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7.30, 6.30 Central on NBC and

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Peacock. Hi,

1:00

this is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser

1:02

podcast. Say yes to summer and get cash

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options, terms apply. First,

1:39

no matter what happens, remember to

1:41

breathe. It's always good

1:43

advice to breathe, but taking good advice is

1:46

easier said than done. Sometimes

1:48

the world is so overwhelming that any added

1:50

weight, even the weight of oxygen in your

1:52

lungs, feels like it might be

1:54

enough to drag you down. This

1:56

is one of those times the last week

1:59

has brought about 10 years worth

2:01

of news, and we are all processing

2:03

the seemingly inevitable coronation of a dictator

2:06

and the sudden hope and possibility

2:08

inspired by Joe Biden stepping down

2:10

from the nomination. Welcome

2:12

to It Could Happen Here. I'm Robert

2:14

Evans, and this is a podcast about

2:16

things falling apart and sometimes about how

2:18

to put them back together. The

2:21

last time I sat down to talk

2:23

with all of you like this was

2:25

in the immediate aftermath of the Trump

2:27

assassination attempt just before the Republican National

2:30

Convention. I told you not to

2:32

panic. That's still good advice. I

2:34

also told you that no matter how

2:37

bad or good things may look, literally

2:39

anything can happen in US politics, and

2:41

by God it has. I

2:43

felt it was necessary to deliver that

2:46

message because I saw an awful lot

2:48

of people declaring, we're doomed, fascism is

2:50

inevitable, and quite frankly, I think shit

2:52

like that only helps the fascists. Well,

2:55

it turned out I was right. A lot

2:57

has happened over the last two weeks, and

2:59

the situation now is very different than it

3:02

was the day the former president took that

3:04

grazing blow from a sniper's bullet. As

3:07

is usually the case in instances like this, I've

3:09

had a lot of people reach out to me

3:11

since that episode saying versions of, how did you

3:13

know? And as good as it might be for

3:15

my career to lean into that side of my

3:17

reputation, the truth is that I am white knuckling

3:20

it through every twist and turn like everyone else.

3:22

I spent the RNC wondering if I'd been

3:24

foolish telling people not to panic, and yes,

3:27

I feel a hell of a lot better

3:29

right now. Of course, I

3:31

don't know what comes next. I just know that

3:33

we're done with the portion of this mess where

3:35

we spiral in a hopeless mire. That

3:38

was last week. This week, the outlook

3:40

is a lot better. And not

3:42

because Kamala Harris is our savior, or

3:44

because Nancy Pelosi is a 3D chess

3:46

master, but because men age

3:49

and die. This is

3:51

a fact I tried to remind myself of

3:53

as I'd grown through that disastrous debate with

3:55

the rest of the country. On

3:57

one hand, I felt like we were all

3:59

about to watch one alien. power-hungry man hand

4:01

the keys to the kingdom over to a

4:03

cadre of bloodthirsty fascists. But

4:06

on the other hand, there's always

4:08

something inherently optimistic in this simple

4:10

reality. The people who would

4:12

be our rulers will all die someday.

