The Psychosemantic Podcast

This house is clear. Losers? Get him the hell out of here, will you, please? Losers! Let's go, Ace! Losers! Let me get hers!

Base one to unit one. Hold it, you mother! Hold it! Police! There's been a break in the Democratic headquarters. They were bugging the place. Woodward, Bernstein, you're both on the story. Now don't fuck it up.

I'm Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. Mr. Markham, are you here in connection with the Waterdeep burglary? I'm not here. Hoffman. Hi, this is Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, and I was just wondering if you can remember...

The President's Men. The story of the two young reporters who cracked the Watergate conspiracy. White House. Howard Hunt, please. He might be Mr. Colson's office. Mr. Charles Colson. Did you know...

Well, the White House said he was doing some investigative work. What do you say? They stumbled into Leeds. Certainly it comes as no surprise to you that Howard was with the CIA. No, no surprise at all.

they tripped over clues we'd like to see all the material requested by the white house all white house transactions are confidential this whole thing is a cover-up is right on our nose and piece by piece

They solve the greatest detective story in American history. There is no way the White House can control the investigation. I don't want to say anymore, okay? Have you been threatened if you tell the truth? Is there a cover-up? Don't you understand what you're on to?

Mitchell knew? Of course, Mitchell knew. Woodward! Bernstein! Get in here!

At times, it looked as if it might cost them their jobs. You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook. Their reputations. Why is the Post trying to do it? I don't know.

perhaps even their lives. This is going to be really fun. I never get to talk about this movie. It is absolutely one of my favorites. It is. I think it is the perfect movie to be talking about right now.

And so, yeah, you just say fucking win. I think we already started.

I think we already started talking about all the president's men here with Bo Ransdell. And I am Darren Wilson. And this is the Psychosemantic Podcast. And there, we got that out of the way. Yeah. Hey, guess what, Darren?

We fucking won. There is a noticeable dread in my last recording, and I think it's palpable, which I guess is the same thing as saying noticeable. But yeah, well, look, I think everybody was on edge. We.

And I think rightly like old. Oh, sorry. Don't even worry about this. I don't know what that was. Oh, a little bit behind the scenes. We started an hour earlier than we planned. And that was my alarm to tell me I had an hour to get ready.

well in an hour from now remind past you that you've already started

I will. Well, actually, I won't, because you know what? I could think of fewer things more enjoyable to do than continuously or continually discussing this movie with a dear friend.

no shit i mean on both counts this is a delight but but let's say like here here's my thing about the biden victory um is

As I was saying, I think everybody was tense in the lead up because all the polls were like, look, don't worry about this. Like, he's up by 130 in Wisconsin.

You know, like Michigan, we can't even measure it. He's got it in the bag so much. Florida, done deal. North Carolina, maybe not. Maybe not North Carolina, but Texas for sure.

um so you were getting a lot of that which is fun those are fun conversations to have but also i think that democrats who had gone through the uh the 2016 heartbreak um and we're we're skeptical even then and then when florida went election night and or you know it was clear that florida was just

not going to be what the Democrats had envisioned. That sinking feeling came back. And it's been kind of interesting to me to see this growing optimism.

that started wednesday when it was like oh shit the more they count the better this looks and

by the time you got to like Thursday, Friday, like Democrats had gotten cocky about that shit. And we're just like, the fuck call it. Why aren't you calling it? Come on, motherfucker. And.

Then finally, you know, obviously Saturday, they called Pennsylvania, and it was all over. At that point, man, that was, like, I legitimately rolled tears.

And I had, I didn't intend to. I wasn't like, you know, expecting to be celebrating or feeling that emotional about it because it had seemed like a foregone conclusion.

uh you know for the past couple of days but but when the the news agencies the various news agencies started saying you know yes biden is is going to be the the president-elect

um it was such a you know to use your word uh it was such a palpable sense of relief and and so when you started seeing like

shots on the news of these spontaneous parties and celebrations that were taking place, you know, spreading COVID hither and yon. Yeah, some people slacked in that department.

hey look man like i i'm not saying that it was smart i'm saying i get it um there there was a moment of jubilation and

And it was really wonderful. And it was close. It was closer than anybody wanted it to be. It was occasionally terrifying.

But at the end of the day, it, you know, it turned out to be exactly what everyone.

The election was going to be, which was, hey, it's going to look night of like Trump won. And then as the mail and provisional ballots are counted, then it's all going to turn around.

And the optics is the reason why the Republican legislature in Pennsylvania made sure that you couldn't process.

the mail-in ballots until after the other ones well all right but so that was the whole trump game right was we're going to have all the republican legislatures uh attempt to push counting

of mail-in ballots to after the election and then part two of the plan of this this stupid fucking 3d chess that trump was playing is I'm going to go to the courts and say any ballot that is received or counted after election day doesn't count.

So you say you can't count them until after election day, and then you sue to say that they don't count if you count them after election day. And the problem is part two of his plan didn't work because that is not how the law works.

Like you can say what you will about the number of Republican appointees on the court. It is disturbing. It is something that I don't know. We understand the full scope of yet and the danger of it. But.

At the end of the day, these Republican judges have thrown this shit out of court because it's nonsense. Yeah, I think one of the cases was thrown out by a W. Bush appointee. Speaking of recounts and...

Delayed election results. Right. Well, yeah. Go ahead. Well, I was going to say that, you know, the differences between something like this and 2000 is that there's a clear winner.

That even if you like the closest margin is what Georgia right now, which is already going to recount and doesn't factor into the electoral votes that Biden has won.

so again i don't get twisted around the axle too much about

the shit that Trump is doing because one of the benefits of Joe Biden winning is they don't have to care anymore about Donald Trump. And so I've just kind of like every now and again, I'll check a new site and it's like, what's he doing? Oh, nothing. He's just, he's continuing to log.

lawsuits and and telling people that he's gonna be the president next year okay whatever like let him do whatever the fuck he wants it doesn't matter he's not the president

you know he's i mean he's the president now but he's he's lame duck he none none of this shit matters like all of his flailing and protesting and all that stuff um and and i like to think there has been a very

uh a very noticeable sense of like all right whatever just kind of a shrug when it comes to him like i'm still the president and like all right whatever i mean

Everybody except for Vladimir Putin has called Joe Biden to say congratulations. When Boris Johnson called, I was like, okay, that's...

That's the one, like, that is the closest Trump analog you have outside, like, Erdogan. Yeah. But in terms of, you know, first world countries.

That's the closest you get to a Trump overseas. And even he was, you know, he called Biden today, I think.

yeah i mean it's it's done like all the posturing and stuff like everybody again got kind of twisted around the axle about about mitch mcconnell uh being real mealy-mouthed about the election

It's like, ah, that's just McConnell. He's just not committing to it because he doesn't want to get the shit from Trump. Yeah, they've got a Georgia runoff. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And he wants Trump voters, so he's not going to say anything.

actively against Trump because they still want those votes. But I don't think in private quarters that Mitch McConnell thinks that Trump stands up.

snowball's chance in hell of being president in January 21st, you know? McConnell got what he wanted.

Absolutely. Got rid of Trumping and held on to the Senate. That's the best possible outcome for Mitch McConnell is that you have a steward of the country who's not a lunatic, but...

you can also hamstring any efforts to do shit that you find like it's the McConnell move is don't let anything through the Senate and then complain about how Democrats won't let anything through the Senate. Yeah.

And then the budget's really going to matter to him all of a sudden. Sure. Can you believe how much we're spending? The Democrats are really just...

But I've got my new horcrux. See my black hair. But yeah, that was, that was something. But I'm like, that is, that's a fight for another day.

you know like we're not there like that's that's rough we need to pay attention to georgia we need to send some money there you need to make the calls all that stuff like georgia matters but um

There is that other side of all of this, which is, eh, you have to care about politics still, but you don't have to care about Trump anymore. And you...

At least until he goes to OAN or whatever the fuck he does. And even then, he's just going to be preaching to his choir at that point. Yeah, I don't...

check the news the second I wake up before I even put my feet on the floor like I used to, checking to see what happened. I mean, there's still... I think I've said this before, and not to make light of...

abusive relationships, but the most abusive relationship I've ever had has always been with my government. Oh shit, yeah.

I'm afraid of what they're going to do with what he can, an injured narcissist. But it's also mostly just like...

I have more confidence that everything's going to work out the way it's supposed to, but I'm still being reminded here and there of things that just happened because they were tradition, not because they had to. Like there's the Trump appointee preventing.

the releasing of funds and facilities to the Biden transition team. Go ahead and look it up, dear listener, if you care. I will not give the date, but this is being recorded on the day.

Four years ago in 2016, when President-elect Trump was invited to begin his transition.

