Transcript/812: Jeff Sharlet Returns

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Unknown Speaker (00:00:04.000)

Red Alert. Red alert. Red alert. Red. Alert. Red alert. Knowledge five days. Damn, Jordan, I am sweating. Knowledge party.com It's time to pray. I have great respect for knowledge like knowledge. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys Hsiang me or the bad guy knowledge. I'm Dan and Jordan knowledge fight need money Andy and Sandy are stopping Andy and Pam handy in Kansas. Andy in Kansas, you're on the airplane. Huge fan. I love your word. Knowledge by knowledge fight.com.

Jordan (00:00:59.000)

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to knowledge fight. I am Jordan. And once again, I am alone without Dan. However, I am joined by Jeff Charlotte once more to complete the two part series that we agreed to. While back, Jeff, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Jeff Sharlet (00:01:18.000)

Good, good. Good to be back with you.

Jordan (00:01:20.000)

Good, good, wonderful. I mean, I suppose let's let's start with the first question. Of course. What's your bright spot today?

Jeff Sharlet (00:01:27.000)

Oh, that's right. That's right, that trick question.

Jordan (00:01:31.000)

That's hard to, there are no bright spots.

Jeff Sharlet (00:01:36.000)

My bright spot today my bright spot today is? Well, you know. Okay, all right, I got one. I teach writing that day job. I teach writing at Dartmouth College. And I'm coming to you directly from a meeting with a student. And I gotta tell you, it is thrilling to me not just as a teacher, but as a person. And these frightening times when you see a student, it's nonfiction, I teach the same kind of writing that I try to do when you see a student writing about the connections and the connections suddenly starting to make Mrs. A person trying to write about sex trafficking in our region where we are right and talking about the stories that we tell ourselves in order to live like that famous Joan Didion line and the scary narratives and the Christian nationalists who come in with stories about that, too, and putting all this together. And that's a lot of ugliness for a bright spot, right. But when you see a young person put discovering that they have the power to put these things together, to juxtapose them on the page, and to make a story that brings clarity to someone else. And that this is what they want to do. And they're gonna keep going with this. You're like, Ah, thank God, right? It's always thrilling when you encounter someone else, learning to tell stories, because it's so cheesy, but you feel less alone, right? Like, because my story alone is not going to do it. But we have this great cacophony choir and good come into the choir. And when you see someone coming into the choir and joining the sort of storytelling world, you have some faith that, you know what if I miss it, if I screw it up? That's alright. Someone else would get it right.

Jordan (00:03:29.000)

Sure, sure. That you're Yeah, you're you're part of a larger tapestry of efforts and goal, right. Yeah. My bright spot is the movie Renfield. Starring Nicolas Cage. All right, now we can move on.

Unknown Speaker (00:03:44.000)

You're not gonna say anything about it. It's really good.

Jordan (00:03:47.000)

No, I haven't I haven't actually seen it yet. I just, I just we're recording this earlier than normal. And I just found it on the internet in a totally 100% legal way. And so I'm looking forward to it because Alex describes many, many people as Renfield. You know, they're the big vampires who the globalist vampires who drink all the blood and then they're all the red fields of whom can can be different every single day. Some people were a Renfield two years ago, and now they're the king. You know, it's it's random.

Jeff Sharlet (00:04:24.000)

But it's out Joan fans are gonna go see this Nicolas Cage movie because they're gonna think, Wow, this is great.

Jordan (00:04:32.000)

I mean, I have a probably that we're talking. They love movies. Most of their reality is based on movies. So they might go into this thing and I can't wait to see this great documentary. Wow. I mean, David Icke it's

Jeff Sharlet (00:04:50.000)

I mean, most of our reality is right. So that there's a segue right. Most of the reality is based on movies. And you know, Do I write a lot about movies in this book? Yes, you do. Because the people I'm talking to are basing their reality on movies. And they're not weird. I to draw on this, right? Like we draw on for the stories with these stories, we have a way of telling things. We're always looking for these metaphors. It is the primary granary of metaphor from which we draw. So you know, but but draw carefully, I guess I would say the Renfield thing like don't write.

Jordan (00:05:30.000)

Well, that is actually where I wanted to start. You know, we went through a lot of the content of the book on our last interview. So I think the one thing that I really want to start with is, well, I mean, kind of what we were just talking about Ashley Babbitt as, as martyr. I, when I read the book, I feel a certain ambivalence about Ashley Babbitt as martyr because, to a certain extent, their their martyrdom of her is completely fictional, right. But there is also a very real martyrdom that she went through. So I'd like you to kind of talk about your feelings on that.

Jeff Sharlet (00:06:10.000)

Well, I mean, this is the thing that I that I get pushed back on a lot like Ashley Babbitt is not a martyr, but we don't get to choose the martyrs of other movements. Right. You know, if you're a Roman there are a couple 1000 years ago, don't tell me about the Christian martyrs and our martyrs the rascals we got a good thing going here we got sewage we got everything is great. There's some voting it's not perfect. It's not the diamond ideal democracy, but we're getting there and then look at these assholes and they're talking about someone raising, rising from the dead now that's absolutely ridiculous. That's not a martyr. That's, that's, that's that's delusional, right? Martyr of course, in you know, this means witness. And Ashley Babbitt did die a witness to her cause she's a martyr. I mean, he's a martyr by any definition, that her cause is false and fake, makes it no less true. And if we want to do that, then we basically get rid of the word martyr altogether. The problem is when we assume that martyr is a good thing, right? Sure. A martyr is a politically agnostic term. It is what you make of it. And what I was fascinated by Ashley Wait, you know, when you say that completely sort of fictional martyrdom, and I'm like, What's the nonfiction?

Jordan (00:07:30.000)

She was by the cops, you know, to a certain extent that oh, yeah, right. Right. Oh, she you know, your book is covered with her weapon, a knife. And she was shot. Yeah. So I don't see. I don't see too much. You know, there is a difference between people who were shot by the cops, for sure. There is a difference in murder, but they were still murdered by the cops. So I do think that there's something to be said about that. Yeah.

Jeff Sharlet (00:08:00.000)

And I think I think that's actually really, that's actually the key point, right for understanding what's to me is the key point to understand what's going on in the Trump scene. So I think last time we talked about like, like, there's the prosperity gospel of 2016. Then the bastardized Gnostic gospel of 24. American fundamentalists, yeah, yeah. And then in January 20, January 6 2021, we enter this age of martyrs and Ashley becomes the first martyr. And she's an ideal martyr for that movement, partly because she's a white woman and a veteran. So she's gendered. Both right. The veteran is stabbed in the back a male, but she's a white woman who they instantly start aging backwards.

Jordan (00:08:36.000)

If she were on 30. Rock, she'd be called a twofer.

Jeff Sharlet (00:08:39.000)

If you accuse her yes, right, right. And they that she's not 35. She's in her 20s. She's 16. She's just a little white girl. And the man who shoots her is an ever larger black cop, right? And so this is the old lynching story, the old white, innocent white woman. And this goes all the way back to Virginia Dare the first white girl born in North America who gives her name V dare to anally prominent right wing sites. So there's that element of martyrdom. And I think the fiction versus nonfiction because what's fascinating to me, that opens the door for martyrdom, and I think of her as essentially a placeholder on the cross until Trump could, you know, push her aside and take his place, which is what you know, once these indictments started coming down, he starts sending out emails, friends, this may be the last time I talked to you for some time, right until the email I'm going to send you in right half hour.

Jordan (00:09:32.000)

She takes the nails and he gets the money.

Jeff Sharlet (00:09:35.000)

Yeah, yeah. But the martyrdom gets extended right and so she opens the door to the fundamental narrative of white, white power that that grievance so now you can be a martyr if you get shot by the cops. You can be a martyr if you get indicted for illegal payoffs to your mistress. You can be a martyr if you're the janitor. already six choir singing your song. Everybody is now an age of martyrs. This is the theological frame. You know, I wore my Trump hat to work, and I noticed my co workers given me sign I, I had been persecuted for my faith. I'm like Ashley Babbitt. I too am a martyr. So right in that fictional sense, Ashley Babbitt actually was killed. And historically, that's what a martyr means. But now, moderate means anyone who suffers for the cause, which, in Trumpism, in the Trumpist imagination, is anyone who believes in the cause to believe in the cause is to suffer for the cause is to have a Soros backed da, or maybe, you know, a Soros backed coach on your son's baseball team who's not putting him in, you know, what's, what's that about? Right? being martyred for our believes that that coach is a liberal?

Jordan (00:10:56.000)

Well, I mean, let me ask you to follow up on that is, you know, I think it's, it's suddenly far less impressive to become a martyr if everybody else you know, is also a martyr. Do you know what I mean? So is that not lessening the power of your Ashley Babbitt, who was actually, you know, if everybody's taking some sort of Stolen Valor of martyrdom from her death, doesn't that make her death far less meaningful?

Jeff Sharlet (00:11:25.000)

I think in normal times, yes. And I think we've been through enough, you know, the folks I would talk to talk about this there was some who would see her as the the first death of this new American Revolution. She is our Crispus Attucks killed in 1776. Of course, Crispus Attucks is a black Wampanoag man killed I think in 1771. But you know, don't get caught up on those details. Yeah. And then there's others who would sort of see her as another entry in an calendar sort of already crowded with martyrs Vicki Weaver from the Ruby Ridge standoff where knowledge by listeners probably know what that is, I bet Oh, you better believe talking about it? Yeah.

Jordan (00:12:12.000)

There's a conspiracy and there's a Nazi you better believe we know about it.

