Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism | Lex Fridman Podcast #441

Communism makes no sense at all. Totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always evolves into dictatorship. It creates a power vacuum. When you say, hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line. One guy usually gets up because that's human nature, and goes, I don't think so. I think if you're going to leave a power vacuum, I'm going to take that power vacuum. Corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power, whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. When mainstream media has you hooked, you got no hope because you don't have the right information. You have propaganda, you have marketing, you don't have real news. When you're in the online world, it's chaotic. And don't get me wrong, it's got plenty of downsides, right? But within that chaos, the truth begins to emerge. Trump is a massive risk because of all the things we talked about earlier, but there is a percentage chance that he's such a wild card that he overturns the whole system. And that is why the establishment is a little scared of him.

The following is a conversation with Cenk Uygur, a progressive political commentator and host of the Young Turks. As I've said before, I will speak with everyone, including on the left and the right of the political spectrum, always in good faith, with empathy, rigor and backbone. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I say stupid, inaccurate, ineloquent things. And I frequently change my mind as I'm learning and thinking about the world. For all this, I often get attacked, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But just know that I'm aware when I fall short and I will keep trying to do better. I love you all. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Cenk Uygur. You wrote a book.

Yeah.

A manifesto that outlines the progressive vision for America. So the big question, why? What are some defining ideas of progressivism?

Yes. So in order to do that, Lex, we gotta talk about where we are in the political spectrum. And in fact, there's two different spectrums. Now people often think of left right, and that's true, that exists, but layered on top of that is now populist versus establishment. So I'm center left on the left right spectrum, but I'm all the way on the populist end of, of the second spectrum. So where does progressivism lie within that? Well, I would argue that it's exactly in those places. It's populist and it's on the left, but it is not far left. So far left is a different animal. And we could talk about that in a little bit. So in terms of what makes a progressive, so expand the circle of liberty and justice for all and equality of opportunity. Now people will say, well, that seems pretty broad and all American, but is it? Think about it. So expand the circle of liberty. Everybody's in favor of that, right? No, absolutely not. So certainly the King of England was not in favor of expanding the circle of liberty. And the Founding Father said, we're going to expand it. And they expanded it to propertied white men. And then progressives have been their progressives because they expanded the circle of liberty. They then from then on, as we were perfecting the union, progressives always say expanded further. Include women, include people without property, include all races. And at every turn, conservatives fight against it. So that doesn't mean if you're a conservative today, you don't want to include women or minorities, etc. But, but today you would say, for example, well, I don't want to expand the circle of liberty to, for example, undocumented immigrants. And maybe you're right about that. And we could have that discussion in terms of a specific philosophy. And I don't believe that undocumented immigrants should immediately be citizens or anything along those lines, but I do believe in expanding liberty overall. And the contours of that are what's interesting. And then you see justice for all. Everybody's for justice. No, Right now, marijuana possession is still illegal in a lot of parts of the country. Now, a lot of right wingers and left wingers agree that it should be legal. But for my entire lifetime, black people have been arrested at about 3.7 times the rate of white people. And the entire country has been fine with it. So is that justice? No. They smoke white people, black people smoke marijuana at the same rate. Black people get arrested about four times the rate. That is an injustice that an enormous percentage of the country was comfortable with. Well, progressives aren't comfortable with it. We want justice for all. So the equality of opportunity is an interesting one because the far left will say, at least some portions of them will say equality of results, right? So progressives just want a fair chance. So free college education, but afterwards you don't get to have exact same results as either the wealthiest person or we're not all going to be equal. We don't have equal talents, skills, abilities, etc.

There's a lot of questions I can ask there. So on the circle of liberty. Yes. So expanding the number of people whose freedoms are protected, but what about the magnitude of freedom for each individual person? So expanding the freedom of the individual and protecting the freedoms of the individual, it seems like progressives are more willing to expand the size of government where a government can do all kinds of regulation, all kinds of controls on the individual.

So, Lex, what we're probably going to talk about a lot today is balance. And so a lot of people think, oh, I, I'm on the right, I'm on the left, and that comes with a certain preset ideology. So the right is always correct, the left is always correct. So there's two problems with that. Number one, how could you possibly believe in a preset ideology if you're an independent thinker? It's literally, by definition, not possible. If you say, I lent my brain to an ideology that was created 80 years ago or 8 years ago or 800 years ago, and I'm not going to change it, you're saying, I don't think for myself. I, you know, I bought into a culture. And by the way, there's a lot of different forms of culture you could buy into. Religion, politics, sometimes racial, etc. So that's why you need actually balance. The second reason you need balance other than independent thought is, is because the answer is almost never black and white. And that gets into a really interesting nuance because mainstream media, in my opinion, is the matrix. And its job is to delude you into thinking corporate rule is great for you and we should never change it. And the status quo is wonderful. So they have created a false middle. What mainstream media calls moderate is actually, in my opinion, extremist corporate ideology. So, for example, they'll say, Joe Manchin is a moderate. None of his positions are moderate other than potentially gun control in West Virginia. He's not for gun control. The people of West Virginia are not for gun control, generally speaking. So, and he uses that. And they usually have these shiny objects where they're like, you see this? I'm a moderate because of guns, or I'm a moderate because I'm a Democrat from West Virginia. But wait, let's look at your positions. You're against paid family leave. That polls at 84%. So you're a radical corporatist who say that women should be forced back into work the day after they have birth. You're against a higher minimum wage. You're against. You're for every corporate position. And they all poll at 33% or less. So Joe Manchin is Not at all a moderate. And this applies to almost every corporate Republican and every corporate Democrat. They're all extremists in supporting what I call corporatism. So you have to get to a balance in order to get to the right answer.

So that's an interesting distinction here. So you're actually, as far as I understand, pro capitalism. Yes, which is an interesting place to be. That's the thing that probably makes you center left and then still populist. You're full of beautiful contradictions. Let's say this, which will be great to untangle, but what's the difference between corporatism and capitalism? Is there difference?

So I, I really believe in capitalism. I, I don't think that there's really a second choice. The in where it gets super interesting is the distinction between capitalism and socialism, because that's not at all as clear as people think it is. And people often say socialism and communism as synonyms when they're not synonyms. Right? And so I view it as there's basically four distinct areas. It's obviously a spectrum. Everything is a spectrum, right? On one end you have communism on the left, and on the other end you have corporatism on the right. Okay? And I would argue that capitalism is in the middle. And so communism, we know state owns all property. You're not allowed to have private property. So I will piss off a lot of people in this show. And so I'm asking for their patience. Please hear me out. And because don't worry, I'm going to piss off the other side too. Okay? So communism makes no sense at all. Totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always evolves into dictatorship because it is not built for human nature. We're never going to act like that. It's not in our DNA. You could try to wish it into existence and they have and it never works. And it's because once you have almost no rules in terms of, oh, we're all equal. Even though communism eventually winds up having an enormous amount of rules, right. It creates a power vacuum. When you say, hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line. One guy usually gets up because that's human nature, and goes, I don't think so. I think if you're going to leave a power vacuum, I'm going to take that power vacuum.

That's actually a really interesting way to put it, because when everyone is equal, nobody is in power, and human nature is such that there's everybody's, there's a will to power. So when you create a power vacuum, somebody's going to fill it. So the alternative is to have people in power, but there's a balance of power and then there's like a democratic system that elects the people in power and keeps churning and rotating who's in power.

That is exactly it, Lex. You got it exactly right, in my opinion. Okay, so that's why communism never works and can never work. So they, it's an idea of like we're all going to work as hard as we possibly can and take only what we need. Where, when, when has that ever happened in the history of humanity? Right. We're just not built that way. So, okay, we can get into that debate with my friends on the left, et cetera. Now, corporatism is just as extreme and just as dangerous as. And that is basically what we have in America now. What we have in America now. And this is another giant trick that the Matrix played on everybody that they, they did a shell game. And all of a sudden extreme corporatists like Manchin and almost every Republican in the Senate are moderates. Oh my God, Mitch McConnell all of a sudden is a moderate and et cetera. As long as you're not a populist. Populists are never moderate. Okay, but if you love corporations and corporate tax cuts and everything in favor of corporations, you're magically called a moderate when you actually, according to the polling, have super extreme positions that the American people hate. And by the way, that's part of the reason for the rise of Trump. And come back to that. Okay, but the second shell game is taking out capitalism, putting in corporatism, but still calling it capitalism. Okay, so what is corporatism? It is when corporations slowly take over the system and create monopoly and oligopol power. So that snuffs out equality of opportunity. So how do they do that? And when people say the the system is rigged, they oftentimes can't explain it that well. And then mainstream media goes, oh, you sound conspiratorial rigged. Yeah, I wonder how. Yeah, super easy to explain it. Here's one of dozens of examples. Carried interest loophole. So that is for hedge funds, private equity, the, the top people on Wall street there, that's part of their income. They get 2 and 20. Right? So 2% is a flat fee no matter what happens to the fund. And 20% of the profits of the fund goes back to the people who invested it. It's not their money, it's not their investment. What they're getting is actually just income and should be taxed at the highest rate. But it's because of this loophole, it's taxed at a much lower rate at around 20%. So do you know at what income level you go above 20%? If you're a regular Joe, it's at $84,000 a year. So these billionaires are getting the same tax rate as people making $84,000 a year. It's unbelievably unfair. And that's corporatism taking over and starting to rig the rules. I'm going to pay less taxes, you're going to pay more taxes. Okay, so again I can give you dozens of those examples. So and mergers so that they get to oligopoly power. That's how your ego system lowering the corporate tax rates, making sure that there is no real minimum wage, making sure there's no universal health care. We all get become indentured servants of corporations. They take away power from the average guy, give it to the most powerful people in the world. So and, but the most important distinction, Lex is that corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power. Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants to free markets. And I remember, you know, we started Young Turks back in 2002. So we've been around for 22 years. Longest running daily show on the Internet ever. And so we were pre Iraq war and Iraq war starts and Dick Cheney starts handing out no bid contracts. I'm like what part of capitalism is a no bid contract? You can't negotiate drug prices. The most anti free market thing I have ever heard. It's almost like communism for corporations. They get everything, you there it and you get nothing. Right. So it's preposterous, it's awful. And it kills the free markets and it's killing this country. And, and it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment.

Are all companies built the same here? So when you say corporatism it seems like just looking here at the list of by industry lobbyists, it seems like there are certain industries that are worse offenders than others. Like pharmaceuticals, like insurance, oil and gas.

Yeah.

So it seems to me it feels wrong to just throw all companies into the same bucket of like they're all guilty.

