not a penny. Not a penny should go to a regime like that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is Quince. I love this company. I've been telling you guys a lot about them lately. 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You would think these were super expensive luxury brands, but they're very reasonably priced. And they're not just clothing. Quince has become my go-to for everything from hotel quality bedding and bath essentials to premium cookware and travel must have. So upgrade your every day by going to quince.com/poTP for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/poTP for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com/poTP. And so anyway, you just, you see this. And you think about the openings. Look, I'm, okay, here still is at least last I checked, according to the bedding markets, which as we all know are right about everything. But last I checked, according to the bedding markets, Gavin Newsom is still the favorite to be the Democratic nominee. Let's play this clip of Gavin Newsom being asked the question that he's going to be asked a million times. It is the question right now in Democratic politics. And this is the best he's come up with so far. Here's, he's asked about his feelings on Israel and APEC. Let's play. There's been, there's been some headlines. I just want to clear this up. Yes or no. Do you consider Israel in a part? I said that was directional as it relates to what Freemun was arguing about the West, the annexation of the West Bank. So no, but in the context of if is pursuit in the hard and the far right, I align just pause that one more time. Pause that Natalie for a second. I'm sorry. I just really, the question here is, do you think Israel is a genocidal state? I won't play it from the beginning again. I actually want people to listen to this. This should, someone should just tweet this out. Just the text of his answer. Think, look at this rambling word salad. Is Israel committing a genocide here? Let's play. Yes or no. I said that was directional as it relates to what Freemun was arguing about the West and the annexation. That was directional according to what Friedman was arguing regarding the annexation of the West Bank. This is who? Who is that answer going to please? Like, is there an Israel supporter who likes that answer? Oh, no, no, you're not in a apartheid state. You're directionally in apartheid state is regards to the annexation of the West Bank. No, they're not going to like that very much. And does anybody like, I mean, Israel's had control of the West Bank since 1967. But so this is your bolt. But he said, so again, what does it even mean to annex the West Bank when they've annexed it already, but so what Gavin Newsom here is saying is that if they did formally take it, then we could call them in apartheid state. Wow, gee, thank you. So if you said, this is Israel proper and then said the millions of people who live here still aren't citizens and still can't vote and still can't participate in the government, then it's apartheid. What a satisfactory answer. All right. Yeah, let's play the end of this little clip. Asian of the West Bank. So no, but in the context of if is pursuit in the hard and the far right, I align with that concern and that thinking that was expressed very pointedly by top frame. Yeah. And do you think their potential on the path? Yeah, I think I continue. My biggest concern, my red flag is BB Night and Yahu, Perry Fullston and his opposition, the two state solution, how he is navigating his own domestic politics as it relates to placating the far right less than annexation and annexation concerns, how he's influencing events that are now out of our control. And we're not, you know, we haven't even focused much on happening in Southern Lebanon issues there and intended unintended consequences. The future of Gaza, the board of peace, which is about Trump and Wicoff and Jared Kushner getting their peace if we can discuss that. And what happens to the future of the Middle East? And so yeah, I've been very critical of him. And I say that as a guy who visited BB, visited right after October 7th, because of the relationship I've had not only the Jewish community here, but my relationship to the people of Israel. And so I've long supported the state of Israel. Okay, listen, that long-winded fidgety nervous answer is, I mean, this is so right to just be torn apart by any opponent who wants to. I mean, look, again, he's just, it's very clear, it's like, where do you feel? Listen, don't get me wrong. Okay. Israel's not the most important topic. All right. And believe me, I certainly wish we talked about it a lot less than we do. And the American people don't want to be talking about this. Now, it's a weird thing, the position we're in. It's, this is true anytime you're against a thing. The abolitionists, you know, there's a good example there. But if you're an abolitionist during slavery, you know, you probably talk about slavery all the time, but you'd like to never be talking about it because it shouldn't even be a thing that exists at all. And you know, likewise, that's how I feel about Israel and the war in Iran and all of this. This relationship shouldn't exist. This war shouldn't exist. It shouldn't even be a thing to talk about. But, and likewise, the American people care much more about the price of groceries and healthcare and education and the border and things like this. They care about the country. They live in their kids, their family, of course. But look, there's just no question that we've been forced to talk about this because, right, this is the big, it's a genocide that's been going on for years. It's a disastrous war that's going on right now. The, the risks are near infinite. The price tag is enormous, both in terms of human life and in terms of resources. And so look, this has become the topic. This has been the most divisive issue politically. Maybe the most divisive issue of my lifetime, but over the last few years, certainly it is dominated. And it's a very charged top, the most charged political topics. And as you can see all over the place, it's causing huge realignments, political civil wars to be fought amongst political camps. You know, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro may have always been different brands of conservatism, but now they are at war. They are as opposed to each other as any group on the left and group on the right are. And so