We Are The Exhausted Majority
01:15:22 Share

Do you love reading as much as we do? Well, you're in luck because we're launching our first ever Betches Book Club in partnership with Nutella Biscuits because they know the best moments are even sweeter when you share a great snack with your friends. If you're in New York City, come hang out with us IRL at the Betches Book Club.

On October 28th, Aileen, Sammy, and I are hosting a book discussion with author Margot Harrison, where we'll be discussing her brand new novel, The Midnight Club, and snacking on Nutella biscuits. No, I won't be sharing mine because I'm truly obsessed and they're actually my new favorite snack in the world. But don't worry, there's going to be plenty for everyone to share. Head to bit.ly slash book club IRL to grab tickets for you and your friends. That's

bit.ly slash book club IRL for tickets. Grab yours before they sell out.

Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Today, we are checking the temperature on Naomi Biden, Caitlin Clark, The Washington Post, the EU elections, and more. Then we're back on the election manipulation beat with a chat about how myths and disinformation create something called manufactured consensus. Ooh, spooky.

And for our down ballot era, we are chatting about the Working Families Party and how you really should try to do third party politics. Finally, an Americant about rent fixing, wondering why your rent is so damn high. We're going to let you know. The rent is too damn high. If there's one thing that we know, that is universal. The rent, the mortgage.

All of it. And we're going to find out that the rent is actually too damn fixed. Stay tuned. We have something infuriating that should just be everywhere. It's scandalous, truly. Simi, how was your weekend?

Great weekend. I actually had a really incredible experience that I'm very excited to share with this show. So I went to something this weekend called Camp Breasty, which is set up by this organization called The Breasties. It was actually started by a woman who I met when I studied abroad in college. We lived in the same building when we were like

I guess, 20. And she was diagnosed with breast cancer when I guess we were in like our mid twenties, like really, really early. And she was really open about sharing that experience on social. And she ended up starting this organization called the Breasties, which was for young, young women and young people to connect who had gotten early diagnoses. And they have gotten really big, you know, she's now doing this as a full-time job and they now host an annual camp. And

So that's where I went this weekend to be on a panel to talk about advocacy. And let me just tell you, it was the most amazing vibe. I'm a camp girly. So I loved that whole situation, like fresh, fresh pines, freshly cut grass, just, you know, a lake. Even beyond that, like the reason...

that I was there was obviously to talk about advocacy because they've now become, you know, they've gone beyond like the mutual support model. And now they're advocating for actual policy change in multiple states, like for things like changing insurance codes, like access to genetic testing, fertility help, and just all sorts of things that affect that community and people more broadly. So I was on this panel and the people who were on it with me were so incredible. They

I sat next to a woman who she's been a genetic counselor for several decades. Her name is Ellen Matloff. And she happens to be the reason why people are now able to get preventative testing for the BRCA gene. Wow. Like legit. The way she got there was crazy and what she had to fight to get there. But basically like she had started...

doing this type of testing when it first became available in the late 90s. And she says in 1997, she was hit with a lawsuit because a company wanted to patent the gene. They wanted to patent the BRCA gene. So she was trying to tell everyone, you can't patent a gene. You didn't invent this gene. But people were too afraid to do the testing because they didn't want to get sued.

Eventually, someone took a lawsuit. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. And she, along with the ACLU and other groups, ended up bringing a case to the Supreme Court and they won. And now you cannot patent a human gene. And that's why we have widespread testing for BRCA. So it's really insane. This had to be the more liberal court back when RBG was up on there. This is pre-Trump.

When she told me it was in 2013, she told me the story. I said that exact thing. I was like, who was on the court? Yeah, because it would not be now. They'd be like, wait a minute. We didn't even think of this. We could patent fetuses. We could patent embryos. And then they would be business entities and you could take a profit loss on them. They could donate to campaigns. Yeah, this court would be great. That's incredible. Right. And it was just, she was so, so, so interesting because

I think even beyond like what she actually did is like the lessons that she was speaking about. Like she was saying how like it took her like 15 years to like fight this fight. And she had said one thing that really, really resonated, which was like if my stack of successes is like this high, you can't see because you're on a podcast. My stack of failures is like five times as high because for every time you fail,

want to get something done, you have to try a million things that don't work. So it was just very, very inspiring and loved learning about that. It's so interesting that you could just sit next to the woman who like pioneered the BRCA gene testing. Like,

We think of like medicine as something that happened so long ago or it's so out of touch. But here she is in between the pines at this camp with you talking about her journey in real life right now. What a resource. That's really cool. You know, that's what like led Angelina Jolie to get that testing and get a mastectomy. And now like so many people discover they have breast cancer earlier.

Yeah, I know. I know, like off the top of my head, two or three women right now who went through that testing, ended up having it done and then had reconstructive surgery or in the case of one of my friends used it as the way to get top surgery covered by insurance back when it wasn't covered at that time. So that was a great thing, too. But yeah.

Just women looking out for women and women's health care. That is the best. That's a great way to start the episode. And like in times of everything being icky, what an uppy. Is uppy the opposite of icky?

An uppie. Like an upper, but like an uppie. We could also give awards. We could give the uppie of the week. She was my uppie of the week. I love that. For real. Yeah, it was wonderful. I'm going to make you my uppie of the week because you don't promote yourself nearly to the level that you need to. Can you please tell the listeners at home about your book? You're so right. Yeah. So, oh my God, mine and Emily's book is coming out in less than a month. Today's June 10th. It's coming out July 9th.

And I mean, that was the reason I was on this panel because what we were really talking about was like, what are the small ways that you can get involved to advocate for other people, for yourself and others?

you know, the real question is like, what is an advocate? At what point do you become an advocate? And, you know, it's really like not about the label or the word. It's about the verb and the things that you're doing. And really what our book is trying to do is combat hopelessness by giving people a way to chart their own path for what they can do in our democracy. That depends on like your own interests, your own skills, your own values, your passions, whatever it is. And right now we are running a pre-order giveaway based on

Basically, if you buy the book and you send proof of purchase before July 12th, you will be entered automatically to win a $3,000 gift card to Expedia. However, everybody who enters will be getting a digital prize. We will also be sending that out on July 12th. So stay tuned. We're also going to let you know what it is. But that is a surprise until the day of the book launch party, which is June 25th. So stay tuned for that announcement. But in the meantime...

Be sure to pre-order and email proof of your pre-order to democracyinretrograde at gmail.com and you will be automatically entered to win the $3,000 Expedia gift card as well as receive a digital prize automatically. And what's the name of the book, Sammy? What's the name of the book? Oh, fuck.

This is what I'm saying. I'm like your Flava Flav. I have to hype you up because you forget. You're not the only person who has told me, like, I really am so bad at promoting myself. The book is called Democracy in Retrograde, How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and Our Lives. Honestly, I really feel that the book is genuinely so, so, so helpful and so valuable. And like...

