Human Farm
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and we’re feeling…not particularly great about that! In this special pre-quarantine Gaslit Nation, we discuss the coronavirus and its potential to revolutionize the world. This is a terrifying time in human history, and every country’s flaws and vulnerabilities are being exposed. This is a time when we need to pull together, and help each other with the determination and compassion that so many doctors and medics and others have shown in the afflicted nations.
Bernie Sanders:
I reject the idea. I really do. That's one of the things that bothers me. I hear it every day. I hear it on the media, I hear it from my opponents. Bernie is an extremist. Bernie is too radical. Okay, let's deal with it. Is raising a starvation minimum wage of $7 and 25 cents an hour, which has not been raised in 10 years to $15 an hour, a living wage, a radical idea?
Audience:
No.
Bernie Sanders:
Is making public colleges and universities tuition free so that all of our people have the opportunity to get a higher education in a competitive global economy. Is that a radical idea?
Audience:
No.
Bernie Sanders:
Is doing what every other major country on earth does, guaranteeing health care to all as a right–I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. This is not a communist society up there in Montreal. They guarantee health care at all. They spend 50% of what we spend. Is passing a Medicare for all single payer system a radical idea?
Audience:
No.
Bernie Sanders:
Last point, Donald Trump, I know he's on the network a whole lot, Donald, you're probably watching, How are you? All right, I know. Wanted to say hello to the President.
Interviewer:
He's actually having a news conference.
Bernie Sanders:
But I'm sure he's watching Fox on the side there. He's addicted to the station. Trump thinks that climate change is a hoax. That's because he doesn't understand or respect science. I believe that climate change is an existential threat to this planet. I listen to the scientists who tell us that we have got to move aggressively to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Through a green new deal, by the way, we can create up to 20 million good paying jobs.
Bernie Sanders:
My point is I reject... I appreciate Allison raising the question. I just don't think any of those ideas are radical.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm Sarah Kendzior, the author of the best selling essay collection, The View From Flyover Country and the upcoming book, Hiding In Plain Sight, out on April 7 and available for pre order now.
Andrea Chalupa:
I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker, and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, which is coming to a Clorox theater near you.
Sarah Kendzior:
You will be able to check out both of our fine works which we have toiled away on for so very long in quarantine apparently because that is how Gaslit Nation rolls. We are Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the Trump administration and rising autocracy around the world and now the pandemic bit too. But before we get to that, Andrea has some words.
Andrea Chalupa:
I have some words. Sarah and I engineered a pandemic in order to do some clever guerilla marketing for her book and my movie.
Sarah Kendzior:
Anti-marketing dude, anti-marketing.
Andrea Chalupa:
Her book put us both through hell, as a book does. There's nothing more insufferable than a 10 month pregnant woman, or somebody working on a book. That happened to the show at the same time. I was 10 months pregnant and Sarah was working on her book. It was just... Our friendship managed to survive that, but it was tough. Now finally the book’s coming out after all that hard work and sacrifice. After, no big deal, just 16 years of me devoting to this film, it's finally coming out and it has the rarefied honor of actually getting a theatrical release at a time when so many films, even incredible films, don't get that anymore.
Andrea Chalupa:
Of course, because I am the George Costanza of the resistance, of course my film is coming out right when there's a pandemic and people are staying home. That's fine. We're just going to get through it together.
Sarah Kendzior:
Yes, seriously, this is high quality quarantine material. On a serious note, we urge everybody to stay safe. If we need to cancel our events or whoever our health officials are, God only knows, recommend that we do, that's something we take very seriously. We take it seriously more than we take our own creative works or ambitions or what have you. We will try our best to keep you informed on that. Did you want to get to your other thoughts, Andrea?
Andrea Chalupa:
I do. I want to talk about Bernie and Warren. I think this is a very exciting... Well, okay, fine. I'm just going to be honest. I tried really hard to be... Okay, so I did a lot of mourning of Elizabeth Warren. That hit me so much harder than I thought it would. I went out and I did some day drinking. I have a baby so for me to even leave the house is a big deal, let alone day drinking.
Andrea Chalupa:
I was very sad about that. I think in mourning Warren, I felt I was also mourning Bernie and the whole progressive movement right now in this moment in a way. The divisiveness that's gone on, Bernie and Warren, their agendas, their political platforms are so incredibly aligned. It's 90 something percent similar across all these issues. Those nuances between their platforms were just exploited and exaggerated to the point where just some toxic element which is a tiny minority of Sanders supporters online, but a vocal minority nonetheless so emphasized their differences, to the point where you would just come across thinking that Elizabeth Warren was some Wall Street shill.
Andrea Chalupa:
It was so heartbreaking. Divisiveness, it just doesn't help. It doesn't help, it hurts people. Also just seeing how the media ignored and elevated and... Any mistake that Warren made, it was just massively blown out of proportion whereas all the other candidates got a pass. I just want to say to Bernie Sanders and his movement, they're coming for you next. You know what I mean? They're coming for you next. You know that. You know that's all true.
Andrea Chalupa:
I mean, look at with the coronavirus happening. What's the first instinct of this reality show of terror in the White House? It's to bailout big business. We need a strong, united progressive movement in this country because people are in serious pain, in urgent circumstances. You have medical bills being the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country. That is just pathetic for a country like the United States.
Andrea Chalupa:
You have a growing income inequality that's reaching historic levels. You have an extinction crisis where more and more species are facing extinction, including us humans. We're in such a crisis level that we need someone like Bernie Sanders as President of the United States. We need someone like Elizabeth Warren as President of the United States. Those two are united in their vision of the direction we need to go.
