BONUS Marc on the 2024 Election
Thank you.
Guest:I was a little surprised you wanted to do this.
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:You know, I have not really felt like talking about politics in any specific way in terms of day-to-day activity because it's just for a couple reasons.
Marc:It's not part of my dialogue on the show.
Marc:And also...
Marc:You know, we were in a position or I was in a position or progressives or Democrats or whatever.
Marc:We're in this position where we just had this default situation going on.
Marc:And it felt really weird.
Marc:You know, when you're sort of faced with this cult-like excitement about a monster and they're like, well, you're a Biden guy.
Marc:And it's like, yeah, by default to a certain degree.
Marc:And I don't think the guy had, I think the administration did very well, leveled the ship.
Marc:It seems like a lot of things policy-wise went correctly.
Marc:And I had no problem with that.
Marc:And I had no problem with the idea of him, you know, just sitting there on a machine, to be honest with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But in terms of actually feeling like any kind of it's not so much hope, but just the excitement of of representation.
Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, to have something happen where all of a sudden you're like, all right, well, now it's not a matter of it being a fair fight or not, but at least we have somebody who can communicate ideas, who represents something in her own being and body.
Marc:And as an individual...
Marc:can sort of bring together this whole other side of the things that represent the country we live in, the majority of it.
Marc:So it was just more of a like, holy shit, I'm excited about this because it just seems more than fortuitous that she's sort of exactly on a human level what we need as a representation of all
Guest:What this country looks like.
Guest:Basically, democracy is at stake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We stand to lose the republic if we don't defend it.
Guest:You know, there is a two party system and one of the parties has completely surrendered to fascism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that was like their message.
Guest:They poll tested that.
Guest:And that was what they decided.
Guest:Oh, this is this is how we're going to get out there and win.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were, you know, losing largely just on the effect of who the candidate was and most certainly his age.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Harris has not like her campaign is basically like this is a campaign for the future.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All their language is like, we're not going back.
Guest:We're not going back to that guy's old shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we have to move forward and she can present that.
Guest:But what's interesting, what I think you latch on to is this need to defend Trump.
Guest:democracy against the forces of change, which you see as largely cultural.
Guest:And so I am not surprised that you're excited by this, even though like your mentality lines up more closely with what the Biden campaign was pushing.
Guest:Like, hey, big shit is at stake here.
Guest:the tactics to go about it for you are more visibly represented by someone like Kamala Harris, just on the nature of her being female, mixed race, younger, and with a different constituency and a different group of people that come to the table as finding representation through her and saying, yes, that's America.
Guest:And that's what we need to push back against the forces of fascism or autocracy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, look, I mean, you know me and I mean, I speak about this stuff all the time.
Marc:It may be cultural, but I certainly understand all the nuances all the way down the line of how just from doing political radio and also, you know, talking to you, how democracy can be undermined.
Marc:And again, there's other arguments, you know, I get.
Marc:corporate occupation of the courts and lobbying.
Marc:And I understand all that, too.
Marc:And that is a more progressive conversation.
Marc:But on the fundamental level of state-to-state government and the government at large and what the plan was for
Marc:The next Trump administration and what we saw in the first one, I'm very clear about the possibilities and the reality of fascism.
Marc:And I think I don't read the platforms.
Marc:I didn't go to the Biden site.
Marc:I don't I don't really do.
Marc:It doesn't matter to me.
Guest:You know, what's on those sites with the plan on board with the Democratic Party.
Guest:You believe in the Democratic Party's overall platform as it comes to domestic and foreign policy and monetary policy like that's your life.
Guest:You've already already bought in to that as a platform.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And but like it doesn't like I also realize that, you know, my life is unlike most lives.
Marc:I you know, I'm not struggling.
Marc:You know, I'm not trying to feed my family.
Marc:I'm not buried by a mortgage.
Marc:You know, I have insurance.
Marc:You know, it you know, I'm fortunate and I'm grateful that it worked out this way.
Marc:So my sense of anger is really limited to the idea that.
Marc:of what the possibilities of fascism looks like.
Marc:And it's already happening in some states, and I feel the weight of that.