The reactions have been that it's genuinely, genuinely, practically helpful for everyone because it's giving you the tools to find what you need to do rather than prescribing something

this is what you have to do. It's also nonpartisan. Yes. And as a dyslexic, I enjoyed it because there are good big breaks in between the paragraphs. And I feel like it's not like this running novel that's dry. It's like, here's something, here's something, here's something next. And you could stop as you're going along. You could go back very easily and relearn something if you forgot it. It's extremely easy to navigate, even for my dyslexic ass. I got the advanced copy, Humble Brag Me and Sammy Are Friends. And

I enjoy it. I'm still reading it. And you don't have to read it in order either, which I also love because I like to skip around. I like to go to the end, see what's going to happen, come back to the middle. That is exactly how it was meant to be read. It was meant to be read in pieces. You don't have to absorb it front to back. And you can absorb certain parts of it that speak to you better. And we really tried to make it something that everyone can find themselves in.

And it's supposed to be fun. It is fun. It's very choose your own adventure. It's also very like Nintendo cheat codes, like for my millennials who just wanted to be better at the game. So you convince your parents to buy you that magazine that gave you the Nintendo cheat codes. This is that. You could just go right to, hey, I'm having a difficult time putting together a postcard campaign. Hey, I'm not really sure how to build a mission statement. Hey, I'm not really sure how to find out about a candidate. Okay, go find the cheat code in the book and move on.

It's a manual. There's also like an abridged guide to the entire government that just all in a few pages, just everything you got to know. And there's a personality quiz. You match yourself to a different personality that corresponds to the zodiac signs, water, earth, air, fire, democracy, and retrograde how to make changes big and small in our country and our lives by me and Emily Amick. Very excited for it to come out despite my troubles with promoting myself.

Do you want to stay up to date on the news but find it stressful and also you don't have any time? We got you. The Morning Announcement is a daily podcast from Betches Media that's here to help you make sense of the chaotic world and its nonstop headlines.

I'm Sammy Sage, and I'll fill you in on the biggest news of each day, delivered to you in five minutes with some light, snarky commentary. The Morning Announcements was also the winner of the People's Choice Podcast Award for News and Politics in 2023. So tap the banner to listen to new episodes of The Morning Announcements on Spotify. Church's original recipe is back. You can never go wrong with original.

Still tastes the same like back in the day. Right now, get two pieces of chicken starting at only $2.99 or 10 pieces starting at only $10.99. Churches. Offer valid at participating locations. Should we get into our temp check? Let's temp check. Let's go.

All right. We are starting with Naomi Biden. Naomi Biden testified at her father Hunter Biden's trial last Friday. As you probably know, Hunter is on trial for felony gun charges due to the fact that he checked a box on a federal form that he was not a drug user when he bought a gun in 2018. So that's what he's on trial for. The trial is actually almost done at this point. But she testified on Friday that at the time her father had appeared the clearest he

He had since his brother Bo had died in 2015, which had sparked his active addiction. She said that at the time she remembered telling him that she was proud of him, that he seemed great and hopeful around this period. So she was brought to the stand to sort of solidify the defense team's argument, Hunter's argument, that although he is an addict and would categorize himself as that and therefore would always

technically be one, he checked off that he was not a drug user during a period of sobriety or relative sobriety. However, prosecutors were able to access her text messages from around that time. And he had texted her, you know, within a few days of when he had bought the gun and

to arrange that they were going to swap cars when she was living in New York City. And the series of text messages revealed that he had been kind of unresponsive to her until like after midnight and that her exchanges were like fairly brief. And at one point she wrote like, so I'm not going to see you. And he apologized for being so unreachable. But I don't know. The whole situation is heart wrenching and Naomi is iconic.

She is an icon. She is a legend. She is also role modeling the child of an addicted parent to a group of folks who often feel shame or lost or scared for their experiences with a parent who has substance use disorder. And I think that folks forget that Hunter was in the car as a little boy with his brother, Beau, when his mom and sister were killed in front of him. He was a little boy in the hospital when Joe Biden was sworn into the Senate at the hospital because he wouldn't leave his son's side and

There's a lot of impossible grief and trauma that Hunter has had to overcome in his life. And where Beau went ultra straight-laced military hero as an adult, Hunter took a different path of escapism and self-medication, which is also very common for people navigating complex grief.

My brother died in 2015. And I would say it took every bit of till 2018, where I would say that I was like, had kind of normal doubt at a point. And I remember right after that, when you experience sibling death, it is something that is so untaught and there are no resources for. So I totally understand that that could have re-triggered his addiction because that's what happens, right? You don't know what to do and you're trying to just like not feel every nerve in your body. So that's the direction you go. Now,

Hunter is even closer to his mother and sister in terms of like the way that he emotionally responded to their death. And that's evident in the ways that Naomi, his daughter is named for his one-year-old sister that died in the car accident with him. Hunter's name was his mother's name. His mother's name was Nellie Hunter Biden. So, I mean, this is a constant reminder, even in your name and the name of your child of the tragedies that came before you. So I have a lot of empathy for Hunter.

And like Joe said at the debate, when Trump said to him, yeah, well, your son's a no good drug addict. Biden said, my son was a drug addict. He worked very hard to overcome his addiction and I'm very proud of him. So I think it's very difficult to watch what's going on with Hunter, him being kind of like picked off for political points, especially Hunter being picked off by the 2A, my right to own a gun shall not be infringed crowd. And then bringing up his past coping mechanisms, his maladaptive coping mechanisms, which

I just, it's hard to watch. And I think America will more side with Hunter because so many of us have experience with a substance use disorder person that we love, you know, going up and down, then they will see that the right is doing anything here but weaponizing the justice system.

Yeah. I also don't think it's going to work not only because of how loose Americans attitudes are already towards gun ownership. So you've now conditioned people to be like, anyone should have a gun, but like you're really coming after this guy for like checking a box. And I also think that people understand that addiction is complicated. Tens of millions of Americans have active addictions. Obviously it's probably more than is documented because that's the nature of it. And if

if it's that many people, then all those other people, they have family members, friends, people who know of a person. So I just don't think it's really going to make a popular argument because it feels instinctually disgusting. And Americans have a sense for these things. But my heart really goes out to Naomi because it's extremely scary and confusing to be

what sounds like in the whirlwind of your parents' dysfunction, like especially when the legal system then gets involved. And on top of that, I can't even imagine the added reality of having

a politically motivated persecution for the sake of public consumption to hurt his father. The guilt and shame that they are expounding within this family is so unnecessary and inhumane. And I truly believe that most Americans can sense this.

I totally agree with you. And one thing I'll say for Joe Biden, the man is, I think the fact that Hunter is stable now and can weather this incredible national embarrassment that's happening is a testament to the resilience in Joe Biden's parenting and his, you know, strength as a father towards his children. And so, you know, he said, I'm not going to pardon him if he

If he gets in trouble, he gets in trouble. We do our time. We play by the rules here. And that's something I don't think you would see a lot of other people do. But that is, again, Joe Biden is a Boy Scout in so many ways. And I think he shows great resilience as a father and as a leader. He's not perfect by any thing, but for a lot of folks, I think we could look at him and say, he's a good dad. That's a good dad.