4:15

And so long as men die, liberty

4:17

will never perish. So long as men

4:19

die, we have hope. I

4:22

stole that line from Charlie Chaplin. He put it

4:24

in the mouth of his character from The Great

4:26

Dictator, a movie he produced at great

4:28

personal cost in 1940, right as

4:30

Hitler and the Nazis reached the apex

4:33

of their power. A rational

4:35

analyst staring out at the playing field after

4:37

the fall of France could be forgiven for

4:39

having seen the outcome as certain. Great

4:42

Britain stood alone, Hitler's armies victorious

4:44

in every theater, and the future

4:46

of democracy and human liberty gasping

4:48

for breath. One

4:50

such rational analyst was Joseph Kennedy,

4:52

U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and

4:54

patriarch of the Kennedy family. Joseph

4:57

was a man of wealth and power, whose

4:59

sober judgment and cunning had seen him short

5:01

the entire U.S. stock market, and the kind

5:03

of fortune that let him buy his way

5:05

into the ranks of global royalty. He

5:07

was a man who had predicted the future

5:09

once, one big, and he let that convince

5:11

him that he had the second sight. And

5:14

so in November, 1940, less than a month

5:17

after the release of The Great Dictator, Kennedy

5:19

found himself in an interview with the Boston

5:21

Globe. Looking out at the ruin of Europe

5:23

and the bombs falling on London, he told

5:26

a reporter, democracy is finished

5:28

in England. It may be here. Here,

5:31

of course, being the United States. Now

5:33

the resulting blowback to all of

5:35

this saw Kennedy forced to resign

5:38

his ambassadorship. The very

5:40

next year, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and

5:42

for several brutal months it looked like Joe

5:44

had been right. Not only

5:46

might democracy be finished, but every

5:49

system besides fascism might be hurtling

5:51

towards annihilation and bondage under the

5:53

swastika. Depending on

5:55

how you count it, the Third Reich,

5:58

and fascism as a whole, reached its

6:00

great extent of territorial power in either

6:02

mid-August or September 1941. By November of

6:06

1941, a year after Joe Kennedy's remarks to

6:08

the Globe, Operation Barbarossa had been wrenched to

6:11

a bloody halt, and the long battle to

6:13

push the fascists back and drown them in

6:15

the waters of their birth had begun. And

6:19

so, in the end, it was Charlie Chaplin,

6:21

not Joe Kennedy, who had the proper measure

6:23

of things. Liberty survived because

6:25

men died, many millions of them,

6:27

from Kieve to Canterbury. We

6:31

live in very different times now.

6:33

The armies of fascism are not

6:35

primarily conquering land under arms. The

6:37

primary terrain of our present conflict exists

6:39

within the hearts and souls of men

6:42

and women, and while populism is still

6:44

a favorite mechanism of action among the

6:46

fascists, they have, in this country at

6:48

least, given up on victory by sheer

6:50

weight of numbers. It's

6:52

true what they say. War never changes.

6:54

Weapons do, but the core of all

6:57

human conflict revolves around the capture and

6:59

denial of territory. If you can't occupy

7:01

ground yourself, you must at least deny

7:03

it to the enemy. In infantry combat,

7:05

this is the primary use of a

7:08

machine gun, not to kill people, but

7:10

to blanket an area in bullets and

7:12

stop the enemy from moving through it.

7:15

In our modern war of thoughts and

7:17

feelings, the machine gun has yielded to

7:19

the fire hose of propaganda and disinformation.

7:22

These have always been parts of the fascist

7:24

arsenal, but the internet has allowed an increase

7:27

in the scale and speed of their deployment

7:29

that is very much comparable to the replacement

7:31

of bolt-action rifles with automatic ones. The

7:34

forces of basic human decency have a

7:36

natural advantage in terms of human terrain

7:38

that should be impossible for the fascists

7:41

to counter. No matter what the

7:43

bastards say, most people want to be left

7:45

alone with the people they love to live

7:47

their lives. The forces of hate, the people

7:49

who want to throw trans kids in their

7:51

parents and gas chambers and drown migrants in

7:53

the Rio Grande, tap out at a little

7:56

over a third of the population. Max.

7:59

If you want to return to World War II

8:01

metaphors, and why wouldn't you? The monsters

8:03

are stuck in tiny Landlocked Germany without

8:06

any gas or steel. The

8:08

only way for them to access the

8:10

resources and territory they need to maneuver

8:12

themselves into a victory is by cutting

8:14

us off from each other and keeping

8:16

us too confused and divided to surround

8:18

the bastards and smother them all for

8:20

good. They do this

8:22

by convincing you that you are isolated,

8:24

alone and surrounded by them. Our

8:27

hopelessness is their force multiplier.

8:30

When leftists in the US look out

8:32

at Ukrainians struggling for survival and write

8:34

them off as Nazis, as deluded tools

8:37

of imperialism, when liberals in blue cities

8:39

decry college students protesting on behalf of

8:41

dying Palestinian children as agents of Hamas,

8:44

the lines of solidarity between a snap rather

8:46

than wrapping like a garret around the throats

8:49

of our opponents. This

8:51

is why you've seen so much allegiance and

8:53

sympathy between the cruelest and most deluded segments

8:55

of the Western Left, the people who laughed

8:57

at Syrian civilians sheltering from Bashar al-Assad's bombs

9:00

and called them the CIA, and

9:02

the agents of Putin's Russia and Peter

9:05

Thiel's neo-monarchist right. The Thiel's,

9:07

Bannon's, Putin's, Erdogan's, Trump's and Modi's of

9:09

the world know how lonely they are.

