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I think what you're trying to ask is why am I so insistent upon giving out to them that blackness, that black power, that black pushing them to identify with black culture. I think that's what you're asking. I have no choice over it. In the first place, to me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, black people.

I mean, and I mean that in every sense, outside and inside. And to me, we have a culture that is surpassed by no other civilization, but we don't know anything about it. So again, I think I've said this before in this same interview, I think at some time before, my job is to somehow make them curious enough or persuade them

by hook or crook to get more aware of themselves and where they came from and what they are into and what is already there and just to bring it out. This is what compels me to compel them and I will do it by whatever means necessary. Welcome to the Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore. It is Tuesday, March the 18th, 2025 on this edition of the Politocrat

young people in America and their disaffection with the country and government. Plus, Israel continues to commit war crimes as Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli government breaks the ceasefire by bombing and killing at least 400 Palestinian people in Gaza. The Democratic Party must get its act together. All of that and more coming up

Bombs have been dropped on tents, on shelters where families were staying. Dozens of children have been killed. Scores more have been injured. And it was also obvious last night. After those 15 initial minutes of very intense bombardments, the bombing subsided somewhat. There was more space between the explosions.

And during those spaces, I could hear people outside screaming for help. And I could hear ambulances driving off and on. So it's been a very difficult night for families here in Gaza. There has been quite a lot of fear that was hanging in the air before these bombardments. Already with the closure of the crossings to aid supplies and with the electricity being cut off,

to the water desalination plants, it was obvious that things were headed in the right direction. And as I was walking through different areas of Gaza the past weeks, parents and children would walk up to me and they'd see the UN logo and they would ask me questions like, since you're from the UN, can you tell us, do you know if the ceasefire is going to halt

What is it that you would do in our place? Our homes are in Jabalia. There's quite a few neighbors who've gone back to Jabalia, but we're staying here in Al-Mawasi because the situation is very fragile, isn't it? What do you think? And what...

that the UN is doing to prevent the war from breaking out again. And interestingly, even small children were asking me those questions. So it was very vividly present on their minds. Children have been very preoccupied with the state of the ceasefire and its fragility.

And indeed, that is where we are, the fragility of a ceasefire shattered by Benjamin Netanyahu, the war criminal of Israel, and the Israeli government as they have killed over 400 people this morning in the bombing of Palestinian people in Gaza as the country was

This region has been thrown under siege for years and for decades now. And the Israeli government continues to commit war crimes. Benjamin Netanyahu continues to commit war crimes.

in Israel with this violence against the Palestinian people. Now, I want to connect all of this horror to what's been going on in Tel Aviv because just six days ago, the Jerusalem Post

wrote a story published a story by Michael Starr and this is what it says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploded in a rare emotional outburst when the judges sought to expedite the review of every item of the indictment during his Wednesday corruption trial testimony quote I can't accept

"What is being said here?" shouted Netanyahu, slamming his fists on the stand. Netanyahu roared that his life had been upturned by lies and an evil indictment. The lies forced him to come to court twice a week. At least the court could allow him to address what he said were falsehoods. For the second time in the hearing, Netanyahu turned his eye on the prosecution, but during his outburst, describing their malice,

against him in more heated terms. The judges took a more conciliatory and empathetic tone. They explained how certain legal issues were being explored to a certain point of redundancy, and they wanted to review other matters as well. Netanyahu regained his composure when a message came through an aide, and he requested a long break to address government matters. And that was in the Jerusalem Post on March the 12th of this year, 2025, literally just six days ago.

And I really do believe that this bombing was done to take the attention off of Netanyahu and his corruption trial and his testimony and distract the Israeli public and focus them again on Hamas and on the Palestinian people. I totally think that that's what this was. And they have now

That means the Israeli government specifically. They have now violated this ceasefire. Now, the ceasefire was agreed to in the last weekend of President Biden's administration. Literally that, I think Sunday, literally, I think it was. The ceasefire was announced, I think, on Friday in January, that weekend before Trump got sworn in. And then on Sunday, it officially went into effect. So it was at least Thursday or Friday of that weekend.

a weekend in January before Dr. King's holiday on that Monday, the 20th of January, which happened to be the same day that Trump, this evil piece of excrement of a man, got sworn in. And the ceasefire went into effect that Sunday, the day before Trump got sworn in. And now, barely, barely two months later, less than two months later, Netanyahu breaks the ceasefire.