Agreed. I think most people sense that. So this is raising my fever because I'm mad. It's raising mine too. I'm mad and I'm disgusted. And I honestly like I do hope that Hunter can maintain the resilience that he's had to this point because I think other folks, I just can't imagine that I would survive this myself. Like I think it would be really difficult to survive it.

We're rooting for you, Hunter. We're rooting for you, Hunter, and Naomi also, who is so cool in person. She sat next to me one time at an event in D.C., and I was like, you're just...

So cool. Like just so with it, like very, very stable. Eldest daughter to the extreme. Eldest daughter to the extreme. Absolutely. Taking care of everybody in the room. Yeah. And congratulations on your recent nuptials. She's the first granddaughter to get married in the White House ever. So good for her. Next up, speaking of women who are having to show resilience, Caitlin Clark was left off the women's basketball Olympic team. But here's the deal. I think she wanted to be.

She said she was tired. She carried her team through college ball right into the WNBA and has been mentally and physically difficult. It's not been an easy ride for her. She has an extended season this year because the WNBA, which is only $34 to get the WNBA package, so please support women's sports by the WNBA watch package.

The WNBA, because of her, is doing an extended season because there's such a big rise in interest in women's basketball. So they've added games. So she said that she'll be cheering on her league mates to a gold medal. And this gives her drive to try again for the Olympic team in 2028.

People are not buying it, though, and they're saying that Diana Taurasi, who is one of the greatest point guards ever, has kept Kaitlyn Clark off the team intentionally because she's jealous. And other folks say that Kaitlyn Clark isn't a team player. She can't handle the physicality of an international league. Other folks are saying that Kaitlyn's, quote, rabid fans would have been mad that she didn't get more game time because normally we watch her play like 30 minutes of a game. In the Olympics, she would have got maybe more like 10 minutes. But for me, all I hear in all of this

is people projecting on Caitlin Clark their bullshit. And the old trope that this older woman, Diana Taurasi, is looking over her shoulder to foil the younger woman who plans to replace her. I say bah humbug to that. No one can replace Taurasi. Her legacy is literally minted in gold medals. And Caitlin is building her own legacy. She doesn't need to steal or replace somebody else's. How are you feeling about CeCe being benched?

I mean, I am not a huge follower of women's basketball to understand the dynamics of this, but I did hear Jamel Hill talk about it. And what she said was that it is very, very normal for a rookie WNBA player to not be on the team USA. Like, I don't think it has ever happened.

And that she said kind of the same thing. Like she has just been up leveled into the WNBA and that it's a new level of physicality that she's just getting used to. And that it's not a bad thing that she was left off of this, but it's just because she's become this sensation. Like if she didn't become this whole sensation, like no one would have noticed that she wasn't on the team, but because she's now like,

you know, America's basketball sweetheart. Everyone's sort of like, well, what about her? It's like, actually there are women's basketball players you've never heard of. So, well, and that's the thing league's been going for 25 years now. There are people who play in the Olympics before that they're going to put back out there. They tried to say it's because she's white. Well, half the women's Olympics team is white, including Diana Taurasi. And then we, and then they were like, it's because she's straight again. Most of the league is heterosexual and a lot of them have children. So it's not that, but,

It's just, nobody's complaining that Angel Reese isn't on the team because I had read this thing about women's basketball becoming popular and it was partially constructed by the fact that they're trying to maximize betting, that betting can only go so far in men's sports. And so now they're getting into women's sports and college sports so that they could do betting and that they had to create a hero. And with every hero, it's the WWE model, there has to be a heel. And so they decided that Caitlin Clark was the hero that made Angel Reese the heel. And it's just this like,

patriarchal bullshit thing that's going on with women's sports. Caitlin Clark doesn't have a mean bone in her body for the women who got on that Olympic team. She was doing the final four when they had the training camp and they saw how the different players' chemistry would be on the court. Also, women's basketball at the Olympics for the United States

We are literally leaps and bounds above every other international team. We could send me out on the team and we would still get a gold. Okay. And I have a bad knee. So like, you know, I got a bad, what is it? Bad build butch body over here.

I am not ready to play. But that is how good the women's team is. So to give someone like Diana Taurasi, who built this league, was one of the pioneers of building this league, another chance at 41 to play, let her have it. That's what the Olympics is about. It's about giving people that glory moment. And folks are like, well, I'm not going to watch if she's not in. And I'm like, then you're a fake fan. What this does for me is I'm learning all about new basketball players. So this has been fun.

It's so fun. We'll have to go to a Liberty game next time I'm up. It's really quite fun. This is actually lowering my temperature, though. This again, and Jamil Hill said this when she was giving this interview, that this is just a sign of like men getting involved and not knowing the dynamics of

women's intra and inter team sports. Not that I know anything about that, but I know that I'm not really going to like the Dave Portnoy's of the world for his take on Caitlin Clark and the legacy of the WNBA. She didn't ask. She didn't ask to be your martyr. She didn't ask for this. The girl's just trying to play some basketball. She's incredible at it. You know what she did this past weekend? We're recording this on Monday this week, but she plays tonight. And she spent the weekend that she had off from games. She went back to Iowa and

To like sign autographs for little kids who are playing basketball and run little drills with them. She's doing great. Leave her alone. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone stop like Taylor Swifting her. Well, speaking of Taylor Swift, but not really. We love a musical release on this show, but there is a new song going around that is a bit interesting.

V, are you a fan or have you ever been a fan of Christian rock? I am accidentally a fan sometimes. I drive around a lot and I like will switch the radio station in these like cities and towns that I've never been to. And I will always end up like falling on the Christian radio station. And then I'll be like, wow, what a what a bop. What an upbeat, happy song. And then I'm like, shit, this is the Christian station. And I'm like, you know, halfway to Zion by then I can't.

I won't lie. That has happened to me too. It's like kind of a bop and you're like, oh, it's just, you know, Nickelback Creed-esque. And then it's like the Lord. So there's a new song out from a singer named Natasha Owens. It is called The Chosen One. You may have heard it. And it is about not Jesus, but Donald Trump. No. So it is like a full-on savior song. It can only be described as an ode to Donald. We're just going to play a clip of it. And here's something divine.

Can we talk about some of these lyrics?

I am deceased. I have died and I will rise again in three days since we can all apparently do what Jesus does now. You can catch me at the late show turning water into wine. I cannot with the blasphemy. Truly, are you God worshipers or not? What is going on here? I left the church, but I'm going to go back because this is crazy.

Someone needs to revive the church, the real church, not the Trump church. He's literally calling him the chosen one. That's anti-Semitic. Okay. You can't take everything from the Jews and the Jews have already claimed the chosen one. Okay. So it can't be Donald Trump too. The lyrics are so ridiculous. He gets in trouble bigly time after time. He's controversial. But one thing is true. Imperfect people, a God can use.

Oh my God. This is the worst. He's so far from imperfect too. Like he's the worst human ever.