No, they're not all guilty. So let's make a bunch of distinctions here. So first of all, can you, first of all, are they quote unquote guilty? No, they're doing something that is logical and natural. Right. So if you're a company, do you want to pay higher taxes or lower taxes? Of course you want to pay lower taxes, right? Do you want to have higher employee costs or lower, lower employee costs? Of course you want lower employee costs, right? So, but the government needs to understand that and protect us from that power that they are going to exercise to get to those results. And if you, if you think free markets is, there is no government, you, you read it wrong. Go, read, go back and reread Adam Smith. He says you must protect against monopoly power. If you do not protect against monopoly power, you will have no free markets. And he's absolutely right. So second distinction is between small business and big business. That's why Republicans will always be like, oh, we're doing this for small business. That's why we got the biggest oil companies in the world, $30 billion in subsidies. What happened to small business? Right? So I run a small business. And so if people were to say, like, hey, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than 5 employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, etc. The, there's some logic in that, because businesses have different stages of growth and they have different interests and different needs in those stages of growth. And we want to facilitate small business growth because that's great for the economy, that's great for markets, freedom, et cetera. But the bigger corporations, even there, there's a third distinction. It isn't that there are certain industries that are worse. There's just that there are industries that are better at lobbying. So, so anyone who, like right now, number one donor in Washington, a lot of people make a mistake. They think it's aipac or they think it's the oil companies or the banks. No, it's big Pharma. Okay, and who has the most power in this country? Big Pharma. So we can't even negotiate the drug prices. I mean, look, guys, think about it this way. That's like saying, okay, here's a bottle of water. And normally in the free market, that would cost about a dollar, right? And in the, for Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, no, I'm not charging a dollar for that water, I'm charging a hundred dollars. And the government has to say, yes, sir, thank you, sir, of course, sir, we'll pay a hundred dollars. That's the, that's, that's why. Compared to communism. Because I can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to the free market than you, the consumer have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That's insanity. Let alone the patents, let alone the fact that The American people pay for the research and then they make billions of dollars off of it and we get nothing but robbed by them. So it's about lobby power. Oil companies have huge lobby power. Defense contractors have huge lobby power. It's not that they're more evil, it's just that they have figured out the game better and they have basically taken the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and snuff out all competition.

Well, or a lot of competition, figure out the game better. So I think a lot of companies are good at winning the right way by building better products, by making people happier with the work they're doing, and winning at the game of capitalism. And then there's other companies that win at the game of lobbying. And I just want to sort of draw that distinction because I think it's a small subset of companies that are playing the game of lobbying. It's like Big Pharma.

So, Lex, first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense. Not, oh, I don't like this industry, or I don't like this company, or hey, this company is not doing that much lobbying at this point. They will later when they realize what's going on. So, for example, in my opinion, AIPAC has totally bought almost all of Congress. And so now other countries are going to wake up and go, wait, you could just buy the American government. So AIPAC is going to spend about $100 million in this cycle and they're going to. And then they're getting 26 billion back. So every country in the world is soon going to realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, give them a tremendous amount of money and just buy the US Government. Right? So that. But for corporations, they've already realized that on a massive scale. Right? So, for example, in the two industries you gave automotive. So in New Jersey, about a decade ago or so, one of the most powerful lobbies is car dealerships. So at the national level, you got pharma and you've got defense contractors, etc. At the local level, guys who have huge power. Number one is utilities, number two is real estate. And then car dealerships are hilariously among the top. Right, because it's local businesses that are, you know, financing the politicians at the local level. So they passed a law saying that you have to sell through dealerships, but Tesla doesn't sell through dealerships. And it was intended to bully, intimidate and push out Tesla out of the market. They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country. So does that make Any sense in a democracy? Of course not. Why? You could. Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium? You can sell it any way you like. That's the most anti free market thing possible. Why? It was just total, utter corruption and. But it's not. Not. But it's perfectly legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery. So then what happened in that case? So then Elon came in and gave campaign contributions and reversed it. So now we're in a battle where it's an open auction, right? Different companies are buying different politicians, and then they're pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, etc. So now let's look at tech. In the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in politics, or almost any money in politics. So what happens? They're getting hammered. They get pulled into congressional hearings, and Facebook's got fake news, and, oh, my God, all these trouble from Facebook. Then Facebook does the logical thing. Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches. Okay? So then they hire a whole bunch of Republican consultants, they go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats. And then all of a sudden, we're no longer talking about Facebook at all. And Facebook are angels. And now we've turned our attention to who? Facebook's top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works. Okay? And by the way, then Donald Trump goes, oh, TikTok's big, dangerous company. They're working with China, okay? And then Jeff Yass comes in on this cycle, part owner of TikTok, and he doesn't want TikTok banished, of course, right? So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars. Trump turns around the next day and goes, we love TikTok. TikTok's a good company, right?

So that's a big contributor to influencing what politicians say and what they think. But it's not the entire thing, right?

No, it is. It's 98%. I'll go on mainstream media, and they'll be like, oh, I see what you're saying. I can see how that influences politicians. About 10%. I'm like, no, no, it's 98%. So. And even a lot of good people think it's 50. 50. They have principles and they have money. No, they have money and this smidge of principles. That's why I wanted to clarify 98 too.

Okay, so how do we. How do we fix it? So it's really interesting and nice that you're pro capitalism and anti corporatism. So how do we create a system where the free market can rule where capitalism can rule. We can have these vibrant flourishing of all these companies competing against each other and creating awesome stuff.

Yeah. So in the book I call it democratic capitalism as opposed to Bernie's democratic socialism. Right. We can get into that distinction in a minute. But so as Adam Smith said, and anyone who studies capitalism knows you need the government to protect the market as well as the people, because. So like, why do we have cops? Because if we don't have cops, somebody's going to go, well, I like Lexus as a couple equipment. Why don't I just go into his house and take it? Right? So you need the cops to protect you, and that's the government. So people say, oh, I hate big government. Do you? Right. It depends, right? If your house is getting robbed, all of a sudden you like the government, but you also need cops on Wall street because if you allow insider trading, the powerful are going to rob you blind and the little guy is going to get screwed. So that's this easy example. And so if you don't have those cops, the bad guys are going to take over. They're going to set the rules, rig the rules in their favor. So that, that's why you need regulation. And so the Republicans on purpose made regulation a dirty word. They're like, oh, raw, regulation is bad. And, and then sometimes on the left, people fall for the trap of all regulation is good Guy I like and has a great analogy on this, Matt Stoller, he's one of the original, I would argue, progressives, and there's about four of us, I'm sure there's more, but that have stayed true to the original meaning of progressivism and populism. Me, Matt Stoller, David Sirota, Ryan Grimm, okay? And it used to be in that original blogger group, there was guys like Glenn Greenwald and other interesting cats. Right. But they went in different directions. So Matt has a great line. He says if somebody comes up to you and says, how big a pipe do you want? There is no answer for that. It depends on the job, doesn't it? Right. What are we doing? What are we building? I. I'm going to tell you the size of the pipe depending on the project. So when people say, are you in favor of regulation or against it? That's an absurd question. Of course you need regulation. It just means laws. Right. So don't kill your neighbor is a regulation. Right. So my idea is a simple one and one. We're going to keep coming back to balance. So when my dad was a small business owner in New Jersey. And they inspected the elevator six times a year. That was over regulation. And I said to my dad, so should they not inspect it at all? I'm a young kid growing up. And he said, oh no, you got to inspect it at least twice a year. I said, why? He said, because in Turkey sometimes they don't inspect it and then the elevator falls. Okay, so, so bounds of reason, correct. Regulation to protect the markets and to protect the American people.

Yeah, but finding the right level of regulation, especially in, for example, in tech, something I'm much more familiar with, is very difficult because people in Congress are living in the 20th century, before the Internet was invented. So like, how are they supposed to come up with regulations? Yeah, that's the idea of the free market is you should be able to sort of compete. The market regulates and then the government can step in and protect the market from forming monopolies, for example, which is easier to do.

Yeah, but that's a form of regulation.

Right, but then there's like more check in the elevator twice a year. That's a more sort of specific watching, micromanaging.

So Lex, here's the deal. There is no way around the, the laws are made by politicians. Okay, so, and so you can't give up then and go, oh, it's a bunch of schmucks. I think most politicians are just servants for the donor class. I the, you know, the media makes it sound like they're the best of us. Oh, they deserve a lot of honor and respect and they kiss their ass, etc. I think generally speaking, they're usually the worst of us, especially in this corporate structure. Right, because they're the guys who their number one talent is. Yes, sir. No, sir. What would you like me to do with your donor money, sir? Absolutely. I'll serve you completely or 98%. Right. So in this structure, the politicians are the worst of us, but at some point you need somebody elected to be your representative to do democratic capitalism so that you have capitalism, but it's checked by the government on behalf of the people. And it's the people that are saying these are the rules of the land. And, and you have to abide by them. So the. How do you get to the best possible answer, which is related to an earlier question you asked Lex, which is the number one thing you have to do is get big money out of politics. Everything else is near impossible as long as we are drowned in money. And whoever has more money wins. And by the way, when it comes to legislation, again, that's true about 98% of the time, like, we predict things ahead of time. People are like, wow, how did you know that that bill wasn't going to pass or was going to pass? It's the easiest thing in the world. And we, like, literally, like, teach our audience on the Young Turks. Watch, you'll be able to see for yourself. And now, like, our members comment in, they do these predictions. They're almost always right. Right. Because it's so simple. Follow the money. So if you get big money out of politics, and I could explain how to do that in a sec, then you're at a place where you got your best shot at honest representatives that are going to try their best to get to the right answer. Are they going to get to the right answer out of the gate? Usually not. So they pass a law, there's something wrong with the law. They then fix that part. They. It's a pendulum, you know, you don't want it to swing too wildly, but you do need a little bit of oscillation in that pendulum to get to the right balance.

By the way, I was listening to Joe Biden from when he was like 30 years old. The speeches. He was eloquent as hell. It's fun to listen to, actually. And he has a speech he gives or just maybe a conversation in Congress, I'm not sure where, where he talks about how corrupt the whole system is. And he, he's really honest and like fun. And that Joe Biden is great, by the way, that guy. I mean, age, age sucks, you know, people get older. But he was talking quite honestly about, like, having to suck up to all these rich people and that he couldn't really suck up to the really rich people. They said, come back to us ten years later when you're like more, more integrated into the system. But he was really honest about it. He's saying that's, that's how it is. That's what we have to do. And that really sucks that that's what we have to do.

Yeah. So we did a video on our TikTok channel then and now of Joe Biden. This is when I was trying to push Biden out.

We should say you're one of the people early on saying Biden needs to step down.

Yeah, I started about a year ago because I was positive that Biden had a 0% chance of winning. And it turned out, by the way, two days before he dropped out, his inside advisors inside the White House said, yeah, near zero percent chance of winning.

Yeah.

So we were right all along.

You got a Lot of criticism for that, by the way.

But yeah, yeah, we can come back to that. Yes, I did. And which makes it Tuesday for me. I get a lot of criticism for everything. And by the way, Democratic Party. You're welcome. So. But binds, a really interesting example. I'm really glad you brought it up. So the video on TikTok was just showing Biden then, Biden now. And you're right, Biden was so dynamic. When you see how dynamic he was, we did like side by side, right? And then you see him now going, barely finished anyways, right? You're like, oh, that's not the same guy. I get it. Right? So that got like 5 million views. Because. Because it resonates. They're like, yeah, yeah, of course. Right. But when he first started to the point you were making, Lex, he wanted. In fact, I know, because I talked to him about this. He. His very first bill was anti corruption. Why? Because at that point, everything changes. In 1976-78, it's Supreme Court decisions that basically legalize bribery. But remember, Biden is ancient. So he's coming into politics at a time when money has not yet drowned politics. And in fact, the American population is super pissed about the fact that it's begun. They don't like corruption so early. Biden, because he's reading the room, is very anti corruption. And the first bill he proposes to get money out of politics. Okay, but as Biden goes on for his epic 200 year career in Washington, he starts to get not more conservative, more corporate, because he's just taking more and more money by the middle of his career. He has a nickname, the Senator from mbna. Okay, MBNA was a credit card company based in Delaware. The reason he had that nickname is because there isn't anything Joe Biden wouldn't have done for credit card companies and corporations based in Delaware, which are almost all corporations. Okay? So he became the most corporate senator in the country, and hence the most beloved by corporate media. And corporate media has protected him his entire career until about a month ago. So, for example, in the primaries both in 2020 and 2024, if you said the senator from MBNA, I guarantee you almost no one in the audience has heard of it. If you heard of it, good job. You know politics really well. Okay? But the reason you didn't hear of it is because the mainstream media wouldn't say, that's outrageous of Joe Biden to be such a corporate stooge. They'd say, that's outrageous of you to point out something that's true. And something we reported on earlier. Okay. And so they protected him at all costs. Now finally, when you get to this version of Joe Biden, he can't talk, he can't walk, he bears no resemblance to the young guy who came in saying that money in politics was a problem. Now he's saying money in politics is the solution. And in 2020 he said, well, I can raise more money than Bernie. I can kiss corporate ass better than Bernie. I'm the biggest corporate ass kisser in the world, so I'm gonna raise a billion dollars and you need to support me. Now of course he doesn't say it in those words, but that was a message to the establishment. And Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Obama, Clyburn, everybody goes, that's right. Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, not Bernie. I don't know that there's anybody in the country who instinctually dislikes Bernie more than Barack Obama.

