It Could Happen Here Weekly 137

2024/6/29

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Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode, so every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to Could Happen Here...

I'm Andrew Sage of the YouTube channel Andrewism. So today, I wanted to really draw attention to the strategies of resistance that have marked the stories of the African diaspora. Of course, the diaspora is widespread and diverse, and you could find or scatter hundreds of millions in communities across the globe, largely due to the impact of the Trans-Saharan, Transatlantic, and Indian Ocean slave trades, as well as voluntary migration.

Many millions of stories could be told, but very few of those stories have been told so far. My focus is really on the African diaspora in the Caribbean today and what strategies they used in their struggle and how those strategies could potentially be utilized today in our contemporary struggle.

So, for some context, in case you just arrived on Earth, a couple years ago, enslaved Africans suffered truly deplorable conditions from the moment of capture through the passage and the seasoning process until the last of their days on the field of the plantation. Yet in spite of their deplorable conditions, enslaved people endured. Resistance endured. It was both inevitable and constant, as even their enslavers recognized.

Resistance, of course, began in Africa itself. Enslaved people often fled to escape local captors who were seeking to profit from the demand for slaves. Entire villages would sometimes relocate or fortify their settlements to avoid capture. Rebellion was common among captives as they waited to board ships during the initial loading and even on the high seas. Tragically,

Or perhaps bravely, some chose to resist by taking their own lives, either during the journey or during the brutal seasoning process upon their arrival in the Caribbean. On the plantation itself, resistance took many forms tailored to specific circumstances and opportunities, but acts of defiance were a constant throughout the history of slavery in the Caribbean. While not all forms of resistance were as overt as the famous revolutions and rebellions,

Each act played a role in shaping plantation society, undermining the institution of chattel slavery, and ultimately hastening its demise. We can classify these acts of resistance into three key categories: non-cooperation, confrontation, and prefiguration. Non-cooperation involves the deliberate refusal to comply with those in power, using both overt and covert methods to protest against oppressive conditions.

Confrontation is about direct and assertive engagement with oppressive forces, aiming to disrupt or undermine them. And prefiguration refers to the deliberate organization of future social relations, institutions, and practices in the present, envisioning and enacting a better future. It's important to note that these categories, of course, often overlap.

In the dynamic struggle against slavery, non-cooperation, confrontation, and prefiguration intertwined, embodying the seeds of revolution. Throughout history, in fact, wherever people have faced oppression, these forms of resistance have emerged. The era of slavery in the Caribbean was no exception. Acts of non-cooperation were perhaps the most common form of resistance on the plantation.

Non-cooperation took many forms, often subtle yet impactful. Enslaved individuals would act carelessly, feign illness or pretend ignorance. These tactics slowed productivity and provided plausible explanations for accidents. By sabotaging tools and machinery, they further disrupted the operations of the plantation. Arson was another method used to strike back against the oppressors, causing significant damage to property and resources.

Securing extra meat through covert animal slaughter was a way for the enslaved to supplement their meager rations and exert a small measure of control over their own survival. And of course, running away was another powerful form of non-cooperation. Individuals in small groups would escape for various reasons: to find psychological relief from the relentless oppression, to reunite with loved ones, to protest their harsh material conditions, or to carve out an alternative way of life within the oppressive system.

These escapes were not just about physical freedom, they were acts of defiance that challenged the foundations of the plantation system. Modern day activists and workers often engaged in similar forms of non-cooperation to challenge capitalist structures and state authority. Just as enslaved people would intentionally slow down or damage tools to reduce productivity,

Modern workers might engage in slowdowns, work to rule actions, or even deliberate sabotage, which also falls into the next category of action. These actions aim to disrupt the efficiency and profitability of capitalist enterprises, often as a form of protest against unfair labour practices or to demand better working conditions. Pretending ignorance was, as I mentioned, a common tactic among enslaved people to avoid the harsh demands of plantation labour.

We might look at the quiet quitting folks who do the bare minimum required for their job, refusing to go above and beyond in order to avoid burnout and to resist the expectations that seek to exploit them. Running away from plantations despite the severe consequences was a powerful form of non-cooperation that sought to reclaim autonomy.

In modern times, though not equivalent, strikes and walkouts serve a similar purpose. Workers leave their positions to protest unfair conditions, risking financial stability to demand systemic change. In the plantation era, acts of confrontation involved direct assault on the system itself. Like I said before, the plant has lived in constant fear of revolt, and this fear was especially heightened during the Christmas season.

What seemed like benign dances and festivities often disguised rebel oaths of secrecy. Poisoning was another feared form of confrontation, a subtle yet deadly alternative to open rebellion. The mere threat of conspiracies and plots, whether real or imagined, kept the colonial regime perpetually on edge. Colonial legal systems were primarily designed to manage colonial property, which included enslaved people.

These laws were harsh and allowed for severe punishments for any perceived transgressions. Enslaved individuals could face brutal consequences for unauthorized movement, large gatherings, possession of weapons, or practicing secret rituals. Mastering the art of subterfuge was thus crucial for survival. What does that tell us about navigating our current legal context?

While planters tried to sow discord among the enslaved by facilitating ethnic division, by separating African-born from Korean-born, from dividing domestic and field labourers and splitting skilled and unskilled workers, the enslaved people too, manipulated plantation politics.

They carefully studied the personalities of their white overlords, subtly provoking divisions between bookkeepers, overseers, and owners. Anansi, the spider trickster, a popular West African folktale character, became a hero, inspiring strategies of disguised satire, trickery, and deceit. Yet despite their cunning, many rebellions were quashed before they could even begin, and those that did spark were often brutally suppressed.

The divisions fostered by the planter class between Creole and African enslaved people hindered revolutionary efforts. While all revolts sought greater power and freedom, Africans typically desired all-out war and the establishment of an African lifestyle apart from their colonies. In contrast, many Creoles, the Caribbean-born Africans, aimed to modify the system to gain the rights of free wage laborers.

Such conflicts helped foil revolts in Barbados in 1683, Antigua in 1736, St. Croix in 1759, and Jamaica in 1776. What does that tell us about the risk of unresolved divisions when undertaking revolutionary action today? In the past, enslaved people used secret meetings and covert planning to organize revolts, often disguised as social gatherings.

Today, activists can use encrypted communication or parties as staging grounds for political activism. Today, poisoning may be off the table, but it's evident that property destruction, including arson, has persisted as a means of protest. The efficacy of that method of protest is perhaps situationally dependent, but it certainly sends a message.

Activists of today must confront legal systems just as enslaved people in the past needed to when dissent chafed against the status quo. There's a time and place for court battles and bail funds, but they're not lasting means of resistance. We do need to brainstorm more permanent means of liberation from this legal system. Finally, just as Anansi the Spider Trickster served as a symbol of clever resistance among the enslaved, we need stories and symbols that can just as potently empower.

There was a time when Guy Fawkes masks served as a powerful symbol of resistance. As a creative species, our symbolic species will always need those signals to guide and encourage us, to give us safety in numbers and a sense of solidarity, even if such symbols alone are not inherently liberatory. Finally, acts of prefiguration may seem less viable under their grim conditions,

But even if they could not build the socio-economic autonomy that characterizes robust modern prefigurative practices, enslaved people still managed to create networks of support and resilient cultures that offered respite in a world that sought to strip them of their humanity. Mutual aid was truly the name of the game. In the face of social death, they cultivated ties of real and fictive kinship.

Since biological families were often torn apart by callous slaveholders, with mother-child units being the most common familial arrangement, many enslaved Africans extended their concept of family beyond biological kin. These networks of fictive kinship provided emotional support, protection, and a sense of belonging, helping to preserve their humanity in the midst of suffering. An example of this resilience can be seen in the rotating savings and credit associations that developed among enslaved women.

Despite their marginal earnings from market activities, they pooled their resources and rotated lump sums of money to each other in acts of mutual aid, all without their master's permission. This practice not only provided financial support, but also reinforced the bonds of community and cooperation.

Similarly, today's marginalized communities create networks of solidarity, mutual aid groups, and community centers to support each other in the face of systemic injustices such as poverty, discrimination, and violence. Such communities also often redefine family to include chosen families, providing emotional support and care outside traditional family structures, particularly within LGBTQ+ communities and other marginalized groups.

Today, grassroots organizations and cooperatives continue the tradition of economic cooperation, empowering marginalized groups through economic solidarity, microfinance initiatives, and community-based lending. But it's important that we don't look at these actions in isolation. Confrontation alone is not enough. Non-cooperation alone is not enough. And of course, prefiguration alone is not enough. So let's look back at diasporic history to those who did bring those actions together, sometimes successfully.

Maroonage, the act of enslaved people escaping plantations to establish independent communities, defined the maroon experience. Deep within forests and nestled in the mountains across the Caribbean, thousands of maroons forged their own path, shaping history through resilience and defiance.

As runaways, they were inherently non-cooperative. As warriors, they directly confronted plantation society, and as community builders, they aimed to prefigure a better future for themselves and their descendants. Maroon societies varied widely, shaped by local geography, available resources, and their relationship with colonial powers. They thrived in rainforests and mountainous terrains, which offered natural defenses and facilitated guerrilla warfare tactics.

Led by captains charged with defense, Maroon settlements prioritized vigilance, fortification, and constant readiness. They communicated with neighboring communities, practiced evasive maneuvers, and engaged in both defensive and offensive strategies. Prior to the Haitian Revolution, François Macandal and his network of enslaved and Maroon allies struck fair into the heart of Saint-Domingue.

They targeted plantation owners with acts of sabotage and arson, challenging colonial authority with daring raids and strategic strikes. Beyond warfare, maroon communities were self-sufficient, producing or acquiring what they needed through raids, trade, or cultivation.

They traded with pirates, merchants, and other maroon settlements across islands while hunting, fishing, and farming for sustenance. Yet, their precarious existence often necessitated careful population management. Some communities struggled with maintaining numbers, while others cautiously accepted new recruits, balancing growth with the risk of attracting colonial attention. It's unfortunately not all good in the history though.

Despite fierce resistance, some Maroon communities opted for peace treaties with colonial powers, ensuring their survival over generations. However, these treaties often came at a high cost, ceding autonomy in exchange for relative peace and limited rights under colonial rule. The 1739 Treaty in Jamaica, for instance, imposed British control over the Maroons, restricting their land rights and obligating them to capture and return their fellow escaped slaves.

While many Maroon communities ultimately succumb to colonial pressure or were unable to remain hidden, some, notably in Jamaica and Suriname, endure to this day. Regardless of their fate, all Maroon communities defied the colonial order, asserting the independence and capability of enslaved Africans to conceive and pursue freedom. What lessons can we take from their struggle? How can we apply their strategy in our resistance today? The struggle of the Maroons offers us some useful lessons, in my opinion.

When they succeeded, it was through strong community ties and solidarity. They built networks of support and cooperation that were crucial for survival. Today we need to be fostering unity among diverse groups facing systemic oppression. Building alliances across different communities strengthens our collective power and our resilience against common adversaries. Another lesson we can glean is that the Maroons adapted their strategies to the local terrain and resources available.

Similarly, modern resistance movements can benefit from strategic adaptation to current socio-political landscapes. This includes utilizing technology for communication and organization, understanding the media and digital as well as the physical landscape, as well as adapting tactics to fit specific contexts. Because not every tactic is going to make sense in every situation, and we can't be going through the motions. Also notice the maroon communities sought to establish self-sufficiency,

as much as possible in their struggle. They cannot adequately resist if they were still fully or mostly dependent on the beast they were fighting. They needed to be producing their own food, goods, and resources. Otherwise, any all-out confrontation would be suicidally premature. We, as a movement, need to prioritize building sustainable practices and self-reliant economies that reduce our reliance on oppressive systems.

We cannot confront these systems if we are still dependent on them. We will not succeed if so. The maroons were also flexible. They shifted between defensive and offensive strategies as their circumstances demanded. Modern movements could benefit from maintaining that kind of flexibility in tactics. We cannot be all offensive and we cannot be all defensive. We must strike a balance. Finally, though this is projection on my part, I believe some of the maroons would have had long-term vision.

Despite their immediate challenges, I believe they maintained a long-term vision of freedom and autonomy that sustained their resistance over generations. Contemporary movements can benefit from a similar long-term perspective, recognizing that meaningful change often requires sustained effort and commitment across time. That's all I have for today. All power to all the people. You can follow me on YouTube at Andrewism and on Patreon.com slash St. Drew. Peace.

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Hi everyone, it's me James and I am joined today by Kirsteen Zitlau who is a border water drop volunteer. We've done some water drops together and also an immigration lawyer and we're going to talk about ICE transferring people in their detention and generally the sort of post-arrival process that migrants, asylum seekers specifically face when they come to the United States. Welcome to the show. Thank you, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So I think to start out with

People, when I speak to them in my day-to-day life, are very unaware of the situations that migrants face when it comes to obtaining legal representation. So maybe we could start off by just explaining that this isn't like if you're accused of a crime. In theory, it's a civil proceeding, but also they'll lock you up. But you don't get a public defender assigned to you. So can you explain? Let's say someone comes through the hole in the fence in Hukumba. They get detained at the OEDs.

We give them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then they get taken out, processed. What happens after that? So from when they come to street release, in terms of their legal representation, how does it work? Yes. So I'll address the street release folks as well as the people who are then taken to ICE detention. Yes. Yeah. So I'll start with the street release folks. So they, well, first, anybody who,

enters the United States not at a port of entry is subject to detention, not just by Border Patrol, but by ICE. The fortunate situation, I mean, sorry, the lining, the silver lining of this, you know, entire awful situation is that there's so many people coming that there's not enough detention space to detain everybody. And so hence the street releases so that people can then go directly to their family. They will go with a notice to appear, which starts their immigration court proceedings, which was issued by Border Patrol.

So immediately they have to navigate the immigration court system, starting with the fact that the notice to appear might have a false date on it as far as their court date. So that's the first issue. So what does that mean when you say a false date? If they show up on that date, the hearing won't be happening. So there's been...

A trend over the years to put to be decided as a hearing date on their notice to appear, which is the first document that says, hey, you're now being put in immigration court proceedings. We'll send you a later notice to your address that you gave us of when you're actually going to have that hearing or rather the court will.

So the immigration lawyer bar pushed real hard on this issue and said, no, this is BS. You need to put a date and time. The reason they weren't is because they didn't want to take the time to coordinate with the courts to make sure that there's actually a judge on that date and time that they assigned.

So to satisfy the legal requirements that we've pushed for, they often will just put a fake date and time. So in other words, they haven't done anything to verify whether there's actually a judge sitting at some court that day or time to hear their case. Yeah, they're just making it up. So this is exactly. So this is, of course, incredibly confusing and very dangerous because they basically need an attorney immediately to explain this concept to them because...

They, first of all, won't know how to look for when their actual court date is, which is a link that I don't think Border Patrol ever gives them. And then if they miss their actual court date, then they will, of course, be ordered deported. And, you know, then ICE is after them. And really, they have no other options at that point. So really, the need for an attorney arises immediately. And often immigrants have been robbed. They've paid all their money to transnational criminal organizations, excuse me.

And an asylum case is costly. So they have a right to an attorney, as you said, but only at their own expense. Yeah. So this is a tremendous challenge off the bat, as you can imagine. Yeah. And then just to further sort of go down that pathway, the attorney is paid for at their own expense, but without an attorney, they may not be able to obtain a work permit, right? Yeah.