He is an affront to all things that are godly. Can we be real here? Like I had to endure pray the gay away camp, but this guy gets a pass after being accused of 34 felonies, cheating on his wife, divorce, adultery, all these different things. I don't think so. Rape, stealing state secrets, insurrection. Like it's a miracle that this man does not go up in flames when he enters a church. The lyric is I'm standing with the chosen one. Ain't no stopping what the Lord's begun.

Come on. So many greet him with a Judas kiss, but God gave us a warrior like this? I can't. I can't. We need somebody on TikTok to remake this, but call it the felonious one. There we go. Randy Rainbow, if you're listening, we need you. This is raising my temperature, to be clear. It absolutely gave me vapors for sure. Well, while we're hot off the presses...

The Washington Post is also hot on the presses right now. Now, we told you that this was going to happen, that some spooky stuff was happening at the Washington Post with Sally Busby stepping down and Will Lewis, the right wing editor, putting his righty tighty pals into places of power all over the Washington Post. And now reporters are super freaked out. And here's what seems to be at the heart of Sally and Will's final straw fight.

When Will was working for the parent company of the British tabloid News of the World, that newspaper was accused of hacking into the voicemail accounts of various prominent people, including members of the British royal family. Busby and Lewis had recently argued over the Post's plan to report on a lawsuit's allegations that Will Lewis was involved in concealing evidence of the British tabloid's phone hacking efforts involving Prince Harry.

The New York Times says Lewis did not want the post to include him in its coverage of the story. The post did so anyway in an article that ran on May 21st. Less than two weeks later, Busby resigned from her position. And there are allegations that Will Lewis had tried to cover up stories and kill stories about himself or Rupert Murdoch's alleged criminal enterprises in the past. And he's doing it again now.

And this dude who seemingly has a habit of dodging accountability and trying to cover up scandals is now the head of one of the United States three big papers, which definitely freaks me out. But I'm glad to know a little bit more about why Sally Busby left in such a hurry. But it did not give me any peace because I really love my time at The Washington Post. There are so many good people there. And it is just it's very concerning that they have an editor that's trying to censor stories of accountability about himself.

Jeff Bezos, when I was there, Jeff Bezos, we had a whole desk assigned to him. They used to post shit about Jeff all the time, do exposés on Amazon all the time. And I remember asking the editor then that I had, are we worried about this? And they're like, no, he doesn't care. He's a billionaire. He understands. Of course, we have to write about him. Well, maybe now he doesn't because now we've got this guy coming in, but I'm very concerned about the Washington Post.

I am too, especially because the Washington Post was, it didn't have that New York Times baggage that comes with it. Right, right. Both sides baggage. And it is, you know, a legacy paper.

And what else is left? There's only so much that the reporters of The Atlantic can do. I know. And Substack is carrying the weight of the world right now with every single independent journalist who's been fired from any outlet trying to start their own distribution newsletter. It's just very, very chaotic. Yeah. I mean, this is deeply problematic. Very, very high temperature here. Like,

deathly feverish here. Well, and the thing I want folks to realize is like some of some of the people in my comments on TikTok were like, I'm going to cancel my Washington Post subscription. Please don't do that. That's what these people want. They want to see it makes it worse. They want to see destruction. They want to be able to blame it on finances and bad reporting and low subscribers like all the people that I love and care about that you love and care about are still there right now. They're writing good work. They're doing their best to

don't let them destroy it yet, you know? But keep an eye on it. The reason this is so problematic, though, is because if someone's like doesn't have sort of the basics of the ethics to the extent where they're actively covering up

things as unethical clearly as this, that's not someone you can trust to run an editorial team. Yeah. So that's the thing with The Washington Post. It's not that the reporting you get is going to be right-leaning at this point. It's how many stories will Will Lewis kill that are holding people accountable. It's more what we'll never get to see versus what we do see. So that's why I'm saying keep supporting The Washington Post. They're still doing great work. We just might not get those big investigations that we want. Or what part

What parts of certain stories get killed to make them feel less intense or more malfeasance? It's happening everywhere. My pals at Abortion Access Front just lost a major donor because that donor said to them, well, I just feel like you're not that fair to Republican women lately. This is an abortion advocacy group. So.

I mean, there's this idea that people are being unfair to Republicans. And it's like, even on my side, they're like, oh, you're so much more biased than you were. I was like, look, I liked me two years ago, too, before 513 anti-LGBTQ bills were here and I had a report on them. I liked them before Roe was overturned. The world was a safer, better place back then. But like, you know, you just got to be careful. It's a little icky weird out there.

Yeah, because people who have the money control everything. But speaking of things that are happening everywhere, I really try to do a good segue if I can. Right-wing nationalism rising everywhere. The European Union specifically. So the EU held parliamentary elections this past weekend in France, Germany, and Italy. And the right-wing, far-right, did disconcertingly well in those elections. So just to clarify, these are for seats in the EU parliament, which has

720 seats, a different number from each of the 27 EU Schengen countries. These are not elections for the parliaments of those individual countries. So this is for the broader EU.

So they're conducting simultaneous elections in various places. The major victory for the right wing was in France by Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party, which doubled the number of votes received by French President Emmanuel Macron's center left party. So that led him to immediately dissolve the lower house of the French parliament. So in addition to this EU thing, the internal French parliament.

separate from the EU French seats. He dissolved that house and called for snap elections. He said, quote, I've heard your message, your concerns, and I won't leave them unanswered. And so those elections will now be held in two rounds in France on June 30th and July 7th. So he dissolved the lower house because the president of France has more power than our president does. He essentially dissolved their house of representatives to do a snap election. Is that? Yes, because because the results in the

EU election were so clear that his party had lost support. So rather than like hold on to power, because that's what the parliament, this is the Israel system too, where it's like they can hold together enough seats to be the majority, the plurality or the majority if you need a coalition, depending on the structure. It's incumbent upon the prime minister or the president to

Call new elections if it's clear that like the majority, quote unquote, is losing support. I see. So. Wow. So the results of the EU election affected the French election, the French government. Right. Because he was like, well, you guys all want these for the right candidates. So let's.

do it right now? Yes. Then in Italy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney, also right wing, more than doubled her seats in the EU Parliament. And also in Germany, the extreme right Alternative for Deutschland Party bested German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrat Party. So the AFD party actually triumphed.

Not the AFD party. That's the Nazi party that we warned you about a couple, well, like month or so now. We changed our email address from afd at betches.com to American fever dream at betches.com because that, because we got that email from a German listener who said that the AFD is basically like Nazi dangerous. Oh my God. The

hell is going on over there? I mean, I went to Oktoberfest just a few years ago, like in 2015, and our tour guide said to us, listen up, Americans, don't do any weird Nazi shit in here or heils or any weird stuff that you think is German when you get drunk because you will be banned from the country. And now look where we are. The AFD is taking power.

So that's now back in Germany. The alternative for Deutschland is now on the rise. But on the whole, in the EU parliamentary election, the majority of the European Parliament does remain in the center-ish for now. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, she is of the Christian Democratic Union, which is a center-right party.

center-right European party, pro-European, pretty mainstream. They're allied with the social Democrats and pro-business liberals to continue this mainstream pro-European majority that can be a bulwark to preserve liberal democracy in the EU and defend NATO.