That's right. What didn't what Pence and Biden met today, four years ago today, something like that. Yeah. And Obama invited Trump to the White House.

But now Pence is going on vacation, which is a great thing for, you know. Get out of town. Yeah, I don't blame him. Take mommy and head for the hills.

And if, you know, because what, three, two or three different people have COVID that were at the watch party election night. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, man. Just get out of this fucking hot zone.

of a white house for a little while that's probably why he's heading out of town he's just like hey i don't want the covid numbers numbers are bad in indiana but not as bad as the percentage in the west wing as far as i can tell

Right, per capita. The White House is one of the most disease-ridden locations on Earth right now. And not just the moral kind of disease it normally has. Right.

The disease that cannot be helped by the possible good news of that 90% effective vaccine that...

Everybody knew they wouldn't be able to apply for any sort of next level thing until mid-November, but Fredo Jr. is...

Really annoyed thinking that a drug company did it to politically hurt his dad. Yeah, that's a good one. Maybe.

Maybe, though, maybe the head of Pfizer was like, this fucking idiot, we got to get rid of him. Look, everybody, the vaccine's ready, but until this fucker is out of office, we're just keeping our hats on that.

I don't think that's the case. I think things just kind of happen when they happen. I tend to think, because I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, I tend to think that Moshe is coincidental.

Even something like this, especially something like this, this feels like something that, you know, whenever they were able to confidently announce it, they were gonna.

you know the fact that it happened after the election like if it happened on november 4th i think that would have been more suspect um but the fact that it happened you know a week after the election all right fine if you want to bitch about it i mean

The B plot of that is, oh, by the way, did you happen to notice how difficult it is to send anywhere?

like the the requirements to uh refrigerate the vaccine are more uh it's a lower temperature than literally anything else on the market and and i think like

50 degrees cooler than any truck is currently equipped to handle in the u.s so they've still got to figure out how to dispense it because it's such a delicate vaccine

so it's not like hey we've got a vaccine and now we're out of the woods it's like hey now we've got a vaccine that's great that is great news

But now we've got to figure out distribution and manufacture on this kind of scale. I mean, because you're talking about billions of people who, in theory, are going to need this vaccine. Although I'm sure there are already people lining up to tell you that.

it's a government conspiracy. They're going to put a chip in you or something. And I'm like, like, I saw something where like the UK, I think it has like, Hey, we're not going to make the vaccine mandatory. And I'm like, good.

Good. I hope we follow that same rule here. I'm sure I don't think I think the Jenny McCarthy lobby will.

defeat any sort of universal movement towards that. And if they can't transfer the vaccine, there will be vaccination facilities.

That will become execution centers to the anti-vaxxers who will also say there's a 10 year old study that proves that the COVID-19 vaccine causes something. Yeah.

Yeah. And right. I mean, that's entirely possible that they would have a distribution center where it's like, hey, we've got a place within two hours of everybody where you can go get a vaccination.

but you're right like immediately it would be like the fucking bee uh lizards have have set up their anti-cancer tents it's a slaughterhouse yeah you know but again

All right. Well, that's a problem that takes care of itself. You know? Like, I'm not hard-hearted by any stretch, but if you're going to be willingly ignorant...

And in the face of a pandemic that is becoming an endemic disease to our species, and you're just like, you know what? I know it could kill me, but I don't want that vaccine. All right. That is a choice to make.

and and best of luck to you i hope it works out i'm gonna have my vaccine so even if you're all ate up with the rona ain't gonna hurt me none you know i mean at a certain point you just gotta be like you gotta

You got to let your freak flag fly. And if that freak flag involves being an anti-vaxxer, you know, hey, we've gotten off pretty easy with these.

these kids not being immunized against mumps and measles and shit but you have a bunch of anti-vaxxers with this uh uh covid vaccine um you're gonna see a pretty substantial death count in that community

And again, that is the path they have chosen. And I do not wish anyone ill will, but... you you know there is there is such a thing as a stupid tax and sometimes that tax can be quite high uh you know there's that whole uh you know darwin ward shit

for this very thing of like hey if there was a pandemic and you refused to get a vaccine and then die of that virus well i don't know that we could have done much for you you know

Yeah, if you keep pushing away the life raft, that is a bummer. It's the old joke about, like, the guy on top of the house when the flood comes and, you know, the boat comes by.

says like hey did you want to hop in the boat and he's like no no no god's gonna save me and then a helicopter comes by drops a letter he's like no no no god's gonna save me

and uh and then like you know there's more rescuers come by in a motorboat and he's like no no no god's gonna save me and then the guy drowns when he gets to heaven he's like

the fuck happened i waited for you to save me i prayed for hours and god's like look i sent you two boats and a fucking helicopter what did you want you know that's that's this vaccine it's

If it turns out to be over 90% effective, as they're saying, and it's just a thing you've got to get yearly or seasonally or whatever it is, then... yeah are great humanity wins again well done humanity yeah i think i think if the numbers hold it would be like a booster shot after six months

yeah like you get the initial vaccination and then like when when the next flu season rolls around you get your booster and yeah again fine you two shots a year all right and i don't

die choking on my own lung fluids? Okay. Sounds great. That sounds like a valuable use of my time. Yeah, and I'm one of those guys with lots of tattoos that winces every time I've got to go get shots, but...

I get my goddamn shots. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, there are just some things that just don't be stupid, you know? Don't dare to be stupid as Weird Al would encourage you to be.

Right. Even Weird Al, and I know this because I know my Weird Al, would tell you that you should be responsible and get vaccinated.

being stupid can be a joyous wonderful thing like you know mashed potatoes being your friend but i love that you know how to go deeper into this reference

I've got a signed Weird Al set list on the shelf behind me. So, I mean, I don't know how deep you want to go. And it's a set list from the tour where he did nothing but originals.

I think it was called the Shameless Self-Indulgence Tour. Something like that. But it was, oh man, it was a fucking delight.

Does this mean we're going to have to do UHF to talk about corporations taking over independent media? Oh, wow. Yeah. What a terrific film. And it still holds up really well. Like some of the references and whatnot are dated, but.

like that movie still holds up for me uh but that's a look that's not what we're here to talk about darren and i feel like we've already been bearing the lead too long because so many of the themes of all the president's men um

are so relevant to the conversation about sort of what comes after the election of Biden, I think. Yes.

And so let me just say from the outset, I have seen all the presidentsmen 25 times over the course of my life. Secretly, here's the thing, Darren.

Not a lot of people know this about me. I love a newspaper story. Me too.

spotlight recently was terrific maybe the best since all the president's been but i love a good like journalist on the trail of a story uh movie there's i love it love it the paper

the paper is very good the newsroom is great even something like broadcast news which is more parody but it's just it's so fun because

there's something to me and like i was an english major in college and i briefly flirted with the idea of going into journalism but then i was like i'd rather make shit up that seems like a lot of work journalism is hard don't let anybody tell you different

No, for real. I was a journalism major that was advised to switch to an English major because by the time I was done with college, my advisor said that you could get a journalism job with an English degree.

yeah i don't think that's right i mean no it's not it's not i'm podcasting well no like again you're probably he's probably right that that could happen the question is should it happen

yeah um and and i think maybe so all right i will say what all the presents men when i first saw what it represents to me

is really very little to do with Watergate. Even though it is, you know, obviously a depiction of the Watergate investigation, but to me, the movie was always about...

The fact that there were some people born into this world for whom the story is what mattered. And that to me is the story of all the president's men, which is.

they um they they never go so far as to lie but like the scenes where they're like hey i'm gonna say this i'm gonna say

okay, we know it's Porter. Or I'm going to say, who's P? And you're going to say, I know it's Porter. And then we'll see what she says. And that kind of thing. That's a non-denial denial.

Right. You know, it's a, Hey, I'm going to count to 10. And if.

And if you don't hang up at 10, then I'll know that the story is right. You know, that kind of shit. But it's going to those links, right? Like there's a character, and I can't remember exactly which one it is now.

um who tells them um you know they're like hey you know it's not just about the story and and she's like yeah it is and they and there's a moment there and where they kind of

A brief moment of self-reflection where they realize, like, yeah, that's true. It was that guy's wife. Yeah. The guy. Yeah. Who told him he had to quit. Yeah. Yeah.

She's like, this is for his benefit. And she's like, no, it's not. Right. Exactly right. You're exactly right. And to me, that is so much of what this movie is about, is that Woodward and Bernstein are incredibly driven to get...

this story and it has to be true like i'm not saying that they're they're out to get somebody or they're out to invent something but they don't really care who gets hurt to get the story because the story is what matters

and and so a lot of times and but i also see that as heroic you know like that's the weird dichotomy i think of these characters

For me, and something I've thought about a lot watching this movie over the years, is there is no question in my mind that the characters in the film of Woodward and Bernstein, you know, separating them from the actual reporters.