Oh, that's an interesting. I'm not taking that tangent at this moment because you mentioned mainstream media. What's the motivation for mainstream media to be corporatist also?

So first of all, they're giant corporations. So they're all multi billion dollar corporations. In the old days we had incredible number of media outlets. So you go to San Francisco, there'd be at least two papers and there'd be a paper boy and I'm going all the way back, paperboy on each corner and they're competing with one another. Literally. They'd be catty corner, right? And one guy's going, oh, I hear all this details. They're trying to get an audience, they're trying to get people and interested. So they're populist, they're interesting, they're muckrakers, they're challenging the government. Fast forward to now or not now, but about a decade ago, five years ago, in that ball, in that ballpark now there's only six giant cor media corporations left. And it's an oligopoly, right? And they're all multi billion dollar corporations. They all want tax cuts. Half of them are also, especially about 20 years ago during the Iraq war, half of them are defense contractors. So they're just using the news as marketing to start wars like the Iraq war. And then ge, which owned msnbc, makes a tremendous amount of money, so much more money from war than it does for media. That media is a good marketing spend for these corporations. Now that's part of it, that they themselves want the same exact thing as corporate. The rest of corporations do. For corporate rule, lower tax cuts, deregulation so they can merge, etc. But the second part of it is arguably even more important. So where does all that money in politics go? So for example, in 2022, it's just a midterm election, not no, presidential should be lower spending. A ridiculous $17 billion are spent. Okay, on the election cycle, where does the 17 billion go? Almost all of it goes into corporate media, mainstream media, television, newspapers, radio. They're buying ads like nuts. So we have a reporter at tyt, David Shuster, he used to work at msnbc, Fox News, et cetera. And David once did a piece about money and politics at a local NBC news station. And his editor or GM spiked the story. And David goes into his office and asks him, so why this story is true? It's a huge part of politics. If we're going to report on this issue, we got to tell you what's actually happening. So he says, david, come here, puts his arm around his shoulders, takes him to the big newsroom, and he goes, you see all this money in politics paid for that.

That's really fascinating. So big corporations are giving money to politicians through different channels and then the politicians are spending that money on mainstream media. And so there's a vicious cycle where it's in the interest of the mainstream media not to criticize the very corporations that are feeding that cycle. So it's not actually direct. It's not like corporations are. Because I was thinking one of the ways is direct advertisement, like pharmaceuticals, obviously advertise a lot of. On mainstream media. But there's also indirect, which is like giving the politicians money the pot or, or super PACs and the super PACs and spend money on the.

That's why media never, mainstream media never talks about the number one factor in politics, which is money. Like we all know, I mean, you now we, as we talked about earlier, we see it with our own eyes open auction, any country, any company, anybody that has money. The politicians will now literally say, I am now working for this guy, as Trump says, because he gave me a strong endorsement, which means a lot of money. Right. And so. And the press never covers it. Almost never. Right. So you're telling me you're doing an article on the infrastructure build or build back better, etc. And you're not going to mention the enormous amount of money that every lobbyist spent on that bill? That's absurd. That's absurd. That's 98% of the ball game. And the reason they hide the ball is because they don't want you to know this whole thing is based on the money that they are receiving. And by the way, one more thing about that, Lex, it's that the ads themselves, actually they work and they work pretty well. But that's not the main reason you spend money on ads. You spend the money in ads to get friendly coverage from the content from the free media that you're getting from that same outlet. And so since every newspaper and every news television station and network knows that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are their top clients, they're going to get billions of dollars from them. They never really criticize the Republican and Democratic Party. On the other hand, if you're an outsider, they'll rip your face off.

That's also really interesting. So if you're an advertiser, if you're a big farmer and you're advertising, it's not that the advertisement works, it's that the hosts are too afraid. Not like explicitly, just even implicitly, they're self censoring. They're not going to have any guests that are like controversial, anti Big Pharma, or they're not going to make any jokes about big Pharma. They're not going to make. And that, and that kind of, that continues and expands. That's really interesting.

Sometimes it's super direct. When I was a host on msnbc, I had a company that I was criticizing in my script and management looked at it and by the way, I used to go off prompter a lot and it drove him crazy. Not because I wasn't good at it, I think my ratings went up whenever I went off prompter, but because they couldn't pre approve the script. And what do they want to pre approve? Hey, are you going to criticize one of our sponsors, one of our advertisers, etc. So they, we had a giant fight over it and the compromise was I moved them lower in the script but kept them in the story. Right. So sometimes it's super direct like that, but more way more often it's implicit, it's indirect, you don't have to say it right. So I give you a spectacular example of it so that you get a sense of how it works implicitly. So since GE is a giant defense contractor, they own msnbc. At the time of the Iraq war, they fired everyone who was against the Iraq war on air. So Phil Donahue, Jesse Ventura, Ashley Banfield, but Ashley Banfield, they did something different with, okay, she was a rising star at the time. She goes and gives a speech in Kansas, not Really. Even having a policy position, but just talking about the actual costs of this Iraq war and how we should be really careful. They hate that. So they take their rising star and they take her off air. Okay. And she goes, okay, good, let me out of my contract. It's okay, I'll go. Because she was such a star at that time, she could have easily gotten somewhere else. And they go, no, we're not going to let you out of your contract. Why not? You're going to pay me to do nothing? Yeah, not only that, we're moving your office. Where are you moving it to? They literally moved it into a closet. Okay. And they made sure that everybody in the building saw her getting taken off the air and moved into a closet. The closet is the memo, right? That's the memo to the whole building. You better shut up and do as you're told. Okay? So that way I don't have to tell you and get myself in trouble. It's super obvious there are guardrails here. You are not allowed to go beyond acceptable thought. An acceptable thought is our sponsors are great, politicians are great, the powerful are great.

So how do we. How do we begin to fix that? And what exactly are we fixing? Is that the influence of the lobbyists, the influence of, like, it feels like there's. Companies have found different ways to achieve influence.

Right.

So how do we get money out of politics?

So it's very difficult, but doable, and we will do it. So. But in order to do it, the populist left and the populist right have to unite because. And by the way, that is why we have the culture wars.

That's why you're voting for Trump.

No chance. Okay, so we can get into that in a minute. So the culture wars are meant to divide us. If we. If we get united, we have enough leverage and power to be able to do it. But you can't do it through a normal bill, because if you do it in a bill. The whole point of capturing the Supreme Court was to make sure that they kill any piece of legislation that would protect the American people.

You're saying the Supreme Court is also captured by this?

Oh, 100%. So, okay, so let me explain again, people. For the uninitiated, they think, oh, that sounds conspiratorial. Well, in this case, that's actually somewhat true, because people now know about this. It's the Powell memo, right? The most infamous political memo in history. Lewis Powell writes a memo for the Chamber of Commerce in 1971. That's basically a blueprint for how the Chamber of Commerce can take over the government. And Lewis Powell explains one of the most important things you have to do is take over the media. But even more important than that is taking over the Supreme Court. Because the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is allowed and not allowed. And he says, we need, quote, activist judges to. To help business interests on the court. Okay? And then Nixon reads the memo and goes, that sounds like a really good idea. How about I put you on the Supreme Court? And he puts Lewis Powell, the guy who wrote the memo, on the Supreme Court, where he's the deciding vote in Bilati and buckley. So those two decisions are 76 to 78. And what they say is, yeah, yeah, I read the Constitution, and it says that money is speech. No, it isn't. And no, it didn't. That's not even close to true. They just made it up and they said, okay. And corporations, they're human beings. No, they're not. That's preposterous. Right? And they have the same inalienable rights as human beings and citizens do. And money is speech, and speech is an inalienable right. So corporations can spend unlimited money in politics, and there goes our democracy. Gone. Okay? So Citizens United just shot a dead horse with a Gatling gun and made it worse and put it on steroids. But it was already dead in 78. So that's why every chart you see for the rest of your life, you'll see this. Every chart. And about. The American economy starts to diverge in 1978. So until 38 to 78, we have golden 40 years of economic prosperity. We create the greatest middle class the world has ever seen, and our productivity is sky high. But our wages match our productivity. After 78, productivity is still sky high. Best in the world. Okay, Sometimes people. Oh, the American workers. Lazy. Not remotely true. We work our ass off, okay? But wages flatline. And they've been flatlining for about 50 years straight. And the reason is because the Supreme Court made bribery legal. So in order to get past the Supreme Court, you only have one choice. That's an amendment. And so you have to get an amendment. Amendments are very difficult, but. So, for example, you. You need 2/3 of Congress to even propose the amendment. So. Well, why would Congress propose an amendment that would take away their own power? Right? Because almost everybody in Congress got there through corruption. Their main talent is, I can kiss corporate ass better than you can. Right? So I. They take the most amount of a person with more money In Congress wins 95% of the time. Right. But the good news is the founding Fathers were geniuses, and they put in a second outlet, they said. Or two thirds of the states can call for a convention where you can propose an amendment. And after an amendment is proposed, then 3/4 of the states have to ratify it. That's what makes it so difficult, because getting three quarters of the states, there's so many red states, so many blue states, getting three quarters of the states they agree is near impossible. But there is one issue that the whole country agrees on. 93% of Americans believe that politicians serve their donors and not their voters. So this is the one thing we can unite on. If we unite on this, we push our states to call for a convention. We all go to the convention together, we bring democracy alive, and we propose amendments to the Constitution. And the best amendment gets three quarters of the states to ratify. You go above the Supreme Court and you solve the whole thing.

So if 93% of people want this, why hasn't it happened yet? I mean, the obvious answer is there's corporate control of the media and the politicians. But it seems like our current system and the megaphone that a president has should be able to kind of unite the populace left and right, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do. Like, why hasn't a person like Trump, who's a billionaire or on the left, a rich businessman, run just on this and win?

Well, eventually they will. Right? And so that's why I actually have a lot of hope, even though things seem super dark right now. So. And that's why I was for Bernie. So I'll. I can come back to that. But why hasn't Trump done it as easy? He's like, what am I, a sucker? The guy gives me money, I do what the guy wants. Why would I get rid of that? That's how I got into power, and so that's how I'm doing it now. I go to Miriam Mendelson and say, give me $100 million and I'll let Israel annex the West Bank. Right? So I'll go to the oil companies and give me a billion dollars, and I'll give you tax subsidies. I'll let you drill. I'll take away regulation. Why would I stop that?

You think he likes money more than he likes being popular? Because there's a big part of him that's a populist in the sense that he loves being admired by large masses of people.