Oh my gosh, poor NATO. You know what it looks like to me? It does feel like the center is falling out. It is not fun to be a centrist. A lot of people feel stuck. We're seeing the same kind of stuff here in the United States where it's embarrassing to be a Biden supporter. It could end your TikTok career to support this administration or anybody in it. And the idea of being a centrist is just...

folks are deeply uncomfortable with it. This idea that like a little bit of both parties makes for the best compromise. They're not doing that anymore. There's no like

compartmentalization of, well, I don't like Biden's policy on this, so I can hold him accountable to that while still identifying as a liberal or as a Democrat. The left is just full canceling everyone and everything as a form of protest, and it's pushing people more to the right where they can find community and acceptance and feel like they're fighting for something.

I think we had a chance to sort of capture some of those centrists, never Trump, the former Nikki Haley voters. But with the way that things are going now,

so many people who were, you know, traditionally centrist are getting pushed right because they don't feel included in the left. They feel like they're just going to get blamed anyway, or they're not going to be enough anyway. And we always blame the incumbent government when there's any kind of unrest, but this is a whole other level. We don't want to paint everyone with a broad brush because, you know, maybe we're talking about like public Nikki Haley voters who might, you know, go more right because they don't want to deal with

the extreme leftism. But I think like the average person who is a Nikki Haley voter, especially if they're voting for her after she chopped out, they're not going to vote for, they're not going to go more right. They just sort of hold their ideals. And also we say, this is actually something we talk about in the book extensively, which is the concept of the exhausted majority, which is that over pretty much 60% of the U.S.,

It's not that they hold necessarily centrist beliefs. It's that they hold a variety of different beliefs on different issues to different extremes. But what they are actually most against is political extremism. And political extremism that is ideologically motivated comes from the far right and the far left. And most people are just silent because they don't want to deal with that.

But that is more people. And the problem is when people who are, you know, maybe they have a more nuanced point of view or maybe they do not know everything or they're open to learning, whatever it is, they don't just already hold the left or right point of view. When those people are marginalized, all there is is room for extremism. Yeah, the exhausted majority makes sense to me.

But that's what I worry about with registering to vote and getting people excited about it is that they're just they are tired and they're like being convinced through just flooding on social media that both parties are the same. Both parties are not the same. We're not voting for the lesser of two evils. There's a very clear felon on the ballot and there's a very clear, slightly flawed gentleman who overall makes good choices, but sometimes makes horrific choices. But in balance compared to the alternative candidate.

is the life that I'd rather hold this line and do better in 2028 than not have the opportunity for a vote at all. Something I find interesting that happened just this morning was Andrew Yang coming out to say, please don't vote third party. The prince of third parties said, don't vote third party. There's no such thing as a third party. Like you can't do this because if you do that, we won't even have an election in 2028. Trump will take office. He'll be a dictator. He'll change the entire system and the rules of democracy. And there's no chance for a third party. And I thought that that was pretty wild.

I appreciate that he said that. And I also want to talk about just one more thing regarding, you know, people being thinking, oh, in social media, I have to be this or this or, you know, they're both the same.

I think we get a lot of our information from social media, and I think that is what's leading to the polarization because research actually shows that the most effective way of changing people's minds or helping them learn anything about a political situation is one-on-one conversations with people you know and trust in your life. So yes, people are getting a lot of things on social media, and that approximates a real relationship.

But don't think that just because all of that social media is happening that you can't make a difference in the people you know in their lives and their opinions and their knowledge. Because that is actually a more effective way of communicating with people than all of these social posts. So just try to think about that. Like what you're doing in your everyday life matters.

Just as much and can matter more than all of the algorithmic stuff. Speaking of algorithmic stuff, I've got one more viral story from the internet that, of course, got it wrong. We have a pageant story, nothing more American than the pageant circuit.

So a plus size model named Sarah Milliken won Miss Alabama, after which she was the target of major backlash and people who claimed her victory was illegitimate because she was promoting obesity. And that was a slap in the face to the girls who worked hard and maintained a healthy diet to become a beauty queen. And it's an embarrassment to the state of Alabama.

Ma'am, your state just banned IVF. That's right. Also, cool your jets, body shamers in the South. There are many pageants, and she won the National American Miss Pageant, which focuses on interview talent and humanitarian efforts. They don't even have a swimsuit or fitness competition or whatever you want to call it. The whole goal is to

of this pageant is to help young women improve their confidence and do good for their local community. They also get a cash scholarship and a wardrobe budget and a photo shoot to help them transition into the workforce and meet other powerful women. So let people win pageants and stop being weird about it. It's also a very small group of people who were shit talking. Most folks were thrilled for Sarah Millican because she's a known local treasurer down there in Alabama.

She helps senior citizens make friends with a young person through a program she'd started called the Buddy System. And she was awarded the President's Service Award for this work. She's more loved than not. And I am so proud of her for winning this pageant and for being that example for young women everywhere. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify.

Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash tech, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash tech.

Which brings me to our main news segment.

Today we're going to talk about something called manufactured consensus, which is a word that you may have heard me use several times. It's a new phenomenon and a term coined by author and friend of the pod, Sam Woolley. Sam is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and head of the Propaganda Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

Since the invention of social media, governments, militaries, and political parties have worked to control narratives and sway public opinion. Now the country is facing another national election, and anyone can sway public opinion.

Woolley said in an interview on my old show, Be Interesting, that manufactured consensus grows out of this idea of manufactured consent. Manufactured consent is the idea that media in some ways are controlled by powerful interests and have to repeat some of what those powerful interests say and desire and want the narrative of the national conversation to be.

Manufacturing consensus furthers this idea towards social media and the digital age, saying that social media, people who make content on social media, are controlled by the power of bots that amplify or suppress particular types of content and also by a variety of other streams of manipulative tactics that we see proliferating across the Internet. Have you ever heard about the dead Internet theory? No. What is that?

So it's essentially, I think it kind of dovetails with this idea, which is that like everything online, that the internet isn't really, most of what's going on is not actual human activity. And that so much more of it is by bots that are direct, essentially this concept that are directing posts and replies and conversation in a way that they've already pre-prescribed. Yeah.

through like bots and, you know, algorithmic manipulation. But I think that that is happening for sure. I don't think like the whole internet is fake, but.

I think a lot of it is not it's inorganic is what I would call it. It is inorganic. And, you know, this is like with Trump joining TikTok and then being like, look at how many millions of followers he has. Well, I scrolled his TikTok and for like five minutes of scrolling, I didn't come up with one verified account. That's unusual for somebody of that size. If you scroll mine, you'll see a bunch of verified accounts that follow me.

I also noticed in his comments, there's a lot of copy paste comments, things that are using specific emojis. It says like, you know, and it's the same thing over and over and over and over to the point that you're like, OK, that's not real. And it's like four or five phrases. There are signs. But if you don't really look at it, which most people are not seeing a million likes. Right. You're not you. You believe that a million people like it.

Well, here's the thing. This is a great way, a tip for you when you're looking at social media accounts to determine if the engagement is real or not. That first TikTok of Trump's has, last time I looked, it was 115 million views.