9:11

The only way they can win is

9:13

to convince you that you're alone. Then

9:15

they have you at a disadvantage. Then they

9:18

can kill us one by one. You

9:21

know, there's no smooth way to transition to

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an ad in a piece like this, but

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tomorrow, 7.30, 6.30 Central, on NBC. PC

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back. Now, I'm not a young'n, but

11:15

I do sometimes tend to think of

11:17

humanity as a single vast, gestalt organism,

11:20

groping for survival and comfort in a

11:22

world that mostly exists beyond what we

11:24

can see. Majority of

11:26

people are happy existing as part of that

11:28

vast whole. We take comfort and safety in

11:31

our communion with the rest of the species.

11:34

But there are a few diseased minds out there

11:36

that don't believe in the rest of us. These

11:38

solipsists see themselves as the only minds,

11:40

and the perpetuation of their own power

11:43

and will as the only real good.

11:46

That's why men like Peter Thiel seek

11:48

physical immortality. And it's why men like

11:50

Vladimir Putin or Hitler seek the kind

11:52

of immortality that comes from welding the

11:54

edifice of a nation state to themselves.

11:57

Hitler is Germany, and Germany will ask

11:59

for it. forever. Elon Musk

12:01

sees his children as an extension

12:03

of himself, and his fantasies of

12:05

space colonization are really just a

12:08

fantasy that he will remain central

12:10

to humanity's future down through eternity.

12:13

Musk has repeatedly identified himself as

12:15

a pro-natalist, and he believes his

12:17

responsibility is to have as many

12:19

children as possible to secure a

12:21

pro-human future. The term pro-human might

12:23

confuse you, given the lack of

12:25

concern he has for the children

12:27

being bombed in Gaza, or who

12:29

will surely die in the mass

12:31

deportation camps the Republican Party is

12:33

currently salivating to open. But

12:35

the only real human Elon sees is

12:37

himself, which is why he equates the

12:39

survival of the species with his own

12:42

ability to breed. As

12:44

I type this, video has begun circulating around

12:46

the internet from an interview Musk conducted with

12:48

Jordan Peterson for The Daily Wire. In

12:51

it, Musk explains why he has

12:53

now fully embraced politics, endorsing Donald

12:55

Trump and declaring himself at war

12:57

with WOKE-ism, which he describes

13:00

as an existential threat to the species.

13:02

He claims that what cinched this for

13:04

him was his daughter deciding to transition.

13:07

It happened to one of my older boys,

13:10

where I was essentially

13:13

tricked into signing

13:15

documents for one of my

13:17

older boys. There was a

13:20

lot of confusion, and I

13:23

was told, oh, he might commit

13:25

suicide. It's incredibly

13:28

evil, and I agree with you that

13:30

the people that have been promoting this should go to prison. So

13:33

I was tricked into doing this. It wasn't

13:36

explained to me that puberty blockers are actually

13:39

just sterilization drugs. So the

13:44

reason it's called dead naming is because my son

13:47

is dead, killed

13:50

by the WOKE-WINE virus. Musk's

13:52

child is not, in fact, dead,

13:54

but they have expressed an identity

13:56

utterly separate from Elon, an identity

13:58

he cannot understand. because Musk can

14:00

only see his children as an

14:03

extension of himself and his ego.

14:05

This is in fact worse than death. It

14:07

is a threat to Musk's own life. This,

14:11

incidentally, is why Musk and his fellow

14:13

travelers see transgender kids as such a

14:15

threat. The essence of parental love is

14:17

to give your children to the world.

14:20

This means accepting that you are finite,

14:22

that the world goes on without you.