Jeff Sharlet (00:12:16.000)

We know about. It's so nice to talk to folks who are to whom I don't have to explain conspiracy theories. Or Waco, obviously, and of course, everyone knows that waco now, because Trump put it back into the national consciousness. And, you know, there's other folks that they and what's interesting to me it's actually traveling around is there are regional variations of this, you'll find like somebody who was killed by cops in a standoff, maybe because they didn't pay their taxes or something. And there was a foreclosure and so on. This doesn't become national news. But in this region, you got Crispus Attucks, you got Ashley Bab, you got Vicki Weaver and Joe X, who who's our local Mark murderer, right. And normally, Joe X goes away of Vicki Weaver, which is to say, and Vicki Weaver, you could argue pretty legitimate martyr.

Jordan (00:13:08.000)

I mean, that is kind of where we where we get into the ambivalence part, right? Is they not have been killed, they create a fictionalized version of a real martyr. And I think almost part of that is to avoid from actually having to deal with the real reason that the martyr was created. All right, well, let

Jeff Sharlet (00:13:28.000)

me detour on that for a second. I want to talk about like the proliferation of martyrs and why I think they're not becoming devalued in this currency. Yeah. But But let me just sort of say about that. I mean, there's a section in this book that I think and I'm so glad that people aren't attacking me for it, but I thought they would want I thought, you know, people would say you're humanizing Ashley Babbitt. I can't, she's human. i You can't humanize anybody. She is human. And, and so am I. And so I want to understand how she comes to this place, not as some kind of common ground bullshit, but because because look, that's her knife on the cover, and she was there in the Capitol. Sure. But then there's the killing. And I have done a lot of reporting on police killings. And, and they have helped bring some today and have learned a lot about where that wall is why that was fucked up. You know, with Kyle Rittenhouse people say travesty that he was acquitted. It's not a travesty that he was acquitted. It's a travesty that the law was written in such that he there was nothing to do but acquit him. Right? He was within

Jordan (00:14:39.000)

it that he's a murderer. I think that's the place we start with that. Yeah, child became a murderer because of bullshit. You know, that's fascinating. That's

Jeff Sharlet (00:14:48.000)

the first that's the first travesty. But then the law is written. And now the law is written such that people say well, actually bad but of course you had to kill her. She was breaking into the Capitol. And this drives me nuts. because No, that was not probably, we'll never know because it was no real investigation. That was probably not a legitimate killing. I talked to a man named Seth stone literally wrote the book on police use of force, former cop became a law scholar was an you know, former cop. Well, of course, he's on their side. He was the expert witness and the conviction of Derek Chauvin. He was the guy who said, let me explain to you in every little nuanced way, why this was not legitimate use of force, right? And that's usually the side he is on. He is usually testifying as an expert witness in trials against cops saying no, they crossed, they crossed the line. He looked at video and he says, Look, this isn't a court. We can't do this. But yeah, this does not look legitimate and people say, but she was breaking into the Capitol. Do we want to live in a world where cops can shoot to kill anybody who breaks into a house? No bait stand your ground does not apply to cops, and it shouldn't in fact, cops, cops legally, if there's a backdoor someone breaks in the front door, and there's a backdoor rather than killing you. They're supposed to go out the back door. Sure. And they have to evaluate on three criteria, right? Is this can you remember them all? Ashley Babbitt does not meet all three. Right? She has, we don't know she might have a weapon. The weapons not visible. Sure. But she's not in a place because she cannot get over this barrier. He had other means of stopping her before she got to that right. So he shoots. Now, here's the complicated part.

Jordan (00:16:38.000)

Well, I mean, he could have just fucking left. They all could have just fucking left.

Jeff Sharlet (00:16:41.000)

And by Yeah, and by the shot her as her family's lawyer who is a police violence lawyer. He's not some bright wing fascist lawyer. He's a lawyer who represents people who've been brutalized by police. Right. So this is not to say, look, Ashley Babbitt is. I said, I said, Stoughton. I said, Are you saying she's not a domestic terrorist? And he says, No, she's, yeah, she's a domestic terrorist. And and so people say, don't we get to shoot domestic terrorists? No, no, we arrest them. we arrest them and try them. And if there's nothing else, and it's the last incident, and someone is about to be harmed, then we at currently, under a law say the police have the right to use violent force, this guy would have been indicted, if it had happened anywhere, but in the capital, which is this very weird gray area of law. And it's almost sort of like this gray area where criminal law doesn't quite apply. Right. So he was found not not guilty. He was just found like, we can't be sure that he wasn't afraid for his life. Sure. And so can't be sure that he had malice based on a civil rights violation. If you had passed the George Floyd, police reform law, that guy would have been indicted. Right. So the Republicans have said, How come there's not justice for Ashley? Because they rigged the laws so that there can't be right and make the laws to protect the police. I mean, this is sort of a long, wonky detour. But I think when you talk about the real, like, just the way you said it like that, they they trademark it to martyrs, because they don't want to talk about the real ones. Yes,

Jordan (00:18:14.000)

yeah. Well, I mean, that is that is kind of it and it is, it is something that I think is quite funny to me, just the way that we think about things is that assumption, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with invading the Capitol. It's our fucking building. Like that's, that's a point of view that we keep avoiding is like, it is not inherently a bad thing. It's not, you know, I

Jeff Sharlet (00:18:44.000)

think about like, the friends in Wisconsin, and because remember, when Scott Walker was trying to break the unions and trying to he did, he didn't get in Wisconsin, and the last end of organized labor and all its allies was sitting at the Capitol, right? Yeah. The same logic that leads some liberals to say I wish they had just opened fire on Ashley Babin. All of them is the same logic by which oh that to what who is saying that oh my god daughter out there this is so I tell you what if go back and look in that early like say Washington Post coverage of Ashley Babbitt and read the comments, you want some blood read the comments and now here's the interesting thing. And then and then you see like the ad for a while there was the sort of fake accounts mocking Ashley Babbitt and and they would always say, and I'm going to quote, I'm going to quote here some variation some paraphrase of I'm glad they shot the bitch. And the pitch is not accidental. The misogynistic language Sure, yeah, sure. It would, it would come into this right. This was sort of giving some liberals license to, to feel that anger and and Hey, and look, it's a witch site. Look, I'm not going to argue this is not a main argument. My book like Ashley Babbage shouldn't have been shot. I don't think she should have been. But I do think she should have been arrested. And I think they should have, you know, I'm not an abolitionist of the justice system, I think she should have been arrested in put in jail. And same with the J Sixers. And if she had gotten over that barrier and pulled her knife and been about to stab that cop, then yeah, then I think it would have been a legitimate shooting, but that's not where it was. Right. But I think that I'll stop there because

Jordan (00:20:39.000)

that suddenly jogged my memory about something that I wanted to talk to you about. Is you recently did a salon interview. And there the the interviewer said a few things off the Vega really great writer. Yeah, I was a little way by.

Jeff Sharlet (00:20:56.000)

Now, if I listeners would like Chauncey to Vegas, and I feel like the conversations a little bit like conversation I've had with you and Chauncey is like one of those journalists out there who is not bullshitting.

Jordan (00:21:07.000)

Right, right. Well, one thing he said was that Trump and Republican fascists are doing exactly what I would do, if I were in their situation. And then he's talking about liberals in the lake. And he's saying they're lucky I'm not on the other side. Now, your your response to that is when you boil it down, is that America is going to have to experience and go through fascism. Yeah, you didn't, you didn't say like, maybe you didn't say it's possible or the future or etc, you are saying definitively that is going to happen?

Jeff Sharlet (00:21:48.000)

No, I'm gonna say go further than that definitively. It is happening. And I think we talked last time, I can't remember about the F word fascism, which is don't use lightly. I can't stand the way you know, I'm a lefty, but you know, every fucking president you dislike is fascist. On the one hand, yes. There's always been fascism in America. And as I write in the book, you know, I mean, you go, I say, I say it's, fascism is multiculturalism. Now, its gravitational pull with with which is able to pull in people of color into a white supremacist movement. That's his latest contribution to fascism. The earliest contribution, you know, you had the Nazis, studying Jim Crow laws. And then this is actually true, Nazi jurists saying, looking at Jim Crow laws and one drop of blood and saying, that's a little too much. We can't go that far. Right. It seems extreme to them.

Jordan (00:22:41.000)

One of the one of the congressional report says that Alexander Hamilton is one of the underpinnings of the ideological Nazis. Yeah, his writing. So it's, it's been there from the jump.

Jeff Sharlet (00:22:53.000)

It's always been there. Right. But it has not been dominant. Right. And it has not been, you could find counties that were under fascist control. We could we could look at the segregation itself and see elements of the fascist control. We still don't have a full fascist regime. And I think a lot of liberals are doing this thing of saying, Yeah, but America is not like Nazi Germany. No, it's not because there was not just in power, but consolidated in power, and that we may not go through. But we're going through the fascism right now, in the sense that I think of, you know, queer and trans folks being criminalized in 20 states, right? You have people moving for basic health care you have, you have all these casualties of this slow civil war. You have that fear you have, you know, in New Hampshire, where my kids go to school, there's a snitch line, you can call you don't sound like something that the teacher saying you can report them. And teachers know that and teachers are towing the ground and shaping their lessons. And what am I going to say about the past and did the past even really happen? People have got that's not like fascism, that is fascism. It's not a fascist regime. New Hampshire is not a fascist regime. But it is a fascist movement that is growing. That is growing power. And I think that's where Chauncey and I come down. I think, I think maybe knowledge fight folks are in the same way of sort of saying, like, well, you've got your bright spot, but like, let's not do the thing of like, well, let's look on the bright side. Yeah. You know, oh,

Jordan (00:24:24.000)

no, no, the reason we do the bright side is because we're relentlessly, horrifically terrible, right?