That they're the heroes of the movie and they are absolutely doing the right thing. But they're also willing to do almost anything to do the right thing. And that's...

To me, that's the interesting thing about them as people in the film. I love that.

I love the fact that Ben Bradley is basically newspaper god. You know, where he just swoops in and is just like, wrong, you got it. There's no story. Put it on the sixth page. Yeah.

put it inside what this is front page stuff you you got three of the five names there's no story and and also uh what is it no it's it's uh jack warden who says woodward bernstein you're on the watergate story don't fuck it up oh it's so good

The Bed Bradley story about Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover. Yeah. Sort of speaking to like what you said, he's like, I fucked up, but I wasn't wrong.

and and that's kind of the what he what he tells him like you can fuck up just don't be wrong and and so i love all that stuff about the movie and of course there's you know

The Watergate story is the story of modern politics. It is the thing that started everything else. The mistrust of government. The Kennedy assassination was an emotional blow.

But Watergate was the thing that was like – that made the presidency feel compromised in a way that nothing ever had. It humanized the presidency in a way that it was never –

human you know like there's a reason fdr didn't like to be shot in the wheelchair you know like like there was a larger than life sense about the presidents that they were they were the figureheads of this country

They were, they were like, yes, the idea was that anybody could grow up to be president, but in the same way that anybody could grow up to be Neil Armstrong, you know, that there were exceptional people.

And Watergate was the...

That was the loss of innocence for this country, that our leaders are not always going to be looking out for us, that they're human beings. And in the case of Richard Nixon, an incredibly fallible human being.

You know, not only was he a criminal, but he was paranoid and narcissistic and, you know, like he shares a lot of traits with Trump and Trump is.

certainly pulled some shit from the the Nixon playbook whether he meant to or not um but you know like Trump is the the much exaggerated version of Nixon like he is the Nixon who didn't

quietly record conversations with Kissinger and just tweeted all the crazy shit he thought, you know? I'm telling Stephen Miller, I'm telling Haldeman to fucking send those checks. Yeah, right?

yeah i'll tell you what you tell uh you tell pompeo that uh you they can take them black fellows down in georgia um like all nixon was like

Nixon was quietly racist where Trump was overtly racist. And it's nice I can talk about him in the past tense. Even though he's still technically president, he's still the ex-president in my heart.

And so, yes, like Trump was our most racist, overtly racist president without going back to like the 1800s. Right. Like his boy, Andrew Jackson.

Right. Yeah. Right. Like going back to old old Stonewall. That's how far back you have to go. And and the thing about all the presence men and it was clean and it's sort of.

by there's almost a weird doubling effect here where all the president's men tells the story of sort of the loss of innocence of of media and media has since like you know newspaper media and news media in particular and then starting with the advent of uh

Like Fox News and MSNBC and more partisan outlets like that. There was a loss of innocence.

yeah that like there's been a loss of innocence with the media because now like this is the first time in history that i can think of

where you can say, depending which news outlet you're reading, you just may not get the truth. And that's something that didn't necessarily happen.

you know, at the time of all the president's men, man, you had to like find an underground zine to find this kind of outrageous, like slander and fallacy that you now find on, on purported.

news blogs um and and so you know eventually someone will make the all the president's men of uh of the news media maybe that was what the uh

Shit. What was the Nicole Kidman movie where they took down Roger Ailes? Oh, shit. Bombshell? Bombshell. Was it Bombshell? Yeah, it certainly was.

So, yeah, maybe Bombshell is kind of that movie, but the movie needs to be about the fact that news has become fundamentally corrupted.

And our popular news media is fundamentally corrupted. And and that's like it's it's frustrating because all the president's men feels quaint now.

And I am sure that this kind of journalism, like we saw it through the Trump years, there were outlets that were doing fucking amazing investigative journalism. But that...

That happened in an echo chamber where only people who were open to, you know, truthful news were, were getting it, you know, it's not like.

At the time where there were only three news sources because there were only three television channels and maybe you read the local paper.

But that was still going to be largely the same information. It wasn't going to be so wildly different that you couldn't have a shared set of knowledge with your neighbor.

And that no longer exists. We don't live in a world where, you know, your next door neighbor could be getting the same facts that you are. And that's fucking crazy.

Like that, that is the thing that Trump was a symptom of, you know, when everyone says like, well, Trump wasn't the problem. Trump's the symptom. That is what he was a symptom of. The fact that there is in, there is a, a.

As John Edwards once said, there are two Americas, only instead of being the ones that he could fuck and the ones he couldn't, it's the ones who are kind of into...

right-wing news and then there's kind of everybody else and and i'm gonna sound partisan by saying that i think msnbc is certainly rooting for the democrats to win but it uses mostly facts you know like that that's the difference i think that there's a lot of spin

to some of MSNBC's coverage, but it tends to be coverage of information that is not crazy and wrong. I think that's a fair statement.

Yeah. And I think that's the difference. Well, like, and again, Fox news, uh, when the daylight, when the, when the sun is out, Fox news, mostly traffic's in facts too, you know?

It's just when the night falls and the creatures come out and it's all their opinion hours that that network just goes fucking bananas in a way that no other network does. Like there is not.

There is not an analog to a Sean Hannity. You know, he's just he's that guy is is.

A shill in a way that I don't think I've ever seen. I would totally check out MSNBC or something like that way more often if they had.

a mirror of the Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram sort of thing. Like if they just like, okay, well it's eight o'clock. Right. Our next guest is a violent black revolutionary.

Who wants to overthrow the local government of Portland, Oregon. What do you have to say for yourself? I want to kill everybody. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And now to...

Now for the other side, you've already firebombed the building. How do you feel about what your colleague has said? I think he should have been here throwing the Molotovs.

Yes, I would love that show. It's the time for the ACAB hour with Antifa. Yeah. She's got puppets and everything like Antifa. Hello.

I'm Jim Antifa. Here to overthrow your local fascists. 1312, everybody. 1312.

You know, the Antifa stuff, that is one of those things that it's for people in kind of that Trump orbit.

I think it's difficult for them to understand that Antifa is kind of a vague idea at best. You know, that it's like, yeah, it's more of a... it's a movement in the same way that like woodstock nation was a movement it's not really a real thing and nobody's in charge of it it's just you know

When shit pops off and you throw a trash can through a window, you yell, Antifa! That's kind of it, you know? Despite what your libertarian friends might say.

right like i don't i would be the perfect person to receive an antifa newsletter there just ain't one it's not that organized i wish it was you know

uh i would like something a little more aggressive than the shit i get from you know pod save america um yeah which which is you know yeah they're critical

But they're not talking about overthrowing shit. Maybe if you go into the love it or leave it, it's a little bit closer to that, but still not even that. I don't know if you listen to them.

Yeah, I like Love It or Leave It a lot. I'll tell you, my favorite political podcast right now is a show called Hacks on Tap.

And I like it because it is very much a horse race kind of show and very much less about.

evaluating the ethics of the politics and more just about the effects of the politics uh it's uh david axelrod and uh mike murphy who ran mccain's campaign

And Bob Gates? Do I have that right? That sounds right.

yeah but it's it's those guys and then they have kind of a rotating bench of like you know uh heilman and

Alex Wagner's popped up a couple of times and folks like that. People who have been...

running campaigns for decades. And so it's a lot of old professionals talking about how to run a campaign. And I love that as a political show now because it...

There was a lot of joking about Republicans and Democrats, but nobody is pitching an agenda on the show.

And I dig that. It's very practical politics. And something I think that's going to be valuable in the, certainly the next couple of years.

as as you're talking about like navigating a a republican senate although narrowly like there is here's the thing that that i think is encouraging about the the senate makeup as it is it um it's not

terribly encouraging for folks like me and you, Darren, who are like, you know what would be great? Public healthcare. It's not great for that, but it's real good for COVID relief.

it's going to be economically, it's probably going to be really good because you're going to be able to swing for a couple of regulations that maybe you wouldn't get things to.

like a Susan Collins or somebody like that. I like, here's the thing. I think that because Trump is no longer going to be there bullying Republicans, it's going to be a little bit easier.

to split off a couple on more moderate kind of legislation. That's not exciting by any stretch, but it will improve people's lives. And at the end of the day, That's kind of what we have to be cool with.