A hundred percent. I mean, navigating the process on your own is as an immigrant. It just it seems basically impossible to me. I mean, there's there's so much that even us as attorneys struggle with that it is and it's evolving all the time. So even if you manage to submit your asylum application by yourself, the process and then later submitting the work permit form and knowing where to send it and how to navigate USCIS is

I mean, like I said, it's difficult for us. I mean, let's just say I got a work permit with somebody else's photo on it the other day. So, you know, so it's a total mess. And to have an immigrant even navigate that process is it just seems impossible. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have not applied for asylum, but when I renewed my green card, I did that myself and

English is my first language. I have a PhD. I'm used to paperwork. And it was both scary and complicated. Exactly. And when your whole future is resting on it, it's extremely anxiety-inducing. By design, too. I mean, they haven't updated forms to become a resident since, I mean, like the 30s or something. Yeah, to ask you're a member of the Communist Party. Exactly, exactly. And it's all just to...

make it as difficult as possible and the wait times and everything else. Yeah. So how about the folks who go into ICE detention? So these are typically people... Well, I mean, that's just the thing. These days...

There aren't the typical people who go into ICE detention. It's kind of, it seems to me that certainly there's people who are mandatory detention, where if they have a prior deportation order or prior criminal or immigration history in this country, they will probably be detained. But I've also noticed a lot of racial profiling in the detention. I have a few black clients right now in detention.

And if they were white, I'm absolutely convinced they are not even white, but Latino, they would have been released already. So yeah,

And one of them is a black Muslim man from Kenya, and he's been called a suspected terrorist by ICE for six months or more that he's been in detention with zero proof whatsoever. And so they'll just hold them for that reason because he's a black Muslim man. So these are often people with very meritorious cases. Like, for example, this man was an opposition party leader and recruiter back in Kenya.

So these people just need, I mean, whether they win their case or not can hinge on just being able to get representation, you know, because...

He's very intelligent and probably would have been able to put together a good case on his behalf. But the stats about people winning cases detained without attorneys is very, very low. So, yeah. So then they have to work with a family member on the outside, obviously, to get a hold of an attorney. Not a lot of attorneys or all attorneys do detained work because it is so difficult to start with. I mean, access to your client is just so limited.

And getting evidence, I mean, they have to have a reliable family support network on the outside, essentially, to help them get evidence from their home country. I mean, how else do you do that detained? And so it's a lot of work coordinating as an attorney and so forth.

So San Diego County saw that need and actually started a great program. I'm not exactly sure when it started, but apparently they weren't getting enough applicants and maybe it's been around for a little bit, but they didn't know about it. And they set aside like $5 million to specifically pay attorneys to represent people detained in Otay Mesa, which is, of course, the big ICE detention center in San Diego. Okay.

So that caused there to be more attorneys or slightly more represented people at Otay Mesa, which was great. Because typically when I go in there, this is just anecdotal evidence, you'll see

A handful of attorneys, maybe a couple, maybe at most like five. And then you see all the detainees, the immigrants sitting there, and there's clearly more than there are attorneys. So, you know, I read a stat by the ACLU that it's like something like 70% as of 2021 did not have attorneys in detention centers. Right. So they just won't be represented throughout that process. Exactly. And certainly, like, God forbid, you're a Muslim. If you're a black Muslim man, you're like at the intersection of things that are going to have you sent straight to jail. Exactly. Jail.

Just to briefly explain for people who aren't familiar, when we talk about ICE detention, what are we talking about? Like what are the conditions and who is often operating these detention centers? Excellent point. So these are for-profit detention centers. So it is operated by ICE in conjunction with two large companies called CoreCivic or GeoGroup. And if you're not familiar with these companies, Google them and you will immediately be horrified. Yeah, I know, there'll be a lot of people.

Yeah, so it's a horrifying state of affairs. Essentially, one of the biggest things, and one can Google this right now, is the wrongful death suits and payouts. So literally the business model is to allow people to die detained as a cost of business rather than give them proper medical care or take them to the hospital and so forth. And they will pay out, and they do pay out, millions to families in

And I've seen this in action. Not that any of my clients died, but just the gravity to which the health situation has to be in order to have a prayer of getting them out.

Yeah, it's very sad. Like, I think one thing that I come back to now, like, for years-ish into a Biden administration is that, like, on one of his first executive orders was that he's going to end for-profit prisons, and he never did shit about the ICE detention. Like, right from the outset, there was, like, these people do not have the same rights as other people, and we don't care about them as much. Exactly, exactly. And at this part, well, and at this point, too, it's like,

Given that he's done a 180 on anything that was pro-immigrant or that he said he was going to do at the beginning, you kind of start to wonder, is he just being paid off by the same people, by a geogrupper core civic? You know, they contribute millions of dollars to whoever's running for president for good reason. Yeah.

So it makes you wonder from that aspect as well. Yeah, like it certainly, it was in his immigration reform bill, right, to increase the amount of ICE detention facility beds or cells or whatever. Hopefully this advert that we're about to pivot to here is not for CoreCivic or GeoGroup. But if it is, fuck them. Amen.

All right, we are back. And we're going to talk about this process of ICE relocating detainees. So this is something that you've actually done an interview about recently, right? There was a piece written about it. Yes, yes. I did two interviews about it just because it's an issue that's

very close to my heart for several reasons. Detained work is very, very difficult. And just the fact that few attorneys do it. I mean, more have now in light of the county program, but still it's very emotionally draining too. You see...

you literally see the decline of the person in front of your eyes, both mentally and physically. And it's just, it takes a lot out of you. So these people need and deserve representation. And like I said, are often detained unjustly and have strong cases that they could actually win. So basically these people deserve representation and need it the most. I mean, they're basically the most marginalized out of any immigrant there is. So,

For ICE to suddenly start transferring, mass transferring, I might add, represented detainees when they never have in the past and they haven't their own memo from 2012 that says they shouldn't do this, except for exigent circumstances, you know, like some and they describe it as some medical issue or something severe that requires it. It's just it's pretty obvious that this is just direct retaliation.

or just designed to get attorneys out of Otay because there's been more of them in there and we tend to make a stink and we tend to ask, hey, why haven't you given a decision on my client's request to be released and what's going on here? And we tend to send a lot of emails advocating for our clients and we tend to be pains in the asses. And

Before this happened, I noticed that ICE was just not responding at all. Whereas I had some relationship with the ICE agents that are at the detention center. Just to back up, every client is assigned to a deportation officer. So you technically have somebody from ICE to communicate with, and they're supposed to be in charge of the person detained, you know, whether they're released or whether it's treatment, like any other point of contact. And so

even under the Trump years, you'd be able to, yeah, you might have to follow up, but you'd be able to communicate with a couple of them or some of them would do, you know. And so I noticed in the past year or two that this is, it's just been kind of this scorched earth approach where they just won't get back to you or yeah. And, and they're also not responding to requests to have people released for just months and months and months and,

despite attorneys asking. And so it doesn't surprise me that the timing of this and that they would do this now that I'm reflecting back on this, as well as the county program. There's more attorneys at Otay Mesa now. And so, I mean, essentially what happens is if the person is transferred, which they've all been transferred to places

places like I think Colorado is probably the best option, but generally like Louisiana, Mississippi, things like that. Texas is where my clients are currently. So these are places where you can imagine there's a not a lot of quality immigration attorneys and be not a high chance of winning your case, given the nature of the judges that are there. Yeah. So migrants articulate to me that they would not want to be in the Fifth Circuit.

Exactly. Come here in the Ninth Circuit. Exactly. They're getting sent right back to the Fifth Circuit. Exactly. And that's where my clients are now. And one judge from Otay decided who scolded me for suggesting that this was even by design. He told me to act more professional. He didn't say anything to the DHS attorney about what his client was doing, but told me to act more professional. Changed venue for that client. I was talking about the Kenyan client. And so we're now in El Paso.

And thank God he has a strong case. But even then, I wonder, because that's it's I mean, if it's well known amongst migrants, you can imagine how bad it is. Yes, I mean, so it's just it's ludicrous that you have, you know, people pretending like judges, you know, just like this had to happen when you have, you know, 70 percent of migrants.

People, you know, at least that's slightly dated, but still, I don't think the percentage is that even if it's 50%, why not unrepresented people? So to do this, it's just a very obvious, like, fuck you. I mean, it's just, there's no other way to

To justify it. Yeah. And like when that happens, right? So you have this, this gentleman from Kenya who's been, who's been transferred to, to Texas that then you then have to travel to Texas, right? For his hearings to talk, to meet with him. Yeah. So that's the whole, that's the whole big battle. And I have, I have two different clients with two different experiences. So, so he, I will either have to appear via WebEx from my home. Yeah.

But then the judge now has two people remotely because my client's not in El Paso either. He's detained in Anson, Texas, which is a blip about three hours away from Dallas or something. And this is also by design, right? They put all these detention centers in the middle of nowhere because, God forbid, the public sees that people seeking asylum are in prisons. So anyways—

So both of us are going to be remote if that's the case. So, I mean, I think there needs to be some personal contact. And maybe if I can have some communication with the DHS council, I have to go to El Paso to give my client the best chance of something. You know, otherwise we're both faces on this video with a Fifth Circuit judge, you know. So the other flip side of the coin was that I have another client who was transferred and his trial is literally around the corner. It's next week. So.

So, yeah, he was transferred four weeks before his individual hearing. So I filed something scathing saying, judge, please don't consider changing venue. This is, you know, he's been detained long enough. He's a 21-year-old, by the way. I mean, so...

DHS sheepishly filed something. So counsel for ICE filed something saying, okay, well, we're asked, we agree to that. We just asked that he could appear via WebEx from Anson, Texas also. Right. So now he's going to be a face on a screen, but I can be at OTI. But still, I mean, these are all significant disadvantages. I mean, judges are evaluating immigrants to see whether or not in their mind, they're quote credible. That means, do they think they're lying or not? Yeah. That's very hard to do on a video because you're looking for body language. You're looking for subtle things.

You know, and also it's just like the human aspect of it is very important. You know, it's easier to deny asylum to somebody on a screen that it is somebody sitting in front of you. You know, there's so many there's so many small aspects. And so ICE claims like, oh, well, you just you can communicate just fine. You know, you can give me it will offer you calls and even video calls. And I'm like, OK, you don't understand anything about being an attorney and what it means to to to actually represent clients, right?

At the person's final court hearing, they are asked to swear to the contents of not only their asylum application, but also all evidence they filed. And so if how on earth can you show them and sit with them to show them the evidence in person, you know, that you can only do in person. So it's just this whole concept that you can that you can even adequately lawyer remotely or over the phone.

It's just not possible. Yeah, and especially for people who are less, you know, they've spent less time on Zoom than we have in the past four years, right? Exactly. And a lot of these people are traumatized, you know, and are, like, as an attorney, you need to build rapport with them. And you do that by meeting with them in person. Otherwise...

They might not share vital information with you, you know, and and honestly, the family of the 21 year old mainly hired me to be with him during his final hearing. And so now I can't even do that, you know, just to just to try to calm and, you know, these people are petrified. They've been through so much and now they have to talk about all of it in front of this American judge in a robe and from a prison. Yeah. And I have to be their only ally is not even with them.

Yeah. And like there's understandably in a lot of countries saying something on a phone or on a call might be a risk, right? A hundred percent. You know, it takes a, I'm not saying it's not a risk doing it in this country, but like, yeah, all of these things stack up against them. I spend most of my time telling my clients like, hey, what we discuss on the phone is attorney client privilege. Like nobody could use this even if they try. Yeah.

And it doesn't calm them down because it's just they think they're being recorded probably from their experiences in their home countries. And frankly, I don't even know if we're being recorded. I just know that it can't be used. You know, I mean, so...

Yeah, there's so many things that go into representing somebody who's detained. And ICE knows all of this full well. So this is a very deliberate choice. And it's something we haven't seen before, like ever. I mean, everybody's pretty shocked by this. Yeah. When did it begin? I want to say a couple months ago. But this mass transfer they did that sparked us to talk to the press and so forth was over Memorial Day weekend. Okay.

So they like to do that too, I've noticed, over holiday weekends. Because last year they were trying to deport a couple of my clients, even though they had things pending. And they tried to do it over the weekend. And so on purpose, right? And so the client's families would call and be like, hey, he's being printed, like processed for being deported. And so we immediately, yeah, I had to do this twice a year ago. So I had to send two emails basically documenting and ceasing the ICE attorney.

Being like, hi, they have a pending XYZ case. It is unlawful to deport. Stop what you're doing immediately.

But, like, had we not been notified over the weekend and sent that email, they would have been deported despite having a case. So this is the type of stuff that regularly happens. But it's very ballsy to me to transfer, like, I think it was probably, like, 100 people or hundreds or something, you know. I mean, over Memorial Day weekend, you know, and, of course, oh, their memo, by the way, also says they're supposed to notify the attorneys, you know. I mean, I heard from frantic family members who are like, why the fuck am I getting a call from Anson, Texas? Yeah, right. What's going on?

Oh, and this is rich. You'll appreciate this. It wasn't even one transfer. They first went to Eden, Texas, which is another lovely place in Texas. And then a week later, we're moved to this place called Blue Bonnet because they have to give them pretty names, right? Detention facility at Anson. Yeah. And so I had arranged a legal call at the first.

first detention facility, and then had to do this process all over again. And they ask you for everything but your DNA in order to prove that you're their attorney to get this legal call. I spent two weeks just trying to figure out where my client was. And these are two. This has sucked up all my time since Memorial Day. Other clients, I've been struggling to get to their cases. Thankfully, I haven't had too many deadlines. But it's been brutal.

Yeah, that sucks. Talking of brutal, unfortunately we have the brutal obligation to transfer to ads for a second time. So we're going to do that and then we're going to come back. All right, we're back. So we've heard about how ICE are transferring people.

across to different parts of the United States. What I wanted to talk about now was another recent development, which was Joe Biden's executive order, not the very recent one on parole in place, people have seen that, but this one, quote unquote, closing the border. Can you explain, we haven't really seen that impact on the ground yet, but can you explain, these people are supposed to get essentially a document forbidding them from reentering for five years.

Correct. And it's not just any document. It's the worst document. So it is an expedited removal, which is a fancy term for a deportation order that when issued by Border Patrol, CBP carries with it a five-year bar. And so that means you're not admissible in any way, shape or form to the United States. And if you try to re-enter the

during that time period or even at any time irregularly you will then be put in what's called withholding only proceedings and that essentially means you are no longer eligible for anything not even asylum just a very very difficult form of asylum which is called withholding or protection of the convention against torture which is also very difficult to win so that those are the two things you're stuck fighting and then you are also mandatory detention

So there's no possibility of you getting out unless you win your case, which is, of course, very, very difficult. So I can, I haven't seen this play out, you know, like we're saying it's relatively new. It's very fresh. Yeah. But I can imagine, based on my experience and based on what all of us know, that like people aren't going to have any idea what this is. And they're going to, and plus there's desperation and other, I mean, they just came to the dairy and they're not going to let a piece of paper stop them, you know? So, I mean, so.