Jeff Sharlet (00:24:31.000)

Whereas lifting there is a corner of liberalism that wants to keep sort of saying like, I want to say the center didn't hold right the center has gone well I mean, the system is a system is there but the center is gone right? In Part The difference is the center is this the right wingers I've written about for years and years we support these fascists overseas Suharto in Indonesia sidebar in Somalia. I mean, these re And they knew what they were right. They weren't deluded about these. These were elite American congressmen and so on. Mike Pence supporting arming up the Sri Lankan government that would then use it to slaughter its own people that herded onto a beach. He knew that they were doing this right. But there was a way in which they somehow drew this strange line. They wanted power in America. But no, not until Trump comes down that golden escalator and 2015 bringing with him the fascist aesthetic, does the creation of a full fascist movement become powerful? And do they embrace that? There's enough of those folks now that the SIS dissenter is what led them to believe I can't quite let that in the door. Not white that Reagan, maybe but not that sure. system now has room for that in the space. Right. And I think that that's that so so the center, the center is gone, the system is still there, but the system is now up for grabs.

Jordan (00:25:58.000)

Right? Well, I mean, I feel like when when we talk about that, that's an important thing to put in a historical context. So if you say to me, we're going through fascism, we're in this place where we don't have a fascist regime yet. You know, are you telling me that we're, we're, you know, the German commies and the Liberals unable to get together to vote out the Nazis. You know, like, where are we in that scenario?

Jeff Sharlet (00:26:29.000)

I mean, the sure are echoes of that there's a terrific book called Ernest Bloch. What's the name? It's got a terrible title collection of essays. C,

Jordan (00:26:38.000)

Harris, got a terrible title.

Jeff Sharlet (00:26:42.000)

Oh, I'm just like, I can never remember the title of a book. It's got a terrible title, you know. It's called heritage of our times, right? That title heritage of our time, it is a bad title. It sounds like a Nazi book. Ernst Bloch was a great radical German journalist in the 1930s, but also was sort of a he became actually a prominent American scholar after after the war.

Jordan (00:27:07.000)

Also, Operation Paperclip.

Jeff Sharlet (00:27:10.000)

I know he's a good guy, he's a good guy. And unlike so many of the German radicals of that time, he was a real student of Religious Studies. And so he was always looking at in ways that some of which seems obvious to us. Now, fascism is mobilization of the mythological and so on, and some of it, and when I read this book, it's astonishing to me, because partly, it's also granular detail. He's talking about, like what's happening in one smaller German city, because these are essays that are written in the moment. Before Nazi before the regime is fully in power. You see so many resonances, and you realize, I mean, it's from reading that book that I realized, like, oh, the Trump rallies certainly never ended. And and how did I miss this? I remember in 2016, I wrote a little essay trying to encourage my lefty friends all right, Greg, let's let's vote for Hillary. And the problem isn't just Trump, it's the million little Trump's that are going to be unleashed. Well, now we have Trump around. We just had one in New Hampshire. But you want to go to Trump rally, no problem, go to your school board meeting. Go to many city hall meetings, you've got a million little Trump's not all the same charisma, but the same rhetoric. The Montana State legislator, that's a Trump rally, the Tennessee State Legislature, that's a Trump rally. And when I say it's a rally, it means that they're no longer interested in, you know, even the veneer of governing. It's the performative rejection of the other, the black legislators in Tennessee, the trans that just in Montana, and I think there's another one in Iowa has been silenced. I think a mother of a trans person, I think it's an Iowa has been silenced. Right. And I want to say also, like we hear about those national stories, there's more, there's always more every journalist knows this, right? The stories that make it somehow catch the National Eye.

Jordan (00:29:12.000)

I mean, I suppose I suppose where I get into where I get into trouble here is, if what you are saying is true, right? If if we are doing these things, then what is now justified. If we're there, if we're in the situation, you know, you've you've said it's in or out time on multiple occasions. There are it's criminal to exist. If you are a trans person in some places. Once that happens, Why care about any laws? It is against the law for you to live. So at what point do we just say that there's no point there's no law?

Jeff Sharlet (00:29:55.000)

I guess that's a personal decision. Jordan I agree. Well, I

Jordan (00:30:00.000)

mean, but that's what I mean, whenever I talk about you saying it's in or out time. Yeah, it is time something it is time to make it has to take to take place.

Jeff Sharlet (00:30:11.000)

It is time to make that decision. And look, I mean, I opened the book with Harry Belafonte, who died last week at 96. And he's the bright spot of the book. And it's a pretty bitter bright spot. He's a man who died angry, right? He hated the Hollywood zation of the civil rights movement. He spoke to Martin Luther King, who was his, you know, he was really many people don't realize that how close they were and how instrumental they were to each other. He speaks to him when I was spending time with him in the present tense, and he's haunted by him. And he's not saying, oh, MLK what a great American. He's like, this was last this was was better. Right? Right. And telephony was not a non violent man. And that's actually part of why he's in the beginning like he, he.

Jordan (00:31:02.000)

I want to push back real quick on that is, I think that it's going to be easy to assume that when I'm talking about in or out time, action, time or vibe, that I'm that I'm instantly talking about violence, I'm talking more about something that needs to be done, that we can't say in or out time without then taking an action in that regard. If that makes sense to you? Do you understand?

Jeff Sharlet (00:31:29.000)

Yes, yes. But I'm also, I mean, another lesson we can draw from the 1930s. And the fact that the United States didn't get a fascist regime, and people don't realize that it was much closer to that potential. Oh, it was right there. Yeah, it was right there. And what did the United States have that Germany didn't have all kinds of complicated things. But one thing was on the left something called the Popular Front, the Popular Front was all hands on deck, people that I do not agree with what's making fascism powerful. Now, proud boys working with pious evangelicals, right wing Catholics working with right wing Protestants, these are people who don't normally talk to one another. Joe Rogan fans, lining up with the Family Research Council, a convergence of movements, right to fight back, you have the Popular Front. So in that sense, when I say it's all in, but if I'm not going to tell if someone says like, Hey, we're gonna have a drag show, and we know the proud boys are going to show up with their guns. So we're going to show up with our guns. I'm not going to tell him not to do that. If someone says, I am going to go and campaign for my senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, who is completely inadequate as a Democratic Senator, I'm not going to tell them not to do that. Oh, I'm

Jordan (00:32:45.000)

not sure. Feinstein for President in 2024. That's my plan. Yeah,

Jeff Sharlet (00:32:49.000)

it's all hands on deck. And the party that was the Popular Front, which was communist led, because it was a different time in the 1930s. But they were working with, they were working with Democrats, they were working with people of conscience and all these kinds of things. So yeah, it's all in. It's all in for me, which is sort of why I'm writing this book. I have been writing about right wing movements for 20 years, I thought I was done. Right, done a bunch of books and so on. But I had other projects I want to do, this is what I can do. There's kids in the book that we meet in Wisconsin, these wonderful kids, Black River Falls, Wisconsin, which is not hipster Wisconsin. It's not Madison, it's not Milwaukee, the small little town and I pull in right after Dobbs, the doubt the fall of Roe and there's this woman very small under five feet tall standing on the bridge by herself holding a sign that says your misogyny is showing and I circle around and now there's a couple other kids are their high school kids, young college kids, not the town radicals. These are the student body presidents. There's a cheerleader named Peyton holding a sign that says fuck off. And I asked what it means right? And just like is she and she's just like means fuck off. It means I'm quoting her. So if you mean you ain't getting no pussy ain't getting anything. If you're gonna do this to mean it means rage. She means sex strike, she means I'm being part of this world in which there's a gender expectation of me if my rights are not going to be protected by those who are older, right, right now, these kids who I love, what curves they have. I talked to them later that night. I say, you know, a lot of these folks in the right are talking about Civil War, and I think this is going to horrify them. Instead they're like, Bring it on.

Jordan (00:34:32.000)

Well, I mean, I believe the quote is from feta. Is that the way Yeah, yeah, it is. You know, it's either we fight against them, we possibly get killed in a civil war, or we suffer like this, right, stripped away from us minute by minute, and I don't know if that's a life worth living.

Jeff Sharlet (00:34:48.000)

Yeah. And that's the right heart now, feta. They were all this whole gang of sweet little kids having wound up on carbs and you know, waffles late at night at Perkins, which is what didn't go in the small town. They were all Wisconsin was continents, they all knew how to use guns except theta theta was an archer. And now there's a clue here, right? Data is an archer like Katniss and Hunger Games. Sure. You remember that these are kids, right? In that their imagination of civil war is just that an imagination shaped by movies, right? And so as it is for the militia man, and Marinette, Wisconsin, who his imagination of civil war, and he's got plenty of guns and so on is shaped by Red Dawn, or 300 movies, right? The stories that people are telling themselves about the world. The difference is what I took heart from those kids and why they're a bright spot, even though I do not want them shooting anybody. And I don't think that will win. I mean, just practice

Jordan (00:35:48.000)

that arming up the endless cycle. Yeah, is that I'm

Jeff Sharlet (00:35:51.000)

gonna continue it's gonna get squashed as romanticism, right? Sure. There's 393 million guns in civilian hands in America. And lefties, and I just was talking to some graduate students who's like, it's time for the left arm up. And like, I if you want to go down that path, that time was about 150 years ago. And you're really not going to catch up.

Jordan (00:36:18.000)

Yeah, the Reconstruction Era really was where it all went wrong.

Jeff Sharlet (00:36:21.000)

Right, right. You write down your guns.

Jordan (00:36:24.000)

What and

Jeff Sharlet (00:36:27.000)

but you can't catch up but I take great heart from them. Because right data is thinking in I think in the correct terms, right. You know, it's time to fight the protest sign is not give me my rights. It's fuck off. Right? It's, you have failed. And when I say you, I mean you, Jordan and me because we're older than them. Right? We have found that's what these kids are saying. I think to what's interesting to me, did you see this thing yesterday and I'm just free associating so you just cut me off, but I just see Dee Snider have Twisted Sister.

Jordan (00:37:02.000)

No, you don't follow? Um, no, that's right. I'm nowhere you cannot find me.