Andrea Chalupa:
Unfortunately, this was such a bruising primary that their supporters forget that. I just want to say to anybody that supported any of the other candidates, Biden, Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, any other candidate or Republicans out there, independents listening. Right now with this primary going on, you owe it to yourselves as citizens of this country to go and just break through the media's gaslighting. Break through all the noise and just show up and volunteer for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Just to talk and meet his volunteers and break through the gaslighting wall the media puts up between us citizens.
Andrea Chalupa:
Get a real direct sense of the urgency that these men and women who are ignited by this movement are feeling right now. Just talk human to human, citizen to citizen, because without the gaslighting of the mainstream media, you will humanize all these horrible crises that all of us are facing right now. We need to connect now on that human level more than anything. We need to, as what we say in the show, stay human. Again, no family should go into bankruptcy to pay their medical bills.
Andrea Chalupa:
One thing I want to talk about is my film, Mr. Jones. I do want to go back to that because I thought about that a lot this weekend when I was doing some healthy shower crying. The film, Mr. Jones, it follows the story of a real life young Welsh journalist who risked his life and his career to expose Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine that was mass murdering millions.
Andrea Chalupa:
Millions of people were killed. Basically what Stalin did was he deliberately took Ukraine's food and agriculture, sold it abroad to raise money to rapidly modernize the Soviet Empire. People were slaughtered in order to raise capital to build this empire. When we were finishing the film, Agnieszka Holland, the director, she wanted to call this film ”Human Farm”. Because essentially, as the saying goes in Ukraine, in terms of how the oligarchs see the Ukrainian people, “the people are the shit we grow our money in.” Human Farm.
Andrea Chalupa:
That is what corruption is. That's how the healthcare industry, the pharmaceutical industry, sees us here in America, sees American citizens. We are a human farm. We are the shit the oligarchs grow their money in. Please just stay grounded in that with all of the divisiveness, some of it manufactured. At the end of the day, we're all citizens and we're all terribly frightened of our odds of getting through this intact in some way, shape or form.
Andrea Chalupa:
The fighting chance you have is by finding your community, strengthening your community and fighting for your community. I'm telling everybody listening, no matter who you supported in the primary, understand that things are this bad there. They could always get worse. This election could very well get stolen. Trump needs to steal it to avoid accountability. The Russians need him to steal it so they could avoid accountability and avoid sanctions.
Andrea Chalupa:
Understand this election might get stolen no matter who's on the ballot in November. As scary as things are, please for the love of God, act locally, fight locally, take over your city government, take over your county government. Make sure that everybody is progressive from top to bottom. Make sure everybody understands these issues top to bottom. It's not enough to just vote anymore considering all the voter suppression that Republicans rely on to steal elections.
Andrea Chalupa:
We need all the boys and girls that watched Elizabeth Warren lose, one of the most qualified candidates who ever had to run for president, watch her not get enough votes, even though she so surpassed so many in this race. Make sure that the boys and girls in your life understand that they have what it takes. No matter what their dreams are, no matter what their interests are. Science, math, arts doesn't matter, make them understand that they have what it takes to be a public servant, to run for office, to be president someday.
Andrea Chalupa:
If you're angry about what happened with Warren, if you're angry about what they're doing to Bernie now, tell every child in your life, no matter their age, they have what it takes to be President of the United States, because all of us now have to see ourselves in positions of power, in positions of servant leadership. Because the only way we win is if we flush the idiots out of power.
Andrea Chalupa:
The only way we're going to do that is if we rise up to replace them and elect good men and women, decent human beings, to office. That's it. That's the name of the game. You have more control and you have greater chances of doing that on the local level. Fortify your communities. Bind and join a community. You can start on the Gaslit Nation Action Guide at gaslitnationpod.com. We need you now more than ever.
Andrea Chalupa:
However heartbroken you are, however scared you are, it might not be your person on the ballot come November, understand that we are at the start of something. Whatever happens in November, our marathon continues, the war continues. We have to think in terms of decades now. You need to fortify where you live. Strengthen your state, from the county level all the way up to the governor's office. Take it over and make it deep blue.
Andrea Chalupa:
If you're in Missouri, if you're in Kansas, make it purple. Keep going, follow the model of Virginia. If Virginia can do it, wherever you live, you can do it. Don't stop until it's done. Think in terms of decades. We have to be the generation that wins this fight and takes back our country and saves our species. Literally, that's on us now. For our children, for everybody, for humanity, for decency. Just don't be scared anymore because you have far more power than you realize.
Sarah Kendzior:
I mean, I also was very sad about Warren's loss. More sad, I think, than I've ever been about a candidate. In part because I don't get attached to candidates. Candidates are public servants. Politicians are public servants. That's something to remember is that they are here to serve us. All of these feuds, which I think honestly, some of the vitriol of it is fading away a little bit in light of the coronavirus and this pandemic that's spreading across the world, revealing the vulnerabilities of our institutions.
Sarah Kendzior:
Every flaw that any nation has, any weakness, is about to be exploited. I do have problems with the way that the Sanders campaign was run and by the hostility generated by some people in it. By this cultish cruelty where it doesn't seem to be as much about the policies as it does to be using Bernie as a pretext to try to justify mass harassment. I don't think that that's true of the majority of Bernie supporters at all. But it is there. Because those individuals have been so loud, especially recently, it's been a problem when they've been lashing out at Warren supporters in particular.
Sarah Kendzior:
The reason that that's ridiculous is because as Andrea pointed out, the policy ideas are very much aligned. There is a progressive agenda. There are an enormous number of people who want Medicare for all, who want a green new deal, who realize that the majority of Americans are suffering. They have no savings. They can't pay their bills, they can't afford higher education, and then you have credentialism as a cutoff to getting a job.