Netanyahu is a war criminal and war criminals aren't people to be trusted. And so the excuse from Netanyahu as well, the Palestinian, the Hamas wouldn't agree to release, guarantee to release more hostages. Well, they've been releasing hostages since January. I read about that just last week. They just released some more hostages. You know, in the Financial Times or in whichever paper I was reading it in,

I wish I could dig it up so I could read it back to you. But the bottom line is, Hamas has been releasing people. So I just think that this is just a really feeble excuse and really a pretext to go and take the heat off of Hamas.

Netanyahu in his trial, he wants to hold on to power. That's what this is all about. That's the bottom line here, folks. And that's my view of it, at least. I think that he wants to hold on to power. And there's so many people like this in governments who, leaders who, when they see that there are crises going on at home that threaten to overwhelm them or

take them out of office or whatever it might be, they launch wars. They launch attacks to distract the public away and get the public support. We've seen this all over the world. We've seen this here in the US in particular as well. People launching drone strikes on other countries after all kinds of things are going on.

You know, this kind of thing happens a lot. We've seen this with I think Bill Clinton did this during his impeachment trial, or at least maybe the year after I think it was it was during his impeachment trial, if I'm not mistaken, his impeachment vote, I should say.

And the impeachment trial. We've seen this with a number of people. Margaret Thatcher did the same thing as the UK Prime Minister, waged an illegal war with the Falkland Islands. It was just absolutely insane. You know, just over the Falkland Islands with Argentina.

That was when her poll numbers were in trouble. And what did she do? She waged a war over the Falkland Islands. I mean, it was just crazy, crazy. That was in the early 1980s or the late 1970s. I forget which.

But this has happened in a number of places across the world. And I definitely think that this violation of the ceasefire was all about trying to take the heat off of Netanyahu's trial and his corruption trial, because he is a corrupt person in my view. Of course, there's no solid evidence of that. Well, I haven't seen the evidence, but this guy has been on trial now for 17, at least been 17 days, I think, or at least testified 17.

for 17 days, I guess. He's been on and off over the last few days. But this guy is certainly not above board, put it this way. But we see evidence of his war crimes. And that's very, very clear. And violating a ceasefire would be one of those. And another thing is, long after the atrocities of October 7th of 2023 have ended, and those were clearly atrocities,

The bombing continues in Gaza of innocent people, 48,000 people and counting. This is absolutely a war crime.

And I think instead of only bringing in people like Rodrigo Duterte, the former dictator of the Philippines, the brown man, in before the Hague and the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Court had better start bringing in more white male criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu, like Vladimir Putin. Those kinds of war criminals also need to be hauled in before the Hague.

And not just the brown or the black people that you put before the Hague. It's very easy to do that, isn't it? But somehow we seem to see a dearth of white men who commit all these violent acts in power. Somehow they're not before the International Criminal Court in the Hague. And they need to be. They need to be. And they must be. Children having to ask...

The UNICEF representative whom you heard there, her name is...

Rosalia Bolland, UNICEF spokesperson, talking there. You heard her in that audio. Talking about small children asking questions to her about when will the ceasefire hold. I mean, this is the thing that young, small, small children. It should not be that small children are asking them kinds of questions. They should be asking about books and things that they're reading and learning about. Not about whether or not the ceasefire is going to hold.

But of course this is what war does to kids. And what do you think these little children, these small children are going to become when they get older? What do you think their outlook on life and on the world will be? Shouldn't be having to learn about bombs and bloodshed. But they are, that's their lesson. In the real true sense of it, there is no childhood for the children of Gaza or the children of Sudan or numerous other regions of the world. So

When you have children, small children, asking the questions of Rosalia Boland, the UNICEF spokesperson, that are about not how lovely and blue the sky is and when the sun will set, but will these bombs keep falling and is the ceasefire going to hold? You know that we have a really cruel and harsh world out here. The bombing must stop in Gaza. The killing of innocent people

in Gaza, innocent Palestinian people in Gaza must end now. Apparently Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, is postponing several planned events, according to the AP this week, to promote his new book, Anti-Semitism in America, a warning which I'm sure is a very important book. But Chuck Schumer is in a world of hurt right now because he compromised with the Republicans, got that CR through the Senate, and which has been, you know,

lambasted by progressives as a giveaway to Elon Musk and Donald Trump to continue doing what they've been doing, which is ripping the federal government to shreds. And a lot of Democrats are telling me privately, and some are starting to say it publicly, they want Chuck Schumer to go. What are your thoughts?