So these people are probably going to turn around and try again and end up being in this withholding only posture, which means they're now really screwed in terms of having a way difficult time winning any sort of relief and definitely detained. Like they will not be released. I've had clients on occasion, like every blue moon be released, but the way ICE is acting these days, I don't think it'll happen. So one of the thoughts I had is this justifying additional,

detention centers um if we're now having going to have probably more of those types of people um but it just in general i don't see there being a shortage of people they can detain so i think yeah no i think they yeah i don't think that we have an option in november to vote for a person who isn't going to build more prisons for refugees 100 100 which is which is why

And I think that's something very, you know, it can be, you can take it and be like, okay, I'm so depressed, you know, blah, blah, there's nobody to vote for, like, you know, because basically Biden has...

done, you know, gravitated so far to the right. I call it the stuff that they waived in 2020. So Trump will do this. Biden has done. Exactly right. And so I don't even know that I call them Trump light, but I don't even know if he's Trump light anymore. He's like more like Trump medium or almost there, you know, so that's racist speeches. Exactly. Trump minus the racist speeches. Exactly. So it's just I mean, so the way to look at this is that

Like literally we are their only hope. I mean, the government here is not only like not only going to not save them from anything, they're creating all of these situations, putting them in more peril. So it really behooves us to find all the different grassroots organizations. And there's so many of them that we can help and donate and volunteer our time to because that's literally all these people have. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's talk about that a bit, because that's something both you and I do is we participate in water drops, in migrant aid of various kinds. Welcome stations are the thing we've been doing recently, you

You know, you and I were out a while ago now. Time just kind of collapses on itself. But we were out in a place near the border. We were there when we met the two Mauritanian dudes who carried the Chinese. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it was so beautiful, right? Yeah, it was such a wonderful, like, obviously it's pretty bleak that this guy's unable to use one of his legs properly. And therefore two people who don't share a single word with him.

had to carry him. These two Mauritanian men we met, I'll just rewind to tell the whole story. Yeah. We were driving down the road and we kept meeting groups of Mauritanian refugees coming north and we were able to help them by giving them water. Quick interruption, by the way, I looked up Mauritanian and unsurprisingly they have female genital mutilation, child labor, and basically any, like, it's just horrific. Capital punishment for gay people, right? Exactly. So,

These people were very, very nice. Just wanted mostly a bottle of water and how far until we can surrender to Border Patrol, which is what they intend to do. And they kept saying there's a guy with a broken leg. And we were like, oh shit. But that's potentially fatal in this place that we're at. They just keep saying, go down the road, you'll see him. So we keep going down the road and we come around the corner and there's two guys

guys, sort of each and then the third guy in the middle of them with like his hands over both their shoulders, right? And they're sort of humping him down the road. And it turns out that this Chinese man only speaking Mandarin had, he had like a brace or like a, like an external fixation on his leg, like, like bolts through his leg and couldn't walk. And these dudes have been carrying him for two days and they couldn't speak the same language. Like they, they didn't, they weren't able to communicate.

And it was the most humane thing and it made me just so ashamed. These people in a time of desperation for themselves have taken the risk to help other people. And then here's our government just being like, screw you, you don't belong here. We're going to put you straight in prison. Especially these are mostly Muslim African men from Mauritania. They're generally sort of that will be one of the more persecuted demographics. Yeah.

And perhaps you can talk about like how you got into participating in water drops and how other people could do so or any any form of direct mutual aid as opposed to like advocacy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I think the main thing to take away is that it's easier to help or participate than one would think. You know, I think.

You look at this issue of immigration and it's so overwhelming right now. And it can be a bit like, oh, God, you know, what can I possibly do? Or, you know, and even if I'm, you know, what difference am I making? You know, and it's just like I have the same struggles working as, you know, an immigration attorney because you're just like, God, you see just the vast need and need.

you know, you focus on the person in front of you, you know, and not to sound cheesy, but that's the life you can affect. And so we're, and all of us collectively have an impact more than we know, you know? So I think that's just the first thing to share. So don't, don't feel defeated and, and think that, remember that if you have 20 extra bucks a month to spare, for example, like if you donate that to supplies for migrants, you know,

then that literally allows the work of water dropping to continue. And, you know, that's the other side of the coin. If we can go out all we want, but if we don't have money or supplies to drop, then nothing gets done, you know? So if you live in any part of the country, really, you can find a reputable organization, you know, or BRC is a collective. I volunteer with Borderlands Relief Collective. And every cent goes directly to the supplies that we drop. And, you know,

that's a very, it's a huge tangible source of help. All of our supplies are consumed as you know, within a week or so we think, you know, so it's just, there's so many different ways to, um, to participate. There's, uh, organizations that allow you to talk to detained immigrants. Uh,

you know, like freedom for immigrants or, you know, there's different ways you can help if you want to communicate with them. There's also detention resistance who works with the people mainly in Otay Mesa to help just provide even a source of support, just someone, a human being to talk to who can help them with little things like writing letters or putting money in their account to be able to contact family members. I say little things, but those things are huge. Because if you can imagine being an immigrant in another country,

And, you know, somebody in that and you're in a prison, but somebody in that country or a few people are showing you love. I think at the end of the day, whether you're officially deported or went asylum or whatever, those are the things that stick with people.

Because I know that they're going to remember that probably for the rest of their lives. Yeah. And I think it's the least we can do to be welcoming. Exactly. State has failed to do so. Exactly. That's why the welcome stations that we do are so beautiful too, right? Because it's just, I mean, what we were doing that day when we met those two people or the three people rather. And it's just like,

They get a they get a help, a loving, helpful person as their first exposure to the United States. And then, you know, I said instead of Border Patrol, which makes them take off their shoelaces and treats them like, you know. Yeah. Like they're criminals. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And it's nice. I've exchanged my numbers with those people. And they're like, oh, you're the first American I met. You'll always be like my first American friend. Someone said the other day and I thought that was really sweet. Yeah.

It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. I think about that all the time with my clients. You know, I'm just like, God, I feel so fortunate.

to meet all these people, you know, from different countries. It's just, and I'm embarrassed to say that I have to usually Google where the country is. I mean, it's awful. I don't know what our geography education was, but let's just say I didn't get much of it. But, you know, just where am I going to meet people from Belize, from Kenya, from Trinidad, from Chad, you know, and be able to really share life with them to a certain extent or, you know, I know their most vulnerable and awful experiences. I know their family, you know, or about their families and about

And it's a really beautiful thing. So it's just, you know, so to have to interact with them in a prison is just, you know, it's just ridiculous, you know. But so that's why those welcome tables are, I think, so just pure and precious, because at that moment, there's no bullshit involved yet. There's no U.S. government. It's just humans interacting with humans. Yeah, totally. It's really nice. It's one of the better things that I like to do. And yeah, if you're in a place where you can do it, you should do it. If you're not,

it would be great if you guys in your money i am going to read as we finish up uh a plug for the sidewalk school matamoros um i just want to like they are in desperate need of money right now they do amazing work uh with people on both sides of the border i've been on a panel with felicia for ucla that

You can find if you're good at Googling things, it's on YouTube. It's the Allied Community Arts Brigade at UCLA hosted the panel. So if you search that and then border panel, I'm sure you'll find it. If you want to know more about the sidewalk school, I recommend it. And we're joined there by people from Border Kindness and A lo Trolado, which are both excellent organizations working on the border here.

But the Sidewalk School are working with refugees and asylum seekers on both sides of the border in Matamoros and Reynosa, so in Texas area, and they desperately need your money. If you would like to support them, you can go to gofund.me slash 06CDOC76. And we'll include that in the notes of this podcast as well. Kirsten, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you, James. Thank you.

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Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a show that today is very urgently about things falling apart in Kenya and how to put them back together again. I'm your host, Amiyah Wong.

What you're about to hear is an interview about the Kenyan protests that was recorded on Sunday, July 23rd. At time of recording, it is now Tuesday the 25th, and in that two-day span, the situation in Kenya has gotten significantly worse. Kenyan police are firing live ammo into crowds of protesters. They've killed at least five people today. That number is expected to rise as more protesters die in hospitals. The government has deployed the army and shut down much of the internet in an attempt to stop news from getting out.

On Kenyan TV, political leaders called the protesters criminals and a threat to national security. Meanwhile, protesters made good on their slogan, Occupy Parliament, by storming and then partially burning down the parliament building as politicians continue to meet their demands with bullets. What we've seen today is terrifying. Cops shooting live ammo into churches, cops opening fire on people waiting for medical care. Meanwhile, to the fury of the protesters, Kenyan troops arrived today in Haiti to begin a U.S.-backed occupation of the country.

We spent this interview largely discussing the local Kenyan political elite, but this is also an international crisis. Much of the impetus for the brutal tax increases on basic goods came from an international monetary fund bailout deal that required Kenya to increase its taxes to 25% of the country's GDP. Thus, Kenyans are being robbed twice. Once by the Kenyan political masters of the cops shooting them in the streets, and again by the IMF and their neoliberal wealth extraction program.

As the struggle continues, let us now turn to our interview and to a more optimistic time in the movement to get a real understanding of what the protests are about. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the here is currently Kenya. Yeah, I'm your host, Mia Wong, and we are going to talk about a bunch of protests and a bunch of very, very, very interesting sort of political developments in Kenya that I think have gotten very distressingly little coverage in the

in the sort of like anglophone mainstream media and with me to talk about that is Justine Wanda who's a stand-up comedian a political satirist and a writer who's created Fake Book with Justine about well basically all the stuff that we're going to be talking about today are things you will see on this show um Justine welcome to the show thank you so much for having me how are you doing

You know, this is one of those morning recordings, so I'm a little bit unhinged, but it's okay. I'm really excited to talk to you. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you. So, I think the place to start here is

Can you talk about... So these protests are about an upcoming finance bill. So let's talk about what actually is this bill and what's in it. Okay, so for me to be able to talk about the finance bill, I have to talk about the finance bill that was passed last year. Yeah, go for it. So in 2023, we had a finance bill that was passed. Most of the...

The finance bill last year had something called the housing levy, which basically requires every single Kenyan who's employed to remove a little bit of their salary to go directly to pay for an account where they'll pull the money to build Kenyan's affordable houses.

And in Kenya, housing is not especially a crisis in rural areas because most people have their own personal homes. The issue is usually the urban centers where housing is actually very expensive and it's very poorly infrastructured. There's no water sometimes. There's no electricity in certain parts. People have done a lot of illegal connections.

So last year, the bill was kind of run through and there was so much public participation actually in the beginning that was like a lot of people got angry about the bill forcing people to take money out of their pockets to contribute to a fund that didn't seem like they had a plan. And a lot of politicians were actually on TV and everyone was watching every interview and they're like, you don't make any sense. We don't understand. Yeah. It's like, what is that money for?

We're not sure, but we know we want to build you houses. How are you going to manage the money? Who's going to be in charge of the money? Every single aspect was met by some form of deflection or a lie. There wasn't any accountability in what they were telling us.

And even the person who was in charge was like on TV, he was sweating. He looked like he was lying though. So everyone was like, if this is how you're speaking about it, when we aren't giving out money, what will happen after the fact? But the bill sailed through. And one of the elements that was in that bill was,

that wasn't even in the news was that avocado farmers in the country will start be charging us, will be charged a certain amount of money on their produce and they have to produce receipts on this every single day.

What? Yes. If you sell like an avocado, one avocado or like a bag of avocados, you have to do a breakdown of like your sales and like provide receipts to the government and then like you're charged for it. Oh my God. And yes. And the MPs this like earlier this year were like when the bill usually like sometimes it takes a while for the clauses to come into effect. It takes like maybe a couple of months. So the

the amount that farmers are supposed to get charged was supposed to go live on, sorry, in February or something. So in February, farmers are getting attacked by like the Kenya Revenue Authority. They're being told you need to provide these receipts and everything. And everyone is like, I don't understand because we weren't informed. And then the politicians who did not read the bill but passed it were like, oh, we didn't read the document. It was too big. What?

What? That's baffling. Exactly. So like that kind of information was what was on the news just before they introduced now the finance bill 2024. So it's like, we know you didn't see the one from last year. You passed a bunch of bills that you didn't understand the impact of it in the long term. So why should Kenyans trust you with this new one?

And then they were like, no, we have the best economic interests at heart. And then everyone was like, but the bill you passed last year to increase revenue didn't work. So if it didn't work, what makes you think having a bunch of new taxes is going to work? And they couldn't answer that. And now this finance bill 2024 wants to introduce a motor vehicle tax, where if you own a car, you pay like a certain amount, like I think 2.5%.

That's one of the valuation of your car and you pay it to your insurance company every single year. Wait, do the insure what, what, what, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. So why, why, why is the tax? Why is this being paid to the insurance company?

That's what people are asking. It's like we understand because insurance in Kenya is mostly run by private entities. All of us know exactly what they're doing. So it's more of like a way to privatize and get money into people's pockets so we can see and then end up being stolen and there will be no accountability. But they say it's easier because the insurance companies already handle this kind of stuff. So it's on top of your...

insurance on top of like the insurance you pay for your car you pay the motor vehicle tax as part of that and I'm like that's ridiculous we don't trust you with our money on any given day why would you think we would just to suddenly with a bunch of money being run by a private firm somewhere because they're not going to show us their books yes

It seems like a part of this too is just that the sort of tax infrastructure isn't very... Like the tax collection infrastructure isn't very good because you would think that that wouldn't be that hard for the government to just collect. But instead we have like an Ottoman style tax farming situation. I love that you say that because that's exactly how it feels like everything is run. It's very...

We are the smartest people in the room. We can't make the wrong decision, but you've made the wrong decision again and again and again. And now we're like, we want to see the approach. We want to understand how this is going to work in the face of unemployment, in the face of like the country has not been in good economic trajectory for a while now. And that those economic shocks can be felt again.

A lot of people are closing down their businesses. A lot of people are downsizing, which means it's less people employed. Even the beauty industry, which is mostly like run on imports because they're charging so much import duty. The beauty industry can't even stand on its own. So people are not

just buying less makeup. It's like people who have those stores and any of those kinds of businesses can't even have the person who comes to get the job days. It becomes a bit of a problem. So everyone is like, if you're going to charge us more, you have to have an infrastructure that works for us. Yeah.

Yeah. Another tax that they're adding on the finance bill is the import duty fee to like sanitary towels, wheelchair, tires, like all, because like Kenya doesn't manufacture a lot of stuff. So you find like our, like the pad manufacturing industry in Kenya, like sanitary towels, only 2% are manufactured here. Like a big chunk comes from outside and they want to increase the import duty on that. So that means the

the pads in the market are going to be even more expensive. Yeah, and that's something that like, that's not a luxury good. You just need that. Yeah. And everyone was like, okay, I guess now we'll just have to stop

having periods is like that that's what you're saying like we're gonna have to magically yeah we're gonna have to figure out magically with nature to just stop having periods because you guys want to tax us in this particular way and it's it's not just like the small things because like the problem with um the kenyan space especially with sensitive issues so our our

Our third president, his name was Mwai Kibaki, was one of the first presidents in the world to remove VAT on sanitary towels. He was seen as someone who's setting an example for so many people.

And then the fact that this is happening when this country was seen as like a trendsetter to like not just Afghan countries, but other countries around the world when it comes to like very important goods. It was like we were going backwards and not in a way, it's not like we didn't have an example to follow. We actually did have a set precedent on like how an economy is supposed to work.