A lot of good things are going to happen when Biden steps in and undoes a lot of Trump's executive orders and has some EOs of his own. Like he's talking about an EO to just... dismiss the first fifty thousand dollars of student debt in the first uh few days that would be sweet

That's fucking crazy. If he does that, are you, and that's not like, Hey, somebody whispered it. That's like coming out of the transition.

is like, oh yeah, these are the executive orders that he's thinking of signing in the first hundred days. And how life-changing would that be? You know, that's, anyway.

Like, that's the kind of shit when people say it didn't matter between Trump and Biden. This is the kind of shit I'm talking about. Like.

Trump would never think of doing something like this. He'd increase the interest rates if he could. Right. Betsy DeVos owns fucking student loan collection company. Right. It is in like they were in it for themselves.

Biden, say what you will about the dude, Biden is an honest-to-goodness public servant. And I know that sounds corny and people don't buy that, but I think that's what he is. I mean, yeah, he's got a hint of...

you know self-absorption and narcissism every every politician does but not like not to the extreme of a trump and also he's a dude who again has has shown again and again and again and again that he's like a a like emotional empathetic person that genuinely cares about his fellow man

and that that's gonna make such a world of difference like you're gonna see actual things happen to reunite the uh albeit rocking 666 kids

who I think that was the last number I saw that don't know where their parents are at the border. Like Biden won't let that stand.

that shit is gonna get fixed or to the best of our ability to the best that you can undo something that horrifying but

That's the kind of shit like actual real world. Good things are going to happen to people because we won this election.

And despite all the trouble in the Senate and all that stuff to come, that's why I'm still so optimistic and excited because... like a decent human being is in the white house and and what more could you possibly want even even if it were republican i would take that i would take that difference

between trump and another republican if it was just like give me a john mccain you know somebody like that that i disagree with totally but i also think that he cares about people or you know did when he was alive so

i don't know i you know it's one of those things i keep coming back to you of of like every time i start to feel frustrated with like there are going to be some really serious fights to come and some of those we're going to lose um

We just got to keep reminding ourselves the cost of letting somebody that doesn't know what the fuck they're doing and doesn't care, furthermore doesn't care, what the cost of that has been.

And, you know, the other side of that is figuring out how to reach out to people who did think it was a good idea.

And that kind of gets back to are all the presidents men conversation is how do you pierce that?

that stream of information that they're getting from sources that are never going to give them the kind of information that you and I are discussing on this show. Things like forgiving $50,000 of student loan debt.

I'm pretty sure that's not front and center on Fox's coverage of Joe Biden. I'm sure it's not. And if it is, it's, well, you had to pay off your $700 in student loan costs in 1985.

Why should some liberal agenda leftist student? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's about as much.

Student loan debt, I still have left. Yeah, I don't think I have that much. In fact, I'm certain I don't have that much.

um so yeah there there's every chance of the world where that to happen i would have a portion of debt just disappear um

that's fucking crazy and and even if not like even if it didn't happen to me even if there was some rule that like hey it has to be within the past 20 years or whatever that's you know or even starting today right even if it was just starting today

Anyone who is currently in college, even if that's the starting point, you know, like I understand that then fucking great.

That means that generations moving forward, that means that there would be generations of Latino and black kids and other minority kids who are statistically buried.

by financial debt with with college that would never have that problem that they would they would actually emerge from college on an even playing field that's

that's epic that is so that is such good news for this country and and and it's right around the corner like it could be that could be something that three months from now is just a thing that happened

because because we won yeah i've never been a pull up the rope ladder person yeah yeah yeah right what that's like this whole notion of

Hey, we leave the world a little better than we found it so that the next generation has a little bit better. That's all this is. It's the, you know, seven generations idea. Right. Like, and look.

all right darren here's the other fucking ugly truth of all of this all right it's a good time for it yeah let's get to some ugly truth the other ugly truth is that we as

Democrats and progressives and liberals or, you know, whatever label you want to ascribe. We've got to be cool with Trump, people. We've got to be cool.

because they're not going to be cool with us like somebody's got to be the bigger person here and it's got to be us so we we got to be cool but they i don't want them to get uh consolation prizes in the cabinet

no no no i that's not what i mean okay i'm i'm talking no no no fuck that like they look they fucking lost all right that's just how it goes um you want to put like

I don't know. Well, you put Ben Sass in there doing some fucking thing with the farmland, whatever. Fine. Fine. John Kasich can go fuck himself, though. Yeah, I like.

fine you you did your video at the crossroads but again make him an ambassador to something who cares he didn't earn it less fewer republicans or more republicans voted for trump this year

than they did in 2016. He didn't do shit for us here in Ohio. So he can get a really shitty job if he's going to get a job at all. Because he didn't do anything for... Yeah.

He could be deputy mess hall inspector. Yeah, he can do that. He can, yeah. Anyway, sorry. I really hate John Kasich, but it's just because he was my governor for so long.

no i get it i i've gotten a love for casick i think that i mean all these republicans the romneys of the world although that's a nice move you want to look you want to have a good time

you pull romney into the cabinet into some minor position and you open up his senate seat and see what happens see what you can do in utah yeah you know um but uh yeah i'm not for rewarding these these Republicans who had, you know, the...

minor backbone to slightly disagree with trump but still didn't vote against him with any kind of regularity or passion like romney i think has issued the most full-throated uh

like attacks against trump on the republican side but you know even that's pretty thin uh so yeah i'm with you but but i i mean like you and i

The common people on the street. That even though for four years we've had to do nothing but eat Confederate flag flavor bullshit.

from an entire section of the country that for four goddamn years, Darren, we had to listen to... like all the homophobia, the xenophobia, the small mindedness, the anti-science rhetoric that we had to put up with all that bullshit.

And it stings to say this because I can hold a grudge with the best of them, but there has to be that point. At some point in this country, we have to kind of put down the gun.

And somebody on one side or the other has to do that first. And I would like to see us at least try in this moment.

You know, that when you have a president who is, I mean, let's be honest, he still has the most progressive legislative agenda that ever was for the Democratic Party. But he's still a moderate.

institutionalist kind of democrat i i think we gotta i think we gotta love what we have and when you have the leader of the country saying cut the shit

everybody's been at a real high temperature for a long time and we need to knock it off, then I think we owe it to both the president of the president elect and ourselves to give that a shot.

uh as as perhaps a wise man once said give peace a chance and and as much as it hurts and as much as the temptation to to be uh a little bit uh to engage in a little bit of schadenfreude here and i will to some degree but

uh i i try to to to come back to the idea of kindness and being able to say like look the only way that we're gonna get people on our side is is to show them that

we're not going to give them a hard time for decisions that they've made or or beliefs that they still hold you know um obviously i am not excusing racism and xenophobia as soon as someone spouts some shit like that

Again, don't engage, just write them off. Just write them off and you can take some small comfort in the fact that you never ever have to listen to another thing that person says again with any degree of seriousness.

But yeah, that's my big concern is that we're going to have, and maybe it's just cockeyed optimism, Darren, but I'm hoping that maybe there's at least a moment.

where it's possible that the rift in this country could be healed a little bit, that we could get back to that place where we can politically disagree with someone without painting them as our enemy.

I don't know. We'll see. I think that if Biden comes through with some of the things that he has said that he's going to do.

there's going to be a decent chunk of people that were like, Oh, okay. All right, cool. Right. He, he didn't actually have sex with my children. Yeah. He didn't have sex with my children.

Oh, I understand. He has a stutter. So a lot of the time when he stops and restarts a word or says a different word.

You know, maybe I didn't have the chance to see a fish called Wanda and I don't understand how, you know, or, you know, other things that are a little bit more educational where it's like his.

I think his mental faculties are clearly more solid than Donald Trump's. But even so, I...

I'm trying. I definitely did not track down all the people that have said you lost get over it over the last few years. It was tempting. I did not.

do any of the rubbing again. And, you know, I'm still a little just cautious because the election hasn't been certified yet. Like we talked about earlier, I've got that confidence and everything, but...

I'm not a big pump your fist before the finish line guy anyway. But I mean, if Biden can't get right wing type people.

To at least be like, okay, then it's fucked because he's, he would have been a Republican, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah. Well, and, and also, and, and again, I don't want to sound like I'm preaching.

But my larger point is it not only has to come from him, it has to come from the people who support him. Like you said, of just biting your tongue when you're like, God damn it, two years ago.

You said this thing that was the most outrageous shit I've ever heard, and I wanted to punch you until your face was pulp. And being able to...

that's the thing you gotta let go is all the people that were like you know fucking i'm gonna own the libs you know that kind of shit like that's the stuff that

even in the face of it even now when you know you you hear those people like i'm you know the the election got stolen trump's a real president you know like the only and that all started with with trump like trump

Trump is accountable for all of this bullshit. The, you know, it's only, it's only a real election if I win and if I lose, then they, they stole it. Like.

this is one of those, like the Republican party. And I don't mean the people in the Republican party. I mean, the leadership should be fucking ashamed of themselves, uh, for, for not standing up and being like, you know what?