It is 238,000 comments. Okay. That is a huge disparity. That's called either getting ratioed or it's an indicator of false engagement. And next week we'll bring you a little bit more, maybe the week after. I got to see how long it's going to take for me to do this investigation. But we're going to bring you the behind the scenes of the Trump account, their TikTok, because there are

ways that you can measure somebody's efficacy and true follower count. And so we're going to use some of those tools that they use on the influencers to make sure they didn't buy a bunch of bot accounts and come up with what the true number for Donald Trump is. So look forward to that in the coming weeks. But ultimately, all of this is part of a bigger conversation. I know we talk about

misinformation and disinformation. And, you know, we didn't intend for the show to go on this path of how is this shaping what's ultimately going to come about in the 2024 election and with American democracy? We understand that this is a really important conversation. We want to make it a more practical one. We're going to be running an episode next week about media literacy and how to identify and combat some of these things.

in ways that you can, as well as spreading the information. So that is what we are trying to kind of craft. And that is also information that's going to continue evolving because this is ever evolving. Andrew Yang came out today to say that a viable third party candidate is not capable of being elected to high office. And I want to second that. And I never thought I would really agree with him, but I want us to not waste our time and energy on this third party thing right now. And I'm going to show you why, but I,

but we will get there. I do believe in a third party. I personally am a member of, uh, of an alternative party, the working families party, which we'll talk about a little bit later on the show. But for right now, this is what you need to know about the third party thing. It is manufactured consensus online that a third party has the level of support that, that we might think it is, or it has the chance we might think it does. But before you left us babes, turn the dial, just listen to me because we are going to work towards building a third party. It's just not here yet. Okay. Okay.

So we'll get to that in our down ballot era. Yes. So to build an actual third party, we have to have had down ballot third party successes already. You don't start with the president, which is what it aggravates me about RFK or even Jill Stein or Cornel West running for president when they have never held a lower office. It doesn't start at the top like that.

So you have to have a mission. What is the mission of a third party? I don't know. The Republicans say that their mission is to restore the American dream through economic growth, protecting constitutional freedoms and ensuring election integrity. The party's fiscal conservatism includes support for lower taxes, gun rights,

government conservatism, free market capitalism, free trade, deregulation of corporations and restrictions on labor unions. That is their published mission statement. And you now, is that going to represent all Republicans? No, but that's what they've decided on. And that's what they put on paper.

For the Democrats, they say that their mission statement is fairness, justice and equality for all by standing up for all middle class Americans and those struggling to get there. Democratic platforms seek to promote social programs, labor unions, consumer protection, workplace safety regulation, equal opportunity, disability rights, racial equity, regulations against environmental pollution and criminal justice reform. That is what the Democrats have published as their North Stars as their mission statement.

Outside of that, you have the libertarians, I guess, who believe in individual responsibility. And since its founding on December 11th, 1971, have not been able to come to a cohesive agreement about how they would govern. Because their thing is no government. Their thing is no government. So it's not a real third party government because they don't want to participate in the structure of democracy that's set up right now for 330 million people or how many billion people live here? 330 million is about correct.

Correct.

Ever who identifies as a libertarian and that's Paul Rand and he caucuses with the Republicans and they have one member of Congress ever elected. His name was Justin Amish and he was a Palestinian Republican from Michigan, but he quit in 2020.

Now, they do have a handful of mayors, mostly small towns, and they have a national convention. And that's why they have ballot access to run presidential candidates in 38 states. So the Libertarian Party has a lot more structure than starting something for fresh, but it also has a mission statement of no government. So that's kind of

But these are the table stakes you need to have to even have a shot at the presidency. Right. So the idea that someone decided to run as an independent or whatever made up party that they have any shot at getting the presidential election without down ballot proof of concept for their government ideas is just quite honestly insane.

Yeah, and also the libertarians, the only reason they're able to have all of that infrastructure is because although their infrastructure doesn't make sense to actually be in a government, they have an ideology. It actually is a core ideology that enough people share. Maybe it's all Conor Roy's, but they share it. It's 3% to 4% of Americans, for sure. Exactly. So there's enough that can exist. They'll just never get anywhere because-

It will never grow past that. And it also is like a circular argument that doesn't make any sense, but at least it is an ideology. When we get to the part about taking care of your people, they don't want to do that. They think that there's individual responsibility over any kind of government interference, any

And interference means anything like Department of Education, Social Security, roads and bridges, shared infrastructure. So it's not going to go anywhere, right? That's the stopping point for them. Now, I would say that there is a third party, which is the MAGA party, which is the 2.0 version of the Tea Party. And it's been under construction since at least 2012 when Mitt Romney, a classic Republican, lost to Obama.

MAGA members have been elected to Congress, to the Senate, to governorships, to mayorships, to state legislatures, school boards, county commissioner jobs. They've commandeered the RNC and are right now running Donald Trump, who is caucusing with the Republicans, but make no mistake, he is his own party and they have their own mission statement. The closest we have to a real third party right now that could win a presidency is MAGA.

Well, what I think is that it's not that they're MAGA. There is no more Republican. No, they become a minority. Certainly become basically Democrats. The fact is, like the tradition, the power sources for the Republican Party have been replaced by down ballot structure, which is MAGA driven, which has been going on for over a decade now. Right. Well, like George Bush, for example, W, if he were to run, let's say he could call himself a Republican. He would not win.

Exactly. MAGA is Republican. The old school Republicans are probably going to vote for Biden or not at all, or maybe they would just vote for Trump. But that is not there is no Republican Party. It has been replaced structurally, emotionally, ideologically, morally, morally by Donald Trump's cult because MAGA is a.

Well, it's interesting you say that because I have heard people say it's a cult and that there's like a mental thing that goes on with MAGA folks that makes them able to like dig into this so hard. And so I went looking to see if there was any published research on it. And there is. According to the National Library of Medicine, who did a study of MAGA members to determine if their ideals and understanding of society differ greatly from enough Republicans to be considered their own political group.

These researchers found, yes, MAGA people are different. They are different mentally and ethically. Survey questions that supplied data for the analysis covered three broad domains. One, beliefs regarding democracy and the potential for violence in the United States. Two, beliefs regarding American society and institutions. And three, support for and personal willingness to engage in violence, including political violence. And they found that MAGA folks would answer yes to these.

They answered yes to, are U.S. institutions controlled by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who run a global sex trafficking operation? They said yes. And they agree that in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants. And they agree to the idea that physical force strong enough that it could cause pain or injury to a person is necessary and that force or violence to advance an important political objective that they support is

This study found that MAGA Republicans are defined as Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, but still deny the results of that election. And somewhat surprisingly, they found that the MAGA mentality is more likely in females.

It's more likely in women that they pulled. I was shooketh. I do see why it makes sense. Think about like your old school Republican. Take a George Bush. Take George W. You know, take those people. Think about that person. Now think about the average attendee of a Donald Trump rally. They are fascist deadheads. It is no more than an aesthetic applied to a political leader.