Sarah Kendzior:
There is a coalition there. At the moment, it's very fractured but I do encourage people to try to get beyond this and speak to each other in good faith. I think Twitter is probably the worst possible medium to do this in. As Andrea was saying, try to get involved locally. I don't know how the virus is going to affect that. I mean this is just an unbelievable conflagration of tragedies and hardships that we're experiencing because this is a time where communities need to pull together. That's always been true especially now and we're encouraged not to see each other face to face, not to shake each other's hands.
Sarah Kendzior:
We're going to talk about all the dangers of that and how that affects the election later in the show. We are struggling for the survival of humanity. I'm not saying that in some hyperbolic way. That's the struggle against autocracy. That's the struggle against the climate crisis. That's now the struggle against a pandemic in a world where most countries don't have the healthcare apparatus and or the transparency of government necessary to prevent a large scale human tragedy.
Sarah Kendzior:
We need to put all of our egos aside, try to put our baggage aside. It doesn't mean that everybody is a great person. You all need to be best friends. Just think about the big picture here. Think about what needs to be done. What world you imagine raising your children in because we are raising our children in that world. We're determining the conditions of not only the near future, but as Andrea said, for decades ahead.
Sarah Kendzior:
People need to get a hold on that. Just to note, we are taping this on Monday night on March 9. This is before the primaries that are going to be held tomorrow. We're going to do another episode for Patreon listeners only, if you subscribe at the Truth Teller level or higher, you can get that episode on Wednesday with our immediate reaction to what happened. Do you have any final thoughts on this before we go to Corona real quick?
Andrea Chalupa:
Before we move on to the pandemic, the progressive movement in this country has made great strides. I mean, it's pretty incredible. We have to count that we have come far in terms of strategy. We always have to be learning and doing better. I think a gold standard of the all important strategy of communication, how you communicate, how you get your message across, how you clap back.
Andrea Chalupa:
I think, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, she sets the gold standard. When in doubt, follow her. Follow her tone, follow her strategy. She's a woman of color who was working as a bartender to pay her bills. She came in on the public stage in Congress making gaffes. She had some errors about understanding our Constitution. They tried to call her out, they tried to humiliate her. She just kept fighting back and clapping back. Now she's become this leader of moral courage in our country. I think she has a tremendously bright future and she's been very strong and vocal in trying to unite Bernie supporters and Warren supporters at a time when they're feeling pretty fractured.
Andrea Chalupa:
I think, when in doubt just turn to her and her messaging and her guidance. Because Twitter is the high school cafeteria of media. You have shock jocks that get rewarded for bullying. Bullying does get rewarded. There is actual harassment going on. There's an article we'll link to describing how Ava DuVernay was getting threats against her for challenging something that Bernie Sanders said.
Andrea Chalupa:
That is not the way to behave because it backfires. It's not a simple matter of “you've hurt my feelings, therefore, I'm now going to become a Republican.” That's not how this works. This is about having to break through the massive, deeply entrenched gaslighting that corporate owned mainstream media does, pitting Americans against Americans, where socialism for wall street is called a bailout and perfectly acceptable, whereas God forbid, if regular Americans who have fallen through the cracks of society, that's called communism and Soviet bread lines and such.
Andrea Chalupa:
We're up against a real propaganda war being waged against us. Educating and outreach have never been more important. When Elizabeth Warren took a deliberate strategy for her staff in being a nice campaign, certainly there are supporters that would get spicy of course. That happened across the board. But overall, her campaign was nice and inclusive, and it deliberately worked hard to strike that tone. As a result, what did you get? Look at this.
Andrea Chalupa:
These are numbers according to the Morning Consult. 43% of Senator Elizabeth Warren supporters backed senator Bernie Sanders as their second choice candidate, versus 36%, who said former Vice President Joe Biden was their candidate. Do you understand that nearly 40% of Elizabeth Warren's supporters are now going to vote for Joe Biden? What does that tell us? That means that they were likely Biden supporters to begin with. They are likely leaning Democratic establishment to begin with.
Andrea Chalupa:
But Elizabeth Warren, with her hugely progressive platform that's nearly identical to Bernie's, she was able to lure them away from the Democratic establishment with her appeal. With her outreach, with the tone that she struck. Niceness is about education. Imagine a schoolteacher screaming and snarking and bullying and making threats. Even if they're jokey threats against their students.
Andrea Chalupa:
That's not how you reach people. That's not how you teach them. Now imagine a school teacher, being patient, being nice, being funny, being warm, being silly, that's the tone that Elizabeth Warren struck. By striking that tone, she was able to pull away from Biden supporters, nearly 40% of her supporters are now going to go to Biden according to this poll.
Andrea Chalupa:
That was her appeal. She had mainstream appeal, she's able to reach across the board and pull away supporters from the Democratic establishment. That is what we need. That is why the toxic snarkiness that's reminiscent of Gawker at it's meanest, that stuff is going to just speak to the choir. It's going to keep things cloistered and cliquish. You're never going to be peeling supporters away from the Democratic establishment.
Andrea Chalupa:
People need to feel that they have a place where they feel included and they can raise questions because they're still understanding what's real and what's not, because we have a mainstream media that's nonsense. Okay. So, tone matters when you have a deep pocketed propaganda war being waged against you. Your tone matters because tone is about education and outreach.