Yeah. So. And you're absolutely right, but that is the fault of maga. And so, maga, you're screwing populists in a way that is infuriating, okay? And smart libertarians like Dave Smith have figured this out, and that's why he's just as mad at Trump as I am. And, and it's because he took a populist movement and he redirected it for his own personal gain. Maga, figure it out. Come on. Right? And so if you say, oh, you think Democrats have figured out that these policies. No, they largely haven't figured it out either. And I think there's blue maga and I could talk about that as well. But for those of us on the populist left, yeah. We're not enamored by politicians. And for example, when Bernie does the wrong thing, we call him out. Well, I'm not. Bernie's not my goddamn uncle. I don't, I don't like him for some personality reason. It's not a cult of personality. You do the right thing, I love you for. You do the wrong thing, gonna kick your ass for it, right? So, but Donald Trump does this massive, ridiculous corruption over and over again. And maga's like, I'm here for it. Love it. As long as you're doing the corruption, I'm okay with it.

What does Trump, what does Trump say about getting money out of politics? Does he.

He says nothing about it. Go maga. Why haven't you held him to account like, so when Bernie helped Biden take out $15 minimum wage from the Senate bill, on the first bill that was introduced in the Biden administration, we went nuts. We did a petition, we sent in videos to Bernie, our audience going, don't kill it, Bernie, don't kill it. And so Bernie then reintroduced it as an amendment. It got voted down, but he did the right thing, right? That is us holding our top leader accountable and saying, you better get back on track, okay? Because we're not here for you and your personal self aggrandizement. We're here for policy, Right? And if MAGA was actually here for policy, they would absolutely level Trump on the fact that he, I mean, remember what he ran on? Drain the swamp. That's why he won in 2016, right? So I predicted on ABC right after the DNC and Hillary Clinton was up 10, 12 points, whatever she was. And I said Trump would win, okay? And they, the whole panel laughed out loud, right? They're like, get a lot of this crazy guy. I said, he's a populist who seems to hate the establishment in a populist Time and so. And drain the swamp is. Is a great slogan. And I knew he would win when he was in a Republican debate. And he said, I paid all these guys before I paid them and they did whatever I wanted. And I was like, that's so true. Right. And people will love that. And especially Republican voters will love that. I actually have a lot of respect for Republican voters because they actually genuinely hate corruption.

So what would an amendment look like that helps prevent money being an influence in politics?

So I started a group called Wolf pack. Thank you, wolf-pac.com and, and the reason why I named a Wolfpack is because everyone in Washington I knew would hate that name. It's a populous name and everybody in Washington snickers. Now you're supposed to name it Americans for America and just trick people, etc. No, no. Wolf Pack means we're coming for you, okay? We're not coming for you in a weirdo physical or violent way. We're coming for you in a Democratic way. Okay? So we're gonna go to those steak houses, we're going to get them to propose a convention. And we did it in five states, but then the Democratic Party started beating us back. We'll get to that. And, and so we are going to overturn your apple cart and we're going to bring put the American people back in charge. So what is the amendment say? Number one, a lot of people will have different opinions on what it should say, and that's what you sort out in a convention. So, for example, one of the things that conservatives can propose which makes sense is term limits. Because the reason why these super old politicians are in charge is because they provide a return on investment. So, you know, if you give to Biden, Pelosi or McConnell, they're going to deliver for you. They love that return on Ms. They don't want to risk it on a new guy. The new guy might have principles. Ew. Or, you know, might want to actually do a little bit for his voters. Boo. Whereas these old, you know, and every corrupt system has these old guys hanging around that help maintain power, etc. So my particular proposal and amendments would be a couple of things. One is end private financing of elections. So if. And look, if you're a business person, you're a capitalist, you know this with absolute certainty. If somebody signs your check, that's the person you work for, right? So if private interests are funding politicians, the politicians will serve private interests. And then you're going to get into a fight like Elon did in New Jersey, where the Car dealerships and Tesla are getting into an auction. Can I hear a hundred thousand? Two million, Three million. Right. And now you got to go bribe the government official. That's called a campaign contribution. And this is a terrible system. Right. And the private financing go to complete public financing of elections. That's when conservatives, because they've been propagandized by corporate media. Yes. Mainstream media got into your head too. And right wing media got into your head too. And right wing media also financed by a lot of this corrupt interest. And so they tell you, oh, you don't want to publicly finance. Oh my God, you'd be spending like a billion dollars on politicians, brother. They spending trillions of dollars of your money because they're financed by the guys that they're giving all of your money to.

So can you educate me? Does that prevent something like Citizen United? So like super pacs are all gone in this case. So all gone. So indirect funding is also.

Indirect funding's gone. Direct funding's gone. You have to set up some thresholds. Not everybody can just get money to run. You have to prove that you have some sort of popular support. So signature gathering, you would still allow for small money donations, like up to $100, something along those lines.

That's not 5,000 or whatever it is now.

Yeah, I think 5,000 is too high. But those are fine debates. Yeah. You know, but you basically want to create an incentive. Everything is about incentives and disincentives. Again, capitalists realize this better than anyone else. Right. So you want to set up an incentive to serve your voters, not your donors. So if you take away private donors, well, there goes that incentive, and that's gigantic. Right. And then if you set up small grassroots funding as a way to get past the threshold to get the funding to run an election, well, then good, because then you're serving small donors, which are generally voters. Right. So that's what you want. And ending private financing is critical. But the second thing is ending corporate personhood. So this is where you get into a lot of fights, because you have two reasons. One is some folks have a principled position against it and they say, well, I mean, the Sierra Club is technically a corporation. ACLU is technically a corporation. And so if you end corporate personhood, then they, you know, that could endanger their existence, right? No, it doesn't endanger their existence at all. Right. So it doesn't endanger GM or GE's existence. It doesn't endanger anybody's existence. Corporations exist. We're not trying to take them away. I would never do that. Right, that's not smart, that's not workable, etc. We're just saying they don't have constitutional rights, so they have the rights that we give them. And by the way, read, the Founding Fathers is also in my book. They hated corporations. The American Revolution was partly against the British East India Company, and so the Tea Party in Boston was against that corporation. They threw their tea overboard. It was not against the British monarchy. And so they, and all the Founding Fathers warned us over and over again, watch out for corporations, okay? Because once they form, they will amass money and power and look to kill off democracy. And they were totally right. That's exactly what happened. And so it's not that you don't have them, it's that you, through democratic capitalism, you limit their power. They definitely, they. You can give them a bunch of rights. You say, hey, you have a right to exist, you have a right to do this, this, and this, okay? But you do not have constitutional rights of a, of a citizen. And so you don't have the right to speak to a politician by giving them a billion dollars.

And you believe that the people will be able to find the right policies to regulate and tax the corporations such that capitalism can flourish still?

Yes. You know why? Because I'm a real populist and I believe in the people. So I drive the establishment crazy because they don't believe in the people. They think, oh, Jake, have you seen maga? Have you seen these guys? Have you seen the radicals on the left? We're so much smarter. You know how many Ivy League degrees we have, right? And we know what we're doing. No, you don't. No, you're. Everybody to some degree looks out for their own interests, right? Why I like capitalism and why I love democracy is because it's the wisdom of the crowd. And so in the long run, the crowd is right. Oftentimes in the short term, we're wrong, okay? But the wisdom of the crowd in the long run is much, much better than the elites that run things. The elites say, well, we're so smart and educated, so we're going to know better what's good for you. No, brother, you're going to know what's better for you. And so here's something that a lot of people get wrong on the populist left and right. They think, oh, those guys are evil. They're not evil. I've met them. I worked at msnbc, I worked on cable, I went to Wharton, know Columbia Law, et. I know a Lot of those guys. And so they're not at all evil. They don't even know that they're mainly serving their own interests. They just naturally do it. Right. And so they think the carrot interest loophole makes a lot of sense. Right? They think corporate tax cuts makes a lot of sense. You not, not getting higher wages, you not having health care makes a lot of sense. It doesn't make any goddamn sense. But they get themselves to believe it. And that's another portion of the invisible hand on the market.

So there's problems with every path. So the elite, like you mentioned, can be corrupted by greed, by power and so on, but the crowd, I agree with you, by the way, about the wisdom of the crowd versus the wisdom of the elite. But the crowd can be captured by a charismatic leader. So the problem with populism, and I'm probably a populist myself, the problem with populism is that it can't be and has been throughout history captured by bad people.

But if you say to me, trust the elites or trust the people, I'm going to trust the people every single time.

Well, that's why you're such an interesting, I don't want to say contradiction, but there's a tension that creates the balance. So to me, in the way you're speaking might result in hurting capitalism. So it's easy to, in fighting corporatism, to, to hurt companies. So. To go too far the other way.

Yeah, hurt companies.

And so like when you talked about corporate tax. So what's, what's the magic, what's the magic number for the corporate tax? Because if it's too high, like, companies leave.

Yeah, companies have so much power right now. This pendulum has swung so far and we're. Guys, we're almost out of time. The window's closing. The minute private equity buys all of our homes, the residential real estate market, we're screwed. We're indentured servants forever. Okay, there goes wealth creation for the average American. So you're right. Like this is that it's not a contradiction. It's a tension that is inevitable to get to balance. The reason why people kind of can't figure me out, they're like, well, you're on the left, but you're a capitalist, etc. That's not a contradiction. That's getting to the right balance. And in order to do that, like if you say, well, if we change the system, I'm afraid of change, because what if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction? Right. Well, then you would be opposed to change at all times. So if you do that, it actually reminds me of the Biden fight, right? So I'm like, guys, he has almost no chance of winning. He stands for the establishment. He can't talk. But then the number one pushback I'd get from Democrats was, yeah, but what if we change? It's so scary. We don't know about Kamala Harris. What if it's not Kamala Harris? It's so scary. Don't change. And I'm like, yeah, but if you say change might be worse, it also might be better, and you're at zero. Anything is better, right? And right now, in terms of corruption in America, we're at 98% corruption. So we got 2% decency left, brother. This is when you want change. And so to and, and, and Lex, if you actually have wisdom of the crowd, just like in supply and demand and how it works in economics, it works the same way in a functioning democracy. You go too far, you come back in. So, for example, when Reagan came into office, me and my dad, my family, we were Republicans. Why at that point, the highest marginal tax rate was at 70%. 70% is too high right now. They. Then he brought it all the way down to 28%. That's too low. Right. So, and, and, and that's how the, the system modulates itself already. We were headed towards corruption because it's the 80s now. We're past 78. Magic 78 marker. Right. So, and, and even Carter was way more conservative economically than people realize because we're already getting past it by the time it's in his administration. But the bottom line is, yes, you're go. Whenever you have real wisdom of the crowd, whether it's in business or in politics, you're going to have fluctuation. You're going to have that pendulum swinging back and forth. You don't want wild swings, communism, corporatism. Right. You want to get to, hey, where. Where's the right balance here between capitalism and what people think is socialism?

Yeah. So I guess I agree with most of the things you said about the corruption. I just wish there would be more celebration of the fact that capitalism and some incredible companies in the history of the 20th century has created so much wealth, so much innovation that has increased the quality of life, on average. They've also increased the wealth inequality and exploitation of the workers and this kind of stuff. But you want to not forget to celebrate the awesomeness that companies have also brought outside the political sphere just in creating awesome stuff.