Marc:I don't really fully understand how people can live in states that have state governments that are so restrictive and intolerant that they are almost like fascist experiments.
Marc:But that also speaks to the fact that...
Marc:You know, people who live there, if they're doing fine, they don't give a fuck about government.
Marc:And most people don't really have any sort of sense of understanding or implications of what their government does.
Marc:I don't think most people give a fuck.
Marc:I mean, I've always been under the belief that, hey, if most people are OK, then the status quo can sort of move along.
Marc:But somehow or another, a bunch of people are lit are just fucking lit up because their brains have been turned inside out.
Marc:And they've been mobilized to fight against many things that don't exist and to service an ideology that they might not even quite get.
Marc:That is is not uncommon in world politics.
Marc:It's just this assumption that it's never going to happen here.
Marc:And and I've always sort of got I've been talking about this for years.
Marc:And back when we were on Air America.
Marc:You know, we would talk about it, the Christofascist zombie brigade.
Marc:But it still felt like, you know, a marginal thing.
Marc:But now it's just shameless and it's in our face every day.
Marc:And it drives me nuts.
Marc:So just the fact that there is something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just very exciting to me because the other side, and we talked about this before, are really, when you look at them properly, which seems to be happening because of one word, are frightening, creepy, limited, grifting fucks that most of them are self-serving.
Marc:But when they're not self-serving, they're allowing or facilitating a sort of Christian fascism.
Guest:The one word being weird, that just all of a sudden this attack on them being weird has kind of opened this framework for them being unappealing to the masses at large.
Marc:But the reason that it worked was because now you can stand against it.
Marc:You have somebody who is young, vital, intelligent.
Marc:Being a woman is one thing, and being mixed race is one thing.
Marc:But bottom line is, it's like you look at her and you look at them, and all of a sudden you're like, holy shit.
Marc:You know, they almost brainwashed all of us into thinking like, well, this is what America looks like.
Marc:These fucking fuming, angry, lying sacks of shit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And all it took is this one word and all of a sudden you realize like, well, they are weird.
Marc:They're totally weird.
Marc:And as you said in our text, like that's an umbrella term for creepy, perverse, you know, brain addled by something that is seemingly insane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I kind of likened it to when Joe Biden came out, I think he really first started doing it during the Obama administration, where he would call things malarkey.
Guest:And, you know, you'd get out there and he'd be doing his speeches and he'd be like, oh, that's a bunch of malarkey.
Guest:And everybody kind of knew that meant bullshit.
Guest:And, but it was like the, the polite way to do it.
Guest:Like the Democrats still have to filter through this, this, um, system of, of norms and decorum.
Guest:Like Democrats don't win when they go out there and they're just like, this guy's a cocksucker.
Guest:Like people are like, what, what are you doing?
Guest:Like, you can't say that.
Guest:But like, if you say he's weird, then all of a sudden the subtext is becomes the story.
Guest:Like, yeah, that guy, I think he is a couch fucker.
Marc:But they're all weird.
Marc:But there was this point where... Here's my biggest problem.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:As I talk about this stuff and when I'm in a longer bit of talking, it feels exactly like I used to feel on Air America where I'm midway through it and I'm like, I don't know if I can land this thing.
Marc:I don't know if this is making sense.
Marc:And...
Marc:You know, I hope I can continue spinning these words into something that kind of ends somewhere and people will go like, huh, not like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Marc:But like, I have this problem where, and I've been thinking about it a lot.
Marc:Like, I don't understand on some level, you know, why people, you know, how they can believe things that I don't.
Marc:It's kind of wrong-minded, I guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was a lot of a lot of the Republicans who are vocal and, you know, doing this weird P.T.
Marc:Barnum business with conspiracies and with race baiting and all this stuff.
Marc:And the fact that people are like, yes, I'm like, I do not understand those people.
Marc:The only thing that enables me to understand some of them is that outside of conspiracy theories and lies about immigration and the threat of other is that a good number of people really crave the type of leadership that doesn't indulge a dialogue with people.
Marc:People who are different.
Marc:They just want to be told what's up, what to do.