Like, it is not normal that people wear gowns that say MAGA on it. That is not indicative of a political idea, a political party that is indicative of something, a high control group that has bought into falsehood and idol worship on such an intense level. But the reason it makes sense to me that there are more women would fall under this necessarily is because

One, because it is a patriarchal ideology that really feeds off of fear. And in a patriarchal system, women being fearful and meek and needing protection is encouraged. And perhaps this is anecdotal, but the way I see it is that you have a huge cohort of conservative-minded Americans, many of whom are religious, who became MAGA because that's what the Republicans became.

And they're married to women who are essentially going to just be a plus one on their husband's ballot.

And they're getting a trickle-down version of things. And many of their husbands and them are just voting in the way that their pastor or their priest or whatever religious leader they follow is instructing them and or encouraging them and their congregation to vote. So at the very least, there's a ton of social pressure within these historically right-leaning cultures and in those communities. And women are basically forced to follow them.

Well, that's what they said. It's a fear-driven mentality, fear of immigrants, fear of change, fear of broadened socioeconomic opportunity, fear of gay people, fear of God, all these types of things that factor in. And that's why they said that women are more susceptible to falling for the MAGA personality. The thing that I also think is happening here is that

There's a lot about MAGA that we're made to think is true because for our whole lives, if someone like the former president said something on television, we would put that on equal playing field with some of the most trustworthy people on the planet. But Trump continues to put on a show where there are cast members and manufactured consensus all over the place.

You see him post photos of like a concert and say it's a rally. You see them post the tailgates of his rallies, but not the crowd when he's actually speaking. Because for a lot of folks, like you said, they're deadheads. They're parrot heads. They're people who show up to tailgate and have fun. But they, you know, his rallies are in the South and in Las Vegas. They're finding community. They're finding community, but they're also getting paid some of them. So some of this-

Some of this is not just what the campaign is doing for Donald, but what it does to make it look like Joe Biden has less support than he does and that these third parties have more support than they do. It's being reported that a donor to RFK Jr.'s campaign was paying $90 an hour to canvassers to get enough signatures for RFK to be on the ballot in New York. Now, they didn't exactly say, hey, will you sign this for RFK Jr. to be on the ballot so much as these folks signed.

getting paid $90 an hour, were going to Trump rallies and canvassing at these Trump rallies saying, please sign this petition so that Joe Biden won't win the election. They're not saying sign this petition to get RFK Jr. on the ballot or Cornel West on the ballot.

They're saying like, hey, sign here if you don't want Joe Biden to be the president. These MAGA people are like, yes. And to the state, a signature is a signature. So it doesn't matter. But we just have to be more careful than ever about mis and disinformation. And beyond that, we have to check our own bias when it comes to believing that this election comes down to literally anything other than Trump or Biden.

We can build a legit third party out there, and there are some budding third parties. We're going to talk about them next in down-ballot era, but we just aren't there yet. The Working Families Party, which is our down-ballot girly of the week, is in 28 states right now. They caucus with the Democrats, but they are super progressive.

And they've got MAGA but Democrat potential to move the Democratic Party further left. They've elected governors, congressmembers, and they've got a whole down-ballot state legislature full of friends. So we'll have more on them right after the break when we talk about our down-ballot early. Welcome back, friends. It is time for one of our favorite segments, not giving up and believing in the down-ballot.

Right before this, I was talking about the Working Families Party. You can find them at workingfamilies.org. And from their website, this is their mission statement. They say that they are building a multiracial party of working people to transform our country, state by state and community by community. WFP is building a political home for all of us who see bigotry, bailouts, and business as usual in our political system and ask, is this really the best that we can do?

They claim that they are building their own party on top of the two-party system in the United States, and it is working. They're organizing outside the two parties and then recruiting and training people-powered candidates up and down the ballot to run them and help them win. Sometimes they run candidates through the Democratic Party primaries, and sometimes they run candidates on their own independent.

They take elections from city council to U.S. Senate, wherever there's a path to win, and where winning will advance the people's agenda, elevate visionary candidates, and help build the multiracial movement that we need. Where I think this comes into play where people will actually encounter this in their practical lives is when you go to the ballot and you might notice that you'll have the same candidate's name twice. And

you know, you'll have the same person who's running under the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party. And let's say, you know, you're going to vote for that person anyway, but let's say you want to endorse the values of the Working Families Party specifically, even though you're going to vote for the same person. That's why I think this is working because they're not asking you to make a choice that is going to hurt the interests of the people who you're supposedly voting for. Because to vote for a third party candidate,

over the Democrats when they will not win will ultimately just get Republicans in power, which will hurt exactly the thing that, you know, people in the Working Families Party want to achieve. Maybe Biden won't go as far as that, but he has been pushed to the left and very, very, you know, on a lot of policies. So that is the actual practical effect of

seeing a candidate on your ballot that's part of the Working Families Party and voting for them under that party. They're people you recognize. So the Working Families Party, you might just be hearing about this group right now. I, again, encourage you to go to workingfamilies.org. They have everything that you want, right? You want to do a postcard campaign. You want to learn how to phone bank. You want to learn how to be a canvasser. You want to run for office. You want to meet other people who share your ideals, build community. We have it.

Folks like AOC, Jamal Bowman, Samra Brooke, my state senator that did that doula project, and hundreds of other people are on their list of endorsed candidates. So you can find them again at workingfamilies.org to see if they have a chapter in your state already. If not, join up with them, help bring them to your state. They're in 28 states right now and growing. They're well-funded. They're thoughtful. You are not alone in this. And for me, it's a great opportunity to learn from elders who know what they're doing here.

OK, from multiracial, multigender background people who have been activists in this space and who have been doing the work since I think Working Families Party was founded in 1998. So again, we have this longevity of working from the bottom up. You've got Working Family Party candidates at school board, in Congress, all over the place. So we don't have to create a third party anymore.

We've got the third party. And just like the way the MAGA movement built on top of the Republicans and then sort of like commandeered it, the Working Families Party is building on top of the Democratic platform. And eventually we hope that those progressive ideals will replace the status quo because building out here is lonely and it's hard and it just doesn't work. So we want to win elections and the Working Family Party does win elections.

Exactly. We want to win, not shoot ourselves in the foot. Yeah. And they do all the cool stuff that we like to do, right? They have rallies for progressive candidates. They have continued education for free on their website. You can attend town halls. You can learn more about issues. It is a legit place to put all that energy you have in. And again, learn from elders who are winning elections. Working Families Party, I cannot say enough about them. Well, okay. I got a rant for us. Mary can't.

Today, we promised you, we promised you we're going to talk about the rent, how the rent is too damn fixed. So this is a story that really fucking grinds my gears because it makes people's lives worse across the board and in an insidious, invisible way.

So I feel very confident I won't be alone in this. As we know, prices of everything are going up. And while some inflation has been due to legitimate increases in supply costs, there is now quite a bit of data that shows that a large proportion of these price increases are

is actually a result of price gouging by corporations who were using the pretense of increasing supply costs that, you know, a lot of that stemmed back from the pandemic in order to raise prices more than they actually have to. And they keep the extra, of course. So this isn't just about the cost of goods.