Andrea Chalupa:
This toxic stuff that Sanders supporters are known for doing, that's not about our hurt feelings. That's not about our stupid little egos. That is about an utter stupid lack of strategy and shooting your own damn self in the foot. Please don't put it on Elizabeth Warren now to endorse Bernie Sanders to save his campaign when she simply cannot do that single handedly. Elizabeth Warren is stuck with a really tough dilemma because what we saw on Super Tuesday was troubling.
Andrea Chalupa:
You had Biden with barely any ground game sweeping the night, showing that something is going on here. Okay? The conventional wisdom is whoever has a strong ground game, the voters are going to turn out for you. That did not happen on Tuesday night. Something else is happening. That something else is called white supremacy. It's very simple. You cannot blame black voters in America for knowing and having the factually correct assumption that they cannot count on white people showing up for the Democratic candidate in November 2020.
Andrea Chalupa:
Because when it comes to fighting autocracy, that's going to target black and brown people harder versus maybe getting their taxes raised. The white people are going to vote for Trump or stay home. The black people that are showing up for Biden across the board, they know white people. They know white people's history of indifference and racism in this country, and they do not trust white people and have every reason not to. That's why you're seeing the Biden support. It's one of the things driving it.
Andrea Chalupa:
I'm sorry. They cannot take a risk with Bernie Sanders because the white people that they need to defeat Trump might stay home. They can't take that risk. Do not blame them, blame white supremacy and continue your outreach progressive movement Bernie Sanders campaign to Latino voters, black voters. Continue that outreach. Continue that education because that does matter. Take on white supremacy. Make it subject to your campaign, because that is what we're up against.
Andrea Chalupa:
Warren supporting Bernie or Warren supporting Biden. She's stuck because right now she's... Whoever she endorses, that's going to be a huge sugar high in the media. That's going to give that candidate a big boost ultimately. He'll be breaking news.
Sarah Kendzior:
I don't think she's going to endorse anybody because the primary is tomorrow and it's pretty likely that Biden's going to clinch it right now.
Andrea Chalupa:
But don't blame her for not endorsing Bernie.
Sarah Kendzior:
Oh, yes.
Andrea Chalupa:
There's not enough that Elizabeth Warren could have done to save Bernie's campaign. We're up against really big forces here. The only way to dismantle them is at the grassroots level and the local government level. If you want to see someone from Bernie Sanders movement, or Elizabeth Warren's movement to become president of the United States, you need to turn this union progressive county by county, district by district, state by state. That is how we're going to finally get a progressive President of the United States that stays progressive. But don't blame Warren for not endorsing Bernie because the forces are too great that they're both up against.
Sarah Kendzior:
Yes, I agree. Onto the plague. We did a special on the coronavirus last week and we discussed it through the framework that we know best, which is the rise of autocracy under the administration of Donald Trump and the collapse of public institutions in the US, which predates him but has been exacerbated by his rule. Of all the terrifying topics that the show has covered, and there have been many, the coronavirus scares me the most both because of the unpredictability of its spread, but also because of the ways that it can be weaponized to fulfill the dreams of Trump and his sadistic backers.
Sarah Kendzior:
Those dreams include both transforming the US into a GOP one-party state, a mix of a mafia state and a theocracy. On the way to doing so, causing as much devastation and suffering as possible. In 2014, Donald Trump openly discussed this plan on Fox News.
Trump:
It's going to be hard in certain areas. Now, you know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster, then you'll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.
Sarah Kendzior:
As you can hear from that, this is something that Trump has craved for a long time. When Trump and his lackeys see that millions of Americans are at risk of dying and that their own actions are in fact making this more likely, that the economy is collapsing, that there may be riots over resources. This is not necessarily something that is going to bother Trump or other people like Bannon, who have similarly rooted for an apocalyptic outcome.
Sarah Kendzior:
It may bother others in the Republican Party, and I think it's starting to do so and we're getting to that. This is the nightmare. This is the moment that I have dreaded from the time that he took office. As I mentioned on last week's episode, the closest we had to this was his response to Hurricane Maria, where they lied about the death toll. They denied people medical aid and medical benefits. He mocked their pain, but that was off of the mainland of America.
Sarah Kendzior:
Most Americans didn't firsthand witness this. Now, we are witnessing and the panic is beginning to rise. One of the reasons the panic is beginning to rise is because we now have case studies. We've seen how the coronavirus, the new coronavirus, has played out in countries around the world ranging from autocracies to flawed democracies. Today, Monday, March 9th, the entire country of Italy has been shut down.
Sarah Kendzior:
No one is supposed to leave their home except for an emergency. This is originally true of only northern Italy. Now it is the entire country and I can't think of anything. I'm not sure there's any precedent for this in world history due to disease, at least in modern world history. Italy shows how rapidly and badly things can change.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm going to give you a little overview of how this virus progressed in just 20 days. On February 18, there were three known cases. February 21st, 20 cases. February 24, 231 cases. February 27, 655 cases. March 1, 1694 cases. March 4, 3089 cases. March 7, 5883 cases. Some of this I should point out because this is going to be important in the United States if they ever start testing us, is a rise in known cases.
Sarah Kendzior:
There may have been people who were carrying this virus and we just didn't know about it until they were tested. But nonetheless, if you listen to any Italian doctors, medical officials, they are very frightened. They are very scared because it took only 20 days for all of Italy to be shut down. I'm going to read a little from a foreign affairs reporter, Noga Tarnopolsky, who is writing on Twitter and this is her saying: “from a friend in Rome, until a few days ago, I thought that Italians were paranoid. Now I realized that it is a big problem. I decided to stay indoors until this is all over. Maybe it'll take a month. Maybe longer, who knows? It's all unreal and the city seems bombed. People are distressed and frightened. I like to think that all this will have some good consequences. In the last few years, the Italians but not only the Italians, had become too crazy. Maybe this will help you rethink your life, at least I hope so.”