And whoever wins wins. That's how it works. And, and come like whenever the state certify a winner, then that's what we're going with. We should count all the legal votes. Like no fucking shit.

Those are the votes that are getting counted, jackass. Yeah.

well done yeah and like all this stuff about observers not being able to see and all that kind of shit like all that stuff has been disproven time and time and time again by all accounts and i'll be look if if somehow

Joe Biden was the head of some criminal cabal that was able to manipulate the election.

then he should be prosecuted like this should be investigated there there should be a woodward and bernstein sniffing their way through this i just don't believe such a conspiracy exists and if that

is not the conspiracy then it's just a bunch of people with sour grapes ronan farrow would have found out if he was beyond uh creepy

yeah and i think that's the thing like a woodward and a bernstein would it have mattered if the president was a democrat fuck no no i mean one was that was one of the things about their team was uh woodward was a republican

And he was waspy and he was new and Bernstein had been around forever, but he's like, Oh, this, this means that.

this thing happens, but I can't prove it, you know? And then they just fucking played off each other and it just sort of, they, they became to have like that.

shared hive mind. And one of the things that I really liked was that in the making of the movie, Hoffman told Redford that they should...

learn each other's lines. That way, whenever they felt like it, they could interrupt the other person and take over. And Alan Pacula was like, great. Yeah.

And, you know, it's just one of those like in the making of there, there's Redford and there's Hoffman. We got William Goldman from Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and Marathon Man.

And Pacula, what did he do? He did the trilogy, right? He also did Parallax View and Clute. He did indeed. Which, you know, Clute, I guess that's going to have to get covered because I've already done Parallax View.

Right, you'll have to complete the Pacula trilogy, the Pacula Pack. Yeah, the Pacula Pack, the Pacula Fecta. But, you know, they didn't really like each other, but they worked together.

And their different traits really just sort of made the team. Yeah, by all accounts, yeah, that it was a really...

like an unusual partnership between two very different dudes but yeah like you said i read that same thing about them learning each other's lines i thought that was very cool um yeah there there really is

sort of a magic to chemistry and a moment, you know? Like they were the right people at the right time.

and the the thing sometimes i like to look through terrible reviews of like unassailably great movies like this where i'm like let me let me read the one stars and see what they say and

In this one, some of it was like, this is all liberal propaganda. I was like, eh, all right. I mean, it's kind of famously one of the most accurate films to ever be made, but whatever.

I think the only thing that is inaccurate is that, uh, the thing with the, um, uh, him sneaking into Ned Beatty's office that that never happened.

They had Ben Bradley there. They each sort of all hung out with Woodward and Bernstein. And Redford was all concerned because it was, I mean, this was 1976.

Nixon left office four years before that. Yeah. It wasn't like watching it now. It's like, oh, this is a history. No, I mean.

People were denying the movie, saying they didn't want to make it because who wants to hear more about Watergate? And Robert Redford was just really into it.

In one of the interviews I saw, that was one of the reasons why he got so weird about it. I mean, they brought trash from the Washington Post to their soundstage where they recreated the Washington Post.

yeah oh did all right here's another little fun fact the only thing in the movie fully lit is the interior of the the post office

the washington post office everything else that has shadows at least even in the sunlight and stuff you see shadows in every shot speaking of which i guess we should bring up gordon willis the cinematographer yeah it like this looks like a documentary

That's what I love about it is it looks like a documentary, but it is also steeped in that kind of seventies grittiness. So all the, there's like those.

Those shots inside the parking garage when he's meeting Deep Throat. And it's just like this gorgeous... darks and only these very sparse uh columns of light and uh like it's just like it looks beautiful but it also looks

it looks real i mean like it looks like a documentary of the time uh and and and that goes to the performances too like everything feels like it was meant to be as authentic as possible

to the moments it's trying to capture and you know it's some of the the conversations that they have are kind of stilted and a little wooden and and that kind of thing but that's sort of like

that is the dance of trying to get somebody to give you information. And I got it. All right. So Redford and, and, and Dustin Hoffman are both terrific in this movie.

and i think my favorite scene to illustrate that is that first scene where hoffman starts rewriting him yes when he comes over and he's like hey what are you doing

He's like, look, I put Coulson up top. You know, I rewrote this. I reshaped it a little bit. Look, read yours and you read mine. I think mine's better, but we'll do whatever you want. And he's like, OK.

And he reads it and then he just walks away, grabs all the notes that he's been taken and dumps them on Bernstein's desk. And he says, if you're.

If you're going to punch me up, make sure you get the facts straight. I don't mind what you did. I mind the way you did it. Yeah, that line is so fucking good. That's one of those things.

that has stuck with me over the years is in, in, in just kind of how you treat people, right? Like if you want to help somebody, don't, don't help them and then act like an asshole about it. You know, like, like.

uh don't don't make it hard for them to thank you um and i think that uh that moment between them kind of it it it also casts aside their rivalry

You know, where, where Woodward is just like, look, you're right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to argue that point. And I'm a big enough person to admit it, but also don't be a dickhead to me. And I like that.

They sort of trade off, not necessarily a one for one, but in their different styles of reporting, each one has their different moments where they're like, man, you really fucked that up. Yeah.

Yeah, one of my favorites of that is when Bernstein, they go to, I think it's one of the secretary's houses where he's like, hey, can we just come in for a second? And she's like, oh, I don't think so. And when Redford goes, oh, we don't want to come in.

we just have a question yeah like i'm gonna cut i'm gonna cut the legs and and hoffman looks pissed about it like look man i know what you're doing here but god damn that was like you really just cut the legs right out from under him

um but again i think that goes to the point of like they're not necessarily great people even to one another you know like what they're doing is heroic and and what they they manage to do

is you know herculean but they're also just kind of dudes and they grinded it they grant grinded it grinded ground it out yeah grab it out i think yeah i mean that's kind of the last shot of the movie too is as uh what he's being nixon is is taking his second inauguration

And it's just them at their typewriters pounding out all the shit that is about to take this dude down. As well as, you know, the teletype across the screen letting you know who got what.

and and the chronology of like you know like um uh one of my favorites is the the quick turnaround from like nixon says he'll never resign and then like one other story second line

Nixon resigns. August 1972. Yeah. And then no music in the fucking credits. Just. Yeah. Boom.

there's very little music overall kind of contributing to that documentary feel to it um and there's that great moment uh i know i'm just gonna bounce it around just like hey remember when but when when hoffman uh shows up after like getting the scoop from that one lady

and has all the notes and he's been drinking coffee all night so he's just wired as shit here's a matchbook here's a napkin right like i was writing

I was running right now on anything I could get my fucking hands on. I did nothing but drink coffee and take notes. Thought she was going to throw me out. Oh, man. It's like...

you know those one-star reviews in addition to the liberal propaganda thing the other thing that they talked about was how dry and boring it is it's like well I guess if you expect it, it's going to have the pacing of, say, a John Wick, but...

that's not what the movie like that's not the kind of movie it is yeah i've seen movies that were that were as long or longer that didn't feel as short yeah no i think this movie

rocks like but i'm also one of those people that's fascinated by like oh my god and then where did they go and then what did she say she's probably lying you know like i love that in this movie like that

you know you talked about it earlier but just that slow peeling of the onion as they think that they get this big story about like the committee to re-elect uh being orchestrated

And then a third is like, you fucking dumb dumbs that. Yes, that happened. But it's also this giant like counterintelligence of push against the Democratic Party. Yeah.

The reason why you think it's being covered up is not the reason why it's being covered up. Right. Like that is such a small part of the larger effort that.

the the administration was making and again you know it's that trumpian overtone of a president using the levers of his power to attack and and get an edge on his political rivals and i mean that's why nixon went down

you know that in the cover up and they fucked that all up because they weren't very good like there's that great deep throat thing is like forget the mythology of the white house the these are not very bright people screwed up yeah

And, and that's what it, that's what it is. That's what it was then. And that's what it is now, you know, for all the scandals in the, in the Trump presidency, I mean, it was just a bunch of.

a bunch of malicious stuff that like, whether it was.

consciously malicious or not a lot of the policies of the the trump administration were just malicious and and ill-conceived and stupid and stupidly applied you know like

The one upside of the Trump presidency has been that they've been largely incompetent. And as much harm as they've done, they could have done so much more harm if they knew what the fuck they were doing. Right.

if they weren't the gang who can't shoot straight they would have been a real threat like they're a threat uh or you know the administration was a threat in so many ways but um

you know at the end of the day it they didn't shake the pillars uh all the way and and that could have happened a second term i really think would have done that

Very much could have. And I think that's a good point where we should take a break, play the Legion Fund Me promo, and then get back in and wrap this up, talk about...