It's also housing. And housing, I mean, aside from the fact that people need it to live, it's also a major factor in the overall inflation rate. And specifically, rents have gone up by an average of over 30% nationwide. 30%. 30% on your biggest cost. Most people, their housing is their biggest cost, I would say.

And they don't do anything for it. It's not like these landlords have put any kind of like, you know, great effort into improving your housing. Truly doubtful. But it seems like the DOJ might actually be making moves because last month the FBI conducted a search warrant on a major corporate landlord called Cortland Management, which is based in Atlanta. Their investigation might be the key to cracking the code to all these high rents.

So it centers around the use of a property management software known as RealPage, which has already been named as a defendant in multiple class action lawsuits across the country, alleging that landlords who are supposed to be in competition with each other are actually using RealPage to coordinate and outsource their pricing. RealPage then provides participating landlords who should be competing with each other to get tenants in at better prices or true value prices.

like how the free hand of the market is supposed to work, right? So RealPage will give participating landlords information

Rent information, including occupancy rates, floor plans, lease terms, amenities, move in and move out dates about all of these buildings around them, which would normally be kept proprietary. But now you have this real page software as a middleman. And ultimately, that encourages landlords to work cooperatively to increase rents across the board.

Gross. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like textbook collusion price fixing, which is like a war crime in some areas. I mean, this was like my that was my exact reaction. Like without a point of coordination like this, they would each have to be independently pricing their own units. Customers could go back and forth between.

landlords to discuss the prices and negotiate the prices. And maybe they could coordinate locally with their peers at most, but this essentially enables nationwide, citywide coordination

you know, rent increases via algorithm. The algorithm is the problem yet again, because this isn't just a few landlords in a group chat. It is their massive corporate landlords that dominate the rental markets in entire metropolitan areas. There are already lawsuits in DC and Phoenix about this as well, in addition to this new investigation in Atlanta. And here are some stats about how dominant these

landlords that use RealPage are in these markets. Landlords who use RealPage account for over 53% of the multifamily rental market in Atlanta, and the use of RealPage in Atlanta has coincided with average rent increases of 56% since 2016. Can you imagine that? Wow. In DC, 60% of large multifamily buildings are setting prices using RealPage, and that is enough to move the entire market's pricing.

Well, the thing about it is it's not like we're talking about, oh, big high rise, big luxury high rise went in and they're talking to the other big luxury high rise about what they're going to price. We're talking about multifamily houses, which is like typically lower income housing. And now we're going to make it 56% more. Where are people supposed to come up with that money from? Not from their giant raises, not from all their costs. Yeah. Again, older folks living in multifamily homes and whatnot or kids, forget it.

Right. And then, okay, and then Phoenix, 70% of the multifamily apartment units are owned, operated, or managed by companies that are contracted with RealPage. Arizona's lawsuit alleges that the company actually specifically puts significant pressure on participants, meaning the landlords, to ensure that they're actually using RealPage's prices. They employ advisors who then meet with landlords to make sure that they're implementing their rates.

And one of the executives at RealPage actually said explicitly, quote, as a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually. So this enables them to just do it. And for, you know, everyone's just kind of doing their job.

And that's why the rent is so damn high. More of this. Well, you know, it's like they're leveraging groupthink in this way. It's not even like the manufacturer consensus of everybody's doing it or that it's okay to do. It's groupthink. It's like, well, if I don't do it, then then my neighbor is going to do it. Well, I might as well do it. Well, I don't want to be the one that gets left out of it. Like horrific, horrific. And

And again, it's corporate landlords. It's Wall Street. Yeah. They'll also fire them. Right. I would like to look into this next. Who owns RealPage? I know. Ugh. I have the sweetest landlord in New York. Bernie would never. He would never. It's Promise Bravo, a Chicago-based real estate investment firm that currently maintains over $130 billion in assets. Ooh.

They own them. It's terrible. But now that the DOJ is involved and they're investigating it, at least it puts a spotlight on it and hopefully some change can come from it. We also can't get blood from a stone anymore, right? Like as Americans, we've been squeezed every which possible way. You just can't get anymore for some dude to have like a third yacht or some like boomer to own a fourth investment property. Like

People need to live in the houses. That was one of the things that happened here in Rochester. They were going to knock Zillow out. They were going to say, you can't have Zillow anymore and you can't do Airbnb and all this stuff. And they're like, well, if I can't do that, then I would like,

I would just sell my rental properties. And the mayor was like, good. Yeah. So if we're not going to let you Airbnb, they're like, well, what am I going to do then? And he was like, sell it. We need people to live in these houses. Not everyone can be an investment property person, especially when it gets to a point where I've had so many houses I rented or apartments I've rented. And I'll be like, the water's broken. And they're like, well, it's not in the budget to fix it. And I'm like, well, it better be in the budget to fix it. Or, you know, they just do these janky repairs.

They're like, well, my mortgage is basically pretty much only the cost of your rent. I'm only making a couple hundred dollars a month. I can't do these repairs. And I'm like, okay, well. Then why did you become a landlord? That was your choice. That was your risk, right? You took on the risk. You get the reward. Well, the risk is that the floor fell out of the shower and I need you to come and fix it. That's what drives me so crazy about all this. It's like, okay, well, you took on the... Yeah, you get all the rewards. So sometimes you have to deal with the risk. No.

I do just want to say, RealPage is located in Texas, meaning they pay no fucking taxes. Oh, no. They also acquired ClickPay, which I used to use to pay my rent no longer. Yeah, we're going to have a class action lawsuit against...

These rent ghouls. Well, that's what we're here for. We're here to bring bad news to you, dump it on you, and then run away. Bye. That's the end of the episode. That's our show. We hope that you learned a whole bunch here. You feel safer. Please write us emails. We love reading your emails. And next week, we'll be back with a different kind of show. We're going to be talking about media literacy and just tips and tricks and points on how to be the smartest person in your group chat again and make sure that

I was worried about my parents like losing their house because they believe some scam that just seemed so real. So we want to help you make sure that your friends and parents don't don't get in a bad situation over just some janky AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got to tell them to like check stuff really, really intensely. Even Bravo Andy Cohen was scammed out of a lot of money. So it happens to people who are smart and have resources and are Internet savvy. Right.

Right now on YouTube, there is an ad of your pal, V Spear, selling Trump coins because somebody took one of my TikToks, that somebody being the Epoch Times, took one of my TikToks, manipulated it and made it look like I was selling Donald Trump's Agenda 47 and this coin. So we're working with YouTube to get it down, but this is the shit part. They told me because Under the Desk News is a trademarked brand, but my TikToks are not copyright material.

They don't actually know how they're going to get around this in the future, which is so scary and dangerous. But there's a ton of this out there and we'll talk more about it next week. Take it to the Supreme Court. I know. Like, I'm just too tired. I'm the exhausted majority. Until next time, I'm Vita Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream.

American Fever Dream is hosted by Vitus Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sous-McCatt, Jorge Morales-Picot, and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sous-McCatt. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.