14:25

If you see all humanity as an extension

14:27

of your own ego, nothing could

14:29

be more frightening. The people

14:32

who feel this way, people like Elon,

14:34

are mutations, a glitch in the human

14:36

system that starts as a glitch within

14:38

the heart of an individual. It

14:40

comes as a byproduct of success

14:42

in the very visible, spectacular ways

14:44

that feed narcissism. When

14:47

I think about stuff like this, I

14:49

refer often back to a great article

14:51

by the anthropologist Richard Lee, Eating Christmas

14:53

and the Kalahari. Lee

14:55

spent years living among the Ikhumbu Bushmen,

14:57

a Bantu-speaking hunter-gatherer group who were seen

15:00

by anthropologists as some of the people

15:02

still living in a manner most similar

15:04

to our ancient ancestors. One

15:06

Christmas, as a show of gratitude to his

15:09

hosts, Lee purchased a massive ox for the

15:11

holiday feast. He was excited to show this

15:13

great gift off to his new friends, and

15:15

he was proud of himself for having gotten

15:17

it. And he was utterly

15:20

shocked when they responded to his

15:22

pride, with mockery of him and

15:24

his ox, insulting it as scrawny,

15:26

tiny, hardly fit to eat. Now,

15:28

this shocked Lee because the ox he had

15:31

purchased was of course quite large, and it

15:33

was eventually explained to him that his friends

15:35

were reacting with mockery, not to

15:37

his gift, but to the evident pride he had shown

15:39

in it. Bringing in a great

15:41

beast's worth of meat, either as a hunter or

15:43

from buying it, as Burton did, is the

15:46

kind of thing that can go to a young man's

15:48

head. If you are the one

15:50

with the pocketbook or the one who fires

15:52

the arrow, you can forget that the meat

15:54

before you—the meat that you brought into the

15:57

community—is not the product purely of your own

15:59

genius, but the meat that you but is

16:01

a product of all of the time and

16:03

resources invested in you by the community. The

16:06

shaming of the meat, as this tactic was

16:08

called, is a time-honored way of correcting the

16:11

glitch in young men of the Ikung before

16:13

it can turn terminal. As one elder in

16:15

the tribe eventually explained to Li, when

16:18

a young man kills much meat, he comes

16:20

to think of himself as a chief or

16:22

a big man, and he thinks of the

16:24

rest of us as his servants or inferiors.

16:26

We can't accept this. We refuse one who

16:28

boasts, for someday his pride will make him

16:30

kill somebody. So we always speak of his

16:33

meat as worthless. This way we cool his

16:35

heart and make him gentle. And

16:37

speaking of cooling your heart,

16:39

why don't you cool your heart with some ads,

16:42

and then we'll come back to conclude this

16:44

in a little bit. Tomorrow,

16:53

the Paris Olympics begin with the most

16:55

stunning opening ceremony yet. As

16:57

the sun sets over the City of Lights,

17:00

a parade of boats will carry the Olympic

17:02

athletes through one of the world's most beautiful

17:04

cities and on to an epic celebration at

17:06

the Eiffel Tower. Join Mike

17:09

Toreco, Peyton Manning, Kelly Clarkson, and

17:11

Snoop Dogg for the opening ceremony

17:13

of the Paris Olympics. Tomorrow, 730-630

17:15

Central on NBC and Peacock. Tired

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That's amazon.com/ news ad

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free to catch up on the latest episodes. We're

18:05

back. It has been

18:07

theorized that the shaming of the

18:10

meat is a social construct that

18:12

may help to explain one of

18:14

the evolutionary values of satire, perhaps

18:16

even why humanity keeps producing comedians.

18:19

They act as a part of our species'

18:21

immune system. When this glitch in

18:23

the hearts of young men isn't punctured

18:25

when it's allowed to take off and

18:27

dominate them, then it changes

18:29

them on a fundamental level, and

18:32

the being that it leaves in

18:34

its wake seems to understand instinctively

18:36

that laughter is a danger to it.

18:39

This ultimately explains why Musk purchased Twitter

18:41

and why Barack Obama's mockery of Donald

18:43

Trump during that White House Correspondents' Dinner

18:45

set us all down the dark path

18:48

that we currently are walking. So

18:50

clearly, humor alone doesn't always save us

18:52

from these kinds of people, but

18:55

what will? I have several

18:57

times in my various shows identified myself as

18:59

an anarchist, and I tend to do that

19:02

even though I don't feel fully comfortable with

19:04

the title, because brevity matters. I'm

19:06

speaking to a mass audience, and using that

19:08

word gets us close enough for the sake

19:10

of a podcast. But I'm not

19:12

an anarchist in the sense that I

19:15

have some sort of clear vision for

19:17

how to build a utopia. Obviously, I

19:19

do think anarchism has some answers for

19:21

how human beings might build a better

19:23

world. That's why I went to Rojava.