What could have happened? Talk about the effectiveness of stupid people and other things. How's that sound? Please. All right. We will be right back.

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That's one of my favorite dumb Monty Python throwaways. Hello, Mrs. Gorilla. Hello, Mrs. Lord Gorilla. Maybe I need to do Life of Brian for Christmas this year.

You know, I was always a fan of Holy Grail, obviously. And I think the older I get, the more I appreciate how funny Meaning of Life really is.

Yeah, it gets more true. This man is about to die. He's been allowed to choose his own method of execution.

chased off a cliff by a bunch of boobs out ladies yeah i'm not sure that's what i would pick but i i get it um

But all right. So I'm glad you have topics for the second part of the show. It's probably good because if you let me go free form too long, eventually it always leads back to the Muppet movie.

Well, which is fine. I hear you are going to be doing the Muppet Christmas Carol with Duncan this year. I heard that too. You and I heard that at the same time.

I suppose so. I mean, look, I got nothing against it. I like to think that I am like 85% Muppet, really. And I adore the Muppets.

Even the shitty Muppet movies, I kind of like. But the original Muppet movie, I might know that movie verbatim if I just sat down and tried.

I did not submit Emmett Otter's Jugman Christmas, but I guess there's nothing really spooky about that movie, although there is the band.

the metal glam band of the Bullies. Here they are, the rock group known as the Nightmare.

there's not much there um you could you could make a pretty strong argument for any of the rudolph stuff having some some horror elements in there

um but i mean obviously muppet look here's the thing that's going to be fun about muppet christmas carol is we'll be doing michael cain impressions front to back and his is all right mine is not

so that'll be fun i've got to get to work is what i'm saying i've managed to cobble together a pretty good walking for the view to a kill episode uh now i got to turn my attention to a passable michael kane

I'm happy that my work has been fruitless, but for four years I've been working on a Trump impression. And it's not very good. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. They're fake votes. The fake votes are coming in.

You've got to understand that. See, it's not very. Yeah. No, I'm with you. He's kind of tough. It's hard because he only has about.

37 words that he uses and so you you would think that it would be easy to just figure out how he says those words tremendous right but he just switches it up like he he's a real uh switch hitter

when it comes to his cadences. The one thing I really like, this is my favorite Trump thing ever in a sea of just utter shit that I thought his presidency was.

uh the thing that i always liked hating about him was when he would be reading a speech off the teleprompter and then would like riff for a second before he went back when he hit something that he thought he knew a little something about so you know like he would be given like a covet speech

and he would be like yeah the i was talking to dr burks she really thinks that we're coming along with a vaccine she said it could be any day now And she's a special, listen people, she is one of the top in her field, I'm telling you right now.

uh but dr burks will be here on thursday to speak you know and those little asides when he just detours into trump land for a second and it's just like you know

Hey, let me riff a little bit and throw some adverbs in here that I enjoy. Great mind. Tremendous mind. Really just the top of the class. We only have the best. Yeah.

It is a tough impression because it's so breathy. It's hard to manage. I can do it in type. I can do a Trump ramble if I type it out. Yeah.

right yeah it is kind of tough you have to sit down and think about it because like i said he only uses 37 words and you gotta it's like having those uh

fridge poetry magnets you know where you're trying to work them into a sentence he would say but his sentence structure is so fucking weird because he'll do all these like you know sub clauses within commas and then all of a sudden you're in all caps and all bets are off it's just madness

yeah he's a character man like if he weren't so fucking harmful for our democracy I could get some amusement out of it but

every time i start to think that he's just a clown i remember that they're like oh there's children who will be forever unable to form meaningful relationships with people because of

their emotional detachment from parents at a critical time in their lives oh that sucks yeah we have we have we have cursed uh you know thousands of children

into being emotionally stunted in one form or another for their entire lives uh so if it weren't for that Darren I I would think it was pretty funny

Right. But yeah, according to the NBC count, it is 666 children. Yet, he is the one fighting the satanic pedophile cabal. Right.

yeah why is yeah why is the right wing not jumping on the fact that he's got i have 666 children all ready to sacrifice to my dark master no parents no parents your parents are very bad people

They probably voted Democrat. It's a parents-free zone. Everybody's going to get some ice cream. Everyone really, really likes vanilla. And if you think about it.

this a very bad deal this whole border thing it's a bad deal either of us are getting better at this impression and i'm not sure how the how long the listeners are gonna bear it

So we should come back to it. One of the things that I wanted to talk about that I was, I have mentioned it before, but in one of the, you know, I still have some residual weirdness.

instilled in me from my time in the Catholic school system, you know, some superstitions or whatever, but the day one agenda, have you looked into too much of the day one agenda?

Not a ton. Not a ton. I mean, I've read some of the EO stuff, but not...

Not entirely. So basically the day one agenda is an activist group. But for those of you who do not know, if you just look it up, there will be things you can read. There's words.

A lot of people are saying this day one agenda is very, very good. Yeah. No. A lot of wild ideas like overhaul the business of Wall Street.

or address climate crisis, or like we said before, talking about canceling lots of student loan debt, forcing drug companies to lower prices, the public option for simple banking.

anti-monopoly legislation, effectively legalizing marijuana. Think of Biden. One of the things I have a lot of criticism.

Criticism of the man. But I really like how big of a fan of public transit he is. Maybe we'll get some cool shit out of that. But, you know, the tax revenue from.

decriminalized marijuana could go a long way in that. I mean, there's the if you make under four hundred thousand dollars.

A year, you probably don't have to worry about his tax plan. There's all sorts of other stuff that even part of me was reluctant to look too close into.

for, you know, some weird sports fan political thing. Like, well, if I read about it, it'll never happen. Right. I'm gene seeing it. Like if I read his agenda.

and it turns out that it's like more pudding at the the buffet yeah then i'd be like oh that's disappointing damn it i mean i mean clearly that's not what it is there's there's

There's a lot of good stuff coming out of the Biden camp right now in terms of what they're trying to do. But so day one agenda is – all right, because I don't know nothing about this then. So they're a separate entity entirely that is –

I'll give you my knee jerk on this right away. As long as there's not an or else, then 100%.

that sounds like a great a great and enthusiastic group to be part of but if it's like and if you don't do this then i don't know what we're not gonna vote for you or we're gonna work to undermine your agenda like that's

And I'm not saying that they have such a stipulation. I'm saying I'm all for progressive groups pushing their policies, but don't try to hold an administration agenda hostage.

to, to get your way from what I understand. And like I said, I,

prevented myself from going too far into this. My next deep dives are going to be on gerrymandering, congressional district drawing, and this. Pretty much.

And from there was a person or two that I've heard interviews with about the day one agenda.

And it seems to be more of a movement, more of an idea that is centered largely around congressional scholars and lawyers who are finding out things, helpful things. This was started.

well before Biden was chosen as the Democrat nominee, is basically progressive ideas and ideals that a president could do.

with the power that a president has. Right, through executive order alone, what can you do? Yeah, here's what you can do about student loan debt.

Here's what you can do about healthcare. Here's what you could do about this and that and the other thing. And it's more of a, I really hope you pay attention to this. We're doing a lot of the deep reading for you and simplifying.

please do some of this. I haven't seen any, we're gonna, you know, like, we've seen the DNC do to some of the...

Upstart progressives where they threaten political companies that they will not get their business anymore if they work with somebody that primaries an entrenched Democrat. This is more of.

Please do this. Please check this out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was kind of skimming this. And a lot of this is like, hey, how about you make all the government vehicles zero emission vehicles?

it's like oh yeah what a great idea and and biden clearly has made no you know no bones about the fact that he wants uh clean energy to be a job creator so

That kind of stuff goes a long way, you know? Like, if suddenly one of the car companies had a government contract for electric vehicles.

That would both create jobs and help the planet in a substantial way. What a great idea. Okay. Yeah, I'm on board. This all seems great. Yeah, so I'm going to be jumping into that.