So everyone who's grown up in these particular environments where they felt safe and protected by the government and the government taking the lead on very important issues was like, you can't say building Kenya, buying Kenya is a top priority for you when even electricity costs are expensive. Yeah. Because even this bill adds like a fewer levy tax. It's going up by seven shillings.

which is way too expensive. So you pay for your fuel, but most of the charges on the fuel is just the levies and taxes. And they're adding a little bit more. It seems like from the way that these are being structured, one of the things with direct, I guess we call them sales taxes here, is that they're incredibly regressive. The people who get affected the most by it are the people who

who don't have that much money versus something like doing, you know, versus doing like an income tax on like the people who are the highest owners. This is this, the burden of this falls entirely on people who are poor and can't afford it. Yes. That's, I think it's very scary to think a lot of our politicians are

Because they get paid with taxpayer money. And what they did when they were writing, when they were contributing to the budget, they were like, we want this and this amount to be added for this and this thing. But the problem is like, when you look deep down what they're looking for, they don't want to pay taxes off of their salaries. They want to find a way for taxpayers to pay

for part of the taxes that are being added so that they don't have to lose money. And everyone is like, we know you're budgeting for corruption. We can see you. We can see you still. We can see you still and we don't want to be part of that. And now...

To them, it feels like we're being aggressive because we want them to be held accountable for their very punitive, for the punitive measures that they're sending to regular Kenyans. As you said, a lot of sales taxes affect everyday people and we don't know how else to stop it. And I think that's why the protests are so, they're catching fire and everyone wants to be out in the streets. Yeah.

Yeah, and we are going to come back and talk about the protests in a second. But first, here are some products and services that are, I don't know, probably also being taxed. All right, and we are back. Yeah, so, okay, I think people should have a decent understanding of the fact that these taxes are...

These are taxes on basic commodities that people need. And that's one of the easiest ways to start a protest movement is to suddenly make it too expensive to live. So let's talk about who, yeah, how these protests sort of started and how they've been being organized. Yeah.

My issue is that we can't really say how the protests started, but there was a lot of anger by Kenyans online because Kenyans are chronically online, like especially the younger generation. A lot of people have cell phones. A lot of people are not tuned into the news really, but the information sharing happens where like when a clip from the news is cut, put on TikTok, people see it. They're like, this is happening. So people get angry and then they share it.

So what happened with the finance bill, people would cut very little clips from the news

And then someone would help put it in context. So that's where my channel comes in, where I'm not just using the news clips. I provide evidence. I go through the finance bill and then even consult with people who are in, like, ask lawyers on Twitter, people who have resources and understand the law or what that would mean for everyday Kenyans. I would literally reach out. And it got to a point where I am now in communication with the right people

Like you can directly ask how this would impact people. Like if they tax bread more or like refuse to make it easier for suppliers to get items for the supply chain, how does this affect everyday people? So that helps bridge the gap of information. And now with more people critically, not just looking at the news, but finding the evidence for themselves really have helped us get to a point where when you share information,

we are protesting about this issue. This is where we're going. This is what's happening. This will happen in a certain town. So like Nairobi had its own occupied parliament reject the finance bill demonstration. It happened in Mombasa too. It happened in Nyeri, Eldoret, all these smaller towns where people were like, but there are people from rural areas. They won't really care. And I'm like, you don't know that. Yeah. Yeah.

And also something that's really magical that's happened, a lot of Kenyans were like, okay, maybe there are a lot of Kenyans who live in rural areas who don't have media that doesn't cater to traditional listeners, like people who only speak certain languages. Yeah.

vernacular stations. So people started using TikTok to do direct translation. Oh, that's cool. Yes, this is the script for the finance bill. This is the tax on bread. This is the tax on your vehicle. This is the tax that will happen on period and sanitary pads and diapers and everything. So someone does the whole breakdown in the vernacular language in the

and they share it on their family WhatsApp groups because Kenyans love WhatsApp. That's why if you want to do anything propaganda, like you can easily do it on WhatsApp. The forward messages are crazy. So because like WhatsApp is mostly co-opted by

aunties and moms and people who love to share, please go to church, share this to seven friends. People took that mandate where they send it to their moms and then have it shared like seven of their friends who don't understand maybe what the finance bill entails. And that is really changing the landscape of like who gets to interpret the bills, who gets to understand how it influences them. And it's been very, very effective. So people who are passive are more understanding of like why everyone is on the streets.

yeah yeah it seems like it's it almost seems like there's isn't there's kind of a i don't know it's like a tiktok think tank that's been sort of doing this valuation that it's being spread through that's that's really cool i'm just saying it's absolutely lovely to see because like tribalism has been a tool that's been wielded especially during elections to make kenyans look like they don't care about each other and they can't go beyond their differences and this time it's

it's like yeah we do have language barriers but we're not going to let that affect us negatively we're going to figure out a way through the noise before they start co-opting those spaces and start saying oh Gen Z kids are lying or millennials are just started getting money so why would they care about taxes and so everyone is making sure those spaces are not corrupted yeah

Yeah, it seems like a really sort of incredible popular education thing that's been sort of powering this. Yeah, so I want to, I guess, talk about one of the things that I think maybe kind of breached the...

I don't know if calling it the Great Firewall is exactly right, but I think one of the parts of this that has gotten a little bit of play in the media over here has been the police response, which has been terrible. Yeah, if you talk about what the cops have been doing. Okay. In Kenya...

Historically, protests have always been extremely violent. During the Moi era, people used to get beaten up a lot. Moi was our second president. He was in office for 24 years. So he was a power holder. I'll use those words. He was a power holder. He didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay in power for as long as he could.

And to counter anyone who would go against him, people were tortured, people were disappeared, people were killed and dropped in forests. Many families couldn't find their members, especially if they went out to protest or do anything. That's why Wangare Mathai's story was one of the biggest environmental champions the world has ever seen.

Her story was so unique because in the face of the most brutal dictator this country has ever seen, she showed up and like she didn't just disagree, but she fought back. And she did choose the same tactics that people are using now. She informed the very ignored part of the population to get the information across that if they start fighting,

taking away your land and cutting down your trees and you won't be able to farm. You won't have anything. This whole place is going to be a desert in a couple of years. So everyone was panicking because land is a very sensitive issue. And that's why the movement worked so well because she was not just speaking against authority but she was going to the people who

who are going to be affected the most. And during those protests, she was beaten up. Her hair was like yanked off her head. It was very, yeah, it was very graphic and very painful. Like you watch those videos and you're like, who does something like this? And now it's being replicated. Sorry, it was being, it was replicated again, like throughout his presidency. But,

12 years a lot of civil rights movements and all the community-based organizations like came together and they would still protest about stuff but the issue it had moved on from like large protests to even smaller protests being like they would send the police to beat up people who are speaking up about any issue and usually because like you're in smaller communities there's no way to track

So if someone dies in Kibera and it's a slum area and it's mostly disenfranchised, the community organizations there know they try and find justice for the family. But because our police are mostly held, you can't hold them to account because they work for the state. It's very hard to get any form of justice. But this time, was it last year when people were protesting about the cost of living?

And I think it was just shortly before the finance bill 2023 passed. People were protesting, people were out and they were angry about everything and people were beaten up. Someone lost their two-year-old child because the child was beaten by the police. Jesus, yeah. And there's a woman who lost her son

Because usually when you're at protests, sometimes there are people who are passing by, but because you're there and the police are there, they end up beating you even if you're not part of the protest. So there's a woman who ended up losing her son last year to the protests.

and her adopted son too. And then this year, like a couple of weeks ago, she died in a flood in Madari. So Kenyans online, yes, Kenyans online keep seeing the terrible nature of like how state violence keeps continuing. So this time when the protests were being organized, everyone was like, make sure you're peaceful. Don't carry any stones. Because like, Kenyans love to throw stones. They're out of this too.

You're like, you carry stones. You won't even pick up tiangas and like throw it back and everything. And this time everyone was like, just make sure you're very peaceful. Only use your voice. Protect each other. Like,

A lot of the announcements around the protests are like, make sure it's peaceful so that they don't have an excuse to say that you are out in the streets doing something illegal. You don't attack shops. You don't try and force yourself into anyone's premises. And what happened that was very beautiful this year is like the establishments, like the one I'm in right now, was helped protect citizens who are protesting. So kids would be out in the streets, they'd start getting tear gas and like they would open the door

people would come in and they would close the door until the police go away. So you find establishments are working to not just protect people, but also to be part of showing this is our premises. It's not being looted. It's not being destroyed because destruction of property apparently is a bigger problem than you losing your life. Most people felt they were safe at the protest and they also felt like they were

seen by other protesters. So it was largely peaceful, very well coordinated. There's information on how to get medical help or in case you're arrested, how to get legal assistance. So every single element was like, we're not just going to ban out of like going into the streets, but making sure everyone returns home safely. A lot of the protests happened

In the past, well, they got a little violent because maybe some of the protesters went rogue. And obviously, the politicians love to use bad actors where they implant a bunch of people who go and destroy business premises. And then it looks like the protesters didn't come there to actually protest. They were there for their own selfish reasons.

So this time, what happened is like a lot of the protesters were given the right information on how to stay peaceful. It's like, these are the streets to use. These are the meeting points. These are the contact people for in case you get injured, there's this medic. In case you get arrested, these are the lawyers. In case your friend disappears, make sure they have a live location on so we can track them and everything. So it was widely successful because that kind of situation

peaceful and well-coordinated move, navigated towards spaces that were ignored before. Like the safety of everyone was a priority. And because our leaders can't really find who started the protests, because it's mostly like a group who led the movement, they've started abducting who they feel like are community leaders. Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess that's something I wanted to ask about. Has the police response actually been any less bad this time than it's been with other... So this time on Thursday, they shot. Yeah. They shot into a crowd. And one of them ended up shooting a 24-year-old. And he bled out. He died. His name is Rex Masai. And then another kid was also shot.

His name is Evans Kiragu, was also shot. And I think they were trying to get him help and everything, but he died yesterday, I believe. And there are still other protesters who are yet to be found. And then yesterday morning, there's a very popular Twitter personality who was disappeared. Like they kind of abducted him. Yeah. Yeah.

but then Kenyans held a space online for over six hours and they're like they were dragging government officials they're like if you people don't return this particular person we will find you like it was very like it was particularly funny because Kenyans you would think this younger generation people don't have concentration issues no one is going to listen to us speak

But everyone was online and they were paying attention to every single speaker just to keep the space longer, holding space for the person who'd been taken. And he was found. His lawyers, the lawyers in charge found him and they went and got him and he went back safe. But obviously you can see he was visibly shaken. His Twitter name is Crazy Nairobian. And then now today...

One of the doctors was organizing for a blood drive in a certain apartment.

upmarket area. They just picked him out and no one has been able to find him until now. So people are still advocating to get him back and a lot of big personalities are making phone calls, lawyers are showing up, they're like, if you see this particular car, if you see it in your location, send the informants, share the information. So everyone who's online is trying to get the right information to make sure that that doctor is brought back.

And ironically, that doctor is actually unemployed because the government is refusing to hire new medical personnel because it's too expensive when we see them driving around in new cars. Our president even has very expensive shoes. And everyone is like, your shoes could literally pay three doctors' salary. Yeah.

Yeah. Just hire the right people. Yeah. But Kenyans are pushing to make sure everyone is safe and everyone who's lost, especially big Twitter influencers and big media personalities and influencers are coming together to make sure they use their platforms to help find anyone who's been disappeared or been abducted. Yeah. Where do you think the movement's going from here? I know... Actually, well...

Actually, I think I've lost track of what reading of the bill they're at right now. I thought it was the third reading? It's at the committee stage. So at the committee stage, they go through the...

every single clause and they try to justify why they should keep it or whether they're going to disband it. But everyone is just like, we don't want any of this because some of the bill is, there's a part of the bill that I didn't mention where the Kenya Revenue Authority is supposed to go through Kenya's personal data to see if you're dodging taxes.

And I'm like, that's ridiculous. Because a lot of people in Kenya are supported by a family member. So you find, if I have money, I'll send it to my kids.

And then my kids might forward it to their friend who is probably in trouble. So if it looks like I have money coming in, it's probably maybe because of like a family contribution, a personal contribution. So they want to charge more taxes on that. And it actually makes no sense. So it looks like they're tracking how much money you look like you have. Yeah. It looks like they're tracking how much money you look like you have. And then they want to tax you on that. Or like say you're evading taxes. And it's scaring a lot of people because...

Once that happens, it feels like there's no safety in anything you have. So I guess, so from there, so is the strategy right now based around sort of trying to get these, trying to get the committees to just like to have this bill sort of die there or...

A lot of us are trying to make sure the bill doesn't go any further than it is. And everyone is tracking the MP. So what happened, even before the protest, people started sharing their MP's numbers. Every single person would find a member of parliament's numbers and were like, if this is your relative, please give it to us. If it is your...

side chick or whatever, like whatever way you relate to this person. Because it's government officials, their numbers should be public anyway. Citizens should be able to reach them. Yeah. And because they wanted to hide behind their big

big cars and big houses who were like, okay, we're going to find you where you're at and we're going to text you and we're going to tell you to vote no. And most of the employees were very dismissive. They were like, the party that's backing me is the one that got me into office. It's like, no, people voted for you. You should represent their views. So,

So a lot of Kenyans held the line where it's like, I don't care what your boss is telling you or what party this is, you have to vote with us. So a lot of MPs who were shamed online, some of them had to convert. Like they changed their votes. Incredible. Bullying works. Yes. Bullying works. We were so happy. We were like, yeah, bullying works. We should do this more often. So that really gave us

hope to a lot of Kenyans who are feeling like maybe their work isn't amounting too much. But we lost that one button. A lot of us ended up losing the button to the second reading because many of the MPs were

So there's this fund called the CDF Fund. It's the Constituency Development Fund that MPs kind of use it like their personal bank account. So members of parliament, yeah, members of parliament will get the CDF Fund and then they'll use it to go and like, so it's supposed to actually take care of like bursaries or any county emergencies directly affecting constituents. But what MPs do is they like, they wield it as a personal fund.

bank account. So it's like you have to do a lot of asking and a lot of performative nonsense for you to even get some of the money and a lot of people don't actually end up getting the money.

So what the budget makers did, they decided to top up the CDF fund so that more employees have more money. And usually they just pocket that money. So they were like, okay, I feel like my budgeted corruption has hit the account. I don't need to do the right thing. So this is just literally a bribe.

Exactly. It's like the best way is like, and they're like, no, I'll have more money to take care of the constituents. It's like, no, you'll still lose money anyway. You guys are not any, you're not going to grow a conscience today just because you have more money. So most people are trying to get the parts of the budget rescinded and put into efforts that go directly to education and healthcare, even if it's directly to the school instead of the individual. Yeah.

So that will help cut down on that kind of corruption that a lot of MPs run with. And I think that's scaring some of them. And we're hoping to get more people to push their members of parliament or any nominated representatives to recognize that all these items

that they're voting for is not just going to affect us, but it'll affect them and the money that they're hoping to steal. So if you're going to steal from us, you've got to make sure you don't get any of the money. Incredible.

Yeah. Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up? Yeah. I'll say usually when a lot of stories in the African continent are covered, it's usually like Africans vote for bad leaders.