19:25

It's why we cover a lot of

19:28

the things that we cover on this

19:30

series. But I am primarily an anarchist

19:32

because I understand that hierarchy kills, because

19:34

I understand that hierarchy separates us from

19:36

each other and acts as a petri

19:39

dish within which this glitch can propagate.

19:41

I'm an anarchist because I love the people

19:43

around me, because I understand that I am

19:46

human, and because I see that my role

19:48

in the human immune system is

19:50

to remind other people of that fact,

19:52

and to point a finger at the

19:54

people who have forgotten that they're human.

19:57

I promised in the title of this little piece

19:59

that I would tell you how we can win,

20:01

and I can do that in a few words.

20:03

We have to remember that we are

20:06

humans." Hamala Harris is

20:08

an authoritarian. The fact that she wants

20:10

to be president at all should make

20:12

you leery of her. But she's not

20:14

a Trump or a Musk. She has

20:16

not separated herself entirely from humanity. If

20:18

you'll forgive the reference, she understands that

20:20

she exists in the context of all

20:22

that came before her. Joe

20:25

Biden has been hungry for power all his

20:27

life. The glitch is in him. It has

20:29

consumed most of him. But as

20:31

we all learned recently, not all

20:33

of him. He too understands that he

20:35

is a part of humanity, indivisible from

20:38

it. Now you can and should

20:40

still view the man with disgust, even hatred. He

20:42

ought to be in the Hague. But

20:44

he also stepped down and gave up

20:47

the thing that a week ago, because

20:49

I understand that hierarchy kills, because I

20:51

understand that hierarchy separates us from each

20:54

other and acts as a petri dish

20:56

within which this glitch can propagate. I'm

20:59

an anarchist because I love the people around

21:01

me, because I understand that I am human,

21:03

and because I see that my role in

21:05

the human immune system is to

21:07

remind other people of that fact, and to

21:09

point a finger at the people who have

21:12

forgotten that they're human. I'll tell you how

21:14

we can win, and I can do that

21:16

in a few words. We

21:18

have to remember that we are humans.

21:22

Hamala Harris is an authoritarian. The fact that

21:24

she wants to be president at all should

21:26

make you leery of her. But

21:28

she's not a Trump or a Musk.

21:30

She has not separated herself entirely from

21:32

humanity. If you'll forgive the reference, she

21:34

understands that she exists in the context

21:36

of all that came before her. Joe

21:39

Biden has been hungry for power all his

21:42

life. The glitch is in him. It has

21:44

consumed most of him. But as

21:46

we all learned recently, not all

21:48

of him. He too understands that he

21:50

is a part of humanity, indivisible from

21:52

it. Now you can and should

21:54

still view the man with disgust, even hatred. He

21:57

ought to be in the Hague. But

21:59

he also stays stepped down and gave up

22:01

the thing that, a week ago, I'd have

22:03

said probably mattered most to him in the

22:05

world. This was not a

22:07

purely selfless gesture. I'm sure he acted in

22:09

large part to try and salvage his own

22:11

legacy. But it is also not

22:14

a thing Donald Trump could ever do. You

22:16

certainly wouldn't see a man like Vladimir Putin

22:18

make a similar choice, and we've all seen

22:20

the kind of slaughter Bibi Netanyahu is willing

22:23

to back to hold on to power. None

22:26

of this redeems Biden or makes him a

22:28

good person or any less complicit in genocide

22:30

than he was a week ago. I think

22:32

it does put us in a better position when

22:34

it comes to fighting for a ceasefire in Gaza.

22:37

Everyone in US politics knows that

22:39

Biden's political end started with the

22:42

surge of uncommitted voters in Michigan.