Yeah, I'll have to dig in as well, but this all seems like, you know, smart, progressive stuff, not just like, let's decriminalize drugs, which is great. Give us cocaine and flying cars, you dick.

right all that stuff is great but i like the fact that there's like okay we're gonna experiment with that in in oregon and then see how it goes um

But yeah, the stuff that I've seen just at a glance seems real smart. And I think that's right. And I think that Biden and his team have been talking.

um very openly about the fact that they they plan to do as much as they can to exercise the authority of the presidency very quickly you know like he's already said like hey we're back in

paris climate you know we're back in who uh don't you know like that stuff he's already announced even before he's taken the oath so

you know they're they're making moves man they're making moves to repair some of the damage and and theoretically restore some global confidence in the u.s although i think that's

more a matter of like we need to get a couple more elections under the belt before the rest of the world is like okay you guys are cool again yeah

we're we're still that that crazy relative that you have a discussion on if you invite them to the holiday well yeah like there's a watchful eye that needs to be kept on us for a while because it's like we went

um for four years we just had a bender and are now coming back we're like no man we're sorry about that that was crazy uh look uh but everything's good i'm i sobered up

every i'm back at the table and they're like yeah we're still cleaning the shit out of the fish tank so go get yourself screened speaking of coronavirus biden just saying like

I implore you people to wear a goddamn mask. Right. He didn't say goddamn, but. Oh, I wish he would. That would be cool. But, you know. But I think it's.

it's what you need a president to be saying of just like look this isn't a partisan thing this is a patriotic thing put on a mask that's all we're saying just put on a mask when you go out in public that's it that's it

But it's nice to have a president that says it, you know? The basic things that you kind of forget used to exist.

That you feel like, oh, well, that's taken as a given. But when there's been four years of just, you can't count on that. You can't count on the basic.

level of administrative duty or something like that yeah much less the formal niceties like

Do you honestly believe that Donald J. Trump is going to write a letter to Joe Biden and leave it at the Resolute desk? It would be a drawing of a middle finger. Right. Or wipe his ass with it.

somebody scanned his ass on a copier um yeah right like there you know i i think making the rounds recently was the one that uh g.w bush um had rg g hw had had left for clinton the last one termer right but but left this beautiful letter about like you know

Today, as I enter the Oval Office for the last time, I am still humbled by the power of this place and that kind of thing. And like, look, I mean, you and I are no fans of George Herbert Walker Bush, but.

you know like that again it was a different time where being a republican meant you had different ideas about how to make the country a better place and social ideas like i mean there was definitely a lot of that in there but

but it you know that that was also at the time where you would have a george hw bush say we need to be

uh kind to one another even though we have political differences meanwhile the political ads were fucking savage yeah and republicans have always been really good at the negative ad speaking of which yeah

The Lincoln Project monorail. Lincoln Project. Again, these feel like Republicans that we can talk to and aren't lunatics. And again, people on the left.

If you think that Republicans aren't necessary to pass legislation, I don't know what to tell you. You got to, you got to.

take some civics classes this is how it all fucking works people so we need reasonable people that we can reach across the aisle to the lincoln project

went out of its way uh also republican voters against trump arvat was a player in in florida they didn't you know obviously florida didn't go for biden came pretty fucking close and and there were a lot of

uh republicans there and abroad one one of the first elections i can recall where republicans crossed the lines in these numbers not the ones in the senate like nobody was winning any medals in

in those hallowed halls but a lot of like republican governors and and ex-politicians and so forth uh coming out uh against trump i thought um was was certainly unusual and at a time like this that gave me some optimism that there were still people out there that could disagree politically with

uh a joe biden still understand that he is fundamentally a better human being than trump and and so and also would not fucking destroy the country like everyone has a vested interest in

the craziest part of the population not running everything um you need some responsible people to steer the ship and

Um, yeah, so all that stuff, I think, I think that stuff has been great. And I hope that it is the foundation for being able to, um, to extend that communication to the rest of the Republican party.

I mean, again, that's cockeyed optimism, but why not? It seems like the groundwork is laid to be able to say, like, these are people that disagree with us, but also we can have a beer with and enjoy being around. I'm waiting to see.

on how they go after things, because I noticed they were relatively absent in the Amy Barrett confirmation times.

They were very present in the anti-Trump campaign. I want to see what they're doing during the Georgia runoff. And I want to see if they maintain that goodwill that they gained with a lot of...

non-Republican people or if it's going to be a self-serving venture. But as we come close to the end of this episode, what are you looking forward to the most? I think...

I don't think I've actually asked this. January 20th will be the four-year anniversary of this show. I kind of ramped things up after the election last time.

Sure. I can't imagine why. Right. So. Come January 20th. And I really don't think that I've asked anybody what they're looking forward to the most ever.

In the history of this show. So. I will dare. What are you optimistic about? Yeah. So.

One thing, not to extend the show even longer, but let me just address the thing you said about the Lincoln Project acting in their own self-interest. I think, of course, they will. I think with the Amy Comey Barrett stuff.

It was a conservative judge and it's a conservative group. Let's not be, let's not, let's not be, you know, closed eyed about that.

they have a very specific kind of Republican that they are going to go against. If it is a Republican Supreme Court justice, that probably ain't the person.

Um, if it is a QAnon weirdo, cause what, what that.

and groups like it are in it for is to save the Republican Party. They're not trying to help the Democratic Party. They're trying to save their party.

And they understand that the extremist Trump group of the Republican Party is ultimately cancerous. So they're trying to excise that without losing the party as a whole. That's their whole game.

And to that end, when our, and I think this is right, I think that's how politics should be, when our interests align.

We are certainly happy bedfellows, and there are going to be times when our interests very much don't align, and we're going to be at opposite ends of the table, but we're not going to shut off.

the possibility of our interests aligning again in the future. So I think like a Kelly Laffler in Georgia, I think you might very well see Lincoln Project go against her.

but a more mainstream Republican, they're probably going to be on his side. They'll leave Romney alone.

yeah they're not going to go against a romney they're not going to go against a rubio or ted cruz as as crazy like they're sycophants but they're not crazy um but

Again, like the QAnon people and that kind of thing. I think you're going to see them try to get rid of that part of the party. And that's fine. Again, if the Republican Party that...

survives Trump is one that once voted with us to elect Joe Biden that's a Republican party we can kind of work with that's that's the kind of Republican party that can pass like a decent budget that's not crazy

you know that kind of thing um so let's not look that gift horse in the mouth but but uh to your question of what am i looking forward to

I think the swearing in is going to be great. I'm really looking forward to Inauguration Day. I hope.

i hope someone has the foresight to make the joke because it's gonna be a sparse gathering because of covid yeah um well and i hope that the the trump fans are booking up his hotel

for his inauguration um fine because again because of covid this thing was never going to be the most attended inauguration and in fact they may hold it in a very small venue because just to discourage people from gathering you know

So, but what I hope is that someone has the foresight to then later claim that it was the largest group of people that had ever attended an inauguration. Like clearly when it's not.

get sean spicer to do it too he's not doing shit right he's on dancing with the stars like that guy can be bought um yeah so that i i hope someone has the foresight to say that

But I am really looking forward to the swearing in. I do go in for that kind of ceremony. I'm a sucker for democracy, Darren.

And when you see a president sworn in, that's, you know, when Trump was sworn in, one of the reasons it hurts so much.

is because that is the president being sworn into office. One of the reasons this is going to feel so good is that somebody else is being sworn into office. That's going to be great.

Also, there's probably going to be better musical guests than if Trump had won.

But other things I'm looking forward to, I'm looking forward to see how aggressive he gets with the executive orders. I think there really is some exciting stuff that could be done.

not just to undo what Trump did. I'm optimistic and I'm looking forward to see whether or not a couple of years of Biden can genuinely lower the temperature in the country.

Like, I don't expect that right away, but imagine at midterms, if everything's just kind of going pretty good, like we're getting like COVID is kind of behind us.

uh you know we're dealing with it at least and and people who aren't taking the vaccine are dying and we're like take the fucking vaccine stupid um but

Other than that, like the economy is surging again. People are starting to go out of their house. They're starting to travel again. There's a kind of a spirit of optimism.

in the country like that is something that could really happen and in that moment uh i'm i'm one of those suckers darren that believes that as unlikely a candidate as Joe Biden is, this fucking pasty old white man may be the right dude to make everybody in the country feel like the...

president being boring is kind of cool and and that we don't need to be at odds all the time and so i'm what i'm looking forward to is is the future darren something i haven't said in a long time i'm looking forward to see what happens next because i for the first time in a long time and i and i

I'm sure there are people on the other side of this political divide that feel exactly the opposite. But for the first time in a long time, I feel like...

there is an opportunity for this country to be the kind of country that we are in the movies. And not necessarily all the president's men where it's all the corrupt real shit.

But the America that pops up in all the black and white World War II movies, you know, where you lose Jeff from Brooklyn.

who was your best buddy storming the beach in Normandy, but you did it because the world needed you. And that kind of shit. That's the thing I'm looking forward to. And there still are a lot of problems in America, but...

There is also that sense that we can all be Americans and that we can have a shared sense of purpose. Here's the trick, and here's why you need a leader.

is that you need someone to define what that single purpose is. And for Trump, it was to boost his ego. It was to love Trump. And, you know...