Jeff Sharlet (00:37:08.000)

So but it's a real it's a real fascinating move. So So Dee Snider, Twisted Sister that 80s Rock, man, remember, we're not you know, I'm

Jordan (00:37:14.000)

well aware of Twisted Sister. Yes. And we're

Jeff Sharlet (00:37:17.000)

not going to take it and has in the Trump years sort of emerged as a surprising kind of left ally, partly because so many trumpets assume that like 80s metal was all in for them as a fair amount of it turned out to be, but not deep Snyder. Until yesterday, when Paul Stanley of kids puts out a thing says, like, look, I love dressing up and so on. And adults should be allowed to transition. You see where this is going. It's the young people, you know, parents making a game or just acting as if transitioning is just fun and games and so on. And Dee Snider breaks my heart, he says, he says, you know, when I was young, I felt pretty too thank God. You know, my parents didn't you know, as if, like, cut off his dick. Were

Jordan (00:38:04.000)

all gone or like boats? Yeah. Like boats? Yeah, I like it. That's a good song. I don't know. I don't know if it'll sell as well. But I don't think it's bad.

Jeff Sharlet (00:38:14.000)

But the point of it was, I'm looking at this. I'm like, here's a guy Schneider, who has actually become this weird kind of prominent ally in the way so many of these old celebrities like George Mackay have, right? And then he split off and I look at the way fascism works, which is that finds a story that can sort of sliver liberals like that and say, like, Well, I'm not certainly not against trans people. But and now here you are, and now this movement, and so then you get some, some 16 year old trans kids saying, fuck off the Snyder just the way he would have when he was 16 should be more extreme, right? Sure. We can say, hey, some of those kids are going to cross the line. Like, you know, there's people who are gonna say stupid things. 16 year old saying stupid things. Amazing. I'm gonna happen, right? And then the right then takes those stupid things and feeds them to people like Dee Snider, and says, You know what the trans movement is entirely people who want to cut off their dicks for funding games. Sure, which is just false. But Snyder says, That sounds horrible. Well, you know, I mean, have you ever met a trans person who was like, just in this refunding games, I think I will go through this incredibly difficult medical procedure and make myself visible as part of the most targeted community in the United States right now so that the guns will be aimed at me. That'll be fun and games, nobody.

Jordan (00:39:43.000)

I mean, you know, sometimes he gets around Tuesday at three and they're like, I got something today and I can't say their shower. So

Jeff Sharlet (00:39:51.000)

but that's, that's livering. And I see I mean, this is happening in a very sort of accelerating way right now. And that's why I talk about all hands on deck. That's why I tell awk about the Popular Front, right? The answer to that is the old labor song and I write about it in the book. Which side are you on 1930s Harlan County people don't realize that one of the very first uses of air power in the United States by the United States was strafing striking miners. Sure. air power in the United States develops with planes flying over Tulsa, Oklahoma strafing black folks bombing black folks and and strafing miners in Kentucky. And there's an old a mine widow, Florence, Risa sings a song, which side are you on? Like, they're shooting us? So if you like, Well, it's complicated. I support labor. But I don't know. Which side are you on? There's the AR 15. The men with AR 15 is outside the the library or the school? And there's kids inside? Which side? Are you on? Right? It is Saturday or not? And that's I think what you're getting to it's which side? Are you on moment, you have to decide which side are you on? But then you're right. It's not necessarily violence. And I'm there with the kids inside? What are you doing? Maybe Maybe you're the person who says I'm going to bring my gun and I'm going to stand facing off with these guys. Or maybe you're the one who's in there and saying like, I'm going to be in drag reading a story to kids?

Jordan (00:41:22.000)

Well, maybe we just were maybe we need an underground railroad to get trans and LGBTQ people out of these horrible places with oh, that's

Jeff Sharlet (00:41:31.000)

already that's already happened.

Jordan (00:41:32.000)

Exactly. That's That's what I'm saying. Like, as far as it doesn't need to be a violent response. It needs to be one that is aware of the moment. And if we're in a historical context, we can kind of guess what's going to happen next. So if we prepare as opposed to just being like, let's hope it doesn't happen this time.

Jeff Sharlet (00:41:51.000)

Yeah, no, no, it is happening. Now. We, you know, you're in Missouri, right? Where they've now just outlawed trans health care for not just kids. Dare you

Jordan (00:42:02.000)

say it from Missouri?

Jeff Sharlet (00:42:03.000)

No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, in Missouri. Right.

Jordan (00:42:09.000)

It still stands, how dare you say, No dance dance from Missouri. It's just kind of.

Jeff Sharlet (00:42:14.000)

But you know, I mean, you've got to think about, you've got to think about your future. I mean, this is this is sort of where I want the book is called the scenes when the Civil War, right because and I'm, I'm going around trying to get folks to realize this, I'm fascinated and a story. I'm going to speak a little bit out of school, but I'm not going to give too many details. An acquaintance happens to know, Paul Ryan. And you know, the Queen's is sort of is friendly with Paul Ryan. So as a you know, put but not not a fascist, as Ryan is not a fascist, he enabled it. But he's not there. Right.

Jordan (00:42:52.000)

I mean, that's that's denying your inner out time conversation, right. But no, well, no, wait, wait to interrupt. Especially with Paul Ryan.

Jeff Sharlet (00:43:02.000)

He's out. And here's, here's why. This guy is saying to him, you know, Paul, you understand you're never getting back into politics. And he's like, Yeah, Paul gets that. He says, but I think it's important to maintain a, you know, a place in the room. And with guys like, Paul doesn't understand. If he's in the room. It's not the room. Right? That's this is what I mean about the senator not holding these, you know, these old establishment guys. They're not maintaining a place in the room if they're in the room. But now they're a fascist, Paul Ryan, he's not even he doesn't even they're not gonna let him in that room. So whatever room he's in, he's looking around. This is not the room of power anymore. Right. You don't get access Paul Ryan to that room.

Jordan (00:43:47.000)

Yeah, they get rid of people who are useless very quickly. Yeah. Turns out they're not very loyal, weird about fascist.

Jeff Sharlet (00:43:55.000)

Right. Right. Right. But you know, or like, I think of where, and then I get into sort of like, wonky political stuff. I'll stop there. But I think that like the in and our

Jordan (00:44:06.000)

our fans are literally called policy walks. All right, so.

Jeff Sharlet (00:44:10.000)

So Governor, Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, right? running for president who knows why. And he's the moderate lane and so on. Although he has said he will vote for Trump, if Trump is the nominee.

Jordan (00:44:26.000)

All right. You're batshit Nazi. Right, right.

Jeff Sharlet (00:44:30.000)

He's He's chosen which side he's on. Right. And he wasn't always on that side. And I think but that's also part of the which side, are you on thing? And I think it's very tempting to the left is this kind of ascent essentialism, to assume like, well, that person's chosen. That's what they always were. If only it was that simple and that safe. The reality is, he looked at this situation. And he was sort of he was sort of standing in the middle. He figured out that it was untenable. And he chose that side. So when and that's the story. have actually bad actually bad but was not always a fascist. A lot of the people celebrate or killing just like, you know, and usually in very misogynistic terms. Say she was always that Ashley Babbitt and that's why I'm sort of interested in this. So that we want to pay attention to the movement right under toe is a movement metaphor. It's pulling us out to see right. But it's also what do you choose to do with that undertone? I think for so many people like Ashley Babbitt, they're sort of resisting the whole lives and trying to be a good person. You know, she's like a, she's like a liberal Democrat, very proud of Obama loves Obama's second favorite president after Trump. And some people say, Well, that just means she's stupid. And well, no, it means that there's emotional aspect is going in all sorts of different ways. After she died 14 years in the Air Force. A lot of people mocked the fact that she had not gotten very far and said that just goes to show you the kind of person who invades the Capitol. So it is so bad that they can, why did she not get very far in the Air Force because time and time again, she was a person who would stand up she's like, you know, she little person, but not afraid. An officer there's plenty of officers who are assholes would be berating somebody and Ashley would get in the middle, she would choose which side she was on. Okay. She's like, I'm on the side. Like, I don't care about chain of command. I'm like, that's wrong what you're saying to that person. So she just gets you know, bumped down and rang again and again and again. She was the person who she literally did there was a I think was a purse snatcher, Ashley Sprint's down the street and stops the thief and gets the purse back for the victim. She's the person who doesn't look at that and say, That's horrible. She shows the fuck up. Right, right. And she tries to be a good person. And I think of this sort of turning point, I think and of course, she's not alive. So we can't know. But it comes up in some of her, her writing and videos. And so on this point, she lives in Southern California, very blue, Southern California. She's gone in for Trump. No one's really followed her. Her husband and a girlfriend because she's both they, they are a throttle. They're kind of a queer throttle. There's videos they make of Ashley watching Trump rallies, they just think it's her weird thing, right? Or, like, go to the beach, Ashley. And, you know, we don't really follow that. But there's a point a house lessness is a huge problem in Southern California. And, and it's growing, right? And that has all kinds of structural issues, right? And actually tries to remember that and tries to be compassionate. And in one day, a guy shits on her lawn, and she just gives up, goes leans back into the undertone. You know, I'm not paddling, I'm not trying to be the better person. I'm not trying to see the larger problem. I just want to fucking hate this dude who shot in my lawn, and Trump comes along, and he tells me it's okay. And not only I'm not a bad person, for hating that. I'm a good person. I'm a victim. Right? Hashtag love. That's her first, her first tweet on behalf of Trump. Right. Sure. To the side. That's movement, Chris Sununu. Who was he has governed as a moderate, in fact, until now was actually sort of pushing back against are very occasionally far right legislature in New Hampshire. Not anymore. All that stopping. He's choosing aside, we got to pay attention to that strategically because that means powerful people who aren't stupid, but are selfish, are saying, Ah, which side am I on? I think I better go over on that side. Right. It also mean and

Jordan (00:48:48.000)

that's that's why I want to keep that's why I keep going back to Ashley Babbitt with you is, I mean it when you say that it was the houseless person that shat on her lawn. I mean, to me, that's an insane thing to say. What it was is a entire lifetime of institutionalized misogyny, kicking her ass left and right, until finally, something like that happens. And then my question to you from there is this. Why do people choose to go with Trump, when it's that kind of in or out level? What is it that the left is not providing? That would be an option for her because she wasn't getting any options from the left?