Marc:They want to feel empowered and they want to feel like they are the dominant cultural force.
Marc:And that because of that, you know, everybody else has to get in line.
Marc:And there are people, many that just want that.
Marc:And that's sort of what you have to sort of entertain is that it's not like it's no mystery.
Marc:You know, it only took a couple of years now where they're just shamelessly fascist.
Marc:Like, they're like, we want this.
Marc:We want this guy to tell us what to do and to speak for us in the world.
Marc:Because he's got this ridiculous, aggravated swagger and this compulsive need to start shit all the time.
Marc:And that makes people feel like, yeah, that's what we need.
Marc:That'll really set everybody straight.
Marc:And the idea of me going out into the world and performing, and it's been this way for a long time, I'm always a little paranoid, where, you know, if I have some people that have different beliefs in me politically, you know, they can go this fucking guy or, you know, fuck you or whatever.
Marc:But if that became the dominant...
Marc:ideology of the culture we live in, it would be a different fight because it would be more threatening.
Marc:It would be, you know, you would feel like you don't have a place to say things that you want to say anymore.
Marc:It's always been like kind of fraught, but at least there was some idea that there was a balance to the ability to express one's views.
Guest:and it's always felt threatening but the possibility of it becoming the dominant cultural paradigm is horrendous why would you want to live in that well i think some people want to live in it because i mean like it goes to the core of the thing you're saying like i just don't understand people who think of it that way and the reason is because your entire your brain is entirely different than those people
Guest:And it's really, you know, people of two brains.
Guest:There's two different kind of mindsets that dominate here.
Guest:And it's a reason why we've settled into a two party system, because you can kind of organize those parties around these dominant strains of thinking for the people that are adherence to these political systems.
Guest:And it's like it's a very, you know, powerful tendency to want to embrace this.
Guest:the status quo because it feels protective.
Guest:It feels, um, you know, in some ways you don't have to worry about it.
Guest:Even if it's a negative status quo, you'd rather embrace that than embrace something that's unknown or that's, that's forward thinking where in the future, you might not be the dominant person.
Guest:There might be, it might be someone else.
Guest:And the
Guest:the mindset that you have, I always think back to, you know, you and I were talking about like a Marvel movies, I think.
Guest:And what, you know, we were talking about whether or not you could ever like, we could do a series where you watch them and you like, you tried to watch a few and you couldn't really, and you were like, ultimately I'm never going to care about this because it's a very popular thing.
Guest:And that automatically gets my haunches up.
Guest:Like I'm not into it if everybody else is into it.
Guest:And I never have been.
Guest:And I was like, well, that's weird, though.
Guest:Like, why?
Guest:How can you say that and then go vote for like Barack Obama and be OK with him throughout his eight years of his presidency when he was like massively popular and the dominant political person of our age?
Guest:And you were like, because I knew what he represented and him just represent doesn't matter if he was popular, him representing that pissed off people that I wanted to piss off.
Guest:And like, I, I think that that's a very, like, you know, you used to talk about this on air America that you were like, I didn't even know what politics I was.
Guest:I just know that I reacted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm reactive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know, I think a lot of that has to do with you don't like people telling you what to do period.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But there are other people who don't like being told they should change because
Guest:In order to help other people out there, that's their version of not being told what to do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's it's it's ultimately.
Marc:But see, I believe in the fundamental idea of of helping people out.
Marc:Like if I can if I can help someone out, I'll help them out.
Marc:You know, it doesn't imply that, like, that person is, you know, draining the system or taking advantage necessarily.
Marc:Though I've had those thoughts, too, on an interpersonal level.
Marc:But also cultural things like Marvel movies or, like, you know, I can understand why people like them.
Marc:But what it represents to me on some level is that if everybody likes it, there's a simplicity to it and a need to pander that ultimately...
Marc:dilutes the risk-taking or the art of it or introducing something new and exciting in terms of the progress of creativity and all that.
Marc:But a lot of people would argue that with me.
Marc:That one just comes down to the fact, like, it just doesn't... I'm not...
Marc:a comic book guy by nature.
Marc:But like, look, I can understand Taylor Swift.