Fuck Chuck. That's the only thing that I could possibly say. When I saw him do that, Jim, I'm glad that I'm not on either cable news or one of the major media. We can say this here on Sunday. And I say that as somebody who has historically been okay with Schumer. Yeah.

Imagine. Maybe replace Chuck might be a nicer way to put it. Okay. You're a New Yorker. I'm willing to change that. I shouldn't have done it. My mom will probably yell at me at this point. Maybe Chuck Chuck. I don't know. Something like that. Something like that. But here's the thing. He gave away the one power without even a fight. I did another Substack, I think, on Saturday on this. He gave up the only power that the Democrats had within which to

stop this Republican barrage on our rights and just...

abusing the system. He gave it up without even a fight. And that's exactly why Kamala Harris lost. It's exactly why Biden was getting crushed. It's why the Democrats right now are losing numbers of people. It's why 8% of the black community walked away from the Democratic Party. It's why now, what, another 18% of

the Hispanic community. They want somebody that's going to get up and fight for them. Show a little, show a little life in you. Show that you really are out there protecting us, even though they know what Trump is doing. You know, here's the thing about that. You just heard Michael Cohen there with Jim Acosta on the Jim Acosta show on Substack yesterday.

You heard in the last few moments of that clip, oh, there was 8% of the black community who didn't vote for Democrats. Well, if 8% of the black community didn't vote for the Democrats in that election in November in 2024, that means that 92% of black people did.

But you see, this is the thing, if you're going by the kind of thing that Michael Cohen is saying, when he talks about that and then talks about, well, you know, and 18 or whatever percent of the 20% of the, as he calls it, quote unquote, Hispanic community didn't vote for the Democrats. What about white people? Why didn't he mention white people who don't vote for the Democrats in a majority every election but two since 1952?

Isn't that just so interesting how Michael Cohen completely ignores people who look like him, white folk like he, who, by the way, and he's a Republican or was a Republican, you know, white people who don't vote for the Democrats far outnumber black people who don't and far outnumber Latinos who don't.

So instead of concentrating on two groups who are much more loyal to the Democratic Party over the last 70 years than white people are, you might want to focus on the white people who aren't loyal to Democrats, the vast majority of whom are voting for the Republican every election that is presidential. You might want to focus on a group that looks like you, Michael. That's what I have to say about that.

Now, as for the fuck Chuck bit that he said earlier in that clip, I'm in full support of it. Obviously I am. Otherwise I wouldn't have repeated what he said. And it's true. Chuck Schumer has had to cancel, cancel several dates on his book tour, including one here this week in San Francisco, where he was peddling his new book on antisemitism. And the reason he has had to cancel it

is not to so-called threats. It's because of his own doing. He has sabotaged himself as well as sabotaged the lives of millions of people in the United States whose lives now in a number of areas are going to be made even harder thanks to the capitulation of the so-called Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, who last week decided to

Join nine other Democrats to vote for cloture, which meant vote for cloture.

a simple majority. Vote for cloture means to end debate, to close debate in the Senate. That's what he chose to do. That required 60 votes, which meant that you'd need eight Democrats to join the 52 Republicans in order to make that happen. And not only did eight Democrats join it, 10 Democrats joined it. 10 Democrats joined the Republicans to end debate. Some of those Democrats aren't running again.

A number of them are. And it was a cowardly capitulation by Chuck Schumer and those nine other Democrats. Angus King is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. He is not running again. He has announced that. And so he's not running again. Jeanne Shaheen voted for this too in the cloture. She's not running again. She announced that last week. And so I think there may be one other in that group of 10. But it's despicable.