Look, I run a Company. And so I don't want companies to go away, and I don't want you to hate all companies. I think Young Turks is a wonderful company. Right. We provide great health care, we take care of our employees, we care about the community, etc. And we're building a whole nation online on. On those principles and the right way to run a company. Right? But guys, we're at the wrong part of the pendulum. The companies have overwhelming power and they're crushing us. We're like that scene in Star wars with a trash compactor is closing in on them. The walls are closing in. We're almost out of time. Because they've captured the government almost entirely. They're only serving corporate interests. We've got to get back into balance before it's too late. And that's why I care so much about structural issues. So I form Justice Democrats. So that's aoc, et cetera. Right? That's. People know it as the squad, they know it as just Democrats, et cetera. I'm one of the co founders of that, and my number one rule was no corporate PAC money. Okay? So you're not allowed to take corporate PAC money, by the way. Now Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley have stopped taking corporate PAC money, and they've become, to some degree, on economic issues, genuine populists. It's amazing. It happens overnight. All of a sudden, they're holding. They're talking about holding corporations accountable, et cetera. Now just Democrats wound up having other problems. They got too deep into social issues, not economic issues.

There's a general sort of criticism of billionaires, right? This idea. Now you could say that billionaires are avoiding taxes and they're not getting taxed enough. But I think under that flag of criticizing billionaires is criticizing all companies that do epic shit that build stuff.

Oh, okay.

So create stuff. That's. That's what I'm worried about. I don't hear enough, like, genuine. You know, I like celebrating people, I like celebrating ideas. I just don't hear enough genuine celebration of companies when they do cool things.

Okay, so are you right not about companies, but about capitalism? Yes. Because, you know, you look at life expectancy 200 years ago, and you look at it now and you go, wow, holy shit, we did amazing things. Right? So, so. And what happened in the last 200 years? We went from dictatorships, more towards democracy. Wisdom of the crowd. We went from, you know, serfs and indentured servants and a nobility that holds the land to more towards capitalism, and boom, the crowd is right Things go really well. The advances in medicine are amazing, and medicine's a great example. So. And on our show, I point all those things out and I say, look, we hate the drug companies because of how they capture the government, right? But we don't hate the drug companies for creating great drugs. That, those drugs save lives. They saved my life. They saved countless millions upon millions of lives. So the right idea isn't shut down drug companies. The right idea is don't let them buy the government, right? So, and I know we get back into our instinctual shells. So on the left there'll be, oh, we should get rid of all billionaires. Why? Like, how does that fix the system? Tell me how it fixes the system and I'm all ears, right? My solution is end private financing. Then you can be a billionaire all you like. You can't buy the government. Right? That's a more logical way to go about it. I've never worn an eat the rich shirt, and it drives me crazy. I'm like, you would have eaten fdr, right? And FDR is the best president, most populous president, in my opinion. And so, no, there's wonderful rich people, of course, of course. There's a range of humanity, right? But you don't want to get rid of the rich. You don't want to get rid of companies, but you also don't want to let them control everything. So, okay, I'll give you an example that's really. And that informs a lot of how I think about things, which is my dad. So my dad was a farmer in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border. No money. In fact, his dad died when he was six months old, and he. And so they were saddled with debt and no electricity in his house, like, as poor as poor gets. And he wound up living the American dream. And so how did he do that? What. What made the difference? Well, what made the difference is opportunity, right? So I'm a populist because my dad was in the masses, right? And. And the elites say the masses are no good. When we're smart, you're not. We're educated, you're not. We, we at meritocracy, we talk about that we have earned merit. And if you're poor, middle class, you have not earned merit, okay? You're useless and worthless, and I hate that. So what did Turkey do back in the 1960s that liberated my dad? They provided free college education. You had to test into it, okay? But the top 15% got a free college education at the best colleges in Turkey. So you and My uncle saved all of our lives when he came to my dad and said, do you like working on this farm? And my dad's like, no, right? It's super hot, it's super hard. It's just they got to get up at 4 in the morning. If they're lucky, the family next door gives them a mule. If they're not, they got to carry the themselves. Okay? He's. So my uncle told him, work just as hard in school and you'll be able to get a house, a car, pretty girls, etc. So my dad works his ass off, gets into school and he comes out a mechanical engineer and starts his own company. He creates a company in Turkey, hires hundreds of people. He then moves to America, creates a company here, hires tons of people, right? So do I hate companies though. My dad set up two companies and, and I saw how much it benefited people. I saw how much employees were would come up to my dad 20, 30 years later in the street and hug him. And they tell me, as a young kid, your dad's the most fair boss we ever had and we love him for it. Right? That's how you run a company. And he taught me the value of hard work. But the reason I brought it up here is because he taught me, look, like skill and ability is a genetic lottery. So you're not going to just get the rich to win all the genetic lottery. No, there's going to be tons of poor kids and middle class kids who have or just as good, if not better. You have to provide them the opportunity, the fair chance to succeed. You have to believe in them. So this isn't about disempowering anyone. It's about empowering all of those kids who are doing the right thing or smart and want to work hard so they could build their own companies and add to the economy.

What in general is your view on meritocracy?

So I love meritocracy. I wish that we lived in a meritocracy and I want to drive towards living in a meritocracy. So that's why I don't like equality of results. So, okay, now people that are on the left will get super mad at that and go, what do you mean? Well, okay brother, let's say you're at work and you got one guy who's working his ass off, another guy, let's go. I don't care, I'm not gonna do it. Right. Well, the guy who works super hard has to pick up the slack. Now he's working twice as hard Right. And now you want the same results, you want the same salary as that guy. No, brother, no. He's working twice, four times, ten times harder than you. That's not fair. Fairness matters. I lived, we wound up, I mean, this is. We're in the suburbs of Jersey, but we wound up in Freehold eventually. And we lived across a farm which is kind of in central Jersey. It happens, right? And it was called Fair Chance Farm. I was like, how did I get this? Amazing. Right. And I love that. I. That's the essence of America and that's what I want to go back to. So we've got to create that opportunity, not just because it's the moral thing to do, but because it's also the economically smart thing to do. If you enable all those great people that are in, in, in lower income classes and middle income classes, you're going to get a much better economy, a much stronger democracy. So that's the direction we go.

So again, it's about balance. But what do you think about DEI policies, say in academia and companies? So the movement as it has evolved, where's that on the balance? Is that how far is it pushing towards equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity?

Okay, so now we're getting into social issues, right? So this is where we all rip each other apart. And then the people at the top laugh their ass off at us and go, we got a fighting over trans issues. They're killing each other. It's hilarious. And they're so busy they don't realize we're running the place. Right. Okay, but let's engage. Some people will look at DEI and go, well, that just gives me an opportunity just like anyone else. I love dei. Another person will look at it and go, no, that gives, that says that you should be picked above me. And I hate dei. Right. So the reality of DEI is a little bit more complicated. And so, but you got to go back. So first, did we need affirmative action in the 1960s? Definitely. Why? All the firefighter jobs in South Carolina, as an example, are going to white guys. All alongshoremen jobs in New York, Louisiana, wherever you have it, are all going to white guys. Because that's how the system was. Yes. Also in the North. Right. So we now are in a civil rights area. We decide we're going to go towards equality. Minorities, in that case, mainly black Americans had to find a way to break in. I'm not trying to like, if you're a longshoreman and it's a good job, you naturally want to pass it on to Your son. I get your instinct. I don't hate you for it, Right? But we got to let black kids also have a shot at it, right? So you need it in the beginning, but at a certain point you have to phase it out. So when I was growing up, it's now in the late 80s, early 90s, I hated affirmative action. And I've been principled on it from day one. And to this day I don't. I'm not in favor of affirmative action. I say it on the show all the time. Why? I'm a minority, being a Turk. I grew up Muslim. I'm an atheist now. But. But generally speaking, a Muslim is certainly a minority in America and pretty much a hated one overall. So. But I didn't check off Muslim or Turkish or any ethnicity when I applied to college because I believe in a meritocracy, as we were talking about. But we don't really have a meritocracy now. And so. But. So I can come back to that. But, but right now. But. So I didn't check it all because I didn't want an unfair advantage, because I want to earn it. I want to earn it. So now I'm in law school and I'm hanging out with right wingers because at that point I'm a Republican. And one of the guys says to me about one of our black student going to Columbia, he says, oh, I wonder how he got in here. God. That is the problem with affirmative action. It devalues the accomplishments of every minority in the country. You have to transition away from it. If you don't, it sets up a caste system. And that caste system is lethal to democracy. So does D. I go too far? In some instances, yes. But is it a boogeyman that's going to take all the white jobs and make them black, as Trump would say, black jobs, right. And give minorities too much power, etc. No, the idea isn't to rob you and to give all the opportunity to minorities. The idea is to make it equal. But as the pendulum swings, did it swing too far? In some directions, yes. The left can't acknowledge that. And the right thinks can't acknowledge that. Of course, at some point you got to give a chance for others to break in so they have a fair chance.

By the way, Michelle Obama had a good line about the black jobs in the the DNC where somebody should tell Trump that the presidency might be just one of those black jobs anyway. But why do you think the left doesn't acknowledge when DI gets ridiculous, which it in Certain places and in certain places at a large scale has.

Has gotten ridiculous because people are taught to just be in the tribe they're in and to believe it 100%. Like, I've gotten kicked out of every tribe. I'm the. I might be the most attacked man in Internet history. Partly because we've been around forever and partly because I disagree with every part of the political spectrum and because I believe in independent thought. And the minute you vary a little bit, people go nuts. And so the. The far left tribe is going to go with their preset ideology, just like the far right tribe is. So, for example, on trans issues, we've protected trans people for over 20 years. On the Young Turks, we fought for equality for trans people and for all LGBTQ people for two decades. We did it way before anyone else did. When Biden came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, we're like, this is comically late. So, like, we're all supposed to, like, congratulate him in the year 2013 that he thinks gay people should have the same rights as straight people. And then he had to push Obama to get there. Right? So on the other hand, I'm like, guys, if you allow trans women to go into professional sports, not at the high school level, but professional sports, but let's say they go into MMA or boxing, and a trans woman, I mean, it happens in boxing, it happens in mma. Punches a biological woman so hard that he. That she kills her, right? So you're going to set back trans rights 50 years. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you. You have to do bounds of reason. So when I say simple things like that, and I say, you give LeBron James every hormone blocker on planet Earth, he's still going to dominate the WNBA, okay? It would be comical. He might score 100 points a night, okay? And they'll say, oh, that's outrageous. And they've. Some have called me Nazi for saying that trans women or that professional leagues should make their own decisions on whether they allow trans women in or not. So why do they say that? Because they're so besieged, they think, we cannot give an inch. We cannot give any ground. If you give any ground, you're a Nazi, okay? So we've got to get out of that mindset. You're not. You can't function in a democracy and be in an extreme position and expect the rest of the country to go towards your extreme position.

So why do you think we are not in a meritocracy?

So because of the corruption. It's so, for example. But there's also, but remember, corporate media is the matrix and they plug you into cable, right? In the old days. Now it's a little bit different because of online media, but especially 10 years ago. And remember we started 22 years ago. So I've been losing my mind over how obvious corporate media corruption has been for decades now. Right. But no one acknowledged it until online media got stronger. But one of the myths that corporate media creates is the myth of meritocracy. Not that meritocracy can't exist or shouldn't exist, but they pretend it exists today. So the problem with that myth, Lex, is that it gets people thinking, well, if they're already rich, they must have merited it by definition. So all the rich have merit. And the reverse of that, if you're poor, middle class, well, you must not have merited wealth. So you're no good, we don't have to listen to you. And that's a really dangerous, awful idea. And so if we get to a meritocracy one day I would, I'll be the happiest person in America. But right now it's, look here, I'll give you an example that I put in the book. And they, and it's not us, this other folks, this YouTube video, I can't even quite find who they were, but it was a brilliant video. And they said, okay, we're do 100 yard race, but hold on, before we start, anyone who has two parents, take two steps forward. Anyone who has went to college, take another two steps forward. Anyone who doesn't have bills to pay for education anymore, take two steps forward. They do all these things, right? And then at the end, before they start, somebody's 20 yards from the finish line and a lot of people are still at the starting line. And then they go, okay, now we're going to run a race. The guy who's right next to the finish line wins. And they go meritocracy. Okay?