Sarah Kendzior:
That letter or whatever you want to call it stuck with me because I do feel we're having this moment just as a world, we're coming to a time where... Not in any way saying this virus is a good thing but people have tried to deny so many atrocities that were right in our faces. They tried to deny rising fascism. They tried to deny systemic racism. They tried to deny climate change. I mean, that's an enormous example of the success of lying and obfuscation and refusing to believe that the worst can happen.
Sarah Kendzior:
Some of that happened in Italy. The refusal to believe that it could happen. Now they're being forced to. They're being pushed out of that normalcy bias in the most tragic way possible.
Andrea Chalupa:
No, I mean, the whole thing is it's forced self reflection with the self quarantine. I mean, this is serious. We make jokes on the show because we also want to be able to have a show really. Please don't be offended by anything we say, this is a lot for us to take in and report on. But understand that at the same time, the self quarantine, it's just been so stunning to watch that spread, that reaction.
Andrea Chalupa:
As a result, you have stories in China, the emissions went way down. This from the Washington Post: “Coronavirus could halt the world's emissions growth.” That's interesting. The price of oil is plummeting. That's going to squeeze these gas dictatorships even more. You have some weird fight going on, this ego where OPEC with Russia storming out, refusing to make a deal.
Andrea Chalupa:
Russia's economy is already on the brink and Russia bases its budget on the price of oil. It was anticipating $40 a barrel around that. But now they're talking about... Experts are saying that things could hit... Go down to $20 a barrel. That's just going to push Russia into a tighter squeeze. What happens then is more unrest, more protests against Putin. Putin who's determined to die in power, he may do so with people celebrating that he's finally gone.
Andrea Chalupa:
This is a virus that is going to reshape world events, that is setting off already as we see a big butterfly effect with lives changing, geopolitics being impacted, the pressure that I just described being put on the OPEC countries and their partners. It's a transformative time that we're in. It's a revolutionary time that we're in. Please don't get lost in this horse race politics, because we have to think in decades now. Because everything is changing so rapidly, so quickly. To keep up with it, again, you build a community and you take care of your community. That's how you fight back.
Sarah Kendzior:
I agree. It's frightening. It's like we're back in 100 years ago, around the time of world war one and the Spanish flu. We're reliving that in the digital era. We're live tweeting every casualty, which I think is a damaging thing. I think we're going to end up with a lot of repercussions from panic, which is why it would be nice if we actually had world officials and of course, American officials who could give us accurate responses and advice about what to do.
Sarah Kendzior:
There are medical officials out there for which I'm grateful. There are people who are working around the Trump administration to try to just educate the public but no real formal platform for them. Because of the guiding of the CDC, because of the guiding of all these institutions, and that's a frightening thing. I think people are seeing this head on.
Sarah Kendzior:
There are examples of this around the world too. The response of other countries has varied enormously, both in terms of social services provided but also in terms of cruelty to the population. In South Korea, for example, testing is so easy and so widespread that they've opened up drive through testing centers. While the rate of infection there has been high because it is close to China, the mortality rate has stayed fairly low because they've been proactive about treating and testing for the disease.
Sarah Kendzior:
Whereas you can look at Netanyahu’s Israel, where you're seeing more and more government officials testing positive for the virus, and the response of Netanyahu over the weekend was to propose that children perform forced labor and bleach Israel's infrastructure, like public transportation, which is just one of the most revolting and extremely dangerous ideas I've heard.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm praying to God that the Trump administration is not inspired by this. I'm genuinely frightened of this, because they often take their cues from Netanyahu. A longtime friend of Kushner, a longtime friend of Trump and of many in the administration. That's a terrifying thing. You're also seeing that, among countries that have been hit hard, Iran is doing especially poorly with many government officials sick and some dead. That outcome came in part because of the government's initial refusal to talk honestly about the dangers of the coronavirus.
Sarah Kendzior:
What all these different countries are showing us is that the more democratic the country, and the more transparent and prepared officials are in their response to the virus, the better the odds of survival, the less likely that there is panic. The less likely that these extreme and tragic measures are even proposed. It's heartbreaking to see this, it's heartbreaking to see all these medics and nurses and doctors from all over the world. Doesn't matter if our country technically dislikes their country, or if we're all supposed to be at war with each other.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm sorry, I don't want to cry on our show. But I'm watching people struggle online, I'm watching these videos of just exhausted medical officials who are just trying so hard to help people, whether in Iran, or China or South Korea, or Italy, or wherever it's hit. It's very heartbreaking and it's a reminder of our collective humanity. Despite these governments, their selfishness and their greed and their incompetence and in the way that the last 20 years from the recession to our wars have hurt us just so badly on a global scale.
Sarah Kendzior:
You still see people just trying to help others. You still see people... They're trying their best to do their very job under incredibly difficult circumstances. I'm grateful that people like that are out there. I wish they didn't have this job to do. This is just going to get harder. Just really, I'm begging anyone who's in a position of power. If you're a senator, if you're in the House of Representatives, if you're working for one of these institutions, and you're cowering at the Trump administration, and it's autocratic measures, and it's threats, and it's terrible behavior, you've got to work around them.
Sarah Kendzior:
You've got to find another way. You've got to give press conferences to the people. Give accurate information to the people. Let people know how they can protect themselves beyond just washing their hands. Make sure people get free testing and free treatment and aren't so terrified of the expense of potentially having coronavirus that they won't even go in to find out if they're infected. There are so many social ailments that have been lingering and eating away at this country for a very long time.