Marc:I'm okay with her.
Guest:Yeah, but there is a difference between being okay with it and wanting to spend your time investing in it and being part of what everybody else is part of when they go to the concerts and they talk about how great it was, whatever.
Guest:You don't have any interest in that.
Guest:And I don't think you ever would because you're more inclined to move towards something you found yourself, not something that someone else found and told you, this is what everybody else does, so you should do it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's also the idea, and I think this plays into it more, is that once, let's say, media companies or outlets pander to a narrow-minded or single-focused point of view because of money—
Marc:What gets pushed aside is stuff that's already marginal and probably infinitely more interesting and infinitely more risky.
Marc:And I just like the vulnerability of that, even if it's not that great.
Marc:So my big fear creatively and as a person is that, you know, this tone of bullying will eventually shut people up.
Marc:I think that you don't need censorship to create a self-censoring culture.
Yeah.
Marc:When I talk about this stuff, about the idea of if you're going to remove tolerance from the equation as the lubricant for democracy and just double down on whatever bullying, marginalizing, diminishing bullshit you have.
Marc:you have on your mind because you feel that's your personal truth or that this is the way it really is according to you.
Marc:If there's no tolerance, let alone, you know, helping other people, I mean, what the fuck are we living in?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the thing is, the strategy, the thing you just...
Guest:articulated your fears about is what the right for years has been trying to do culturally to paint Democrats and liberals and the progressives and people of the left as ones looking to indoctrinate you with their dominant cultural strain and make it so that you can't say anything, right?
Guest:Obviously, that's where all the anti
Guest:woke comics come from that and the idea is that the the left is like that's why the weird thing is so potent right because essentially the right was trying to frame that for years right the idea of like these people are are aberrant right they're gonna have drag daycares and you know you gotta go to drag story time and they're gonna change they're gonna radically change the status quo right and
Guest:But it's like the right used to be able to do that.
Guest:Thinking back to like George Bush and the moral majority and all that stuff.
Guest:They used to do that because there was a coalition of those people, the hard right, who want to basically go backwards.
Guest:make America great again.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the predominant one, which was a coalition of like centrist Republicans, where it's like, we're just here to uphold the status quo.
Guest:And it's like back to that idea, keeping things normal, keeping things centered.
Guest:And whatever you want to think about that word and say that that word is destructive or whatever, but normal is where most people want to live in their definition of it.
Guest:What's your definition of normal?
Guest:And the problem is for, I think, my political interpretation of all of this is that the problem for the Republicans is they have allowed their party to be just trampled under the boot heel of this con man.
Guest:And he runs everything now.
Guest:And so there is no coalition.
Guest:So for them, status quo is this scum.
Guest:He's a scumbag.
Guest:He's this guy you've made jokes about.
Guest:You don't want to buy a used car from that type of guy if you see him coming at you.
Guest:But he is now the standard bearer for what the status quo is on that side of the ledger.
Guest:And so it becomes much easier if you can make the attack stick.
Guest:And that was the problem with Biden.
Guest:He couldn't attack anything because he couldn't communicate anymore.
Guest:And it couldn't communicate properly the way a politician does.
Guest:But if you can land that attack from the other side to be like that thing over there, which is being presented as the status quo is weird.
Guest:That is not normal.
Guest:Then you start to shift the window, right?
Marc:Then people's perception of things can move.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I, and I, I understand all that.
Marc:And I understand that a lot of what is happening has been, you know,
Marc:You know, percolating since the 60s and in terms of politically, you know, since the fucking New Deal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's like when we were at Air America, it was that thing that you used to point back to all the time.
Guest:The Powell Manifesto.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The Powell memo was, you know, a group of chambers of commerce that were just sort of like, no matter what happens, there can never be a threat to capitalism.
Marc:And that was in reaction to the possibility of the kind of hippie communist idea that and but also on on another level, on a moral level.
Marc:The Christian status quo has always been threatened by the gay community, by sex, by, you know, what they perceived as pushing the envelope with language, all this stuff.
Marc:So all this fight has been going on for decades.
Marc:And I understand that.
Marc:But I also understand now, you know, that they're on the precipice of making it happen.