Jeff Sharlet (00:49:35.000)

No, she was getting a kind of a neoliberal governance system that wasn't taking care of homeless people.

Jordan (00:49:41.000)

She was getting favorite president was Obama. She was getting a neoliberal

Jeff Sharlet (00:49:45.000)

government system that wasn't regulating banking so that she could get a loan because she didn't know what she's trying to do for her pool business that would suddenly put her in incredible interest that there's literally I mean, it's a mafia loan. There's is no way for her ever to pay. She was getting a Yeah, misogyny all the way through. She was getting, you know, she saw 911 and decided to join the Air Force at 17 convinced her parents to let her go down and join early. And like so many people in the Trump world, I think the right, I mean, you can talk to folks in Trump world, and they sound like they just come from a screening of democracy now. Right. They will talk about blood for oil and and and and what they lost in the Iraq War and how bitter they are and how that war was for Halliburton. That diagnosis is fairly accurate. And then, and that is why I support Trump. Right? partly right. And like when you say that, right? When I when I say the man who sits on the lawn, right? That's not That's the this. This is right. I understand. Yes. And I sort of write in the book about like, what is it like to name any one thing like, is it she gives into a racism too, and the racism has always been there? And it's always been there, right? Is this race or is this class or is this misogyny? Yes, yes, yes. That's called intersectionality. And it's a million other little things. It is the disappointments of life. It's it's a marriage that didn't work. It's it's the shame she feels a lot. So many people made this. A lot of the fact that she think in 2016. The man she ended up marrying Aaron Babbitt. It was a complicated transition. Who knows if there was some cheating or whatever involved and Ashley Babbitt loses her temper. And allegedly, although is found not guilty later, rams the other woman's car. That's fucking horrible. What a fucking horrible thing to do. This is, this is also she's not proud of that. People like look at that. That's the way that person is. Well, we on the left on the liberation side, we are the ones who are supposed to own the idea that you are not defined by your worst act, right? This is why we oppose the carceral state, which is why we oppose essentialism, the American caste, right. And yet she is and and, and I think why does she choose Trump? You're right, there's an absence. There's an absence. It's there on the left, but you have to go looking, it's not as visible, Trump is more more visible. I think about this in a previous book of minds we hadn't when a guy wrote about a movement called Battle Cry, and what battlecry would do in the early 2000s, as they would have these like three day rock festivals for evangelical teens, 70,000 folks. And they would go out there and I remember there was one stick, they would have, they would have a candle hide. And they would talk about and they'd be projecting on the screen and said you know what corporations are doing to you. They're branding you and they will brand the height. And they will put up on the screen, Oakley or Coca Cola. They're brand new, they're brand new, the branding you write is could be Adbusters. This is this is a leftist critique. And yet, then they swooped them up, and battlecry you can hear it in the name. Some of the the other stage, the one thing they did is they bring a mannequin on and each part of the mannequin would be labeled like pornography or some other things that they did. And then they would take this biblical story about a concubine, who was given by a figure to the mob to be torn up in that this is somehow the good,

Jordan (00:53:40.000)

which story was that there's too many of those.

Jeff Sharlet (00:53:44.000)

But they lead the 1000s of kids and chanting a tear up the concubine tariff, and they rip an arm off and throw it to the crowd. And the kids are all screaming and who wants you know, I want a hand I wanted this and so on. Right? This is fascism. This I

Jordan (00:53:59.000)

love. I love people who think that we didn't evolve, behaving exactly like a giant ships out of apes.

Jeff Sharlet (00:54:08.000)

But this is fascism, but look at what they've just done. They've taken like, Hey, kids, I bet you hate that your fucking corporate branded. And they do. And the left isn't saying that. Right now. There is a left that saying that but it's not visible enough ad buses are saying it but these kids in Texas aren't getting ad buses, they're getting battlecry. Right? And they're becoming Trumpers. And so when it comes to on the

Jordan (00:54:32.000)

left, is is an offer of slow incremental change to people as you know, who have recognized that the center doesn't exist anymore. So there is no slow incremental change.

Jeff Sharlet (00:54:46.000)

There is I'm gonna disagree with you there. Okay. No, no, I'm

Jordan (00:54:49.000)

not saying that. From my point of view. I'm saying that from from the story that the that they are getting is if you go with Trump, we can do it. Now fast. Yeah, we can do it now. And if you go with fucking Joe Biden, Jesus Christ, nobody can sell Joe Biden on you. That's not going to happen. You know?

Jeff Sharlet (00:55:12.000)

Democracy is dull. We know this, right? I mean, it's why there's a chapter in the book called The Great acceleration. Let me find this passage. So acceleration ism.

Jordan (00:55:23.000)

And speaking of which, I was going to ask you if you are a closet accelerationist so we'll get

Jeff Sharlet (00:55:27.000)

there is my elegant answer. No, I'm a closet liberal. Like I'm a closet slow, incremental change. That's why Harry Belafonte. Oh, boy, sorry, a long struggle, man. The struggle. The struggle is long, right? Sure. And it's why I reject the language of crisis. And you with your religious background, understand the eschatological nature of that it's a crisis of democracy. It's the crisis of climate. Sure. It's a final battle as Trump says, right? This is it. You're all in or all out for a long struggle, because we are gonna go through fascism, and I don't know it's gonna be a fascist regime. But if we're like, God, damn, I'm gonna fight so hard and we didn't win. What's the voting point? Harry Belafonte stayed in the struggle for 96 years. A stronger soul than me? Yes. But one who had also many more temptations, and most of us as a superstar, easy for him to walk away. He stayed fully 100%. In the struggle, he stayed in the anger for 96 years. That's the long struggle, right? That's the struggle against fascism. That's a struggle for the democracy. We have not yet enjoyed an acceleration as to say it's time to give up. Democracy doesn't do enough. what fools we haven't had it yet. Right? Wouldn't it be something that's why there's a chapter in the book about Occupy to the pleasures of physical democracy as one person describes it of like the democracy of we're going to sleep together, and the park, we're going to cook together, we're going to make a library together, we're going to have really clunky, boring, slow consensus meetings and consensus meetings are fucking boring. They are not as thrilling as the strong man. And accelerationism says accelerationism says though, let me find this little acceleration this passage.

Jordan (00:57:22.000)

Take your time, I'll edit this part out and it'll look like you open the book to the right page. It'll be yes.

Jeff Sharlet (00:57:29.000)

So there's in Waukesha, Milwaukee, Waukesha, Milwaukee. So Milwaukee is a very blue city and a purple state. And Waukesha is one of the counties that used to be the most right wing counties in America. It is the purest white flight. And yet it has been giving up on some of that conservative and over the years, as it does, though, the fight gets sharper. And in walk us and now there's a I mean, the school board, school board, we have school board people, they're saying we should just not teach science. Science is of the devil. I mean, it's really Oh, yeah, I think they, I think was a school board. There was a little scandal recently there was a Somewhere over the rainbow that we can't sing that is gay. But I get to watch Waukesha and walk us is also this place, I think is sort of useful because it is this place of kind of mythological violence is where in 2021, a man called himself math boy fly, he plows through a Christmas parade remember the Christmas parade and six people for sure, and the dancing grannies, right. And this looms so large on the right, they say you'd want to talk about Karl Rittenhouse. Let's talk about math boy fly math boy fly who is essentially an asshole, right. But he's an asshole of his times. And sometimes he talks online about Black Lives Matter and so on. So they conclude that he is doing this for black lives matter. In fact, this man lacks any ideological principle. He is domestic violence guy and is fleeing from the cops and he just like he is the absolute narcissism. People my way I'm driving through them and he kills them. Right? Walker says also, and I think even maybe more important, where in 2014 we have the Slenderman attempted murder and this is a sort of looming story to this great by the way people want to go and look for Alex Martin, in a magazine called V QR writes a piece called out came the girls. And it's it's so relevant actually to understanding the martyrdom cults and innocence of girlhood alleged innocence of girlhood to 12 year old girls were their third friend into the woods to kill her for Slenderman who they have read about online. I mean, this is I mean, this is Alex Jones territory, right. And it's swirling around its world And around both like the conspiracy myth of Slenderman. And then the conspiracy myth of sort of liberal anxiety, which is that the internet is in fact, Slender Man The boogey man that's going to take our kids, and it will happen sometimes. That's the thing that happened there. Weirdly, most kids on the internet I have not attempted to sacrifice anyone to Slender Man, right? Sure, sure. But that one incident looms so large. And so I get to this town. And, you know, you get off the highway and where there's normally like, you know, the like the champion baseball team signs. There's just this and I can't show it on here. But there's just like this photograph and the book. The entire hillside is covered with fascist billboards. Some of them make sense. Some of them don't. Some of them are about Obama, some of them are about Biden, some of them are about COVID. Here, I'm reading one that says group morality goes to org II giving you and then the rest is cut off by grass. Tony the tax or the Democratic governor. It's just I mean, literally dozens and dozens of boards. And it's, it's, I think about it in this terms of sort of this overflow of, of all the signs I've been seeing around the country that let's go Brandon signs up Joe Biden signs the AR 15 signs, people making totem poles to celebrate Trump painting silos, the vast outburst of very dark and frightening creativity, but it is creativity right? Versus pride flags.

Jordan (01:01:37.000)

Sure. I mean, I assume in like 40 years, people will collect those the same way they did Soviet era.