22:44

The loss of a second term is

22:47

not a sufficient punishment for Biden's actions,

22:49

but it is a punishment that has

22:51

the ability to reshape the kind of

22:54

risks US presidents will and won't take

22:56

for Israel from now on. It

22:59

has also helped me make sense of something that happened

23:01

in 2020. You

23:03

all remember the moment. During the one

23:05

presidential debate that year, President Trump attacked

23:07

Biden over the numerous scandals of his

23:10

son Hunter, a troubled drug addict who

23:12

tried and largely failed to use his

23:14

father's name to secure wealth and standing

23:16

for himself. Hunter's troubles

23:18

have been tremendously embarrassing to his father,

23:20

but up in front of the country

23:22

and world, Biden refused to throw his

23:24

son under the bus. He embraced him

23:26

and expressed the kind of unconditional love

23:28

that is utterly alien to men like

23:31

Trump and Musk. Biden, for

23:33

all the evil that he has done and

23:35

the raw selfishness that allowed him to reach

23:37

the presidency in the first place, is

23:39

a man who loves his son. Most

23:41

importantly, he loves Hunter as Hunter and

23:44

not purely as an extension of Joe

23:46

Biden. There's an excellent

23:48

series of articles out in the Atlantic right

23:50

now by Tim Alberta who might be the

23:53

finest political journalist writing today. Tim

23:55

had the good instincts to look behind the scenes

23:57

at the team Trump picked to orchestrate his 2020

23:59

election. 1924 campaign and he's

24:01

delivered deep reporting about why they've made

24:03

some of the baffling decisions that they've

24:06

made Chief among bafflements was

24:08

the selection of JD Vance as vice

24:10

president Vance barely won his

24:12

seat in Congress with the help of tens

24:14

of millions of teal dollars He is a

24:17

liar without principle who has repeatedly expressed his

24:19

desire to tear up the Constitution and usher

24:21

in a new red Caesar To

24:24

bring this nation to heal under men like

24:26

him I watched Vance's

24:28

speech at the RNC live at a

24:30

Heritage Foundation party surrounded by the rightest

24:32

of the right Not one

24:34

of them offered a single word of praise

24:36

Vance was that bad JD

24:39

is the sort of pick Trump's handlers were

24:41

sure that they could afford to make Vance

24:44

would bring the Silicon Valley Billionaire set

24:46

to the table open up their purse

24:48

strings convince them they were welcome in

24:50

the new ruling class Sure,

24:52

he wouldn't bring any votes But a

24:54

week ago running against Sleepy Joe the

24:57

sick man of US politics Trump's team

24:59

felt they had votes to spare Well

25:02

now the worm has turned the

25:04

polls still point to an election that is

25:06

deeply in doubt But polls don't

25:08

say everything the panic of their

25:10

responses to Biden stepping down the chaotic spree

25:12

of hate Points to a single

25:14

truth. They don't know what to do now. The

25:17

monsters are off-balance Stumbling unable

25:19

to find the ground We

25:22

can see some evidence of this and the

25:24

fact that Musk just came out and canceled

25:26

his promised 45 million dollar monthly donations To

25:28

the Trump campaign This is

25:30

the first chain of solidarity between our enemies

25:32

to crumble and it won't be the last

25:35

Every time that happens we get more room

25:37

to move and maneuver The

25:40

fascists may well regain their footing in time

25:42

to crush us But something else has

25:44

happened in the last few days as well People

25:46

we humans as a vast blurry mob have

25:49

started to remember how many of us there

25:51

are and how much potential the weight of

25:53

our Numbers gives us we have started to

25:55

reconnect with each other and that has also

25:58

opened up possibilities that did not exist Or

27:23

check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple or

27:25

wherever you listen to to podcasts. you

27:27

can find sources for it could happen here updated

27:30

monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash

27:32

sources. No.

28:01

Don't. Dot U.S. You

28:04

wouldn't expect to hear that we're America's third best

28:06

city for beer like this one. Or

28:09

home to vibes like this. And

28:12

this. It might surprise you that

28:14

we're top ten for immersive art that's like... Whoa. And?

28:17

Hmm. Not to mention we have

28:19

one of the top zoos in the country. So

28:22

can a city with the country's best pro soccer

28:24

team, ranking as a top culinary destination in the

28:26

world, be in your

28:28

own backyard? Yes. Columbus. Plan

28:31

your summer at Experience