Sarah Kendzior:
We don't have the time to fix it but by God, we have the money. You can see through these disgusting campaigns, these campaigns where Michael Bloomberg spends half a billion dollars to get his one delegate from a territory whose GDP is in fact less than the total that he spent in the election. You know what, I'm glad Michael Bloomberg is now throwing the rest of his money into other races to help democrats and to help register voters. That's what he should have been doing all along.
Sarah Kendzior:
But this income inequality, immense hoarding of wealth and denial of basic resources to people I don't think has ever been more stark than in the spread of this pandemic. I'm very worried about the next couple of months to come.
Andrea Chalupa:
No, it's crazy. I just don't understand, Sarah. I feel that the rapture did happen with George Michael dying on Christmas 2016 and losing Prince and Carrie Fisher and that we were left behind.
Sarah Kendzior:
Yes, I've wondered. I mean, it's too much. When I saw the plague of locusts followed by the actual plague followed by the blood in Antarctica. I mean, it's very difficult to not wonder. Maybe this is just the way that humans interpret the unimaginable, unfathomable conflagration of injustice. Or maybe we're more aware because we have these little devices, these little rectangles of doom that we carry around in our pocket and reload over and over all day long that only provide us bad news.
Sarah Kendzior:
But, I don't know, I do feel like there's something bigger in the air. There's something dark and evil in the air. I lack the vocabulary to call it something else. I'm a trained social scientist. I'm not supposed to be talking about evil, but I don't know how else to describe a lot of what's happened in history. I don't know other words for the Holocaust. I don't know other words for slavery. I don't know other words for a lot of the things we see today. I mean, it's just evil.
Andrea Chalupa:
It is. But let me tell you as somebody that's been researching evil for years focused on the Soviet period, the interwar years. The early 1930s were that evil was growing stronger unchecked, even in times of great evil, you always have heroic men and women that are running towards danger. We see them today. There are so many of them and they're out there and they're refusing to abandon each other.
Andrea Chalupa:
Just know that even in times of great evil, there are so many people just toiling away in the dark, whose names we may never ever even know but whose impact is going to far out live them. They exist and they are out there and I made a film about someone like that, who was forgotten. Now he has his own film. Understand that those people are out there, they're among us and they're working their hearts out and they're just programmed that way.
Andrea Chalupa:
There's some people that just choose to be evil, and there's some people that refuse to allow evil to win no matter what it takes, and there are so many of them out there doing this work. What's really interesting is that in a time of growing autocracy is that we have this pandemic. It really is challenging these power structures. It is forcing governments that are normally autocratic to open up and to communicate with other governments around the world because this thing has to be contained and can't spread.
Andrea Chalupa:
I'm telling you, looking back on these years, we don't know when that might be. But looking back on this time, we're going to see a really interesting ripple effect come out from the coronavirus, from the world's reaction to it. I do think it is going to set off. Really, I think it's going to speed up this revolutionary energy out there in the world because so many teams from autocratic governments, democratic governments are forced to collaborate together.
Andrea Chalupa:
When you have people just putting their humanity first, that breaks down walls. That breaks down barriers and that's what's happening right now. I think all of us just have to remain vigilant, remain engaged and just do what we can to help each other stay human throughout all this, no matter how dark things get.
Sarah Kendzior:
No, I agree. But I keep thinking, if we're talking about evil, and of course, yes, you're right. That there are always people who will fight against it at the risk of their own lives. I keep thinking of that Hannah Arendt quote, “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” I feel like we're absolutely surrounded by that. We have acts of evil that are blatant and people who are blatantly cruel. The Stephen Millers of the world and their child separation concentration camps, which is another thing I worry about. Is what will happen when the coronavirus goes there.
Sarah Kendzior:
Why have they been building so many of those camps over the last three years? I wonder about that too. But I also wonder about these people who are just devoid of moral caliber, devoid of courage, not just within the Republican Party although that's a shining example of it but throughout the country. The refusal to take a stand. I even saw this week. This infamous now quote from Peter Baker of the New York Times where he was basically saying, “I never take a side. Even in the privacy of my own kitchen, I never take aside between one candidate or another.”
Sarah Kendzior:
He didn't mean within the democratic party or something. He meant between Trump, an autocrat, and any of the Democrats. “I never take a side. I never speak my mind. I never fight on anyone else's behalf. I never look out for anyone more vulnerable than me.” I just kept thinking, my God, if there's a personification of the banality of evil, it is Peter Baker and it is the New York Times. It is this mainstream media which wants to suck the moral equation out of what is a very morally troubling time.
Sarah Kendzior:
A time where we really need to look deep into ourselves and think who are we and why are we here? What are we going to do with the time that we have on earth? What kind of legacy are we going to leave behind? What kind of world are we going to leave behind? Are we going to leave behind a world or are we just going to leave behind scorched earth? That's the question.
Sarah Kendzior:
That's the thing that we have to wrestle with. Is this the kind of thing I necessarily wanted to think about as an adult? I mean, no. I was that child who thought about that, so I guess it's just as well that I ended up here, but no one wants to run a gaslit nation show. Andrea and I don't want to ceaselessly have to identify authoritarianism in our midst or disease or environmental destruction or all the things we cover. We cover it because we feel obligated to, because these are the burning questions of our time. These are the type of questions that determine our future, and our children's future and your children's future. Somebody has to talk about them.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm not saying we're the only ones but this attempt to take a neutral tone in a time of evil, you're not being neutral, you're just being evil. Speaking of evil, I just want to briefly go into what's-
Andrea Chalupa:
Speaking of evil, I'm like what could it be next? I mean, that can be the transition for anything we talk about.