Jeff Sharlet (01:01:44.000)

A friend of mine, friend of mine, who is a Smithsonian curator, and he's already on it. He says this is fascist folk. This is fascist oh, god this is I mean, he was on it in January 6, he was like we gotta get for the Smithsonian. We got to get the shattered Nancy Pelosi

Jordan (01:02:01.000)

Sonian is filled with dank memes. Memes, right.

Jeff Sharlet (01:02:06.000)

But you know, our mind is filled with dank memes right? And so this is where I start to this is where we get around to accelerationism right.

Jordan (01:02:14.000)

So I'm not gonna be able to get over our mind is filled with dank memes for a while. That

Jeff Sharlet (01:02:21.000)

sounds so much like Alex Jones. And, you know, I'd like to show you Jordan I've got this Ziva zero calorie drink and if you drink this and you can order directly from me. I'm Yes. Yeah,

Jordan (01:02:37.000)

I gotcha. Your

Jeff Sharlet (01:02:39.000)

name joke. I'm

Jordan (01:02:42.000)

sorry. Interested in your soda for a second? Oh, it's

Jeff Sharlet (01:02:47.000)

good. Sorted. No. Zero sugar, but without that chemical stuff. It's delicious cream soda. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I'm starting to look at these sort of killings. And if there's a killing that has already faded Bobby Cremo. The third who killed a bunch of people in Highland Park, Illinois. Chicago, right. Seven people who once attended a Trump rally dressed as Waldo of Where's Waldo fame, and who may or may not have been truly aware of politics and that's got to be in quotes. As such at all in the same way that we're talking about Jack Tex shara, the airman and eyes blowing my mind the New York Times to say, well, he posted a lot of memes about hating the deep state and about Jews and racists and about he called Ukrainians pigs, but I guess we'll just never know why he did what he did. Yes, he may be a 21 year old fool. But this is the sort of the poison that's in the air. And so it was for Bobby Cremo. Right. His online life rippled with right wing hatreds, but He dedicated the panicked days before his crime, to a sped up aesthetic of images and ideologies, crashing into one another sometimes called schizo wave is a vile term, a grotesque romanticization of mental illness, an awful metaphor for the quickening of our fragmentation, the great acceleration, a simultaneous explosion and collapse of meaning, right? And so like schizo wave, and it's very simple verb form schizoid posting. accelerationism is a relatively recent term allegedly coined, or at least brought into contemporary use in 2013 by two Marxist political scientists via the influence of a two volume work of 1970s French theory called capitalism and schizophrenia, and this wonky audience might even know Deleuze and Guattari write what crisis gathers force and speed politics, withers and retreats the political scientists hashtag accelerate. medica Festo for an acceleration is brought to politics announced and the overwhelming, overwhelming privileging of the democracy as process needs to be left behind. It was a rejection of the slow small work of solidarity in favor of a, quote, future more modern. Yes, said the fascist intellectuals adapting the concept to their own ends. Yes. Let's leave democracy behind the new fascist, like the idea of hastening the end of a liberal order. Right. Sure. And that acceleration ism, and that's in some No, am I a closet acceleration is less democracy as process?

Jordan (01:05:30.000)

Well, I mean, I feel like what you just explained was the the non ideological nature of accelerationism. It's not owned by an ideology. Like, let me ask you a question. What do you say to somebody who is 16? Who about slow incremental changes? They're looking down the barrel of climate change, like nobody's done anything. You know, when we talk about slow incremental progress, we were like, Okay, well, we can elect Bernie Sanders, because that would make rich people mad. So we'll get Joe Biden in there. And he's going to help us with the climate, and then he sells more land to oil. You know, like, what do you say to them? As far as I say, Everything's changed, though.

Jeff Sharlet (01:06:13.000)

I'd say everything shrinks in the wash. So you go and throw some paint on a painting and you go and blockade a road and you do all this kind of stuff, you occupy something with a citizen, and so on. You do all that so that you can get slow incremental change. I wouldn't say now, hey, don't don't block the road. Don't worry, we're gonna have no I wouldn't say that. Everything shrinks in the wash. You make the biggest push you can. And it will only go so far. That's Harry Belafonte. He put his life on the line. I get literally on the line chased by the Klan again and again and again. Oh, well, in the civil rights movement was a great success, right? Hell no, he doesn't think so. You put everything you put your life on the line. And you accept that the movement will be slow because revolution, the idea of the overnight which is right now the Trumpist idea is that's a romance. That is the romance of American Communist Vivian Gornick. Great book coming out of that world. But I think that you said right, acceleration ism is a depends on what you do with it. This is what the left has failed to understand. It's all politically agnostic, right. solidaire solidarity. I love solidarity, not so much when it's between proud boys and mega churches. The left imagines that we own these terms, the left imagines that we own imagination. The right is filled with imagination right now. The left seeds terms, we've let the right have freedom. Now, but that doesn't even struggle for freedom, right? We still freedom dreams. But you pay attention to the migration of language and you start to see the patterns. So I don't say when I say slow, incremental change. It's not because I believe that that's the way to go. I recognize that that is what happens. And they own and that only happens if you go all in. Right. And so that's why he's in Wisconsin, we're ready to fight. Right. Right. Yeah. Ready to fight now? Okay. They've got the guns. Well, the kids in Wisconsin got the guns, we'll probably we'll get we'll get reproductive rights back tomorrow. No, that commitment is necessary. And now there's going to be the long struggle. Let's look at how they took row down right? Row, which was always inadequate to begin with, but let's have a look. They organized for 50 years, and they killed a lot of people along the way. And they bombed a lot of things along the way. And they hurt a lot of things along the way. And it took them 50 years. And they stayed in that their struggle. And they won. And, and and at no point did the Susan B Anthony list or any of these other right wing groups, say to the army of God, well, you blew up your your, your 200, the abortion clinic, and we still have it. So what's the point? Like no, we're just going to keep fighting. Now, I'm not saying that's the mob because I'm not into blowing things up. Well, I

Jordan (01:09:15.000)

mean, in a certain way, you've described all of the different ways that the left has failed. And then you describe to the way that the right succeeded. So there's a little bit of an argument.

Jeff Sharlet (01:09:25.000)

The last chapter the last chapter of the book is called Good Fight is the one you lose. The good fight is the one you lose and I'm writing about the haze and nobody knows who the Haze is. But even the last line of the book is I always knew is gonna be the first line for a while it was possible to not to be scared even and this is Lee Hayes, Lee Hayes who wrote If I had a hammer and I got interested in if I had a hammer because I grew up in this little all white town. In our elementary school and our music class, we think if I had hammer a hammer in the morning this is a sweet little song. And then you go and you discover Peter, Paul and Mary singing it. It's like if I had him or it's like I build a tree house and we'd make love and be sweet and everything, but the first performance of if I had a hammer in 1949 first public performance is at a concert in Peekskill, New York, where Pete Seeger lived. Peekskill, New York, Paul Robeson is the headliner, the so called Russia loving Negro baritone. As the local newspaper puts it, they tried to have it the concert twice. First time the townspeople shut it down because they think these are communists, unwanted. They think they're communists, because they're communists. But they don't want any communists. And they shut it down and they burn crosses. The second time. They come prepared 3000 union members come as security, they managed to sing the song Time to get the hell out. But the town has organized as well. 5000 people organized with piles of rocks and strategic places with airpower from the New York State Police, not keeping the peace, protecting the attack. It is and Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie and so on. Right. Lee Hayes that that's a guy put his life on the line. I mean, don't don't go and say Don't call the Hayes a liberal. Right. And that wasn't the first or the last time he would do it. In the end. He was broken. He was called before the house on on American Affairs Committee. He was a gay man. He had things to hide. Why didn't the way you have?

Jordan (01:11:36.000)

Sorry, you're just you're like, Oh, okay. No. Okay. Jordan, you just said that I described all the way that the left loses and that the white one. Now I'm going to tell you an incredibly depressing story about how this loses all the time.

Jeff Sharlet (01:11:50.000)

No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not gonna give you cheap grace. I'm not gonna give you cheap grace. I don't want it. I don't want it, which is Oh, the left winds powers in the barrel of a gun that worked out for fucking now. The left didn't win there. The left didn't win in the Soviet Union. It didn't win. We haven't won yet. Right? This is this is the long struggle we haven't we've won in places. But we haven't won yet. So if the idea is that you look at league getting broken, and you say, well, I might as well just take up my arms or some of their equivalent thereof, as opposed to saying like, what can I learn from this man who was brave in the struggle who put himself on the line more than most of us have? If that line for a while it was possible not to be scared even and Lee is describing he's in Arkansas, where he's from. And he's riding with a group of union organizers and in what he calls a rump sprung car beat up old car and gun thugs are on their tail and they are singing and what they would do back then is they would take they were all raised in the church, they would sing hymns, but they would turn them into labor songs. But that night he says we sang the old hymns right now because they're going back to conservative but but they're drawing on the deep struggle, right? And he says for a while it was possible not to be scared even for while it was possible not to be scared even now let me put this in the context of why the good fight is the one you lose the struggle that he fought. That's the fight to be in years ago. And I'm gonna do this from memory I'm probably gonna get a little bit wrong. I met an amazing activist also from Arkansas named Suzanne farm. And we were doing a thing where we were talking to young journalists and activists I wasn't the journalist part she was the activist part and there's these a lot of people the radicals very radical not not liberal, not

Jordan (01:13:35.000)

sure. I gotcha.