And while that is true, most of the time people don't feel like they have an option. Yeah, and like, you know, you listeners statistically are probably either an American or a Brit. So like, you know exactly what that is like. You have like a woman who just, you have Trump and he's like a contrarian right now. Yeah, exactly.

Because a little... So on TikTok, something happened, I think yesterday or something, where people were like...

how did Kenyans vote for this person? He has such a very dark criminal past. And everyone was like, have you guys seen yourselves? There are no high schools. Everyone makes very foolish mistakes and all of us look like we don't know what to do to make sure people like that don't ascend into power. Because groupthink sometimes gets us to very dangerous places. It happens everywhere. No one is any less affected if

someone who you hoped would lose gains power, like you're all in deep trouble. Like no one is on a higher pedestal than the other. All of you can actually lose a lot. And one of the things that we are trying to remind each other is we're trying not to get to this space. So what Kenyans are trying to propose is like a direct manifesto where any person who's running

has to have like a clause in their manifesto that is going to even be turned into like a policy and law where if you steal any money or if you're found doing anything corrupt, you have to like remove yourself from office immediately. Like there's no bargaining to do whatsoever. Like you have to leave office immediately and then we're going to seize all your property.

If you're going to get into power, make sure the salary you're getting is enough. If you have any ambitions, let them die now. Do everything before you get into office. And I think that's so encouraging to see because everyone is not just looking at the now and all these bad taxes and the bad leadership that we have, but also looking...

to the future of like how do we make sure we don't get here again so that's really encouraging to see everyone is making sure that they hold people to account across the board like if you're protesters make sure you're safe make sure you know this information but also for the future this is what we want so it's not just like removing bad taxes but if we're going to pay taxes are they going to be used and

and how are we going to make sure that the future of the country is being protected by collective interest and not just like individual worship which has been a very very big problem in Kenyan culture because like over here musicians are barely celebrities but a politician would walk in here and like people would

like lose arms and legs to just say hi. So we're trying to make sure we fix that too. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess if people listening to this want to try to help support the protests, are there, are there steps with other things that they can do in places they can go to find more information? Because a lot of it is group organized. I have to find the, the information. I could send it to you. Yeah. Yeah. We can put it in the description of the group.

I don't know from the top of my head how to do it because I'm trying to think and like most people would like to individual because a lot of we have a lot of mobile money transfers which are usually direct to the person so that it doesn't go through various channels and then people end up misappropriating or stealing so if

community-led so i'll have to find the information and then share it cool yeah and okay if people want to find you on the internet where can they do that so on instagram and tiktok it's fake walk with justin like at people for justin like the full handle on twitter it's at official fwwj

So it's official FWWJ, which is just people who just didn't official people. Yeah. We'll get, we'll get that in the description too. Yeah. Yeah. I do have my personal account, but I don't know if I want to give that. Yeah. No worries. Yeah. No, I can still give it. It's at Justin Wanda. J U S T I N E W A N D K. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. Justine, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about this. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me and letting me like just run my mouth for a couple of minutes. Yeah. And good luck to you all. Hope you stop them and bring them all down. I really hope we do. If we don't, it's going to be so sad. Yeah, but thank you so much. Yeah.

Yeah, of course. And yeah, this has been Nicky Daffod here. And you too can go make your politicians' lives miserable.

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Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where Robert Evans is lying down on a couch because he just feels exhausted from sleeping 11 full hours. Garrison, you were much younger than me and don't seem to feel exhausted because you just woke up after staying up all night, did you?

Yeah, no, not as exhausted. I hate you. Do you know what is exhausting, Robert? Elections? The 2024 presidential election. The 2024 presidential election. Yeah, I hate it. I hate it, Garrison. I hate it, but also I have made a commitment to...

I have made a commitment to making a prediction about the election this year and sticking to it, even though it's going to make everybody angry. And I have a good reason for doing so. It's because I want to try one of the rarest drugs that exists in the world today, that Nate Silver shit. See?

Everyone's been wondering since like 2020, what's up with that guy? Did he like lose his mind? Was he always kind of like out there and we just didn't notice because he got lucky a couple of elections in a row? And the answer to that is no. Nate was a pretty reasonable guy. He comes out of like not politics. He only got into politics in 2006 because they banned online gambling and he got angry about it.

And then he accurately predicted the 2008 and 2012 elections. Which wasn't hard, to be fair. Which wasn't hard. No, it was not. I mean, he got all the states right, but it was just a matter... Because people have pointed out he didn't seem to be nearly as accurate in 2016 or 2020. There's a degree of fairness to that. But 2008 and 2012 were our last non-smartphone elections, where there wasn't this...

big, you know, demon of social media kind of hiding behind everything and making everything a lot weirder. And I think part of, you know, I think what ultimately caused Nate's madness, though, is that in 2016, he did pretty well. He like laid out there's a 29 percent chance of Trump winning. And when he like explained what that chance was, how Trump might sweep the blue firewall states and whatnot, it's basically what wound up happening. And as like

a reward for being more or less correct while the election was going on. All of the Democrats hated him because the news sources they liked said that Trump had only a 2% chance of winning. And then when the election was over, it became like mainstream kind of, uh, uh, reality to just say, yeah, Nate, Nate fucked that one up. He finally screwed up. Uh, and I think that that mix of things is what's driven him insane. Uh,

So I've decided to predict that there's a 29% chance that the election is basically the same as 2020. And now, unlike Nate, I don't have any kind of math to back that up. It's just a gut feeling. But I'm calling that now because I want people to get really angry at me now. And then ideally, when I'm right, they'll get even angrier at me.

And then I can go insane on social media and just gladly become completely unhinged and see what it's like to be Nate Silver, the ultimate high garrison. See, I thought you were going to say you thought there was a 29% chance that Nate Silver would just completely, completely lose it and do some like, like, uh, yeah, do a major act of terrorism. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's what I thought you were going to say. Yeah. He drives a double decker bus into the, into the Lincoln Memorial. God, that's my, that's my hope.

He storms the 538 headquarters. Yeah. He's going to take it back once and for all. Okay, so today we're going to be talking about election polling. The debate is very, very soon here in Atlanta, Georgia. And as a little bit of a preparatory measure, we want to go over some of the actual poll numbers here.

for the 2024 presidential election. I like to start with this Iowa Poe from Seltzer and Co.

Now, Iowa's a weird one, right? Iowa has gone red pretty consistently the past two years, although 2020 was closer than 2016. In 2020, Trump won the state by 53.1% to Biden's 44.9%. But the numbers right now are much, much worse for Biden. Not good. No, it's pretty bad. Trump is leading Biden in the general election in Iowa by 18 percentage points. And

and third-party candidates, including Kennedy and the Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, are receiving a combined 15% support. It's pretty bad. It hasn't been this bad in a while. Now, people like to use this specific Iowa poll

as kind of a barometer for the Midwest in general. And that's, you know, not completely accurate all the time, but it is something that people do consistently point to as a general barometer for Trump's possible success in the Midwest. Now we have Minnesota. Which is key because one of the most, probably the most viable path to Biden winning involves holding that quote unquote blue firewall, which doesn't include Iowa, obviously, but it does include

Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which are generally within the margin of error in most polls, but looking very sketchy for Biden compared to how he would like them to be at this point. Wisconsin's not looking great. Minnesota, according to a SurveyUSA poll from just a few days ago, Biden is up six points. Yes, yes. Michigan is, I think, the one I was saying is a little closer. Yeah. So that's kind of the situation with this poll. I'm not going to get into any of the more specific numbers because,

The numbers in this Iowa poll are going to be actually pretty reminiscent of more of the general election numbers, which we're going to get into, especially when we're going to start factoring in things like the conviction and Trump's popularity among independents, which could very well be a major deciding factor in this election. So I'm going to I'm going to quote from Forbes here, quote.

Trump leads Biden by one point, 50 to 49%. In a CBS poll released Sunday that comes after a streak of surveys found Trump's lead has slipped since his felony conviction in Manhattan last month, including a Fox News survey released Wednesday the 19th that shows Biden up by two points, a three-point swing since the network's May survey. This was among a streak of five polls since mid-June that show Biden beating or tied with Trump, unquote.

So Biden has made some considerable progress in the polls in the past month. Biden and Trump are now tied in the Morning Consult's weekly survey, as Biden has now been leading Trump by a point for two weeks in a row. A month prior, Trump was way, way ahead of Biden. And the two are also tied in the Economist YouGov survey released last Thursday, as well as a PBS Marist poll from Tuesday the 18th.

Yeah, and there's a couple of things. I mean, like, it's easy to say that's probably due to the conviction because that's the biggest thing that's happened since then.

But I also think there's a decent chance that some of that is just the result of the fact that Trump is now definitely the nominee, which was a little more up in the air previously. So now people are kind of forced to consider what that really means. But it does seem in general like there's been motion and like things have been moving in Biden's favor since the conviction. So I don't think it's wrong to say that probably overall, the evidence suggests helps Biden at this point. Yeah. And the

The Fox News survey is really interesting because they have it on a graph here. And you can see Biden steadily moving upwards on the graph very consistently. And Trump has largely flatlined, if not, is actually kind of moving a little bit down. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also moving quite down. Yeah. Not completely surprising considering the whole brain brainworms thing.

So he's going to be the most interesting thing. I mean, not the most interesting thing, because whether or not Trump wins could mean whether or not we are able to continue doing what we do. But RFK is kind of the most interesting thing for me in terms of like...

Are is it going to is there going to be any kind of evidence that there's actually real hunger for a third party, which everyone keeps talking about is this constant topic of discussion in U.S. politics. But it never happens. And people were getting very RFK is obviously a bad guy to pin your hopes on a viable third party on. But I am interested to see if it if it because there's a there's a decent evidence that.

the primary chunk because when you factor in rfk biden's lead doesn't go down right because rfk is really popular among a lot of the independents that trump is already strong with and yeah so the big question is like is he going to drain votes from trump uh or just kind of fizzle out and i think right now the smart money is kind of on fizzling out but it's it's a little hard to say do you know what we can say for sure though robert

That Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the primary sponsor of this podcast. God, I hope so. I hope I really hope we start getting some RFK ads on here. Look, folks, if you if you're not sure whether or not you want to vote for RFK, we get it. You know, obviously, this is a big choice. But our recommendation is head down to the Gulf of Galveston and shove your head in that in that Texas coast water. Get a couple of amoebas rattling around on that brain of yours and then see how you feel about RFK Jr., you know?

All right, we are back. Let's talk a little bit about independence because this voting block will basically be...

the deciding factor in this whole election. So that PBS Morris poll that found Trump and Biden tied also found that Trump has lost six points with independence compared to their poll taken just before his conviction last May. And Biden has gained eight points with independence and now leads Trump by two points in that category. And similarly, the Fox poll also shows Biden leading by nine points among independents.

And that's a massive shift. That's enough of a shift that I wonder how much polling methodology, maybe, to explain for it. Were they just polling these people? Were they polling them badly before, or are they polling them badly now? Because that's quite a lot of movement. We'll talk a little bit about polling methodology here at the end, because it might—yeah, certainly the polling methodology produces—

a large degree of the numbers. A lot of these polls have a margin of error of about 3.5%. But this finding is consistent across almost every single poll being done right now. A political...

Ipsos poll from mid-June found that 32% of independents say they are now less likely to support Trump after his conviction, with 21% saying it would be an important factor in their vote. Yep. And I did, this is the, when we were talking the group chat before the conviction, I would

I made a note a couple of times of the fact that there's a sizable number of Americans who are not what you'd call high information voters, but just feel really gross about voting for a felon. And I think these are the kind of people who are independents a lot of the times. They're not people who think much about politics. They're people who make... They're not as partisan typically, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they can kind of make a swing gut decision on either of these guys in a moment. And if you tell, well, he's a felon, that matters to some people. There's like the...

This frustrates a lot of high-information political analysts, the fact that so many Americans just kind of make almost random decisions, like flip of a coin calls about what to do. Which is also what makes polling very hard, is...

Right. But all polls also indicate that this will probably be a much closer election than 2020s. And in an election this close, small shifts among independents could very well determine the outcome. Now, I'm going to quote from that political...

Ipsos report on their own poll, quote, quote, a plurality of respondents in our poll, 38% reported that Trump's conviction would have no impact on their likelihood to support Trump for president. 33% of respondents said that the conviction made them less likely to support Trump, while only 17% said it made them more likely. These results were worse for Trump among respondents who said they were political independents. 32% said that the conviction made them less likely to support, and only 12% said that it made them more likely to support Trump.

Unquote. And that same poll also found that 9% of Republicans say they're now less likely to support Trump.

Yeah, which is massive. And that actually makes me want to bring up one of the guys, the analysts I've been reading, because this is actually the – to the extent that there's any real basis behind my 29% chance things work out basically like 2021. It's this fucking dude, Helmut Norpoth. Norpoth is – he's one of these guys who's built a model –

Like you get these every now and then, like because they're great content for TV news dudes like, oh, this guy's got a model prediction election. His model predicted the last 40 elections properly, even though they like ran them through after we knew how the elections were going to go. And I don't know how fair that is. Helmut actually did accurately predict a couple of like the last. He's had his model going, the primary model for like the last seven elections, and it predicted

five of them correctly. Now, one it got right was 2016. Although it predicted how Trump was going to win wrong, it got that he was going to win right. I don't know how much credence you want to give that. And he fucked up in 2020. Although, you know, the fact that there was a pandemic, then I'll give him a little bit of grace. The other one he fucked up was 20, was 2000.

but he called it for Gore. So yeah, well, I'll read from his website describing like how this works because it's relevant to what you're talking about in terms of independent voters. And it's also relevant to what I think is another major factor and who's going to ultimately win, which is likely voters versus like, if I feel like it, I'll vote because Biden's lead jumps substantially when you consider likely voters. Correct. Whereas Trump does very well with like maybe voters and like,

I kind of don't feel like this is going to be a high turnout election, right? That's what I am seeing. We have some data on this that I'll talk about later. Yeah. Yeah. And Helmut's model works that way. So, quote, the primary model gives President Joe Biden a 75% chance to defeat Donald Trump in November.

This forecast takes account of the performance of the two candidates in the early primaries. Biden won the Democratic contest in those states by far larger margins than Trump did in Republican ones. What also benefits Biden in the general election is an electoral cycle that favors the sitting president. In a nutshell, a White House incumbent facing no significant challenge in primaries almost always wins reelection.

As for the Electoral College, the most likely outcome of the 2024 election predicted by the model is that Biden will get 315 and Trump 223. And basically – so part of why I think this guy is probably a hack but it's kind of interesting is he's looking at how they performed relative to each other in their primaries.