He had 10 Democrats. That number 10 seems to be very common in the Democratic Party lately. Last week, he had 10 Democrats vote to censure Al Green, a fellow Democrat. It's interesting how that number 10 comes around. 10 again last week, 10 again the week before or that same week last week with the voting to censure Al Green. Is there going to be another 10 Democrats this week on something?

So you can understand the frustration with some of the Democrats now. And as I've said to you before, dear listener, leadership needs to change in the Democratic Party. I think that's beyond obvious. Leadership is an issue in the party and it is lacking. Chuck Schumer needs to no longer be the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. I think that's beyond obvious now.

And he has no credibility. I'm not sure that he ever has had credibility or certainly has not had it for some time, especially last year when he talked about we're going to definitely take back the House, the Senate, and we'll have full control. I'm confident of that. And that didn't happen, did it now?

So Chuck Schumer has to take a hit here. He has the ire of Speaker Pelosi, a Speaker Emerita, against him. She was not happy with him last week. Hakeem Jeffries basically made it clear by not answering a question last week that he probably agrees with a new leadership. Chris Murphy was on a clip I saw on social media on Meet the Press, a terrible news program in my view, basically.

But Chris Murphy, in a clip I saw on social media, was saying that this is not the time necessarily right now, right now, emphasize, right, to talk about leadership in the Senate Democrats. But maybe later. He didn't close the door on any of this.

And Kristen Walker asked him, well, should you be the next leader of the Senate? Well, in the Democratic Senate. Well, I think that Chris Murphy obviously can put his name forward. And look, he's a moderate. He's trying to be a bit more populist these days, perhaps positioning himself for a run for the White House in 2028, if we even have the election by then.

Because I think that this orange criminal will do everything to prevent elections from happening and will declare martial law, freeze elections and keep these band of vagabonds and criminals in power and keep the people from voting. I mean, I think that that's exactly what's going to happen. Now, I pray that I'm wrong.

But this guy now has no accountability to answer to. He has absolutely none to answer to. And as you know very well, he's not beholden to anybody now, you know, and he'll probably be looking at a third term. There'll be these Republicans have already in the House. Some of these wackadoodles have made it very clear they want him to run a third time.

And J.D. Vance was talking about, and this didn't get covered in the U.S. press, surprise, surprise, was talking in the Irish Star last week about needing to change the way elections are run in the United States. I'm telling you, this is happening. The Americans, the average American doesn't give a damn. And that's the truth of it all. Don't care that there might be an issue with not being able to vote.

in the near future. It's just absolutely tragic that people don't care enough about any of this. And I understand people are discouraged by politics, people are discouraged by this and by that and by the other. But that doesn't mean that we should just check out of the process. We should really try to

Push ourselves to want to learn more, study more, and then look at why things are the way they are and challenge those people who are discouraging us and get them out of office. I mean, that's really where this should be. It should not be anywhere but there. And so I am of the mind to...

Dear listener, that is the remit and the mandate now for us. And we need to be in that place and in that space to get involved and not sit on the sidelines. We can't afford to sit on the sidelines. This is all about the future, our children's futures and the futures of generations to come. And not just here in the United States, across the world, as I've already been talking about on this episode.

This is the time for us to get involved and not get alienated. It's very easy to feel that way and it's understandable that many people do. And now is the time for us to get involved, get educated and get organized.

Somebody calling from the Hayward Hills, Irene just called in and said she felt it. I felt it. I'm always thinking, is that an earthquake? Is that an earthquake? We're on the 10th floor building here on Market Street in San Francisco, and you definitely could feel it. We're still waiting on information from the USGS services, but many people anecdotally on social media saying that it's a pretty big one. So we're, again, waiting on some more details.

Well, the details are these. Last night here in San Francisco, there was an earthquake. Look, I know for most people who stumble across this podcast, they probably don't care about whether there's an earthquake in San Francisco unless you're in San Francisco, pretty much, or have friends or relatives or family here. But the fact of the matter is, is that when these things happen, earthquakes happen all the time across the world. And

and the vast majority of those earthquakes we never ever feel but of course once you get to three or four on the scale if you will 3.0 and above you do feel those and not everybody feels them it depends on where you are depends on where your location is depends on how close you are to the site of the earthquake how deep or how shallow it is all those things but

At some point or another in California, you will experience an earthquake. No matter where you are, you will most likely experience one. And I've experienced some that were a lot more harrowing than the one that occurred last night here. Now, it initially was reported as a 4.2 magnitude earthquake by the USGS.