Jeff Sharlet (01:13:39.000)

And Suzanne, far had been part of a queer, queer women's commune in rural I think Roseburg, Arkansas in like the 70s and 80s. Right, and they just wanted to live by themselves, but pretty soon, local women and sis women in need of help fleeing violent relationships come to them right. And so they decide which side are they on and they let them in right now. The men come after that too. Right. And this is a rural area that police they are not going to be coming out to help the lesbian commune right? I can't remember if Suzanna and her comrades armed up but they definitely stood their ground. They stood the ground and they protected those places. Now there was a young radical activist who says to Suzanne and Suzanne by this point is although as radical as can be has just, if you think sweet southern grandmother, you got the right picture. white haired, very gentle voice just just just really just lovely and gentle and so on. And this young radical activist says that's so amazing that you build a safe space in Suzanne says, Oh, honey, there are no fucking safe spaces. That wasn't a safe space. It was a safe moment. And it was made a safe space is in our it's there. A safe moment for a while it's possible not to be scared even that is the hope. That's the best that we have right now we can create these safe moments actively and hold on to them and remember them. And instead of saying that's just a goddamn failure, say, hey, wait a minute. Look at that. We haze? Have you created a moment where it was possible not to be scared, even. Probably you have this show has I tried to write we try to do that. Count the victories count the small victories and don't embrace the nihilism of we have not won, because that's the eschatological. That's the big final battle bullshit that fascism wants us to build. I

Jordan (01:15:40.000)

mean, to to I agree with you a lot. And yet at the same time, we celebrate a violent revolution every single year. Well, you do. I mean, I don't personally, what do you mean, we, you know, yeah, no, no, absolutely not. But it's, it is why you and I have comfortable life, as compared to a lot of other people by which I would argue is 90% of people or something along those lines. So I keep coming back to this, this idea of what do you tell somebody who is young, staring down the barrel of climate change, who just watched people almost successfully overthrow the United States government, and celebrates a violent revolution every year?

Jeff Sharlet (01:16:25.000)

I don't tell them what to do. Because

Jordan (01:16:29.000)

if I'm not asking you, again, I'm not telling you that you have to do something I'm asking

Jeff Sharlet (01:16:34.000)

you. I mean, no, but I did. What I did, what I know how to do is make this book right. And so I'm scared for my kids. And so I go, and I make this book, this is what I know how to do. But in the end of the beginning, which is called our condition, and it's against the crisis, this climate is our condition. Right? Right. What are we gonna know? The climate is bad, and there's nothing you can do to bring back those glaciers, right? There's very little we can even do right now to slow shit down. This is a condition we are going to have to learn to live with. And this is the metaphor the book, partly because I keep running into these bashes, I had hit the genetic jackpot lottery to heart attacks at 44. And you meet a fascist and you got heart trauma got heart trouble, and suddenly we're talking because you understand, when that happens, people say, Oh, don't worry, your heart is gonna grow back. Just your heart's gonna throw back. What the fuck kind of biology class did you go to know is dead wall in your heart. It's not going to grow back. Lectures aren't going to come back. The assumption of normality. Joe Biden's not going to bring it back. We're not going back, right? We're going to have to get into the space. But I don't have those answers. What do I say to a young person? I said, we will need new songs if we're to make it through what is to come what is already here, I am not the one to write them. My hope is less than that. Only that this book may reveal faultlines within our fears, in which others will find the better words, our children may one day sing. It's why. You know, I mean, in the same flip side, when I do liberal interviews, people asked me about those Wisconsin kids with their guns, they said did when did you tell them? That that's not the way? No, I didn't tell him. It's not the way when I go into Sacramento, and there's a brawl between proud boys and Antifa. And it's the dumbest Brawl I've ever seen, because they all know each other. And is like rules of engagement. They know where they can't have weapons on the Capitol and so on. You know, and look anti for being assholes to you know, Antifa is yelling faggot, and proud boys are yelling scum. And boom, boom, boom, right? I'm not going to tell those Antifa This is not the way young people how can I say that? How could any of us say that? We know the way, right? All I can do is I can write a book, you can have a podcast, they can brawl on the streets. Theta can practice with her bow and hold up a sign that says fuck off. And who knows what else she's going to do. And I mean, that literally, who knows what else she's going to do? I think there's some dumb shit. I mean, I'm in Wisconsin. There was great. My favorite review of the books in the Washington Examiner, right wing paper. And I'm trying to remember the line. This is like this book is the purest distillation of leftism, he does not mean it as a compliment at all. I mean, I know plenty of leftist who would say it's a little wobbly, but um, it's just like, he doesn't talk at all about the history of leftist violence. I'm like, No, that's true. That's this is a book. Did you see this is a book about this thing. It's like you read my book five years. I don't talk at all about elephants. But there is I do talk

Jordan (01:19:43.000)

with a chapter about John Brown in there. I'm just throwing that out there. Or I

Jeff Sharlet (01:19:47.000)

could have mentioned as the assholes who bombed the army math recruiting building in Wisconsin in 1971, or two or something which led To the creation of this book called Wisconsin death trip, which I carried with me through Wisconsin by my mentor, and thinking about the struggle as long the violence has been there, stupid moves had been made, that we're going to do this in a way that nobody gets killed. Well, they kill a young physicist, they had a plane that they were dropping bombs from. I'm not big about dropping bombs from planes. Even if you believe in violence, that's just not for me. They were fools. The ones who blew up the the building in me there's a lot of killing, on the other hand, has a lot of killing. I'm written elsewhere about the Vietnam gi movement. I'm named Jeff Charlotte, because my uncle was one of the founders of that movement. And it was a mutiny movement, by GE eyes. And they weren't mutiny against their commanders, and they sometimes killed commanders. This is what we call treason. And I'm not gonna say it was wrong. No, it's totally right. The American I'm not gonna say that was wrong. A World War Two, I'm definitely not going to say that was wrong. And World War Two was, there wasn't a single government in World War Two that I would admire, including FDR is right. And so on. Which side are you on? Right? laughing? And then you sift it later. So to the young person, right. I say, I guess the one thing I would say to them is, which side are you on? And I think they know that right? But now look around and figure out who else is on that side and figure out who is moving to that side? And aim? My thing? Aim your fire, rhetorical, or artistic? Or if you must violence at the other side, please, that would help. Like, you know, but if you must, if you must, like police, the kind of the nuances of language on the left and the failures there. Okay, that's fine. It's not my project. Now. I'm not in the project. Why don't you write an article about what a jerk Chuck Schumer is? Sure. Sure. I will get to that. It's on the list of things to do. Sure. Yeah. But I'm worried more about the guns literally aimed at people like that right now.

Jordan (01:22:11.000)

I mean, aren't we all? I mean, that's it. That is kind of the the situation there is. When we talk about war, in this context, you know, you're bringing up war to describe what's going on right now. It's it's kind of hard to accept people saying that the flow of violence can flow from the state to the people without any pushback whatsoever.

Jeff Sharlet (01:22:40.000)

I think it's hard to accept those clear lines about state and people and those terms, which are terms from another world that we are no longer in. The fascism of the moment has affinities with the fascism of the past, but it is of its own time, right. I think we talked that's a

Jordan (01:23:02.000)

good question. That's a good question. I'm interested in that is it? Yeah, no, like I think of I think of the know, nothing party, right before the first civil war. You know, think of the Know Nothing Party and I think of the way that went, I think of how John Wilkes Booth was a big no nothing are you we are, you know,

Jeff Sharlet (01:23:22.000)

entities, affinities affinities? Yes. But and here's like the definitive thing. And this is where the American Left is as guilty as American. Right? And yes, motherfuckers. I am both siding, both sides in this. The American exceptionalism of believing that this is somehow a uniquely American thing, as if there is not a Trump of Turkey named Erawan. Sure, Trump, Brazil name balsa narrow, and Myanmar, a self described trunk of Myanmar a Buddhist monk who leaves a genocidal mobs of Buddhist monks to massacre the Rohingya Muslims, as if there are not the Philippines as if there is not Indonesia, which has been fascist since the Americans supported coup in the 1960s. which to this day celebrates, celebrates, is genocide. Fascism is a global moment. And what is different now than in the past, is in the 1930s, you had contending powers. Right now. What have you got? China is a fascist regime. The fact is state, communism, whatever. It's yeah, I got it around. GE, it wasn't always but it has become one Russia. Russia is and we can quibble over details, but Russia is. And I would say they are fascist regimes of the moment, right. So people say this is how it is different than Germany, right? Because it's called Russia and it's 2023. Not 1956. That's why you're right. It is different. Fascism, like everything else evolves. And so we have all that we have European countries sort of toppling. We have the great victory of Lula and Brazil but let's see how long that lasts. We have a lot of fascist regimes in Africa right now Uganda as a fascist regime. Sudan is telling me the Sudan is gonna come out looking pretty from this one came out of a fascist regime and it struggled the long struggle. So do young student needs people's Holy shit. We overthrew Omar. What's his name? Omar Bashir. We overthrow this this guy, we did it, we did it. And we even muted the military and got them to be on our side. And then just a few years later, look at this, well, can't join him. Can't beat him might as well join him. I guess I might as well just go for authoritarian rule. That's Chris Noonan's deciding which side is ya know, we lost the good fight is the one you lose the good fight that the Sudanese who overthrew that dictator. They fought the good fight the Egyptians, who overthrew Mubarak and now suffer under sec, they fought the good fight. The Arab Spring was the good fight. Right. So there's all these kinds of struggles. And I think that the state versus this is where Fascism is different now, because there are no contending powers. Right. There's no Soviet Union. And there's no with this. There's there's an America or America that no, we're not fully given in. We are not as given in as Russia or Hungary. We are still contending. And one of the mistakes that the left has made, I'm writing from the right for a long time, the left is terrible at recognizing the ground that it occupies. Right the ground that it owns. And I think about this for so many years, liberals would say the universities were neutral. No, they're not biased, and leftists would say no bullshit. They're just right wing tools. Right. And the right wingers I write about the guys who founded Liberty University in Regent University and Oral Roberts University in Hillsdale College, which is now giving his curriculum to public schools all over the country. They understood that these crappy elitist universities, nonetheless, they were part of the center that was holding, it wasn't a very good center, but they were part of that leftist and I have colleagues now who think that fighting our administration at Dartmouth, where, you know, the the full spectrum of a political views is kind of like, Are you a Bernie Democrat? Or maybe more of a like establishment Democrat? Right. That's what that's what you get. And that's fine. That's fine. I'm not like there should be intellectual diversity, whatever you think. Right. But they think that fighting that administration puts them on the front lines, the bulwark of the battle, right? No, that's not the battle. Right? That's is, this is Dartmouth College, super problematic institution, students who struggle for it, and so on. But the frontline right now is in teachers in New Hampshire, afraid for their jobs, in some cases, afraid for their lives, just because they're teaching the history of slavery. And some people gonna say, Well, if we can address these other issues, when right when the line is now anyone who's asking that, as someone who's never had a gun pointed at them, right? Sure. When you have a gun pointed at you, you don't say, well, there's some structural in Omaha, Nebraska and this book, right. And they bring out the gunman. I didn't want to say, well, let's talk about the ways in which your church, you know, you're pointing a gun at me. Right? I got to do something about that. Right. And so I think that state violence, like I am not as opposed to the state right now. And I think we need to look at this right now. Because this who owns the state capitalism, but capitalism leads to fascism, but it is not the same thing. Biden is not the same as the Santas. And if we come to the real fear that I think is there, and that you're seeing generals, say, and, you know, not all generals, but Right, the military is not monolithic. If we come to a real chain of command dispute in 2024, the fear is not the militias. And the the resistance is not the John Brown Gun Club. It's an Air Force base in one state that believes that Trump is president and an Air Force Base and another state that believes that Biden is president and follows the