And there's a degree to which you can say like, well, primaries are absolutely not general elections. But what it does show is relative how much Trump's support has faded from Republicans. And Trump actually did considerably less well in the primaries than he did in 2020, right? Totally. There was a degree of actual like hunger to vote for Carrie Lake, who might –

I think it's the Arizona, right, candidate who was running against him. And he showed weakness in a number of primary states that was not there in 2020, which suggests, along with the polling you showed, you know, that like 9% of Republicans are less likely to vote for him after the conviction. An amount of weakness in his base that could be

pretty meaningful when we get to the election. And I don't think it's been taken into account enough by, for example, folks on the left looking at how much everybody hates Joe Biden, which is also a very real factor. But I think that people are kind of denying the degree to which a lot of folks who should be his base don't like Trump anymore. Yeah. And this is one of the weird things post the conviction. There were some pundits who were trying to make an argument that somehow the conviction would actually make Trump a

a more popular choice, which maybe works if you're like a contrarian, but it doesn't really make much sense. And if you look at like the approval ratings for the conviction and the verdict, they fall pretty well on party lines. It's really going to come down to independence. Like everyone who's going to vote for Trump

Who like really, really, really want to vote for Trump are still going to vote for Trump, right? Like that's how it goes. Absolutely not. And they will buy the I'm voting for a felon hats that Facebook keeps trying to sell me. Absolutely, right? Like those are not the people that are in question. But there is a large number of other people who do not own a mega hat who are actually, you know,

questionable in who they're going to vote for. On this note, I'd like to quote again from Forbes, quote, polls consistently show the conviction is a low priority for most voters in deciding who to actually cast their ballot for. The Politico-Ipsos poll found that 53% said it's not important to their voting decision, while 61% in a Reuters poll released last week said it won't impact their vote, unquote.

Now, one of the clear shifts that we have seen post verdict is a sizable increase in Biden voters who list stopping Trump as one of their main reasons to do so. This we have numbers from March to now is that the main reason for supporting Biden in March

We had 47% saying it's to oppose Trump. Now it's 54% saying it's to oppose Trump, which I think that number will only increase the closer we get to the election because people don't want Trump to be president again, even though they don't like Biden. The other thing with these numbers is that the percent of people who say, I like Biden as reason for supporting him has decreased since March. Yes, yes. It has decreased by 4%.

Of course, because he's not likable and he's he shouldn't be president still. But Trump is even like and people understand, like I that is the number one thing when I go out of like my the bubble of my friends and whatnot and talk to family members or just like have conversations with like Uber drivers or whatnot about politics and.

I have not heard a single person state a reason for vote. They want to vote for Biden. That is more important than I don't want Trump to be president. That is everyone that I encounter basically. Like I'm, I'm obviously you have other people, but it is weird to the extent to which that's what this election is going to come down on. And I kind of think it's evidence that like,

Of a failure and strategy in Trump's part, because I think he probably could do better if he were to focus on allaying those fears that he wants to become a dictator. Well, as opposed to harping on like one of the things that's interesting to me, he's campaigning very heavily in Wisconsin right now. He's already made like two visits just to southeast Wisconsin in the last two months because Wisconsin is up for grabs. Right. Every poll I've seen basically is within margin of error. It's either guy's game and it's a critical state.

And Trump is hammering Biden on crime in Wisconsin, right? Like, look at how your dibs have done. Look at how much more violent the city's become. And about 1% of registered voters in Wisconsin consider crime a major concern in a presidential election. And part of that's because, like, violent crime has dropped and, like, massively in Wisconsin and nationwide over the last year.

And I do wonder the extent to which – because Americans' views on crime are not based on how bad crime actually is, but I also wonder if –

people are start are like the degree to which that's a voting concern for people is fading because it has dropped so much. Yeah. And I'll be curious to see if kind of Trump's strategy of hammering the Democrats because they're bad on crime is going to prove to be a serious misstep. Well, even Fox News has had to do recent segments talking about how there actually has been a drop in crime, even though Americans feel like it hasn't. Right.

Which is a quite funny little tidbit. We're all looking for the guy who did this moment. Now, I do want to get through a few more conviction numbers. I'm going to quote from Politico's report on their own poll regarding the importance of the conviction in people's vote. Quote, 22% of respondents said the conviction is important to how they will vote and that it will make them less likely to support Trump. Only 6% of respondents took the other side of the question, saying they are more likely to support Trump.

a nearly identical net negative effect showed up among independents with 21% saying they are less likely to support and 5% saying they are more likely, unquote. Now, of those who say the conviction is important to how they will vote, 7% of Republicans say they are less likely to support Trump. So that's an interesting number. And only 13% say they are more likely. And like, come on, those people were always gonna vote for Trump anyway.

40% of Democrats, of course, say that they are less likely. Now, 28% of Republicans say that the conviction makes them more likely to support Trump, but it won't affect their vote. And among those who said the conviction isn't important to how they will vote, 40% said that it has basically no impact on their support of Trump. Most of those people are independents.

Now, Politico also asked respondents if they thought the prosecution was brought to help Joe Biden. And most, around 51%, disagree with the claim. But 43% agreed and said that the case had probably been brought to help Biden. And these results are roughly similar among independents. So still, most people don't think so. And there's people who have, you know, suspicions. Not super surprising.

Now, Politico notes that these figures might be movable, though. These are not necessarily locked down opinions as, quote, roughly a third of all responders and.

and independents said that they still do not understand the details of the case well, unquote. So glorious. This is those are not really set in stone. And Politico also notes that there's a number of upcoming events and variables that could change the public's opinion before November, you know, including all of the ongoing efforts by political operatives to influence the public perception of both the conviction and just, you know, the election in general.

The debates, obviously, too. The debates, as well as Trump's sentencing in Manhattan on July 11th, which could possibly, you know, entail a period of incarceration. Probably not. But if it did, that would certainly impact these numbers. And also Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's testimony before Congress on July 12th. This could impact the numbers, you know, regarding, you know, how many people think this case is legit versus how much people think is just purely like a political move.

But still, about half of adults do approve of Trump's conviction. The AP did a poll with the NORC a week after Trump's conviction, but before Hunter Biden was convicted on that federal gun case. And U.S. adults seems more likely to support Trump's conviction than they are to disapprove, with at least 48% saying they approve and just 29 somewhat or strongly disapproving and 21, you know, disapproving.

not approving or disapproving. To quote from the AP, Republicans are less united on the verdict than Democrats. Roughly six in 10 Republicans disapprove, while 15% approve. The other two in 10 neither approve nor disapprove. Overall opinions on Trump have barely budged. About six in 10 US adults have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, which is in line with from our findings in a poll conducted last February.

Four in 10 have a favorable view of Trump, also largely unchanged since February. The numbers are equally poor for Biden. Four in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of the Democratic president, while six in 10 have a negative one, unquote. Yeah, this is very much unique in races that I can recall, a race to the bottom. Like who can alienate, who will alienate less of the base, right? Yeah.

Yeah, no, we, we, polls consistently are showing that there will be historically, that, that there is historically low voter enthusiasm. Both candidates have very low favorability ratings and an NBC poll found that 64% of voters say that they are very interested in this year's election, which is a 20 year low. So,

You know, not great numbers. And a new CBS poll found that among young Americans who did vote in 2020, only three quarters say that they'll definitely do so again. Now, this poll also does show that Trump's support among young voters has been almost unchanged since 2020. Yeah.

He's got about done about 2% better, which is fairly minimal considering how much Biden's lead is among that group. But overall, young voters do believe in generally progressive values pretty consistently, including support for a ceasefire. And

And that's, I mean, part of the reason why we may not see which, you know, could be catastrophic for Biden, because 2020, a lot of his win came in the fact that he did deliver so much of that, like so many young voters came out, turnout was so high, and they overwhelmingly supported Biden.

There is also, I mean, kind of a reason why that might not wind up mattering, which is where Biden, I mentioned earlier, Biden does really well among likely voters, much better than he does among the general electorate. And this is part of a shift among white voters with degrees that has been-

We get a lot of talk, and this has been significant, especially like Latino voters shifting towards the GOP has been a really important story too. But this one does not get talked about as much. In the four years since Biden took office, white men with degrees have shifted 24 points towards Biden, and he has gained 19 points with points.

among white women with degrees, which is like a huge amount of his support. And also that's one of the groups that's likeliest to vote. Like the strength that Biden has gained among kind of middle of the road, leaning conservative suburban voters is potentially going to be a decider in this election.

Yeah, and according to the New York Times and Siena, the polls do seem slightly skewed in Trump's favor, actually, this year, mostly by disenfranchised voters who may not participate in the upcoming election. An analysis they did found that Biden had led the last three of their polls among 2020 voters, but trailed among registered voters overall, which is basically exactly what you're saying. You know, Garrison, speaking of likely voters, are...

I don't know. That doesn't really lead in. Here's the fucking ads. Look, you don't get a good one every time we do this, folks. There's too many ad reads. You are likely to listen to these ads. They're fine. So we are back. Is polling actually useful? Is this actually useful anymore? The answer is kind of.

But, you know, people have gotten really, really anti-polling in recent years. You know, the 2016 election certainly contributed to that. Although, if you look at the actual 2016 polls, it's kind of interesting. In 2016, Clinton generally polled much higher than Trump for the duration of the race. Though in late July, the two were neck and neck, with the gap closing once again in late September. And the week of the election, Trump was on average trailing by less than 3.5% behind.

which is often in the margin of error for these polls. And pollsters usually consider something under 3% being a toss-up. Now, this is 3.5%. So still, it was trending towards Clinton. And there is reasons why, in terms of their polling methodology, that was flawed. But the polls were actually a bit closer than I think what public perception seems to remember of the 2016 polls.

Yes, and this is part of why the public memory of 2016, and to an extent 2020, and to an extent every election is so bad, is, and you can't emphasize this enough, people are dogshit at understanding what polls say, right? They are really bad at understanding uncertainty. One of the things that, I hate to keep going back to the Nate Silverwell, but

But I think he's a fascinating case study. And one of the things he pointed out after 2016, the minute you have a forecast where there's less certainty, people don't like that. The minute you have a forecast that doesn't have a Democrat winning, they don't like that very much. And it's to point out, like, his – he kind of started to become a heel as soon as he started showing that, like,

Trump had a real shot at winning. And as his as his forecast continued to show kind of weakness among Democrats, it got people angrier and angrier. And that's most of what makes people determine whether or not something is a credible source on the election. And that's kind of why a lot of this is like a doomed effort is because people consider something.

you know, an expert credible if they are saying something they want to hear. Because most of what people want in terms of election polling is to feel reassured that things are going to be okay. Right. And that's, that's your, you're kind of, it's always like a confirmation bias game. And it's also one of those things where like the instant you do well, if you are legitimately a rigorous, you know, expert and you predict things correctly,

You're going to suddenly be this focus of so much media attention and have so much money and job offers thrown your way that it will inherently drive you mad, which is part of why, again, I am predicting a 29% chance that things are basically the way they were in 2020. So I can get all that sweet, sweet CNN money, you know, if I wind up being right.

I am curious, Garrison, kind of in that line, because as our official poll expert, you kind of came into this, I don't think, with a strong set of biases about what would happen. When you actually started drilling down into the numbers, did that change at all your impression of what was going on this election?

I think I thought that the numbers for Biden would be slightly worse. I think that's kind of the general feeling. And that has been, you know, what the numbers have kind of looked like in my cursory glances the past few months. But looking more into kind of polling science, what these pollsters are saying, the gap is wide.

usually within this 3%, that it feels like it's going to be a very close election. It'll be much closer than it was in 2020. Polls thought that 2020 would be a much, much more obvious win for Biden. It was a closer election than what people thought. But this, I think, will be even closer. So it's going to be a tricky one. We're going to be kind of on the edge of our seat come election night.

Which is what no one wants to hear, right? No, no. Especially since you have this, you have a lot of people who want to hear Biden is doomed because they have, for generally good reasons, come to despise Biden over the last four years. And they just want to know that like the things they're angry about matter. And the thing that I, all I can say to those people is like, I don't know that anything matters. And I do think there's a really good chance. I think this is basically a coin flip. Yes.

Yeah. And I think, you know, polling is going to look very different this year because Trump is not the incumbent. I think there's a lot of other factors that are contributing to the polls. And pollsters have adjusted a lot since 2016 to make sure that more Trump support is accounted for, both in 2020 and in 2016. The error did not come from overestimating the support of Clinton and Biden. It came from underestimating Trump's support. And

This has been fixed for via a number of methods. There's certain theories people have had, like the quote-unquote shy Trump voter theory, which is kind of largely disputed, saying that people who are- Certainly by this fucking point. Yes, no, saying that people who support Trump are too scared to tell pollsters that they support Trump.

quite silly. It's essentially blaming poll errors on people just lying to pollsters because they're too nervous.

So there's a lot of other stuff we have. We have we have adjusted for white non-college educated voters, you know, because people who have a college degree are more likely to respond to polls. So all this does get adjusted for, especially since 2016, because that was the main cause of the polls kind of being fucked up that year. So what exactly happened in 2020 then if these things like the non-college vote and the shy Trump voter theory were sort of adjusted for?

Well, a few things happened. The pandemic, one, you know, made certain polling figures a little bit unique. The election also featured the highest number of voter turnout in decades, something that we're probably not expected to see in 2024. In 2020, the national polls were too favorable to Biden by 3.9 points, state polls by 4.3.

I'm going to read a report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research analyzing 2020 election poll errors. Quote,

Even if the correct percentage of self-identified Republicans were polled, differences in the Republicans who did and did not respond could produce the observed polling error. Unquote.

If this was indeed the issue, it was probably made worse by Trump in 2020 by being very disparaging to polls, making his base probably less likely to honestly engage with polling metrics. And both in 2016 and 2020, there was large, large postmortems among the polling community trying to figure out how to improve. And

2022's polls were more accurate than any election since 1998, with almost no bias towards either party. So...

That is a good sign in terms of the accuracy of polls. Yeah, in terms of this not being nonsense, yeah. Correct. So a pollster named Nathaniel Rakich said, quote, polls true utility isn't telling us who will win, but rather in roughly how close a race is and therefore how confident we should be in the outcome. Historically, candidates leading polls by at least 20 points have won at 99% of the time, but candidates leading polls by less than three points have won just 55% of the time, unquote.

And that kind of lines up with our current situation, right? Biden was, even though the polls were slightly skewed towards Biden in 2020, he was so far ahead that most of the polls, in terms of saying who would win, were still correct because Biden was just so far ahead. This time, that will not be the case. That's not what the polls are going to say. The polls are going to show this being a much closer race. And I think that is what it's going to be come November. So yeah, that's kind of the lowdown of...

the current polling situation. I'll be curious to see what the numbers are post-debate and especially after the sentencing in July. Yeah, we'll see. And I should note that Nate Silver just released his official forecast today.

And it's almost the opposite of that weird German man who gave Biden a 75% chance of winning. Nate gives Trump a 65% chance of winning. So we are going to see which of the election pundits who make their entire living off of gambling on elections winds up getting to be fetid

on all of the talk shows in like January of 2025. That'll be exciting. That's the real toss up, honestly. That's the real toss up. It's Helmet versus Nate, baby. Who's going to win? I kind of think they both might be con men.

Oh, yeah. That wasn't the opening of the podcast. Okay. Or unless it was. I guess it was because we were recording. Welcome to It Could Happen Here.

Harrison, I had to open an episode about a terrible, terrible piece of voice acting history with some horrible voice acting of my own. It was the only right way. It's true. It's true. But there has been some really bad voice acting going around lately. Yes. Oh, boy. So do you know what we're going to talk about today, Robert? We're going to talk about the South Park of X.

And I know what you're all wondering. What the fuck is X? Did you guys, is that a placeholder? Did you like type in a placeholder because you forgot the name of what this is the South Park of or whatever? No, no, no. We're talking about Twitter. We are talking about the first animated sit slash com podcast.