So the challenge there is to know which disparities when you just freeze the system and observe are actually a result of some kind of discrimination or flaw in the system versus the result of meritocracy of the better runner being ahead.

That's right. There are some parts that are easy to solve, Lex. So you know, if you donated to a politician and he gave you a billion dollar subsidy, that's not meritocracy. Right.

So if you fall on the money, you can see the flaws in the system.

Exactly. And so, and again Nothing's ever perfect at any snapshot of history. Right. Or of the moment you're going to be at some point in the pendulum swing. But if you let, if you trust the people and you let the pendulum swing, but not wildly, then you're going to get to the right answers in the long run.

So you think this woke mind virus that the right refers to is a problem, but not a big problem?

No. So the right wing drives me crazy. So look guys, your instincts of populism is correct. Your instincts of anti corruption is correct. Right. And I love you for it. And so. And in a lot of ways the right wing voters figured out the whole system screwed before left wing voters did it. I shouldn't say left wing voters because progressives and left wing have been saying it for not only decades, but maybe centuries. Right. But Democratic voters, a lot of Democratic voters, some of them actually like this current system. Some of them, a lot of them have been tricked into liking this current system. And the left should be fighting against corruption harder than the right. But right now, unfortunately that's not the case. So there's a lot that I like about right wing voters. Okay, but you guys get tricked on social issues so easily. Right? So how many people are involved in trans high school sports and a girl who should have finished first in that track, the race in the middle of Indiana finished second. First of all, this is the big crime. This is. And how many people are involved? About 7, 13 out of a country of 330 million people. And you can't see that that's a distraction. Right. So and every, everything they did that is like bait that the right wing media puts out there, they run after. I mean Tucker Carlson doing insane segments about Eminem should be sexier. Mr. Potato Head has gender issues. Guys, get out of there. Get out of there. It's a trap. Ok. Yeah.

That doesn't mean that there. Absolutely. It doesn't mean that there's larger scale issues with things like DEI that aren't so fun to talk about or viral to talk about. An anecdotal scale. There is. Di does create a culture of fear with cancel culture. And it does create a kind of culture that limits the freedom of expression and it does limit the meritocracy in another way. So you're, you're basically saying forget all these other problems. Money is the biggest problem.

So first of all, on AOC as an example, and I don't mean to pick on her, but she won through the great work of her and Shoikat Chakrabarti and Corbin Trent and others who are leaders of the Justice Democrats that went and helped her campaign, they were critical help. And we all told her the same thing. So it's not about me, me, me. And so we all said, you've got to challenge the establishment and you got to work on money in politics first. Because if you don't work on money in politics and you don't fix that, you're going to lose on almost all other issues. But she didn't believe us because it's uncomfortable. And all the progressives that went into Congress, they drive me crazy. They think, oh, no, no, you're exaggerating. No, these are. And the minute they get in, all of a sudden my colleagues. Right, your colleagues hate you and they're going to drive you out. You're a sucker. And Jamal Bowman, Cori Bush, what did they do? They drove them out. Marie Newman drove them out. Right. And because they are not on your side, they're not your colleagues. And what happened to $15 minute wage? And I remember talking to one of those Congress people, I won't leave out the name, and saying, hey, you know, they're not going to $15 minimum wage. And he's like, oh, Cenk, you're out of the loop. Nancy Pelosi assured us that they are going to do $15 minimum wage. I'm like, I love you, but you're totally wrong. Moneyed interest are not going to do $15 minimum wage. You have to start fighting now. Right? And they didn't get it. So they lost on almost all those issues because it's all about incentives and disincentives and rules. If you don't fix the rules, you're going to constantly run into the same brick wall. Now, the second issue that we were talking about is in the culture wars, the rest of us are stuck between the two extreme 2 percenters, right? On both sides. So the 2 percenter on the left goes, you know, if you're a white woman, you need to shut up and listen now. Okay? That's ridiculous. No, you don't. If you're a white woman, you have every right to speak out. You have every right that every other human being has. And so would I love for all of us to listen to one another, to have empathy for one another and go, hey, I wonder how a right winger thinks about this. I wonder how a left winger thinks about this. I wonder why they think that way. Right? I love that and I want that. So I want you to listen, but I don't want you to Shut up. So that 2% gets extreme, and I. And I don't like it. But on the right wing, you got your 2% who think that that's all that's happening on the left, and that's all that's happening in American politics. And they think the entire left believes that tiny 2%, right? And so they hate the left, and they're like, oh, I'm not gonna shut up. I'm not gonna wear a mask. I'm not gonna do any of these things, and I'm not gonna do any. That's the freedom. And then a Republican comes along and goes, oh, yeah, that thing you call freedom. That's deregulation for corporations, because you shouldn't really have freedom. Companies should have freedom. Right? And then the guy goes, yeah, freedom for ExxonMobil. No, brother, they tricked you.

Yeah. The 2% on each side is a useful distraction for. Yes, for the corruption of the politic. Still, I'm Talking about the 96% that remains in the middle and the impact that DI policies has on them.

Yeah. So here. Here's where it gets absurd. I'll give you a good example of absurdity. So in. In a school, I believe, in California, they noticed that Latino students were not doing as well in AP and honors classes, so they canceled AP and honors classes. Oh, come on. What are you doing? You're. That's nuts. No, your job is to help them get better grades, get better opportunity, etc. That's the harder thing to do and the right thing to do that your job isn't. I'm going to make everything equal by taking away the opportunity for higher achievement for other students. If that's what you're doing and you think you're on the left, you're not really on the left. I actually think that's like an authoritarian position that a, no progressive in their right mind would be in favor of. So. But it's all definitional. So here's another example of definitional communism. Like they say, oh, my God, Kamala Harris is a communist. Well, when you're telling on yourself, brothers and sisters, when you say that, that means, a, I don't know what communism means, and B, I don't have any idea what's going on in American politics. Kamala Harris is a corporatist. That's her problem. Not that she's a communist. She's on the other end of the spectrum. Right. The. The idea that Kamala Harris would come into office and say, that's it. There's no more private property we're going to take all of your homes and it's now government property, all your cars, et cetera. She was not going to get within a billion miles of that. Her donors would never allow her to get within a billion miles of that. That is so preposterous that when you say something like that, it's disqualifying. Like, I can't debate someone who thinks that Democrats are communists when they're actually largely corporatists. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. So let's go there. So when people call her a communist, they're usually referring to certain kinds of policies. So do you think. I mean, I think it's a ridiculous label to assign to Kamala Harris, especially given the history of communism in the 20th century and what those economic and political policies have led to, the scale of suffering that led to. And it just degrades the meaning of the word. Right. But to take that seriously. Why is she not a communist? So you said she's not a communist because she's a corporatist. Okay, but that. That can't be. Okay. Everybody in politics is a corporatist.

Almost.

Almost everybody in politics is a corporatist. But that doesn't mean the corporations have completely bought their mind. They have an influence in their mind on issues that matter to those corporations.

Yep. Right.

Like.

Yep.

Outside of that, they're still thinking for the voters because they have to win the votes.

Barely. Okay, so here, let me give you example. So you, you see what I'm saying? So if you were just wanted votes, you would do a lot of what Tim Walls did. Okay. And, and by the way, a lot of what Bernie did. That's why Bernie, who had no media coverage, went from like 2% in 2015 to by the end, about 48%. Because he's just doing things that were popular. Right. And that American people wanted. Etc. Right. Because he's not controlled by corporations. By the way, neither is Tom Massey on the right wing side. On the Republican side. Right. So it's not all. That's why I always say almost. All right, so if you're doing things that are popular, people love it. So today, what would Kamala Harris do if she actually just wanted to win? Right? So number one, she was trying to pass paid family leave right now. Why? It pulls at 84% and even 74% of Republicans want it. Why? Because it says, hey, when you have a baby, you should get 12 weeks off bond with your baby. Right? Now, in a lot of states that don't have paid Family leave. You have to go back to work the very next day or you have to use all of your sick days, all your vacation days. Just have to one or two weeks with your baby. Right? So conservatives love paid family leave. Liberals love paid family leave. That's why it polls so high. So why isn't she proposing it? It's not in our economic plan. Tim Walls already passed it in Minnesota. He showed how easy it was. If you want votes, it's. And then you know what's going to happen if you propose paid family leave? The Republicans are going to go, no. Our beloved corporations don't want to spend another dollar on mobs. Right? And they fall for that trap. And then you're in infinitely better shape. So why doesn't she do it? She doesn't do it because her corporate donors don't want her to do it. $15 minimum wage layup. Over two thirds of the country wants it because it not only gives you higher wages for minimum wage folks, but it pushes wages up for others. And what do the elites say? Oh, that's going to drive up inflation. You shouldn't get paid anymore. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. So you're saying all other prices should go up, but the only thing that shouldn't go up is our wages? No, our wages should go up. Okay, so these are all easy ones. Here's another one. Anti corruption. Why isn't she running on getting money out of politics? It pulls it over 90%. Why isn't Trump running on it anymore? He won when he ran on it in 2016. He didn't mean a word of it, but he ran on it. It was smart. They don't do it because their corporate donors take their heads off if they do it.

So in contradiction to that, why did she propose to raise the corporate tax rate from whatever, 21% to 28%?

Because that's easy. Because that is something that's super popular and she's not going to do it. That's why. So. So, guys, this is, this is where I break the hearts of Blue maga. Blue MAGA thinks, oh, my God, these Democrats, they're angels. And the right wing is. And the Republicans are evil. And, and they, they work for big business. But not Kamala Harris, not Joe Biden. Right? Okay, well, Donald Trump took the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. So that's trillions of dollars that got transferred. Because, guys, you gotta understand, if the corporations don't pay it, we have to pay it because we're running up these Giant deficits. And eventually either they're gonna. Not eventually. They keep raising our taxes in different ways that you're not noticing. They keep increasing fees and fines and different ways for the government to collect money so we're paying for it. And on top of that, eventually they're going to cut your Social Security and Medicare because they're going to say, oh, we don't have any options left anymore. Yeah, you don't have any options left anymore because you kept giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations. So we're going to have to pay for that. So then Trump, then Biden says, oh my God, I'm going to bring corporate taxes back up to 28%. I'm like, wait, hold on. They were at 35. You already did a sleight of hand and said 28. Okay. Then he gets into office and Mansion says, no, 25, that's the highest. I'll go. And he goes, okay, fine, 25. And then while you're not looking, they just dump it. They don't even do 25. It's still a 21. So I hear me now, quote me later. I do predictions on the show all the time because you, you should hold me accountable. You should hold all your pundits accountable. If you held all your opponents accountable, we'd be the last man standing. And that's kind of what happened. Okay, So I guarantee you she will not increase corporate taxes.

So would the same be the case for price controls or the anti price gouging that she supposes?

It's not price controls, it's price gouging.

It is price controls, but I mean, minimum wages price controls also.