That has since been downgraded. It happened just around, just before 8 o'clock last night local time. And it's now been downgraded to a 3.9 magnitude. Literally 5 kilometers west-northwest of Dublin, California. Now Dublin is in the East Bay. Now that is east of San Francisco. And that's where the...

location, the rough location of the earthquake was. So it was a pretty vigorous shaker, happened for about maybe two seconds, pretty quickly, two vigorous jolts, and then it stopped. And then there was actually an aftershock, I think of 2.9, about a couple of hours later, literally almost two, exactly two hours later. So that's what happens here in California. That's the one knock on this state.

Well, two, wildfires, which of course Los Angeles, the Los Angeles area knows all about, and the earthquakes. Those are the two things that I think give people pause. The earthquakes perhaps more so because they can happen anywhere. But wildfires have become increasingly more common in California now with climate change. And so they can happen at any time, literally any time of the year. So

That's what's happened here. And you heard that clip from KCBS News Radio last night as they were talking about the earthquake. It happened literally just to... That clip was maybe... That audio was maybe less than three minutes after the earthquake took place. So, yeah, you know, especially when these earthquakes come at night, they can rattle your psyche if they come late at night. Now, this was, you know, was still...

pretty much light outside here as the clocks went forward, of course, last week. And so it was pretty much light here still. But, you know, when those earthquakes happen in the dead of night,

Those can be a whole other animal, especially if they're more than four or five on the Richter scale or on the scale. And I've experienced some of those that are at 6, 6.1. Some people, of course, experienced the one back in 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake. But the bottom line is wherever you are in the world, remember, if you feel any earthquake that's pretty severe or even not severe, you can stop, drop and cover that.

That's what the directive is here in California. But even if you can't stop, drop, and cover because maybe you're an older individual, you have back problems or knee problems, make sure that if you experience shaking in your house or your apartment or in any structure, that you stand in a doorway. That's the safest place other than underneath a table for you to be during an earthquake.

You actually are safer inside a building than you are out on the street. Why? Because as I've said many times before, all of the loose structures and signposts and signage and, you know, tele pole and telegraph wires and street lamps, they can all fall. They can all fall.

and those are tall, long structures, trees. They can all be uprooted and they can all fall. And when those things fall in as tall, as heavy as they are, they can quickly strike you. Whereas if you're in your home and you stand in the doorway,

you are in the safest place possible, standing in the doorway, in an archway of your house or your apartment. It's a much, much safer proposition there. And you are likely to be far safer and at far less greater risk from injury than if you are standing outside on the street somewhere, or if you're standing in your house and you're not near a doorway. You just have to get to a doorway as quickly as you are possibly able to do,

and away from any falling objects because, you know, obviously in your house you can have objects fall and, you know, you've got to be very careful with that.

as well. So you have to keep in mind all of those things. So that's really what I wanted to say about that. As far as the earthquakes are concerned, and the earthquakes are a thing of life here in California and a number of other places and countries across the world, you know, Japan, for example, has a lot of earthquakes, you know, they have them routinely, Chile,

Chile in South America, another place where you get a lot of earthquakes. You know, I can think of a number of other places as well. Haiti is a place where you've had some major earthquakes over the last 10 or 15 years. We remember the one in 2010, one that also one from about three or four years ago.

as well. So, you know, there are a number of places across the world where earthquakes are very, very common and quite powerful as well. So hope everybody's safe. For those of you, if you're someone, dear listener, who happens to be living in California, I do hope that you are safe.

and that everything is going okay. And if you're living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I do hope that you're also okay, especially those of you in Dublin, in the East Bay, where the earthquake was much more epicentered, if you will, last night. I'll be right back.

Great, great Michael Monday as always. You can't make this stuff up. You can't. It's sad that this is where our country is at right now. We're better than this. In fact, wouldn't we all just like to wake up tomorrow without a post, without the chaos, without the fighting? Folks had that chance. I was walking on Fifth Avenue.