On X slash Twitter titled The New Norm Show. Not to be confused with the 2022 low budget movie The New Norm. This is a new animated project from the great minds over at Dave Rubin Incorporated. Yeah. Was so bad, but also so insightful that I did a whole bunch of drugs and wrote about 2000 words.

about this project and uncovered some kind of shocking things that we will slowly get into. I first just want to go over the mini pilot itself because right now the only thing that's out is like this three minute or so little mini pilot and we'll get into why this is the only thing that's out right now but

But I first just want to do kind of like a short play-by-play, and it will be short because, again, it's only three minutes. Yeah. Of what happens in this new perspective animated sitcom that they want to air on Twitter.com, now known as X. Yes. So I think the first thing you need to know about it, you know, besides, you know, the Dave Rubin-ness of it all, it looks like early 2000s Flash animation. Like really bad early 2000s Flash animation. It's not good. Yeah.

It's not good. None of the characters can, like, really express things. No. And the perspective is always a little bit off. Yeah, it looks like something, like, a moderately competent person could have animated in this course of an afternoon if the people paying them did not actually want anything that looked very good. Well, and I think that is kind of what happened. They posted one video showing the animating process, and it does look like just one person did it in, like, a day. So...

Anyway, it starts with an older man sitting in a living room chair, scratching at an ankle monitor. He reaches for a beer only to find that it's been woke-ified with rainbow packaging. The man reacts in horror and his more liberal daughter remarks, progress, it's the new norm. And then...

a pandering country music theme song plays, which we will play for you later just because it's so bad. We're going to have to. I want to start just because this is the first shot of the episode and it was the first thing in the episode that made me very angry and it's how small his feet are. Like,

Especially if you're going to have... He got them Rob Liefeld feet. He's got the Rob Liefeld feet. And this is particularly a problem because the ankle monitor doesn't look like it's going to be a one-off joke because he doesn't just have an ankle monitor. He has like an evil Amazon Alexa that looks a little bit like it's got some HAL 9000 DNA in it. Yes. That every time he says something that's not woke enough, it yells at him, right? It yells offensive, offensive. Yeah.

Yeah, the fantasy progressive government that is in charge in this cartoon world has forced him to wear an ankle monitor because he's not woke enough. And so I'm guessing that's going to be a recurrent bit. Oh, absolutely. And if the fact that he has this sentient ankle monitor is a recurrent bit, his feet shouldn't look like the ankle monitor should always be falling off of him.

them. It's so loose. It's really bad animation, right? Like I, I'm not even saying that's a good bit, but if that's your bit, you have to actually design the characters to sell the bit as opposed to me constantly thinking, how was that fucking ankle monitor staying on his goddamn ankle? Anyway, whatever the character is not designed with the ankle monitor in mind. That was a later edition. So anyway, after the theme song, the, the, the man addresses the audience. He says, I'm the old norm. I want normal beer. Yeah.

God damn it. Great. I just want to point out, this is like the only character that gets an introduction. We don't really learn almost anyone else's names except for one other character, which is just great for like a pilot. Anyway, so he steps towards his front door and the ankle monitor starts beeping. He blames his liberal daughter for being put on house arrest for quote unquote threatening the school board, which he says he did because the school was quote brainwashing kids into thinking girls aren't girls and men aren't men.

His daughter says sometimes they're neither or both or dressed like dogs. Anyway, his wife comes home. Oh, God. Yeah, there's a real furry obsession in this show. I guess we'll talk about that later, too. Because this was birthed years ago. This is not like a modern current take on wokeism. But his wife comes home and with her is someone wearing a COVID mask sporting a pink mohawk. And here I'm going to play our first clip.

What's that? Actually, that is one of my pronouns. Also they, them, and me. You're non-binary? How do you know that word? I learned it in school. That's why I'm locked up! Norm, the judge agreed to conditional parole. What condition? Where's my room? That's staying here. You're staying here?

Chaz is part of a new government program to re-educate homophobic, transphobic, racist. Charlie, finally, someone normal. I don't understand. You're black. Did that just black whisper? You're his friend. And boss. So something that isn't fully conveyed just through the sound is that when the daughter finds out that this new person is non-binary, she gets like big, big, like lovey eyes.

And the black boss character, he is played by failed politician Larry Elder. Oh my god, that's Larry Elder? Yes! Oh, that's funny. That's so funny. He's just there to show that black people like Norm, right?

Yes, exactly. That the progressives actually are racist for not liking Norm because the only black person they're going to put in the show thinks that he's rad. It's just a normal thing that you do if you're a right wing hack making a low budget cartoon. He is wearing, by the way, a Washington Redskins hat and shirt and shirt.

discontinued four years ago. Yeah. And his first, his opening line in the show is him coming in and saying, I come over here to escape woke. Yes. Yeah. I, one thing I do think is interesting is that both this character, because Larry Elder makes a note that like his son is about to transition and is at least non-binary. They don't really know what any of this means. So a little bit of the script is unclear as to what these kids actually, how they identify. Uh,

And obviously Norm's daughter is – I don't know if she's non-binary or just like into like generally queer. But like that is the impression you're left with. Sure. Again, if you actually were someone who was kind of conservative or conservative sympathetic like Mike Judge making like a cartoon, you could actually get some mileage out of the – accepting the idea that like, okay, you've got these curmudgeonly older people and you've got their kids who are like –

way more open about this kind of stuff. And there's room for plots, as King of the Hill did pretty well, that kind of lampoon the culture in general, but it requires a little more self-awareness. Like, again, if there was a little bit, you might wonder, like,

What are we saying if we're the people making this right-wing piece of propaganda that all of the young people feel very differently about gender than their parents? Well, yeah, that's why Norm keeps saying, I'm the old Norm. I want to be here. And the show is called The New Norm, not to be confused with the 1999 ABC sitcom starring Norm MacDonald called The Norm Show.

It's literally in the name. It's about how these people cannot accept that times change and they slowly get outdated social beliefs.

Anyway, every single time that Norm addresses the non-binary character, referring to them as pronoun or that, his little AI Amazon assistant just bleeps out offensive, offensive. Chaz is here to re-educate Norm in non-bonary studies. I'm allergic to dogs.

It's okay. Billy is an emotional support dog and non-binary. Oh, okay then. Good dog.

Just amazing voice acting in that clip. And with a helpful laugh track so you know what is a joke and when you're supposed to laugh, which is so embarrassing for an animated sitcom to put on a laugh track. Like, oh my god. Oh my god. It smacks of desperation because nobody really liked, nobody misses laugh tracks.

Laugh tracks are like if you have a live studio audience, you know, a laugh track kind of like makes sense. This is this is an animated sitcom. It's like if there's a laugh track on like Rick and Morty or like The Simpsons. Like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. Anyway, the two men sit down to watch sports and Larry Elder laments that a non-binary person is present in the room and starts complaining about his child. I come here to get away from woke.

Trouble at home? Ah, my boy, or whatever it calls themself now, is thinking about transitioning. Reggie? Try Regina. Oh.

Transitioning to what? Another fumble. Whatever it calls themself now, amazing pronoun usage, another fumble. Now, Norm tosses the gay beer to Chaz, the non-binary character. Chaz. Chaz. Chaz fumbles the catch and says, And that's not even, that's not a gay Zoomer name. Chaz is like,

Something like that's very Gen X Chaz. Totally. Yeah. Well, again, because this is all made by Gen X people. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Chaz fumbles the catch and says that they can't drink because they're not 21. And Larry Elder replies, y'all influence my boy to cut off his junk, but draw the line at beer. And then Chaz hides behind the couch to call upper level government operatives who are advising them on this reeducation assignment.

I got it. Before we get into this, I want to start with what doesn't make sense about that bit, which is that if Chaz was straight edge, right? And they were kind of, again, if they actually knew anything about like the real sort of cultural kind of divides that are coming in around Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they could have made a point that like, yeah, this generation of kids is,

doesn't get drunk and do drugs the way like millennials did. And that's an actual like cultural cleavage point. But Chaz is not straight edge. Chaz is just saying, I cannot legally drink beer. Which no gay person has ever said. Which no gay, but it like the fact that. Unless they're straight edge. Yeah. Larry Elder then comes in and says like, oh, this is a characteristic, but it wasn't like a characteristic of you queer Gen Z kids. But Chaz,

The queer Gen Z kid did not express that as like a characteristic of his identity. He was just stating this is illegal. I can't because it's illegal. Yeah. Very. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, when Chaz is conference calling with this, this upper level government, we have we have this general in like a in like a kink dog mask who barks. And there's a trans woman admiral who says, find a way to break him. Maybe we can fix the country.

I believe the Admiral is a really transphobic character of U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine. And it's not even a good character. It's just bad. No, it doesn't look like her at all. There's also another character, which Robert identified as a possible hate crime and tasked me with locating who this person is. And I believe with about 100% certainty that this is a character of Sam Bollinger.

who was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy. Now, ah, these people are so fucking conservative social media brain. What are you fucking? Come on. Brinton may be well known to some of our listeners as being let go in late 2022 after being linked to a series of airport luggage thefts.

One of the funniest things that's ever happened. This person could not stop stealing luggage from airports so much that they got fired from the Department of Energy.

That's amazing. This goes back to like 2018. Years. God, that's funny. Years of airport luggage thefts. It's so funny. But again, if this was a good comedy thing, they would have some kind of bit. Maybe they would be holding a collection of luggage. But no, they're just standing behind the Progress pride flag. That's it. It's not funny. Yeah, because...

Again, because the actual funny thing about this would be to have like your government character be someone at the Department of Energy who got taxed with this through some sort of incoherent DEI narrative. And also a character trait is they are always stealing luggage. And like you could actually build bits around that over time. But they just they threw all these people in knowing that like.

The 200 people who are as right wing online as them would get who all these were, as opposed to doing the thing that you would do if you were actually making a show for mainstream consumption, which is like make fun of people that the audience will recognize. Throw a Joe Biden in there, right? Like, obviously, you're doing this in 2024. Like, where is anyone that someone who's not completely lost their mind to this stuff will recognize? Right.

And this is the climax of the pilot. It's so bad. After Chaz has this little phone call, the fake camera zooms back to show a fake animated studio audience and the Bad Country theme song plays once again. And now I will play it for you because this section is both so pandering but also oddly genuine towards the end.

Free speech.

When the song goes, thank God for Elon Musk and his shitpost memes. X is the home for free speech. An unvoiced animated Elon Musk pops through the door for no reason.

And he's someone someone on Twitter took a screen grab of the Elon Musk and said they gave him that Innsmouth look. And he does look like one of the fish people from Innsmouth. It's not a flattering caricature. I think it's meant to be. It is because like it's it's I don't know. This is a really interesting moment because this is where it gets like.

of like genuine. Jess Hawken wrote the part that blows my mind about this video is the Elon Musk cameo where the bitterness and resentment of the video melts away into still believing in Santa Claus. And it gets it gets just so weirdly genuine with this with this like the kind of heartfelt saccharine Elon Musk ending. Well, speaking of genuine garrison, the main thing that's genuine is our love of these sponsors. OK, we are back.

So there, after watching this pilot, there's, there's a lot of questions to be asked. Why is there a fake animated studio audience? Uh, you know, pretty bad. My friend Ellie Ehrman pointed out like, why is the protagonist so unpleasant even in their perfect fantasy world? And also why is the word sitcom hyphenated in the title? Something that you don't do just a lot of, a lot of baffling things.

So there was a mix of reactions to this. Some of the blue checks on Twitter were kind of lapping this stuff up. One person with the username AmazingGamingProductions wrote, I know some people are critiquing it, but my fiance and I laughed at a couple points. It's a good start. I hope you continue to work on it. We need all of the indie material we can create. And included in this tweet is a picture of

Of a very poorly drawn avatar saying, Hi, my name is Indie David. I'm here to fight Goliath Mainstream. Oh my god. Amazing Gaming Productions is a Gamergate 2 themed gaming company who wants to create anti-woke games. They've done nothing. They just post really bad artwork. And I cannot overstate how bad this cartoon is. Why is the neck that way?

Why is his neck so wide and so long? For how bad the TV show's animation is, this reply was just so bad. I had to point it out. Just incredible. Now, Dave Rubin, the possible alleged potential most likely creator of the show, does air his work on Blaze TV, you know, by Glenn Beck. And...

Even other Glenn Beck employees could not help but point out how terrible this is. Logan Hall, writer for Glenn Beck's The Blaze, wrote, quote, TV shows on leftism, the cringiest, most unwatchable, nauseating trash ever created. TV shows on conservatism, somehow even worse.

And one of the most brain-poisoned conservative cartoonists, George Axapolos, basically like a discount stone toss, wrote, quote, South Park had edge. This has as much edge as uncooked sourdough. Between this and the Daily Wire's limp cartoon, they may as well be flushing money down the toilet.

He then went on to say, give me a small team, a million dollars and total creative control, and we will make a cartoon pilot that will melt faces. So again, he just wants to get his own TV show. But a whole bunch of these, you know, kind of right-wing cultural critics were not enthused with this outing because it's really bad. So I want to get into kind of who is behind this. Now,

The full, I hesitate to say creative team, but the people behind the team behind the new norm show, not to be confused with the Fox two season documentary show, the new norm have been have been largely kept secret, possibly out of fears of humiliation.

Yeah, that's how you know it's a good show. But we at least do know some of the voice cast, right? Larry Elder plays the token black conservative who only exists to affirm that the main character isn't actually racist. Now, I doubt Larry Elder has much involvement beyond lending his voice. And the other two confirmed voice, again, I hesitate to use the word talent or even actor, but the other two voice contributors are Dave Rubin and J.P. Sears. Now, I believe these two

Could be much more critical to what makes up the comedy of The New Norm Show. Not to be confused with the Oatly Oatmilk series of online puppet shorts titled The New Norm and Al Show.

Now, I assume most people listening to this are familiar with Dave Rubin. Like many of these right-wing influencers, he's a failed comedian turned political podcaster who's been positioning himself further and further to the right over the course of the last decade. Now, J.P. Sears was a quote-unquote holistic life coach who turned kind of into like a YouTube skeptic type satirical comedian. And while trying to parody New Age woo and conspiracy theories, J.P. was peddling his own pseudoscience and adopting more and more conspiratorial beliefs that

Over time, JP and his comedy began moving further and further to the right, but the COVID-19 lockdown was kind of the breaking point where he went all in on anti-vax, COVID-19, and January 6th conspiracy theories.

But I think there has to be at least one other contributor behind the art and design of the show. And I can't figure out who that is. I scrolled through all of the tweets to try to find out if this account had another name. I can't find out who exactly this other person is. There is one mystery, one mystery component. But one interesting thing I did uncover.

is that the new norm show not to be confused with the 2012 tv show the new normal has been in production in some form for over four years they've been working on this for over four years there is one frame from a video titled character sketch evolutions posted on september 19th of last year and this shows project files stretching all the way back to january of 2020 people

They've been working on this since January of 2020. Early sketches of the daughter feature an Antifa and transgender tattoo on her left arm. Also, she has a keffiyeh and posters that read, Vegans for Palestine, all in 2020 artwork. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. That's kind of fascinating because the daughter character in the published pilot is just wearing like a hoodie and like a beanie. There's none of that stuff. She's got like some bracelets that have like a, there's at least one of her bracelets has a rainbow on it, which I think is the only queer signaling or like kind of really signaling of any kind that we get. And she has an Apple watch because LOL Gen Z. But yeah, otherwise her design is completely boring. Like there's nothing going on.