Now we're going to get into a lot of minutiae, but I'll try to keep it broad. So price controls are a disaster. They never work. If you say, oh, here's a banana, it has to stay at a dollar a pound, make up a number. Right? Well, supply and demand is going to move and then that's going to. And so the minute it moves to $2 of where the price should be, then you're going to run into shortages. So we all know this. It's a bad idea. Right, but are there laws against price gouging? There already are and they're a good idea. So why like you have a natural disaster, all of a sudden, the water, that was a dollar, now they're charging a hundred dollars. The government has to come in. Democratic capitalism, they come in and go, no, I'm going to protect the people. So you're not allowed to price gouge, you know, maybe charge $2, etc. But you're not going to charge 100. But it is temporary. We get, we get that done, we end the problem there and then we bring it back to a normal supply and demand. Okay, so that's what she's proposing. It's, that's all political because the price gouging has already passed. They did it in 21 and 22. And so now the grocery stores are actually low margin business. She really, she says grocery stores. That's how I know she doesn't mean it. Because the grocery stores weren't the problem. Consumer goods were the problem. Yeah, those companies, she's following the polls.

Where most people will say that the groceries are too expensive. So she's just basically address saying the most popular thing.

Yeah, 100%. And you could tell in which proposals she means it and which proposals she doesn't because of the, of the framing. Right. So this is a mediocre example. But in housing, she said we have to stop private equity from buying houses in bulk. Like curious that they put the word in bulk there. Why does it have to be in bulk? Why don't we just stop them from buying any residential home? Like you could set up normal boundaries. Right. For example, Charlie Kirk was on Neon Turk's this week, by the way.

Sorry to take that tangent. I really enjoyed that conversation. I really enjoy that you talked to. That was like civil. You guys disagreed pretty intensely. But like there was a lot of respect. I really enjoyed that.

Thank you, brother.

That was like, that was beautiful. You and Charlie Kirk and I think Anna was there.

Yeah, that's right. So it's nice. Yeah. Quick tangent. And look, I, I've done a lot of yelling online. Okay. And I, I yell when a. There's a issue that you should be passionate about. 40,000 people, 25,000 women and children slaughtered in Gaza. If you're not emotionally upset by that and you think it's no big deal, I think that's a problem. But when you add gaslighting on top, that's what drives me crazy. And then when you add filibustering on top, then that sets me off. So for all my life, right wing has gone on cable and filibustered. They take up so much more time than the left wing guest. And the left wing guest always like goes, oh, okay, well I'm offended. He's taking up too much time. No, brother, go over the top. Go over the top. You're not going to talk over me. I'm going to talk over you. Okay, so, and, and then when you gaslight and you go, oh, no, 1200 people in Israel being killed is awful, which it is, but 40,000 people being killed in Gaza is no big deal. We should keep giving them money, keep killing, keep killing. And that. That's normal. No, it's not normal. I'm not going to let you say it's normal. That's nuts. Okay. When you like we were against the Iraq war, there was only two shows that were on the air nationally or against Iraq war. US and Democracy now with Amy Goodman. And, and at the time I ucl all the time because mainstream media would gaslight the out of us. We're going to be greeted as liberators. Me and Ben Mank was on the air. Ben doesn't yell as much. He's now the host of Turner Classic Movies. But we're, he's saying it in a calm way. I'm saying it in a screaming way. We're not going to be greeted as liberators. When you drop a bomb on someone's head, they don't greet you as a liberator. Stop saying insane things. And seven out of ten Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had personally attacked us on 9 11. We got lied into that war by corporate media. Okay, now there's one. There's a couple of good things that Trump has done. One is get people to realize corporate media is the matrix. Right. And so now. And get them to an anti war position. He himself doesn't have an anti war position, but his voters do. And that's a positive. We can come back that. But these days, the reason why the Charlie Kirk conversations are going great, and Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell and historically though, we've been go back again. 10 years, 20 years, we've always been respectful when someone comes on our show and we have a debate and as long as they're not yelling, I match the tenor of the host. Right. You and I are having a reasonable conversation. I'm not raising my voice. I'm not yelling at you for no reason. Right. So now when Charlie's not going to battle anymore for like talking points, I'm shutting off my mind. All I'm doing is yelling at you. Then I'm going to yell back at him. But now he's saying, okay, let's have a reasonable conversation. Great. I love it. I love reasonable conversations.

It was great. It was refreshing. And what were we talking about? You buying up. Buying up housing.

Yes. So Charlie, when he was on said, hey, Listen, you know, I think that there should be a cap though I forget if you said 10 billion or 100 billion in assets. If you have less than that, you should be still be able to do real estate as an investment, even if it's residential. But above that it gets to. Okay, that's good, no problem. We can have a debate about that. We can figure out is the right number 10, 125, no problem. You could put in reasonable limitations, but, but we got to get them to stop buying the homes. So when Kamala Harris says oh, we'll stop them from buying homes in bulk, I'm like, okay, there's the loophole. And so they're going to use that loophole. And besides which it's not going to pass. Wall street owns the government, so there's no way corporate Republicans and Democrats, which are about 98% of politicians, are going to limit private equity. And so when do we ever get a little bit of change? When Democrats are in charge, they do 5 to 15% of their agenda. And that's not because they're warm hearted, it's a release valve, right? Oh see under Obama we got about 5% change. And what was that? That was Obamacare. Right? That was most of the change that we got. And what's the greatest part of Obamacare? And now a lot of right wing also agree, almost all of right wing agree about this portion, which is they got rid of the bias against pre existing conditions. Why did they do that? Particularly because the country was about to get in a fucking rage. We all have preexisting conditions. If you deny me when I'm sick, what the fuck's the point of insurance? Right? And the anger had gotten to a nuclear level. So really south, get rid of pre existing conditions. Let's go back to just milking them regularly and oh by the way, put in a mandate so that they have to buy it from us. Right? Do you know who originally came up with Obamacare? The Heritage Foundation. It was their proposal. Romney did it in Massachusetts. It was called Romneycare. So I think this is a super important election. But I've earned the credibility to be able to say that because in 2012 I said this is a largely unimportant election. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama's policies on economic issues are near identical. Obamacare was literally Romney care. Right now the left says, oh, the Heritage foundation, it's so dangerous. Project 2025. Well brother, they're the ones who wrote Obamacare. And you say that's the greatest change in the World. Right. So that's why the Democrats. Yeah, I'll take the 10% change. Overall, I think Biden did about 15%, Obama did 5%. But they're gonna, they'll also march you backwards by deregulating like Clinton did and Obama did the bank bailouts like Obama did. But 10% is better than 0%. But it's not to help you. It's the release valve. So the system keeps going.

Is it possible to steel man the case that, that not all politicians are corporatists? Or, or maybe how would you approach that? For example, this podcast has a bunch of sponsors and I give zero fucks about what they think about what I'm saying. Like they have zero control over me. Maybe you could say that's not, that's because it's not a lot of money. Or maybe, maybe I'm a unique person or something like this, but I just think it's possible to have. And I would like to believe a lot of politicians are this way, that they have ideas and while they take money, they kind of see it as a game that, you know, you accept the money, kind of go to certain parties, hug people, and so on, but it doesn't actually fundamentally compromise your integrity on issues you actually care about.

I could steal man almost anything. I could steal man Trump. I could steal man conservatives easily, right? Corporate politicians, the hard one. So first, it's not all politicians. We can start out nice and easy. Tom Massie, now Hawley and Gates taking, not taking, corporate PAC money. Bernie, the squad, they don't take corporate bank money. You could disagree on either end of those folks on social issues, but generally they are a thousand times less corrupt. They're more honest. And part of the reason you might hate the squad is because they're so honest they tell you their real opinion on social issues that you really disagree with. A lot of the corporate politicians won't do that because they're trying to get as many votes as possible so they can fill eight their donors when they get into office and do all their favors for them. Okay, but you see, I'm already falling apart on the steel making of corporate politicians.

Let's like zoom in on that. So if you take corporate PAC money, you're. That's it, you're. You're corrupted. Like, can you imagine yourself, say, you're a politician, you're a president, you're a human being. You're a person with integrity. You're a person who thinks about the world. You're saying, if I was a corporate PAC and I gave you a billion dollars. You still. You, you'd be. I could tell you anything.

So. Lex, everything is a spectrum. Humanity's a spectrum. So can you find outliers who could take corporate PAC money and still be principled enough to resist this lure? Yeah. And. And I would hope that I would be a person like that, but I wouldn't take over PAC money. But if you force me to, I think I would still stay principled and do it. Could you find 10, 20 other people in the country? Yeah, but on average, that is not what will happen. What will happen is they will take the money and do exactly as they are told.

I think most people have integrity. Okay, okay, hold on. So what I'm more worried about is when you take corporate PAC money, it's not that you are immediately sold, it's over time.

Over time. That's true.

Yeah, I get it. But I wonder if the integrity that I think most people have can withstand the gradual slippery slope of, of the effect of corporate money, which if. If what I'm saying is true, that most people have integrity. One of the ways to solve the effect of corporate money is term limits. Because it takes time to corrupt people. You can't buy them immediately and then the term limits can. For the listener, Cenk is shaking his head.

Yeah, no, so look, you're right that over time it gets way worse. And as we talked about earlier, Biden's a great example that comes in anti corrupt, winds up being totally pro corruption by the end and. But he was also here for almost all of it as we started in a world that was not run by money in politics and is now completely run by money in politics. So does it get worse over time? Cinema is a Christian cinema and Arizona is a great example that comes in as a progressive, doesn't want to take PAC money, cares about the average person, etc. Over time she becomes the biggest corporatist in the Senate and a total disaster. But if you say that the majority of politicians haven't. I don't know if this is what you're saying. Majority of politicians have integrity.

No, let's start at the majority of human beings. And I think that politicians are not. There are not a special group of like sociopaths.

I think they are.

They lean a little bit towards that direction, but they're not like only sociopaths going to politics. It's like you have to have some sociopathic qualities, I think to go into politics, but they're not complete sociopath. I think they do have integrity because sometimes for very selfish reasons. It's not all about money, even for a selfish person, for a narcissist. It's also about being recognized for having had positive impact on the world.