Sarah Kendzior:
For those who tapped out of the coronavirus coverage completely, to which I in part can't blame you although we should be vigilant, Trump's strategy has still been to at first deny that the virus exists, then let it spread as widely as possible and infect as many Americans as possible. He is conceding that it is real to some degree, although fox is still pushing the hoax angle. Only when fellow members of the republican party like Ted Cruz have had to put themselves under quarantine. Trump's new Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, is also under a self quarantine.
Sarah Kendzior:
This is because, a number of GOP officials interacted with several infected individuals who attended APAC and CPAC, which are two conferences very popular with the GOP. Now the GOP may have contracted the plague. We're going to see how they are tested and how they are treated. One thing that has concerned me is that Trump has been very blase throughout this pandemic, despite being a notorious germaphobe who is in the most likely category to be infected, which is men over seven years old.
Sarah Kendzior:
I posted about this on Twitter and I got a lot of repetitive blow back from people who are doubting the germaphobe claim, which was very reminiscent of the times that everyone told me to trust the plan. Told me Moeller was coming to save us, they're dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Pelosi has a plan. Sometimes I just get hundreds and hundreds of absolutely uniform responses and I get the sense that they were sent to me from someone that wanted to put out a particular narrative.
Sarah Kendzior:
This germaphobe claim from Trump is very consistent. It goes back, if you read old articles to his friendship with Roy Cohn, the mafia lawyer and Nixon acolyte, who is his mentor and his very good friend. The best friend that Donald Trump ever had, and well known as one of the most evil men in the world. Ray Cohn died of AIDS. As soon as Cohn contracted aids, Trump apparently dropped him. That was the end of that. This has been a theme with Trump for decades.
Sarah Kendzior:
Now not saying here that Trump is a paragon of good health or hygiene. This is very obvious from looking at him and watching his eating habits, hearing about his exercise habits, hearing about his alleged sex life/ rape life, but Trump has long been absolutely terrified by any kind of dramatic apocalyptic threat to his mortality. Not something like a disease necessarily, a regular cancer or something like that. There's nothing like Ebola or in particular nuclear war.
Sarah Kendzior:
I think his narcissism causes him to see himself on such a grandiose scale that only the world's biggest crises are worthy of taking him out. He has such a terrible time coming to terms with the fact that he is indeed mortal. What has always worried me about him is that I feel if he feels that he is threatened, he will sacrifice the world instead. I'm a bit worried that we're at this point because it's very unlike him to allow a pandemic to sweep the nation without presenting himself at its center, without presenting himself as its greatest victim, unless he has been assured for some reason that he will survive it.
Sarah Kendzior:
I have noticed the same nonchalant demeanour throughout the geriatric crime call that comprises his administration. I don't have anything of substance to add here in the way of evidence. I'm just somebody who's watched his behavior closely for a very long time. I think this is weird. I'm wondering what's going on. I don't think that his extreme narcissism completely explains it. Maybe we'll get more answers as his Republican lackeys get infected.
Sarah Kendzior:
Though, as we've pointed out, his inner circle has shrunk over time and I'm not sure he's particularly concerned about the fate of Ted Cruz. I think Ted Cruz may learn that the hard way. I don't know. Do you have thoughts on that? Or should we go on to the collapsing economy? Oh my God, this show.
Andrea Chalupa:
I just think it's funny that Trump is such a major germaphobe and he has to deal with a pandemic. I mean, none of this-
Sarah Kendzior:
It would be funny if it's not going to get us all killed. But yes, great ironies of life.
Andrea Chalupa:
None of this is funny. Sarah and I just have to show up for work this week, even though we're feeling very wanting to hide under desks from the nuclear fallout. That's the mood we're currently in if you couldn't tell.
Sarah Kendzior:
I just want to point then, before we close out the show, to the other thing that happened today which is the collapse of the global economy. This is one of many collapses of the global economy that I've experienced in my adult life, including 9/11, the 2008 financial collapse. Today, the Dow dropped by about 2000 points. It was the largest drop in history. This followed massive drops last week. You might be like me and Andrea and be like, well, I don't have anything in the stock market. Why does this concern me?
Sarah Kendzior:
It does, because there is always a rebound effect. It affects jobs, it affects industries. We're going to see a lot of industries being very hard hurt over the next couple of months. The airline industry, travel tourism, there's going to be layoffs, there's going to be layoffs and then there's going to be I think the same sort of "restructuring" that follows the other recessions where they decide to just not pay people.
Sarah Kendzior:
You're a permanent volunteer, you're an intern, you're someone on the way to getting a job. But this is more severe. This is incredibly unusual. I mean, we've never had a situation like this where it's been in response to a global pandemic. It is not just one natural disaster, for example, or a one day, one terrorist attack. It is an ongoing natural disaster of... A medical disaster that is affecting the entire world. There are going to have to be new plans to deal with this.
Sarah Kendzior:
What I'm hoping is that we have new humane plans. I'm hoping that this elucidates the need for universal health care and for the end of disaster capitalism, and for more environmental awareness. For more consideration of families and their needs. What happens for example when a parent is sick? What happens to their children? What happens to elderly people? There are a lot of really nasty jokes going around about baby boomers and just saying how hard it's going to take this generation out.
Sarah Kendzior:
Those baby boomers are our parents, they're our grandparents, they are afraid. They are afraid for their lives, and they have just probably lost some of their savings. They're probably worried about Medicaid and other health care that the Trump administration wants to destroy. It's just as scary for them as it is for people our age and for younger folks. Once again, let me stress we are all in this together. This is a time where we really need to act like it because the alternative to this is fascism.