And I found this other, this other thing that is maybe a little bit, you know, uh, uh, behind the scenes, look at what this may have been. So last March, uh,

This account posted a little comic strip saying, a look at how it began as a comic strip. So possibly this may have originated as not being an animated series, but instead an online webcomic, which might explain a few things. And also that I assume the mystery contributor that we don't know probably was working on the webcomic and then kind of roped in more and more people to do the animated series. But I am going to read out this webcomic just because it is fascinatingly bad.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Norm says, for 20 years, our address was 7 Columbus Ave. Now it's Colin Kaepernick Drive. That's his daughter saying that. And everyone thinks, I feel so. The mom says, fancy. The daughter says, woke. And Norm says, sick.

And then a whole bunch of news crews show up at Norm's front door. They say, what's it like to live in the most woke address in town? And Norm says, I refuse to call it Colin Kaepernick Drive. It's Columbus Ave. The news media says, any last words before the angry mob shows up? Should we call the fire department for you? And Norm says, I thought you snowflakes defunded them too. It's not even a... No, no one was talking about defunding the fire department. Not true. Anyway. It's like, it's just not even a joke.

Right. Like the there's not like a release of tension or anything with like the end bit being like him saying, why would we call the fire department? You defunded. It's not it's like it's not a joke. No, like the last series of panels are even more disconnected. Yeah, they are back inside. The door is closed. Norm says, Chloe, which I guess is his daughter's name, never said in the pilot. Chloe, why must your generation change everything? And then the doorbell rings. Delivery. Delivery.

The mom answers the door and says, sorry, wrong address. This is now Colin Kaepernick Drive. Ben Affleck Boulevard is two streets down where James Woods Parkway used to be. My God. That's the punchline. What is that even? That's the punchline? What is that even? Do you really, like, is it? Okay. James Woods has fallen. They replaced it with Ben Affleck Boulevard. Again.

If you could, if you were someone who was kind of conservative but not completely brain poisoned, you could actually get some good bits out of like they changed the name of this street from Columbus Avenue to Colin Kaepernick Drive. Now, the smart way to play off of that would be to make it very clear that

the town has a bunch of existing issues with inequality and racism that they have not dealt with in lieu of changing the name of a single street and pretending things are better. And you could actually like, there's, there's things you could do with that where you actually making comedy, but like,

The fact that they the fact that the escalation is rather than sort of like examining this world and like why shit like this gets done just to kind of like make these like performative gestures. Instead, it's like and next they're going to replace James Woods with Ben Affleck.

very very good do the genzy kids do the progressives like ben affleck does anyone feel all that strongly about ben affleck no we should we have to start naming streets after ben affleck also why would there be a james woods parkway anyway whatever yeah who's naming a street after name a thing james woods has been in like oh my god so

The marketing of this pilot is almost as baffling as the pilot itself, right? There's a few slogans they like to use. First of all, the South Park of X, which is already just brilliant. It's heartbreaking. Legalize humor. Very, very funny. And make America funny again. They will often just tweet these phrases out with no context. And sure, why not?

The home page on their website reads, quote, The New Norm, not to be confused with the ongoing podcast series The New Norm, is an animated sitcom for our woke world, an edgy yet family-friendly comedy that shines a funny light on today's most divisive issues and gives Americans a safe space to come together and laugh. Just fantastic stuff.

Great, great. I love, again, I made a comment about this, but I love that they're calling this the South Park of X, because the South Park guys would never put a cartoon or anything else on X, because they actually make things that are commercially successful, and so real companies will buy their shows.

Whereas if you're putting something on X, it means that there's no money in what you're doing. It means that you, your show is going to be monetized alongside those ads for games that don't exist, that just show like boy, like little action cartoon characters leaping into the legs of like very horny drawings of Gorgons and shit and actual straight up pornography because there is no money on X. Family friendly. Yeah.

So funny. Now, there are a few reviews that they post on the new norm website. Bill Mars has brilliant. Dave Rubin says beautiful. Larry Elders has relevant, timely and funny. I'm in. And Kevin's literally in. He's one of the voices. So is Dave Rubin. And Kevin Sorbo says all in the family for our time.

Wow. Robert, what is All in the Family? Because I am a Zoomer. I need to explain a couple of things. All in the Family was a groundbreaking sitcom show from like 15 or 20 years before you were born. Even longer than that. I mean, it was like the 70s, right? Yeah. Oh, shit. It was like 30 or 40 years before you were born. Yeah. It's way, way before my time. It's before your time. Yes. Yes, it is. And yeah.

Kevin Sorbo. Do you know who Kevin Sorbo was even? Robert, I grew up watching Christian movies. I am intimately familiar with Kevin Sorbo. Oh, okay. Okay, but not for why he actually got famous. He was Hercules. Yes, in a show that, again, predates your existence by at least 10 or 15 years. And is now just a weird, bad Christian actor. Now, so, these reviews are funny, not only because two of these people giving reviews on the site are literally in the pilot, but also...

Let's look at the Bill Maher quote, brilliant. Do you think Bill Maher has seen this pilot? No, he hasn't. Do you know why? Of course not. Because underneath the text that says, in quotes, brilliant, it says, brilliant, Bill Maher, HBO real-time host. And then in much smaller text, it says, speaking of the show creator's previous work featured on HBO, brilliant.

He's just talking about Dave Rubin being interviewed on his show. At some point, Bill Maher said brilliant to Dave Rubin. And now they're using this as a quote, endorsing the show. Man, I kind of, I feel like, so 15 years or so ago, back when he was still alive, Roger Ebert shared one of my articles that I wrote for Cracked. And I kind of want to take his feedback on that and claim that,

like dressing up as feedback for our podcast. Roger Ebert loves the show that was made 10 years after he died. Well, he doesn't, but he said something nice about something else I did a long time ago.

So I think he would support the show creators previous work. It's amazing. And I we will return to the Kevin Sorbo quote about all in the family for our time. Yeah, again, like this isn't even just a parody of like all in the family there. They are certain they're taking certain elements, but but not like actually satirizing them. They're just kind of doing them again. And do you know what we're going to do again, Robert?

Go to ads? We are going to go to ads. We're going to transition, which the people who make this show would really hate. Okay, we are back. I have a few images from the marketing of this that you're going to love, Robert. Back in September, the New Norm Show's Twitter posted this picture. It's a very bad cartoon. Oh my God. Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan. What are these? It has one like.

And Textra says, who is your fave? I love how small they made Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan. Oh, and there is another image of Norm, the titular character, saying, thank you, Chaya Rychek and Elon Musk for the freedom to say amen. Now that the word amen was undemonetized. So most of their marketing kind of looks like this. It's just...

It's talking about other more popular right-wing content creators or just praising Elon Musk. That is most of the marketing for the show. It seems their primary marketing strategy seems to be sucking up to Elon Musk to attract attention from him and his fan base. Now, I haven't seen...

Anyone else talk about this yet? But the new Norm show, not to be confused with the new Norm Macdonald show, actually released their first video project last March. It was titled Elon Musk X AOC AI Animation, unquote. What? With show creator Dave Rubin saying, the future of animation is AI.

The video starts with an AI image of Elon Musk in a black suit with voiceover of Norm addressing Musk saying, Hey Elon, check this out. We cut to a congressional deposition where AOC is questioning Elon Musk, who is wearing a spacesuit, about him replying, quote unquote, true to a meme posted by Norm saying that AOC is hot, but not smart. Mr. Musk. Call me Elon. Elon.

There's a slow motion love heart sequence of Elon and AOC staring at each other. And Elon says, I have a hands on approach to the world's population crisis. You'll never get your hands on me. I'm boycotting you. Then go f*** yourself. God, he looks like a cherub in that space suit. What is happening? So yeah, here's AI Norm and AI Elon Musk sitting in this courtroom.

Now, Norm says that it's because of Elon's reply, quote, that millions of people saw my post. So,

In this little to no effort, AI short, they straight up lay out their intentions behind all of this clamoring for Musk's attention and approval, right? Their goal is that if Elon Musk can see their stuff, maybe he'll spread it and it will be popular. That's the entire intention. Why does Musk look like a nine-year-old boy, though? Oh, yeah. He does look like Cherub Elon Musk. Absolutely. Yeah.

But this is their entire strategy, right? It's to make content that they hope Elon Musk will see and then boost so that people will give them money. That's the entirety of the bit. In the replies to this AI short film, everyone who expressed that they liked it saying, like, so funny or just like a laugh emoji, the Norm account replied to every single one of these tweets with a thumbs up emoji. That's it. That's it. Like,

Sometimes with a flaming thumbs up, sometimes with a regular thumbs up emoji. But replying to every single tweet, they just did a thumbs up. It's so lazy. My heart goes out. That's some intern who's getting paid by their... Or if they're getting paid or whatever, however they're getting evaluated, they want to be able to claim that they were doing lots of work. So yeah, they're just going through and thumbs upping every post. That's my read on it. It's wild.

This is all kind of reminiscent of the Daily Wire's own animated comedy, Mr. Burcham, right? Now, Mr. Burcham, we talked about in our Daily Wire episodes earlier this year, but it was pitched to Fox over a decade ago. They even made a 10-minute animatic. Fox passed, and so did every other network and streaming service. Also declined to pick up the project until it came across Jeremy Boring's desk a few years ago.

And Jeremy Boring said, Adam Carolla, that's who the kids love these days. So yeah, they greenlit the show and it is now airing on the Daily Wire Plus. But most of the jokes are super outdated because again, this was pitched 10 years ago, over 10 years ago. So there's a whole bunch of just like vegan jokes. Like it's jokes that maybe would have been transgressive in 2011. And of course, there's like a few updated jokes thrown in there, but like not many.

So in terms of the new Norm show, not to be confused with the many other projects with the same title, only the three minute pilot episode is out right now, right? They are soliciting more money. And that's the main drive of putting out this pilot is that they are spreading around this donation link like crazy. They've explicitly said, when does the first episode drop? Soon, but sooner if y'all give here with the donation link.

Yeah. Two other tweets read, quote, support this show to animate the first season and support this show and help fight the woke mind virus with laughter, unquote. I don't think this will actually ever get made because no one's going to support this because it's garbage.

This is like that red ape family NFT cartoon. Exactly. Which I'm still heartbroken about. All that they're doing is trying to get, you know, like unfortunate souls to donate money to this. And I don't think the right wing billionaires are going to be funding this the same way they fund other daily wire projects. So this seems kind of dead in the water. This seems like not much thought was put into it. It's lazy. It's also completely stealing a Simpsons joke from 1999.

This is the big thing I discovered. So I've been trying to watch more 90s Simpson lately. Good for you. Good for you. Solid move. And as I was watching this three minute pilot, something started to feel a little bit familiar. And then I read the Kevin Sorbo review all in the family for our time. And I realized something.

This whole show is just stealing a cutaway gag from a 1999 Simpsons episode about a fake sitcom called All in the Family 1999, in which a new, more woke and inclusive version of the original show is airing on TV. And here's a collection of images, Robert, in my Google document.

That shows early concept art of Norm looking exactly like the main character of all of the family in 1999. It literally, the picture of him in the chair looks traced. It is the exact same. There is a diverse cast. And they've got the black friend standing next to him. Exactly. They've got the woman's study major in her Birkenstocks.

Exactly. They've got a rabbi in there as opposed to the – which is some 90s diversity. But like – and I remember that bit too, which is like a – it's actually – because there were conservatives writing on The Simpsons in the 90s. One of the – John Swartzwelder was like a famous libertarian. Like he's a –

But he's also like funny. And so they made a good bit about like the rash of like overtly politically correct shows, right? Like it's a fun little aside joke that Schwarzwelder was enough of a comedian to know is good for about six seconds.

Exactly. And I will play those six seconds right now. And at 930, all in the family, 1999. Oh, geez, they got me living with an African-American, a semi-American and a woman American there. And I'm glad I love you all.

I love everybody. I wish I'd saved my money from the first show. Yeah. See, there's, there's, there's some, there's a couple of different jokes there. Yeah. There's multiple jokes in that three seconds or so. It's such a good layered joke on the part of the Simpsons. It has the parody of Archie from all in the family kind of being like offensive in an old fashioned way. Uh,

you know, bemoaning that he has to be around all these people, but also saying that he loves everyone and the way that these kind of shows like to play both sides by showing the main character is still good natured despite his faults.

And then he flips again, saying he's only come back to do the show because he needs money. The bit doesn't overstay its welcome. It lasts only like 10 seconds and yet is infinitely more funny than the entirety of this three minute pilot. And Dave Rubin actually thought he could just rip off a short Obscure Simpsons joke and stretch it into an entire show and no one would notice.

So I was really happy to find that this was just a stealing an old Simpsons joke, really poorly too. And because I've been watching more older Simpsons, I've also realized that

A lot of the jokes in Lady Ballers are also just completely stolen from Simpsons, but ripped of the context that makes them funny. So all of these right-wing cranks who are trying to produce this comedy stuff, they're all just kind of going back to old Simpsons jokes that people hopefully have forgotten and are injecting them without the actual humorous context into all these anti-woke projects.

and it doesn't work. It simply doesn't. One, it's plagiarizing and secondly, it's just bad. But yes, I will post some of these comparison pictures on my Twitter at Hungry Bowtie if you want to see the shocking, shocking comparisons. Solid work.

That was a fine investigation, Garrison, because you're definitely right. Like this is this is a carbon copy of a of a cutaway gag about all in the family. That's so fucking funny. Even the background house is the same. Look, they have the staircase in the same. The windows are literally the same. The door like it's identical. Everything is in the exact same position.

It's wild. I know. They sent this to an animator. Like, they sent that screen grab to the animator. That's so funny. God, The Simpsons was such a good show in its golden years that people are still trying to incompetently rip it off. And again...

They compare themselves to, like, the South Park of X. South Park even did a much better job of ripping off The Simpsons and making that be the focus of an episode. That, like, everyone rips off The Simpsons because of how long they've been going on. Like, yeah, anyway, whatever. Yeah.

they were smart enough to remove the cigar in the final pilot, but all because they, cause that would be just so obvious, but all the concept art that they've posted on Twitter, like half a year ago has, has them with a cigar wearing a white button up shirt. And it looks, it is, it is, it is almost traced. It is like, yeah,

His arms. Yeah, they threw on the vest clearly to distract. It's phenomenal. So yeah, amazing stuff from Dave Rubin. He, I guess, shouldn't have quit interning at Jon Stewart back in the 2000s. Maybe he could have had a better life. But instead, we get this. So great job, Dave Rubin. I wish you only the best in your future creative works.

Yeah, this is what's going to get him that plush writing gig on the Rick and Morty season. I don't know, whatever the next one is. I'm sure he's on the cusp. Oh, he's close to breaking through. I can feel it. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, I'm good. I'm going to go watch some classic Simpsons again. Thank you for reminding me.

Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History.

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It Could Happen Here Weekly 137

Behind the Bastards

Chapters

Introduction to the Kenyan Protests

The Role of Independence in the Election

The New Norm Show: Analysis and Critique

Shownotes Transcript

It Could Happen Here Weekly 137 02:51:46 Share

Behind the Bastards

Chapters

Introduction to the Kenyan Protests

The Role of Independence in the Election

The New Norm Show: Analysis and Critique

Shownotes Transcript

It Could Happen Here Weekly 137