Jordan (01:29:12.000)

chain of command or rules from whomever gets whoever.

Jeff Sharlet (01:29:16.000)

Right. And at this point, the John Brown Gun Club is going to look as ridiculous as the proud boys with their AR fifteens. And that is on the table and the military is talking about that internally, right. They're saying this is a real issue. We need to figure this out. It's what General Milley did and in 2021 when he said don't take orders from anyone but me Sure, sure. A mutinous act.

Jordan (01:29:42.000)

Hey, all the way back to Smedley Butler, why not? Yes, I'm fine with that word.

Jeff Sharlet (01:29:47.000)

There's a lot there's a long history of this stuff. So I think like like that state, the state and the people. Those terms meant something at one time and we should record As if it means something now because of fascism is different now and the key difference is that it is a global movement without a significant countervailing force. And when by significant I don't mean like the people, I mean, like the industrial base of the United States or the Soviet Union, right

Jordan (01:30:18.000)

well, you know, i Boy, that's that is probably why we are bad at telling a good story for the Ashley Babbitt's you know if if our story is the good fight is one you lose. That's not going to bring Ashley Babbage over. Do you know what do you know what I mean? Like if not disagree? I disagree for the story to be so, so different.

Jeff Sharlet (01:30:43.000)

I disagree. I disagree. And I think about just looking at the Debt Debt of Harry Belafonte which has been very moving to hear all the people Harry Belafonte brought a whole lot of people over he brought up because the story he tells the story he tells his day oh right day like calm want to come home, which is the Banana Boat Song. But using Beetlejuice right. It's just a fun goofy song. No, it's a freedom song. It's a word song he learned it on the docks in Jamaica. He learns it from the communist Italian Italian in the banana. That's called capitalism that's the boss hearing very new days like I want you to enjoy this song. The deep pleasure of of describing present day evil tell the man is bad right? Cornell West who I have great affinity for great fiction for in this book. There's a lot of right wingers talking about prophecy. Right. And Cornell also his first book prophesied deliverance prophecy, he says is to describe concrete evils. Prophecy is democratic, it's available to everyone. You don't have to be a mystical pastor. Right? Sure. You have to keep your eyes open to describe mystical evils. Or everyday evil concrete evil real life evil the structural system, right? Come on, Mr. Tally, man, Tally me, man, banana day, like come and want to go home. Right? I want to, I want to get out from under. That's a good damn story. Right? That's a beautiful story. And that story has moved a lot of people and it's put people on the line. And if I have to choose between that story between do and Donald Trump, it's easy for me. Now. It gets complicated. That's why the second Chat section of the book is named after a song you hear at Trump rallies dream on by Aerosmith, right? Sure. Sure. Which I think is a great song. I'm gonna put I like I grew up in upstate New York classic rock, right Aerosmith dream on it's awesome arena rock song. Trump rallies, people spin in circles. And I call this the section on vanity, right? It's the vanity of a Rena rock. It can be gorgeous and beautiful, right? But it can also be vain. And it's okay to be vain. Right? Pride. Pride is like, revel in our beauty. Right?

Jordan (01:33:00.000)

Right. You're saying that these people probably think the song is about them. Do you mean to do that? Yes, of course I did.

Jeff Sharlet (01:33:10.000)

You're a professional comedian. Well, thank

Jordan (01:33:12.000)

you. Thank you very much. lapsed and failed. So there you go.

Jeff Sharlet (01:33:19.000)

My nine year old has gotten that song into his head. And just saying that you're

Jordan (01:33:28.000)

What did you do to that nine year old and

Jeff Sharlet (01:33:30.000)

he just heard it. He heard it and it was like That's it?

Jordan (01:33:33.000)

I mean, that's bad parenting. You let him hear that. Too soon, too soon.

Jeff Sharlet (01:33:39.000)

I'm not well, yeah, you know, my dad's with me at Apocalypse Now when I was nine, so just wasn't

Jordan (01:33:45.000)

never too young to learn. Mr. Kurtz. Oh, no. I've been Colonel Kurtz. Well, I mean, the rank man. Yeah, exactly. My bed. I was I was going off the original Heart of Darkness. No, I think I think talking about Harry, you know, it was, it was so strange. We died. So shortly after we spoke and you you taught me so much about him, that it's so much harder. And it was it was a lot more difficult to kind of reconcile the way that you can remember him being portrayed as like, like so many other people, you know, like watered down. He's just this entertainer. He's, he's somebody who is rubbed elbows with civil rights icons in the past. And then to hear about his his truth, his true life, you know, that, that spending your life on the frontlines, as you said, that's the most inspiring, you know, story in your in your book, and maybe that I've heard in a long, long time. So

Jeff Sharlet (01:34:50.000)

that's the best dates there is Harry puts it right. Like he's talking about the march from Selma to Montgomery. And the first march had ended in violence and then they come back just like in Peekskill, they They come back with more and they march out and there's George Wallace, the little segregations troll governor, and he's afraid to come out of his capital and Harry and Joan Baez and Mary from Peter, Paul and Mary. They get up there and they sing and you can see some old CBS footage of this. They sing so badly because they're exhausted because they've been marching because there's been guns aimed at them, but they sing their song and he says, that's the most beautiful stage. There is you tell. For a while it's possible not to be scared even is that stage a safe space? Hell no. And right after that stage, right after that March, he knows you know, one of the protesters was killed. He says every time Harry Belafonte never forgets he's that you know, the violence is there, but I think like I'll say his death at 96 I didn't experience it as hard and I don't think that's the good fight is the one you lose. Right? 96 years Right? Sure. Sure. Chicago, right. I mean, what a life and then he never, never never gave up for a second. Here's how much Harry Belafonte scares the right Believe it or not, even now, that Washington that the one right wing review of the book, I get Washington Examiner and trashing the book, and you know, this, the fascism of the left and so on. Who do they focus on Harry Belafonte? The whole damn review is about Harry Belafonte. Right. Sure. And that's fascinating to to know that, hey, the other side, they know which side they're on. And they know which side Harry's on they know, he's not on their side. Yeah, right. And the

Jordan (01:36:30.000)

other 40 years before they start naming streets after him and pretending that he was not, that'll happen

Jeff Sharlet (01:36:36.000)

to always try God was gonna try and sweeten it up and smooth it over and sanded down and so on. But the other thing to remember is that you can then go back like I do with if I had a hammer, wait a minute, this is a radical song day, oh, this radical song that we can't just the struggle is not just on the horizontal axis, right, like, forward. I mean, the forward is important, right? What do we do next? The struggle is vertical to we draw from the deep well, right withdraw from that time, like the good fight is the one you lose, but it wasn't always lost was these moments of victory, and you hold on to those and let them inform strategically, psychologically, spiritually, right? You let them inform you as as as you go forward? I mean, this is why like, no one's gonna believe this. But this book, which really reads like a doom scroll,

Jordan (01:37:24.000)

doesn't not.

Jeff Sharlet (01:37:27.000)

It's a whole book. I swear to God, but you got to dig for it. It's not it's not, it's not going to give you hope, down the same way that you're not going to have democracy, right? It's going to be something you do, right, we're going to see these folks where you're going to find these beautiful little moments, even within these fascist spaces. And so I'm going to give you hope, you can use this to manufacture your own right.

Jordan (01:37:54.000)

That's wonderful. I mean, I don't think there's a better place to end. I mean, we've already gone for almost almost an hour and 45 already. So I don't think there's any better place to end. I won't keep you too much longer. Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on. The book is the undertow. It's out now. i I'm very grateful. Well, thank you,

Jeff Sharlet (01:38:17.000)

Jordan. I mean, you this is one of the best and most honest conversations about the book I've had so well,

Jordan (01:38:24.000)

boss, I don't know if that helps.

Jeff Sharlet (01:38:27.000)

But you're pushing. You're pushing me to ask these questions. And you're challenging and we're thinking about the book, not just as an object, but as this thing is in this moment that we're all getting through and that I really appreciate. So

Jordan (01:38:38.000)

that's, that's the best way to do it. Well, thank you so much. And hopefully we'll see you again for your next book. Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. Thanks for holding. Well, Alex, I'm a first time caller. I'm a huge fan. I love your work.