Yeah.
Marc:you know, what you really have to lose is that everything that I grew up with and everything that I've always been interested in has been weirdos.
Marc:You know, I grew up in the 70s and, you know, I was fascinated with the music, the cartoons, you know, the comics, the ideas, the characters that came out of the 60s because...
Marc:By them pushing the envelope of what is acceptable and First Amendment issues, but also just finding a zone to be as freaky as they want to sort of explore, you know, what freedom really means creatively and personally to define their community.
Marc:I always thought that was amazing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, like, to have narrow-minded people just condescend to it, you know, just be like, you know, look at these fucking freaks.
Marc:It was like, you know, these are two voices that can coexist.
Marc:But, and I don't, no matter what anyone says about the left this or the left that or, you know, stifling speech or being immoral, any time I look at it, it seems what's really happening is that there are communities of people who are,
Marc:marginalized for whatever reason.
Marc:And one of them is women, and that's more than half the population.
Marc:So anything that is trying to stop that through language or through behavior from being diminished and made subservient is good.
Marc:It's not trying to convert kids or anything else.
Marc:It's just...
Marc:These communities who want to live the way they want to live as adults and be able to do it safely in a country that espouses the idea that you have the freedom to be who you want to be.
Marc:And that sort of sits with me, that a lot of what they're whining about, it has no effect on them whatsoever.
Guest:Well, I mean, I wouldn't say it has no effect on them.
Guest:It has the effect on them that it's forcing them to have to make a change in their life that they don't want to make.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But in their day to day life, how much is that?
Marc:Like maybe with TVs or movies, but you can make choices not to take things in.
Marc:And it's not like they're like, you know, oh, no, the regular visit from the drag queen happens in an hour.
Marc:Are the kids going to be out of the house?
Marc:You know, it's like who the fuck is it?
Marc:Who cares?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, let those let those.
Marc:And also, you know, if you're of the arts, what happens to the fucking arts if these fucking monsters take over?
Marc:Yeah, it just will all be shut down in any sort of like, you know, progressive or interesting or brain bending creative risk taking will just be all shut down.
Marc:You know, like all these people that they they they try to put in their place are the prime motivators of creativity on almost all levels in this fucking country.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's just, you know, it's listening to you talk about it, though.
Guest:It's just so funny because there's been all this talk with, you know, Harris getting the nomination and the Democrats just immediately cohering around that as the right plan, which was frankly stunning to me that it happened so cleanly.
Guest:But at the same time, like my feeling about that, watching it all play out was like,
Guest:You know, you watch you watch the reaction to that, particularly from the right, but also just people in like kind of like the view from nowhere middle.
Guest:A lot of journalists and that that are like, this seems a little manufactured or it's like, you know, false enthusiasm.
Guest:Like, why is it?
Guest:How is everybody so excited about Kamala Harris?
Guest:You know, she bombed out in the 2020 primaries.
Guest:People really, you know, she wasn't very popular two months ago.
Guest:ago how why do people care so much and and there's this idea that that people are faking it or something and i listened to you talk and i think you're representative of a lot of people who are just like i just want to fight like i want to be able to fight this and there was nothing that was providing that yeah and also relief
Marc:relief because we were like in the wilderness because there was no one able to dictate policy or or other other the other way of thinking you mean by way of not no communication of that that's right yeah except by a bunch of yammering amateurs everywhere you know yammering amateurs everywhere is is what's dictating you know most of the thoughts and and
Marc:in terms of politically, and it's already a hard thing to corral, you know, centrist Democrats, progressives, the whole arc of whatever's on the other side here.
Marc:But I think that there was this idea that there was a vitality about and a confidence that comes through with Harris in sort of what we want the world to look like.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:You know, so there's relief and also the desire to fight or at least to have a spokesperson.
Marc:Look, in terms of politics, you know me, I'm limited.
Marc:And when I came into Air America, I was limited to just being reactive.
Marc:But I'm a little more informed.
Marc:And look, I know there's other issues.
Marc:You know, I know there's progressive issues that that are important.