Sarah Kendzior:
This is the moment that fascists crave. They crave a chaotic situation in which people feel so panicked and so helpless and so dependent that they can just come in and carry out whatever act of brutality they want, and pass whatever repressive laws they want. Whatever little threads that were left of our democracy will be just torn asunder possibly not to return for a very long time.
Sarah Kendzior:
We need to be vigilant on a public health level but we also need to be vigilant about our political health. We need to keep these guys in check. We need to stay a few moves ahead of them. On that note, all these rumors that Congress is about to go on recess, because it's so full of elderly people afraid of catching this thing. I'm sorry, no, you do not go on recess now and leave this catastrophe in the hands of Donald Trump and his crime call.
Sarah Kendzior:
You need to actually come up with a plan to protect the American people and maybe this plan breaks protocol. Maybe you have to now telecommute instead of holding an in person quorum. Whatever. You need to actually... Not resolve this issue because it will take a long time, but you need to be proactive about serving the public because that is what you are here to do.
Andrea Chalupa:
I wanted to go back to what you said about Peter Baker and how important it is not to stay neutral in a time of evil. I feel somebody listening to that might have a question of, well, what about Elizabeth Warren? Why hasn't she come out and endorsed somebody then. The situation that she's in is this. This is a weird presidential election. We saw Biden with barely any ground game and barely any money compared to the other front runners sweep super Tuesday.
Andrea Chalupa:
Something is happening here. Bernie may not make it because of the forces he's up against. Biden, whether you like that or not, may make it through. Elizabeth Warren has all the leverage she can possibly have in this election cycle right now. Give her the benefit of the doubt that she may be doing something like trying to pull Biden into committing to some of her policies, if he wants her endorsement. Because an Elizabeth Warren endorsement would mean a lot.
Andrea Chalupa:
Would be very healing, would be big news. It would give the campaign a big boost. If Elizabeth Warren was to stay neutral, and wait for the nominee, that's her right to do so. Endorsing Bernie will not save Bernie. I just wanted just to stress that because I feel we're going to keep hearing about that. They're going to try to label her with that. But the reality is, it looks like Biden's just going to get pushed through, then understand that she has leverage right now to try to get Biden to agree to some of her policies, and she will be using that leverage knowing her.
Andrea Chalupa:
If she doesn't give the Bernie endorsement everyone wants, by waiting until there's a nominee and backing that person, she's going to be hurting her credibility with a lot of Bernie supporters. But she might be doing that for the larger good of making sure that this Biden train that's speeding along it takes some of her policy proposals with it. So please keep that larger mission in mind that she may be taking a big hit by not supporting Bernie openly right now in order to ensure some progressive policies with Biden's camp later down the line.
Andrea Chalupa:
I know that's just going to be some big chatter that's going to follow Elizabeth Warren around now. I had to address it because progressive movement must stay united. We can't... Because that's where our strength will come from. If you want to have a progressive president of United States, stay united, build together on the ground.
Andrea Chalupa:
Speaking of that, great news. Democrats have a very strong chance of winning the Senate. We only have to flip four Senate seats and hold on to the 12 seats that we already have that are up for re-election in 2020. Meanwhile, republicans have to defend 23 Senate seats. This election, the Republican dominance in the Senate is vulnerable. We all have to stay engaged to defeat Mitch McConnell in November.
Andrea Chalupa:
We also have to hold the House because if we lose the House, Devin Nunez is going to become a little autocrat in the House. You'll see, it'll be show trials galore. That's the plan. We win the Senate, we hold the House and we elect the Democrat. Vote blue no matter who. Stop the Bleeding 2020 because it's absolutely immoral if you do not vote for the Democratic President because Trump is an existential threat to this planet.
Andrea Chalupa:
We need Bill Barr to be gone too. Pick the Democrat for president in November, who is not going to sue your state because it has sanctuary cities for instance. We all have to vote blue no matter who. The electoral map looks really good for us in terms of Congress in 2020. Just fight our hearts out now as dark as the news gets. We're living through interesting times. We're experiencing them together. This is the age that they're going to write books about and the historians are going to debate for the ages. Congratulations to us, and we're going to get through it together. Our discussion continues and you can get access to that by standing up on our Patreon at the Truth Teller level or higher.
Sarah Kendzior:
We want to encourage our listeners to help the victims of the Australian fires by donating to the Australian Red Cross working on the ground helping people in need. We also encourage you to donate to WIRES, a group that rescues native Australian wildlife in distress donate@wires.org.au. We've posted links to these groups and others on our Patreon page.
Andrea Chalupa:
We encourage you to donate to the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian relief organization helping refugees from Syria. Donate at rescue.org. If you want to help critically endangered orangutans already under pressure from the palm oil industry donate to the Orangutan Project of the orangutanproject.org. Gaslit nation is produced by Sara Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners and check out our Patreon, it keeps us going.
Sarah Kendzior:
Our production managers are Nicholas Torres and Karlyn Daigle. Our episodes are edited by Nicholas Torres, and our Patreon exclusive content is edited by Karlyn Daigle.
Andrea Chalupa:
Original music in Gaslit nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Visenberg, Nick Farr, Damian Arriaga and Karlyn Daigle.
Sarah Kendzior:
Our logo design was donated to us by Hamish Smyth of the New York based firm Order. Thank you so much Hamish.
Andrea Chalupa:
Gaslit nation would like to thank our supporters at the producer level on Patreon...