Oh, we're so much better than this. We're better than this. No, Michael Cohen, we are not better than this. Please stop saying that. Anyone who says that the United States is better than this is not a student of history and definitely not a student of American history. We are not better than this. If we were better than this, you wouldn't have had 77 million people vote for this election.

You wouldn't have had another 90 million people stay at home. So in essence, you had 167 million people vote for this. That's almost half the population of the United States. We are this. And it is time for Michael Cohen and anyone else, especially a lot of white people in America, to face up to that truth.

and actually read and understand American history and learn it and the violence that took place in this country perpetuated by white men and women against black people, against brown people, against Native Americans, against Chinese, against Japanese, and against many other groups. You might want to look at that history. You might want to look.

What happened to Chinese miners in Wyoming in 1885? The massacre that took place of many of those Chinese miners by white men and women. You might want to read up on that. In fact, there's an article in a recent edition of the New Yorker magazine that talks about this. And there are books on this. You might want to.

Study up on the battle at Wounded Knee, also in the 1800s. You might want to do that. You might want to. Look at all of the violence against black people in the United States committed by white people. You might want to be reading books about all this. This is exactly who we are. This is who we are. And instead of saying this is not who we are, it's about time we faced who we are and did something to change who we are.

As James Baldwin once said, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Dear listener, welcome back. And finally, to mention something I actually talked about briefly in passing, a

A story in the Financial Times today. Unhappy young Americans lose confidence in the state. Experts cite inequality, polarization, and dominance of social media as factors. And this is an article written by Valentina Ramay and Zahra Munir.

Young Americans' confidence in the apparatus of government has dropped dramatically to one of the lowest levels in any prosperous country, a Financial Times analysis of Gallup data shows. The Gallup polls, conducted by surveying 70,000 people globally over the course of 2023 and 2024, found less than a third of under-30s in the U.S. trusted the government.

The proportion of U.S. young people who said they lacked freedom to choose what to do with their lives also hit a record high at 31% in 2024, worse than all other rich economies bar Greece and Italy.

For younger people in the U.S., the future seems kind of bleak, says Julie Ray, managing editor of Gallup. While the Gallup poll does not cover the direct repercussions of Donald Trump's second term, experts believe rising political polarization is likely to lead to a sharp drop in trust in future surveys.

Conor Brannan, a 25-year-old financial economics PhD student at the University of Chicago and disillusioned Republican, said he trusted the big figures in politics a little less now than in the past. Friends, families, these days...

are more and more torn apart by politics and seeing that politics taken as almost entertainment, Brennan said, it should be boring. It really has become more and more like you watch the latest episode of the sitcom, end quote. And that's part of an article in today's Financial Times. And what Conor Brennan, 25 years old, and a quote unquote disillusioned Republican said is very true.

And those comments reveal two things that aren't really talked about in that first portion of the article that I read you, but was in the subtitle of the headline of the article. The idea that the friends and families are torn apart these days by politics is due to Donald Trump, number one. Number two, politics is entertainment. That's the media and social media. That's what they have done.

The way that politics is covered now is about personalities. It's been like that for years in the US, corporate news media, covering politics like it's a celebrity game and covering it as personalities rather than policy, which explains why whenever there's a debate about policy, most of these corporate news media channels skip that

and go back to their panel of pundits talking about, well, who came out better in that debate? Who came out better in that argument? Rather than talking about the actual issues that they were debating about. In fact, the debate itself, since the League of Women Voters was shunted off to the side here, and these corporate networks became the controllers of these debates,

The debates have become sideshows. These debates are complete sideshows now. Oh, answer this question in five seconds. Answer it in 15 seconds. You've got 20 seconds, 30 seconds to respond. Soundbites for complex problems. Soundbites for complex problems. How can you take that seriously? If you're 25 years old, like Conor Brennan or of any age,

When politics has been reduced to a soundbite thanks to media and debates and social media and disinformation on social media and the personalityfication of politics, instead of covering the people affected by politics and policy, you're covering those people who are in power like they are game show contestants. Which one came out better? You're the winner!