you're the front runner for the Democrats and you have to wait into this look. How do you feel on this topic? And all you can offer is a word salad, just non-answer, something that tries to please everyone. All right. Well, here's what I'm laying out for you with the totality of this, this answer. We're live, we live in a populist moment. The populists have more advantages than they've ever had before and we're, we still have elections coming up and we're going to see the results of that. It might feel like for a moment because this war is the most unpopular war ever, but it's still got launched. You know, shoot, maybe it doesn't even matter that it's the most unpopular war ever. Okay. But we do have elections in this country that are, who knows, to what degree they're free and fair, but we do have elections. And we live in a populist moment, the populists have more tools than they've ever had before, and this is what the frontrunners got. And then likewise, who are the left-wing populist potential candidates? We just saw Rokahana. I think that's not going to cut it. AOC is supporting Kim Jeffries. She's not going to be that. You know, mom, Don, he's not born here. He's young. He's not ready to re, like who's going to inherit this movement? And therefore, the point I'm making is that despite the fact that Donald Trump is wrapped in right-wing populism and has owned it over the last decade, he's gone down in flames. JD Vance is down in flames now and all they're going to have left standing is Marco Rubio, who is not going to be able to run a populist campaign. I mean, just no way. Nobody's going to buy it. The door is wide open to the right-wing populist now. Now, keep in mind, think about it like this. If you, when I said that Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, they're not just opposed to each other, but they're every bit as opposed to each other as Rachel Maddo and Bill O'Reilly are, you know, probably more because their differences actually are over something and about something. For example, let's just say it like this. I'm not saying, forget even who I'd vote for, because I don't know. I got a bad taste in my mouth about voting. But, you know, obviously I would vote for some people. But let's say the candidates, they really think this through for it. Let's say the presidential race came down to, it was Marco Rubio versus Rocahana. Let's say that's the race. I don't know that I'd vote for Rocahana, but that's the only consideration. I'd never vote for Marco Rubio, you know, and probably that's true for say, think about it like this. Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, who are they voting for for president? If it's Rocahana versus Marco Rubio. Well, the fact that it's even a question and that probably you'd get at least one or two votes for Ro in that group of three, that tells you something. The dynamic isn't so much left first right. The, the, the, the, the Jank Ugers and Anna Casparens of the world would vote for Rocahana over Marco Rubio, but they would also quite likely vote for Thomas Massey over Gavin Newsom, if you get what I'm saying. So there's huge swaths of the American people who actually could vote for like either political party in a way that is not typically the case here. And so I guess the point that I'm making is that even though Donald Trump has just crashed and burned and, and JD Vance has just crashed and burned and in some ways it would be intuitive to go where there goes the right-wing populism. Now the left-wing populism has the energy. I'm not so sure that's the case. We got lanes here that are starting to emerge. Again, we're only like a year out from where we'll be in the thick of this race. Republican establishment lane is clearly being filled by Marco Rubio. The Democratic establishment lane is clearly being filled by Gavin Newsom. Now you have the Democratic populist lane. Maybe Ro, maybe AOC, not exactly clear. Who's filling that right-wing populist lane? That's going to be the real quit because that person is going to have an enormous advantage in terms of the fact that there's inherently right-wingers are better at being politically incorrect than left-wingers are. So when Ro, Kahana is kind of apologetic, doesn't really want to say it, there's a real lane right there for someone, Atomas Massey, perhaps a Tucker Carlson, perhaps someone who could really articulate these views where they can just say it in an unapologetic way, make the establishment candidates look like crap and make the left-wing populist look like cowards because they're not willing to say the truth in an unapologetic fashion. And I think it's also, as I indicated earlier, I think right-wing populism is preferable to left-wing populism and I think it has a way higher ceiling amongst the voters in the country. So all I'm saying is that like right now we're in a bit of a dangerous moment. It also is kind of repetitive and seems to be the same story, all the things are changing. But man, coming up very soon in the future, like over the next year, next year and a half, there's the potential for things to be kicked wide open. And I think it might mean more than we realize even now that we've won over the public on so many of these most important issues. Okay, that's going to be the show for me for today. Really, really looking forward to this weekend. It's my first time out at Levity Live in Huntsville, Alabama. So see a bunch of you guys there tomorrow night. And then of course, it's great to be back in Zany's in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the best cities in America, one of the best comedy clubs in the world. ComicDaveSmith.com for all those ticket links. And then I got a bunch of stuff coming up. I mean, I'm traveling a lot this summer after, of course, Huntsville tomorrow, Nashville this weekend. Then I will be speaking at the Young Americans for Liberty event in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm speaking on July 28th, then July 30th and 31st. I'll be at the Dania Beach improv with Rob Bernstein and Fort Lauderdale Florida or Dania Florida down there in Southern Florida, July 30th and 31st. August 13th, 14th, 15th Skyline Comedy Club in Appleton, Wisconsin. Then ending out the summer at the best comedy club in the world, comedy mother ship out in Austin, Texas. Go get tickets for all of those ComicDaveSmith.com. Thank you guys very much for watching. I do appreciate it. Catch you next time. Peace. [BLANK_AUDIO]