Yeah, I get it. But. All right, so let's break it down. So first human beings, then we'll get to politicians. Do human beings have integrity? Well, it's a spectrum. So some people have enormous integrity, some people have no integrity. So there is not one type or character. Right. So some people have a ton of empathy for other human beings, and they literally feel it. Like I feel the pain of someone else. And I'm not alone. Most people feel the pain of someone else. If you see a on video baby being hurt, an overwhelming majority of of human beings will go, no. Right. You have empathy. That's a natural feeling that you have. Some people have no empathy because they're on the extreme end of the spectrum. Serial killers and Donald Trump. Okay, and so I'm, I'm partly joking, but not really. He has never demonstrated any empathy that I have ever seen for any other human being. I. I'm going to trigger some right wingers because they think every terrible thing he said is out of context or joking or not real or fake news. But his chief of staff didn't make it up. He called people who went into the military suckers and losers. Why? Why did he say that? If. Just hang with me for a second. Don't have your head explode, okay? I'm not saying the likes, I'm saying to the right wingers out there, right? So the reason is because if you're like Trump and you don't, you literally don't feel, feel the empathy, you think, why the hell would I go in the military, get killed for someone else. What a sucker. No, I'm going to stay out of the military. I'm going to stay alive, I'm going to make a ton of money, and I'm going to look out for myself. And he assumes, because everybody does this, you assume that everyone thinks like you do, but they don't. So Trump assumes everybody's as much of a dirtbag as he is. And because he doesn't feel it, he doesn't feel the empathy. And so he's like, yeah, you'd be an idiot, a sucker, and a loser to go into the military and have sacrifice for other people. So you see the spectrum, even if you think Trump's not on that end and you think I'm wrong about that, you get that there are people on that end, right? So you have a Spectrum of integrity, empathy, etc. That's what I would call your hardware. You layer on top of that your software. Okay? And the software is cultural influences. Your parents, media, your friends, all these are cultural influences. So now when you're in certain industries, they value more integrity. So religious leaders, if you're doing it right, which is also very rare, Right. But if you're doing it right, you're supposed to have empathy for the poor, the needy, the whole flock. Right. So that profession is incentivizing you towards empathy and integrity. Okay. And even then, a giant amount of people abuse it. Right. But okay, good. In politics, it creates incentives for the opposite. No integrity. And that software, to your point, over time, gets stronger and stronger and stronger until it takes over. Now, you might have someone with a lot of integrity, like Tom Massey, right. The Republican from Kentucky. And whether I agree with him or disagree with him on policy, I get that the brother is actually doing it based on principles. And there isn't any amount of money you can give Tom Massey for him to change his principles. Why? He's on the principled end of the spectrum as a human being. Right? So is Bernie. They're on the same part of that. That spectrum. Right. But for most people, the great majority of the spectrum, if you overload them with software that incentivizes them to not have integrity, they will succumb. And now let's switch to politicians in particular. Why do I think that they're on average, far more likely to be on the sociopathic part of the spectrum because of the incentives and disincentives. So this changes every Congressional cycle. And when just Democrats were winning a lot, it got all the way down to 87.5%. But on average, for congressional elections, the person with more money wins 95% of the time. It doesn't matter if they're a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat or any ideology. They have 95%. Okay, so now let's say you got the 5% that went in that are not hooked on the money. Well, they're going to get a primary challenge, then they're going to get a general election challenge. And 95% of the time the one with more money wins. So eventually this system cycles through until only the almost, only the corrupt are left.

Wait one second. Is that, is that real? 95%. So if you have more money, 95% of the time you win, huh?

Yes.

I'd like to believe that's less the case. For, for example, for higher. You get.

Yes, that's true. You're Right. So you know why. So the presidential race is ironically, in some ways the least corrupt. So let's dive into why. If you're running a local race anywhere in the country, you're going to get almost no press coverage, meaning a congressional race, right? If you're running a Senate race in the middle of Montana, you're going to get almost no media coverage. So that's where your money in politics has the most effect, because then you could just buy the airwaves, you outspend the other guy, you get all the ads, plus you get the friendly media coverage because you just bought a couple of million dollars of ads in the middle of Montana. So the local news loves you, the TV stations, the radio stations, the papers. So some of the papers are principled. They might say, oh, no. But overall, they're not calling you a radical, they're not calling you anything, and you're buying those races. But when you get to the presidential race, that's much harder, because presidential race, you have earned media, free media that overwhelms paid media. Perfect examples. 2016, Hillary Clinton outraises Trump by about 2 to 1, but she loses anyway. Why? Because Trump got almost twice as much earned media as she did. And the earned media is better. It's inside the content, right? It is definitely better. So in the presidential election, as long as you got past the primary, you could actually win with not that much money. And that's part of the reason why I have hope, Lex, because all you got to do is get past a Republican or Democratic primary. And now that's very, very, very difficult. But Trump did it right? Now, he took it in the wrong direction, but he did get leave a blueprint for how to do it. And so once you get to the general election, you're off to the race. You could do any goddamn thing you like, okay? You could be super popular. You don't have to give a shit about the donors. You can get into office. You could bully your own party and the other party into doing what you want and you can get everything done. You could even get money out of politics. So don't lose hope. I mean, we even started Operation Hope at tyt and our first project was to knock Biden out. And everybody said, you guys are nuts. That's totally impossible. And we knocked Biden out, right? Did we do it alone? Of course not. We were a small part of it, right? But we laid the groundwork for hope and we laid the groundwork for when he flopped in the debate, people had already been told, remember, he's bad, he's old, he's not right. And the debate proved it. If we hadn't done that groundwork. And not just Young Turks, obviously, but Axelrod and Carville and Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, etc, Charlemagne, the God, John Stewart, all these people helped a lot. So that when the debate happened, it confirmed the idea that out there that he was too old and couldn't do it. So my point is, hope is you. If you lose hope, you're done for. Then they're definitely going to win. Right? Hope is the most dangerous thing in the world for the elites. So whether you're right wing or left wing, I need you to have hope and I need you to understand it's not misplaced. We just got to get past the primary and we're going to turn this whole thing around.

So you basically a presidential candidate who's a populist who in part runs on getting money out of politics. Okay, well, then let's talk about Donald Trump. So to me, the two biggest criticisms of Trump is the fake elector scheme. Out of that whole 2020 election, the fake elector scheme is the thing that really bothers me. And then the second thing across a larger timescale is the counterproductive division that he's created in, let's say, our public discourse. What are your top five criticisms of Trump?

Okay, so number one, I have the same exact thing as you. The fake elector scheme is unacceptable. Totally disqualifying. So the fake elector scheme was a literal coup attempt so he doesn't win the election. For folks who don't know, I need to explain why it's a coup attempt. Because you just throw out words and then people get triggered by the words and then they go into their separate corners. Right. So the January six rioters, they were not going to keep the building. That was not a coup attempt. It's not like, oh, the MAGA guys have the building. I guess they win, right? No, that was never going to happen. So what was the point of the January six riot? It was to delay the proceedings. Why did it matter that they were going to delay the proceedings? Because if you can't certify the election, they wanted general confusion and chaos so that the Republicans in Congress could say, well, we don't know who won, so we're gonna have to kick it back to the states. In the states, they had the fake electors ready. Remember, the fake electors are not Trump's electors. There's both candidates have a slate of electors, Biden's electors and Trump's electors, they Go to the Trump electors first in this plan. And half the Trump electors go, no, I'm not going to pretend Trump won the election when he didn't win the election. So they're like, shit, now we gotta come up with fake electors. Okay, so they enlist these Republicans to go, yeah, I'll pretend Trump won. Right? And so they sign a piece of paper. That's fraud. And that's why a lot of them are now being prosecuted in the different states. And so the idea is the Republican legislature, legislators then go, we're sending these new electors in, and we think Trump won Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin. Right? That was the idea. That was the plan. And then you come back to the House at that point, when there are two different sets of electors. The rule, constitutional rule, is the House decides, but the House decides not on a majority, because the Democrats had the majority at the time. They decide on a majority of the states. They vote by state, and the Republicans had the majority of the states. So in that way, you steal the election. Even though Trump didn't win, you install him back in as president. That is a frontal assault on democracy, and I loathe it. And then Trump on top just blabbers out, well, sometimes you have. If there's massive fraud in an election, in other words, I think I won. I don't even think that. I'm just saying that I won. Right? He says you can terminate any rule, regulation, or article, even in the Constitution. No, brother, you cannot terminate the Constitution because you'd like to do a fake elector scheme and do a coup against America. Fuck you. Okay? So I'm never going to allow this wannabe tyrant to go back into the White House and endanger our system. And so you want to endanger the corrupt system? I'm the guy, okay? Let's go get that corrupt system and tear it down. If you want to endanger the real system, democracy, capitalism, the Constitution, then I'm your biggest enemy. So I'm never going to take that risk. And you see it every time he goes to talk to a dictator. Look, guys, I'm asking you to be principled, right? I asked the left of that. And we drive away some of our audience when we do that. So we got the balls to do that to our, to our own side. So for the right wing, be honest, if it was Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Kamala Harris that went and wrote, quote, unquote, love letters to a communist dictator who runs concentration camps, you would say communist. We knew it. Look at that. And Trump literally says, About Kim Jong Un. We wrote love letters to one another. I fell. We fell in love. If a Democrat said that, they'd be politically decapitated, right? Their career would be instantly over. Right? But Trump, whenever it's Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, I'm not. Don't get into Russia, Russia, Russia. But it's just that he's a strong man, right? Kim Jong Un or any Viktor Orban Duterte in the Philippines, anytime it's a strong man that says, screw our Constitution, screw our rules, I want total loyalty to one person. Trump loves them. He loves them. He said once, he's like, oh, it's great. You go to North Korea or China, and when the leader walks in, everybody applauds and everybody listens to what he says. That's how he should be here. No, brother, that's not how it should be here. You hate democracy. You want to be the sole guy in charge. As a populist, you should loathe Donald Trump.

I agree on the fake electric scheme. Can you steel man and maybe educate me on. There's a book rigged that I started reading. Is there any degree to which the election was rigged or elections in general are rigged? So I think the book rigged. The main case they make is not that there are some shady fake ballots. It's more the impact of mainstream media and the impact of big tech.

So rigged is another one of those words that triggers people and is ill defined. Right? So let's begin to define it. So the worst case of rigged is we actually change the votes. Right? So a lot of Trump people think that that's what happened. Nonsense. That didn't happen at all. Okay? So then you move. And by the way, some on the left thought the votes were changed in the 2016 primary and it was literally rigged against Bernie. No, that did not happen. Okay? That is a massive crime and is very risky and is relatively easy to get caught. People who are in power are not interested in getting caught, they're not interested in going to jail, etc. It is a very extreme thing. Could it happen? Yes, it could happen. Have I seen any evidence of it happening in my lifetime? Not really.

Given how much people hate this, you probably just need to find evidence of one time, like one thing, one vote being changed, where you can trace them saying something in some room somewhere that would just explode. Just that evidence just doesn't seem to be there.

And by the way, for the right wing who say, verify the vote. Goddamn right. Verify the vote. Right. So you want to do have different proposals, like paper Ballots, recounts, hand recounts, which, by the way, you had not the paper ballots, but the three recounts and a hand recount in Georgia and so many of these swing states. He lost. He lost. He lost. There was no significant voter fraud. Now, second thing, in terms of, of rigging is voter fraud. So how. And the right wing believes, oh, my God, there's voter fraud everywhere. Not remotely true. Heritage foundation does a study. They want to prove it so badly, and it turns out no matter how much they move the numbers, the final number they got was, it happens 0.0000006% of the time. Okay, it almost never happens. They found like 31 instances over a decade or two decades.

So it's what counts as voter fraud.

So a lot of times these days, it'll be Republicans who do it, because it'll be. And it's not nefarious. It's a knucklehead who goes in. And so I heard they are. They're having non documented. The illegals vote. So I voted for me and my mom, even though she's dead. But that's fair. They're doing it. They're like, no, brother, that's not fair. That's not how it works. You're under arrest.

So what about non citizens voting?

So that's preposterous. Of course non citizens shouldn't vote and they don't vote.

But there's not. You don't have to prove citizenship when you're voting, right?

No, you do. I mean, so it depends on what you mean by prove and when you vote. Right. So you're not allowed to vote as a undocumented immigrant. So that happens up front when you go to, like, again, it's a hall of mirrors. Like, there's so many different ways to create mirages. So the Republicans will say, well, when you go to the voting booth, they don't make you show a passport. Yeah, that's true. But you showed it earlier when you registered. Right. And so. And we can get into voter ID laws. There's all sorts of things, but we got to speed up the spectrum. Right. So these things almost never happen. Voter fraud happens, though, super rarely and not enough to swing elections. And by the way, sometimes if there is an issue, they'll redo an election. There is actually a process for that. And it happened in North Carolina because Republic.