That's how this is being covered and has been here in the United States for many years. I can assure you Dan Rather, when he was at CBS News, didn't cover it like that. I can assure you David Brinkley, when he was at ABC News, didn't cover it like that. Nor did Barbara Walters, nor did Carol Simpson, and nor did, of CNN fame, Bernard Shaw. They didn't cover it like that. Mike Wallace, in his heyday, didn't cover it like that. And certainly, certainly not Walter Cronkite.

But these days, these last 25 years or so, it's been all like that. And that's why, in part, you have young people, people under 30, in the United States, feeling completely disconnected from government, don't trust it. They see the hypocrisy. They see that nobody's speaking to their issues. They're seeing people like Chuck Schumer cave. And they're seeing Donald Trump being a complete terrorist and criminal.

He doesn't care about Conor Brennan. No wonder Conor Brennan and other people who are in his age group and age bracket have a very disaffected feeling about government in this country. And that's dangerous because it leans towards Trump. It leans towards Putin. Putin, if he ever read this article in today's Financial Times, would be salivating over this. Absolutely salivating.

Because it means that his campaign of disinformation and disruption and affecting the elections has worked. And young people are the future in this country, in any country they are. And Conor Brennan is a voting age. And if he is disaffected with U.S. government and doesn't really trust it as much as he might have done or trust the quote-unquote big figures in politics, is he going to trust himself to go and vote? Are many young people going to trust themselves to vote?

The thing is that young people have to vote and it's up to those young people, but also up to these parties who represent or purportedly represent young people to persuade them and tell them why they need to vote. And not only that,

Those parties need to be an example. They need to set an example for young people. They need to show that they are fighting for young people, that they care about the issues that young people care about. They need to talk to young people. They need to hear young people. They need to listen to young people instead of talking at young people. You can't genuflect with some celebrity going to a neighborhood or a celebrity concert. You've got to speak to young people directly. And Vice President Harris did that.

But there were too many celebrity events. This is not a party. This is time to actually get real and engage with the average young person and listen to them and what matters to them. And you need to be honest with them. Chuck Schumer doesn't relate to people who are in the age group of that 25-year-old. He doesn't relate to them. He's 75 years of age.

He's old enough to be Conor Brennan's grandfather. It really is about time that the Democratic Party gets younger. And also, we need to really curb social media. There needs to be some kind of regulation of it. And Congress needs to step up and do that. But I think Congress is not going to do a damn thing.

They are more concerned about the money that they get in campaign contributions from these social media companies and people like Mark Zuckerberg and people like the Google president and people like and so on and so forth than they are about regulating social media in any appreciable way. They know that misinformation and disinformation thrive on social media. They know that. They know that.

Social media is an absolute graveyard. And for young people, it really is a graveyard. So many people end their lives based on some social media posts or some harassment and bullying. Instagram is one of the worst places for it. TikTok is right there as well. It's despicable. There's a great documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix. If you get Netflix, watch that documentary. It is really powerful.

You have people taking their lives, kids, 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 16-year-olds. All this exposure to social media, it puts you in a silo. It separates you from human contact. And you're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to doom and despair and loneliness and isolation. This is not healthy for you. It's not healthy for any human being, especially someone who's 14 years.

whose brain is still forming. And no wonder then that there is this disconnection from government because of all the disinformation out there and the game show hosts, the PT Barnums, whom the media throws all the attention at instead of talking about the policies and the issues that affect you, that affects any young person. So there's no connection.

And so when there's no connection, there's disaffection. And when there's disaffection, there's no trust. And that means you end up isolated, upset, angry. And when you are in that category, despair is the only option for you. And you end up tuning out and dropping out. And then you become a complete renegade. And then what? It gets worse from there. I don't have to fill in any gaps.

or blanks, because it is a very problematic thing. And so people who have power need to use it wisely and they need to start connecting with young people. They really need to. And if I were a Democratic Party politician, I'd be doing that yesterday because you can't roll up to a group of young people in September of next year.

talking about why it's important, why they must vote, why the midterms are the most important election of our lifetimes. If you haven't done the groundwork in March of 2025 and every month after that, leading up to next year and next September and next November with those young people, you haven't been connecting to them. You haven't been talking to them. You haven't been on their podcasts. You haven't been on social media yet.

in the proper social media fora to connect with them. And you've not visited them and you've not done any of that. And you've not had young people forums. You've not invited a whole host of young people to be with you in person somewhere. If you've not done that, and if you're not doing that, and you're a Democratic Party politician, be prepared to have another low voter turnout next year. You need to be doing this groundwork now.