Marc:And but but a lot of times many of them feel like, you know,
Marc:Almost like a futile, a futile fight, you know, in the big picture.
Guest:Well, it's absolutely a futile fight during a presidential race.
Guest:That's the thing that drives me crazy.
Guest:And it really is.
Guest:In some ways, it's political tourism.
Guest:I don't even care how radical you think you are.
Guest:If you think you're, you know, a person of the left.
Guest:if you're only engaging in a kind of activist political stance every four years during the big election, that's when you have the least power and least control.
Guest:Like the actual way you make progress from a marginalized political position is to go when there's the least attention on you and build up your power base there.
Guest:I mean, you look at somebody like...
Guest:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she won in a race where no one was looking.
Guest:That was how she got in.
Guest:You know, it was like, oh, they had they were asleep at the switch during that primary and she won.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's where you have to centralize your your your power strategically.
Guest:You don't do it during a presidential race when no one's going to listen to you.
Marc:Well, I think this is also something about the left and Democrats in general, is that there was a diligence and a fury to the process of undermining as many state governments as possible on the right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's going to keep going.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:Even if Harris wins this election, we did not beat that back.
Guest:It is going to keep happening.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So until people can be...
Marc:I don't know if it's a matter of motivation, but it takes a certain type of people that want to get into civil service in politics in an earnest way and to sort of fight the good fight on a state level.
Marc:But the hope is is that if she can give voice to
Marc:the possibility of, of, of this fight being, you know, not only worthwhile, but, but there, there is a path, a path that, that will lead you somewhere just in terms of confidence and, and energy and focus.
Marc:I mean, that's what you want and,
Marc:There's just been just this tremendous lack of leadership and inspiration on the Democratic side.
Marc:It's never going to be like the right because they're very specifically following some kind of restrictive morality based on –
Marc:you know, triggering ideas about abortion and immigration and, you know, marriage and all the other shit and gender and all that stuff.
Marc:But but ultimately, if there's a pathway that is created where people can counter that with being like, this is not how people live.
Mm hmm.
Marc:And then motivate those people that don't have a voice because they've lost interest and they're just hiding and they just want to live the way they want.
Marc:But look, you just don't want to enter a political reality where more than half the people are just frightened to speak up about anything.
Marc:And I think that's a possibility.
Guest:A frightened or just deliberately, directly impacted by restrictions.
Guest:I mean, it might be frightened is one thing, but actually directly impacted having their, you know, reproductive rights taken away, having their ability to send their kids to schools that don't offer prayer in them or things like that.
Guest:Like these are already being taken away.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or offer, you know, honest history.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:They live in.
Marc:And then like when you see these machinations happening on behalf of state governments, you really see the reality of it.
Marc:I think that's also history.
Marc:We, no one really knows about history.
Marc:There's this assumption.
Marc:Americans are relatively lazy and complacent if their life is okay.
Marc:But this idea that this kind of stuff could never happen here is you can really see how it happens.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there's no one to push back on it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:There's no real momentum.
Marc:And I guess I'm guilty of it, too.
Marc:But most people are like, well, I don't think it really affects me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they don't do anything.
Guest:Well, that was one of the most consequential guests that we ever had on this show, which you wouldn't really think it was not a person people really know.
Guest:But that filmmaker Raoul Peck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who, you know, he talked about basically like this was this is the way of life in other countries.
Guest:You just go along assuming you have to act in a revolutionary manner or else that's you're finished.
Guest:You're just going to get wiped out by the ruling class.
Guest:And, you know, it made me realize, like, you know, I think we had him on like one year into the Trump administration.
Guest:It was like, hey, yeah, there's nothing protecting us from that happening at some point.
Guest:I mean, we have like guardrails and we're in a better position for it to not happen than other countries.
Guest:But there's nothing that's saying, oh, it'll never happen.
Guest:We have nothing that that gives us that type of privilege.
Marc:And that was the amazing thing that this Project 2025 became a real issue because that is how they make it happen.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a step-by-step process, working loopholes and deteriorating norms and finding out ways around things that we've grown to rely on as these guardrails and dismantling the whole fucking thing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I tell you that, dude, like they are the Republicans and the right wing are scared to death of how that thing has been received, because you would not see Trump doing his like massive backtrack for Matt if it wasn't internally polling for them that it's just completely damaging.