For a certain portion of the population, that was fun. You know, that was that was their guy. But for the rest of us, having a president that that.

gives a more a more unifying vision of the country and says like hey our mission right now as a country is to heal ourselves you know and that's kind of what he said in his speech uh this past saturday

was you know when he kind of quoted the uh the the um the song no it was the the bible verses uh about you know there being a time to to sow and a time to reap and

We said, you know, and now is the time to heal. And that's what we have to do in this country.

You know, I think the reason that was such a prominent part of the speech is because I think Biden senses that is the thing that he wants to tackle most. It might be his white whale.

Like it might be a thing that he very quickly discovers he is unable to tackle. Um, it depends, you know, like, like everything, it kind of depends on how the right wing media spends it.

If the right-wing media spun this as Joe Biden reaches out to the right, we have a chance. If they spin it, cynical, sleepy Joe treats all of you like dum-dums.

then we're in trouble so sleepy joe's coming to kill you right yeah you know he's he pretends he's not a socialist because he's never ever said a socialist thing in his life

but secretly he's a socialist. I wish he was his left as Fox news says he is, but I still, I look forward to.

Pressuring a president not from the depths of a black, black chasm. Yeah.

That's me. There will be things that Biden will not come left on, but he is not Donald Trump, which was a cornerstone of the election.

But very much so, I mean, no way in fucking hell that Donald Trump's going to do anything that Donald Trump doesn't want to do.

Joe Biden has shown himself to completely go against things that he used to support when he's been shown that a lot of people are into it.

Yeah. And and again, this is going to sound like I am being a total patsy for for Biden. But I also think it's like not only do most people agree with it, they also think it's the right thing.

I think that matters to him, you know, and I think that's why he's so resistant on the defund the police stuff. And I don't think it's because he's trying to be like willingly.

anti-progressive i just think he's an old man and he's just like get rid of police are you fucking crazy and you know that's just where he is man he's an old man but

uh i i think you're right though i think that he's willing to bend way further like clearly clearly he is going to be able to direct the country in a more progressive way than trump like if trump had had won a second term and and carried three with it

You know, like there are so many, like the thin line between the judicial and executive branches was, I mean, we were perilously close.

to him using the attorney general as his thug and he seems to be itching for it he wants to and and bar seems to like that role and

And that's horrifying. And just knowing that Joe Biden is stepping into the presidency with, like, the idea of using an attorney general to attack his political enemies is...

as foreign to joe biden as driving when you could take a train you know like that that's just not where his head's at he's not an authoritarian that's some straight up bunk jack

That's a bunch of malarkey, Jack. I also look forward to teasing a president about being an old man rather than being a Nazi.

right yeah he's gonna be but also here's the thing every time you tease him about being an old man someone's gonna show you a picture of him hugging that kid again uh when he's just like hey

it's gonna you're gonna be all right aren't you no yeah you are yeah you are oh man brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it darren the way he held that kid's head in his hand

and was just hugging him like a dad. Fuck Darren. Like that's something you never saw.

trump dude like with no with his grown children like there was a thing sorry to turn this into just a biden love fest but fuck it how often do we get a chance to just celebrate the fact that we won the presidency um

the the at the big fireworks display there was there was a moment when he kind of leans over to his his son and he he says like it was silent but you could just make out the words where he said

you ever seen anything like this where he was genuinely excited by fucking fireworks you know that's the kind of president i want that has a sense of wonder and excitement about shit like i

joe biden had never seen that shit in his life before of those drones and fireworks and stuff you know he was just like how the fuck did they do that how'd they kamala how'd they do that

That's something I never imagined growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Right.

and like him with his grandkids and stuff and it was like like holding his grandkid on his shoulder and that kind of thing as the fireworks were going off in the background like that kind of shit was like

man we just haven't seen this from the white house in a while of like like people loving their family and hugging and smiling and laughing and you know and even biden saying dumb shit like

You know, Kamala, you and Doug, you're Bidens now, whether you like it or not. You know, that kind of old man shit. Like, pull my finger. You know, that kind of stuff. I fucking adore it because he's such a lovable old goof.

And that's what I kind of – I always liked about Biden. He just seems like a guy who – believes what he believes and says what he says and he means so well like there is not an ounce of malice in his heart but sometimes he just says dumb shit

You know, like that's that's the Biden I've always liked. And that's the president we've got. And and having him like vetting him through the campaign and seeing those.

videos of him not just in this campaign but from years ago just and it was these random acts of kindness videos of and that was the narrative was just like look what a nice guy he is And and things like Obama saying.

you think i'm bad working a rope line like ask the secret service about joe biden couldn't get the fucking guy in the car you know like he just shook hands with everybody he told stories and shit because he's grandpa joe you know um

And I adore that, man. I'm so happy that that's who's running the country, that we have this lovable old grandpa.

Instead of this, like, frowning, scowling, spitting tyrant. That alone makes me feel so much better, you know?

Like, you could have told me that we wouldn't have a COVID vaccine for another 18 months, as long as I know that, you know, Joe Biden is being like, don't give me that malarkey.

I know our scientists can do better. If that guy is in charge, great, great. We're going to get there. I feel a sense of possibility with Joe Biden that just doesn't exist in a world with Trump.

Yeah, there are two different kinds of grandpas. The grandpa that you don't want to get dropped off with for the weekend and the one that you do. And yeah, and until we get.

rid of the electoral college or start ranked choice voting. There's going to be a lot of strategic voting. And yeah.

But it's just working with the system while you change it. Yeah. I mean, and the thing to feel good about too, if you're a Democrat or just tend to vote Democratic, however you identify yourself.

um that the the popular vote has gone to the democratic candidate seven out of the past eight presidential elections so we're there's something we're doing right like we got we got problems with the electoral college and that kind of thing

But more people in this country believe in our vision. The thing that we have to do as a party and as a movement, and I said this the last time I was here, but it's the thing I believe, is that...

Through kindness and love, we have to keep showing the rest of this country that our ideas are better, not because we're smarter, but because our ideas are going to help them too.

That it's not because we are better and brighter that we deserve to run things. It's because we all think that these ideas are going to make this country and the people in it.

better and happier and healthier and safer and and that's the argument that we need to keep making and again do it with kindness do it with respect do it with love and and that is how i think we we keep winning

I think you just wrapped us up, man. You need to plug some stuff. Yeah, I can plug stuff.

Obviously, LegionPodcasts.com is where you can find this show and many, many others. And thanks to all the new listeners, which we clearly have several of.

uh for me personally if you want to hear more out of me where i just kind of shit on things and don't talk about things about like optimism and love um then you can check out pick six movies with my pal chad And we do six movies built around a single theme for a season.

We are wrapping up our James Bond season called Bonds, James Bonds, where we look at one movie from each of the James Bond actors.

And that has been a real journey for me as someone who doesn't really care for James Bond movies. So my approach has been slightly different.

um and then uh dunking a bow come correct a new episode just dropped the literally the day that we're recording this and we are continuing our look at the amazing show lovecraft country

If you're not watching it, you should. It's all wrapped up now, but Duncan and I don't know that because we haven't finished watching the show yet and done those episodes. I've got two episodes left myself. Okay, so you're about where I am then. You might be one episode ahead of me.

but uh what a great show um and oh geez what am i forgetting uh oh on the you can goto patreon.com/legionpodcasts if you want to support legion podcasts uh not only can you support the network and help pay for servers and stuff like that

But you can get a bunch of free commentary and movie stuff over there that I do.

And then Hero Hero Go Show has a new episode that will be coming maybe this week. It depends on how much of the editing I get done. And that feels like it, but that also feels like a lot.

That is a very busy schedule. Like Beau said, please continue to check out this show, even though it wasn't listed among his favorite political shows to listen to.

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You know, apes together strong. A hundred percent. That is that look, that is the socialist heart of this network is that a rising tide lifts all ships and.

And that is both works on the podcast level. It works on the charity level. It works on the political level. If we do good work happily and well.

we will succeed. Don't forget to fucking duck and cover everybody. I hope you hear the cheer in my voice. This, this, yeah.

Here we go into the next chapter. I am quitting the show. Now the Trump's gone. The show is over. I'm taking all the money.

look Biden's gonna do plenty of pisses off in like three months like the honeymoon will not last forever so let's just enjoy it for now and then we'll get pissed when he's like compromise on a public option somewhere down the line

Something somewhere, but it's gonna be better. It's gonna be better. It's gonna be better. It's gonna be better. Yeah, that is...

the thing that you can listeners, you can walk out of here right now, uh, humming that tune to yourself. It's gonna be better.