And there are some politicians, the Bernie Sanders of the world, the AOCs of the world, the Jasmine Crockett's of the world, the Chris Murphy's of the world, the Rashida Tlaib's of the world, and the Ayanna Pressley's of the world, the Elon Omos of the world, who actually are doing these town halls all over the country in Republican areas as well. We need to be connecting to the young because they are the future. And having a dance contest and dancing and dancing, that's not going to cut it.

There are a lot of young people who might like to dance and like to party. But after the party's over, they want to know if they're going to have any medical protection, medical care, if they're going to have health care to protect them, if they're going to be able to get their student loans taken care of. Biden-Harris did that. They took care of a lot of loan forgiveness, didn't they? And now you've got someone in the White House who says, no, we're scrapping all of that.

But when you as a young person vote for people like Donald Trump, you do see what you get. And disaffected people will make those kinds of mistakes. And so someone who only panders to young people and who has the glint of celebrity-dom in celebrity-dom in their eye and whom seems like somehow an attractive figure to the young because he surrounds himself with these idiots at the Republican National Convention, all the rest of it,

It's someone that young people, some young people will gravitate to. He went on their podcasts. He did this. He did that. Vice President Harris didn't do much of that. And when she did do it, it was far too late. September and October of an election year is way too late to be going on podcasts when what you, not you, Vice President Harris, what the Democratic Party should have done is done this earlier.

from the day of the inauguration of Joe Biden, where he should have every week spent 15 minutes on a young person's podcast out of his very busy time, wherever he was in the world, he needed to spend 15 minutes being in touch with young people. That's what he needed to do. He didn't do that. The Democratic Party apparatus didn't do that.

And you've got a Democratic Party that is old, old leadership, old ass leadership and no connection to the youth except for Representative Jasmine Crockett, Representative AOC, Representative Ilhan Omar, Representative Ayanna Pressley and so on and so forth. And even one of the old heads, Bernie Sanders, who seems to connect with some young people.

But the bottom line is, is that the Democratic Party strategy toward young people needs to improve. The Republicans forget it because all they're promising is genuflecting to white boys. They don't care about white girls or black girls or black men or black boys. They don't care about any of those groups, Latinos. They care about power. They don't care about you. We've already seen Trump voters get deported.

So this is not about you. And the Democratic Party now needs to step into the breach, open its eyes and start fighting for the everyday person and especially the everyday young person because you're blowing it. You're blowing a big opportunity right here, right now, right now to capture a very disaffected segment of society. You have to start listening to young people or they will begin to tune you out.

And by the sounds of this article that I read you part of, they're already doing that. Democrats are going to have to get serious. New leadership and new connections are needed.

The listeners, you can follow along on social media, various social media platforms, including Fanbase, fanbase.app, forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. Please join the Fanbase revolution today with Isaac Hayes III and go to startengine.com forward slash fanbase to invest in the Fanbase today, spoutable.com forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. Please go there to follow me and also, of course, on the blue sky, popcorn, R-E-E-L.bsky.social.

And of course, this podcast is available on numerous podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, among others. Thank you very much for listening to this edition of The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore.

It goes after the White House press corps. Now they're going after Voice of America, which is near and dear to my heart. The New York Times wrote about this. For more than 80 years, Voice of America transmitted the news into countries, many of them authoritarian, where reliable sources of information about the outside world were often hard to come by. He signed this executive order. They've been dismantling Voice of America over the last couple of days, laying off all these journalists and so on. Listen to this. This is the kicker.

with most of Voice of America's workforce locked out, at least some of its radio frequencies in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere, went dark or began airing nothing but music, according to employees over the weekend. That is what is being sent out by the United States of America. We are supposed to be the beacon of freedom, of democracy in this world, and the Voice of America, because of the whims of the president, is now putting out music, is putting out Muzak,

It's absolute bullshit.