Marc:Well, it's a fucking miracle that it got exposed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Even though it was just sitting there.
Guest:Taraji P. Henson, man.
Guest:Taraji P. Henson.
Guest:She legitimately raised attention on that.
Guest:A lot of people were watching that show, the BET Awards, and she said right to camera, go and Google Project 2025, and you will see what they're going to try to do to you.
Marc:I mean, it worked because that's one of those things that in the past, those kind of things have been around and it's impossible to get traction to raise awareness on them, you know, and then John Oliver did a big thing on it.
Marc:And, you know.
Marc:There was kind of an amazing thing that people woke up to that thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it definitely scared the pants off of Trump.
Guest:Well, I do think that it's good to feel that you have some hope and relief and that there is a fight and...
Guest:everything is moving in a better direction than it was.
Guest:I do think that we all, anyone who's, anyone who's listening to this that was going to go vote for Donald Trump, you probably stopped listening already or you're pissed off at us and there's nothing else you're going to do.
Guest:Fine, whatever.
Guest:But to anyone else, you know, I always do like to make sure you remind everybody that, you know,
Guest:Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by in excess of seven million votes.
Guest:It was, you know, 51 percent to 46 percent in that election.
Guest:And yet in the the actual number of votes that won the presidency, it was only about one hundred and twenty three thousand people across four states.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So you could beat you.
Guest:You can win this thing by seven million votes.
Guest:And it's just about, you know, the size of a very large outdoor stadium full of people that's actually going to decide this across four states that most of us don't live in.
Guest:And, you know, hey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, you guys all get the big task.
Guest:So, you know, go for it.
Guest:But maybe, you know, everyone wants to go spend some time knocking on doors in those states.
Guest:But that's really the ballgame.
Guest:And really, Pennsylvania is the whole ballgame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I yeah, again, I appreciate you tempering my hope.
Marc:And, you know, I I've spent the last two years trying to adjust my brain to.
Marc:realizing that I may have to figure out how to live, you know, within a autocratic unfolding situation in this country.
Marc:And, and yeah, there's, there's part of me that realizes that if that does happen, most people will adapt and,
Marc:You know, they'll just give in because what options do they have?
Marc:I do.
Marc:You know what, though?
Guest:I think that obviously I don't want Donald Trump to win, but I think a hard fought election that even if it's close and he wins is still an energized base of support.
Guest:That allows for resistance to some of the worst shit that could happen.
Guest:I really believe in that.
Guest:And it's not just a online thing to have a hashtag resistance or whatever.
Guest:It is you need an engaged electorate and especially an engaged electorate that's like, God damn, this electoral college is killing us.
Guest:We have to politically...
Guest:mobilize to have some type of successful reform or to push back, you know, with our, with, with, you know, the donor base and get them focusing on funding different things.
Guest:Like there are things at your disposal that you could do as a, you know,
Guest:know from an organizational level but you have to be engaged and i just i don't i don't think that anybody was going to be engaged after you know a total electoral wipeout with trump beating biden and you know in general you know overall enthusiasm just completely down that was going to pose a problem the the actual rise in enthusiasm and having a competitive race will help in the end
Guest:Good.
Guest:I'll believe you.
Guest:Well, I think the bigger thing to believe is that you, like Chris and I were talking about this too.
Guest:It's like, man, all he needed was to change that candidate.
Guest:There's all this pep in his step all of a sudden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's like, he seems ready to go.
Guest:And it is just amusing to me that it's like, like you, Marc Maron, like what you need is somebody to be like, all right, I'm being ready to throw a punch.
Guest:Would you like to throw a punch?
Guest:I'll throw a punch with you.
Guest:you couldn't stand by the fact that it's like we had to just stand there with our hands tied behind our backs and like take it yeah yeah yeah that's true i i couldn't but i was i was trying to live with it yeah all right well maybe in a couple more weeks we'll uh we'll check back in here on the political front and and see how we're feeling okay buddy
Thank you.