Bernie Sanders Bursts Trump-Supporting Podcast Bro’s Bubble

Speaker A [00:00:00]:
The issue is democracy versus billionaires being able to spend unlimited sums of money. Supreme Court went with that, and then the form it took was what's called a super pac.

Speaker B [00:00:10]:
It is duplicitous. You're undermining the people, and that's where you remove.

Speaker A [00:00:14]:
Wow, that's a very good point.

Speaker C [00:00:20]:
So Bernie Sanders has been making the rounds on Joe Rogan and Jason podcasts, including Theo Vaughn, Lex Friedman, and now Andrew Scholz. And even though these podcast hosts try to present themselves as central interests, they effectively produce right wing shows, either by platforming right wing extremists and not pushing back, or by engaging in both sidesism and false equivalences that always benefit Trump and the Republicans. 
So wittingly or unwittingly, these podcasts end up pushing their audiences towards the right, albeit to varying degrees. So the question is, how do people in the center and left of center address this? You know, there's conversations about whether or not Democrats should have their own version of Joe Rogan, and I think that that's a different conversation for a different. 
But a lot of people seemingly have chosen to go on these shows and just provide their audiences with an alternative to the right wing politics that they've been fed. That's what Pete Buttigieg has been doing recently, and it's what Bernie Sanders does all the time as well. I think that it makes sense to infiltrate their echo chambers and try to get their audiences to seek out politics that's more empathetic and ideally anti capitalist. 
Now, I'm not expecting Pete Buttigieg to push anti capitalism, but in this episode with Andrew Scholz, I think Bernie Sanders does a good job at planting some seeds. And the reception from Andrew Scholz audience kind of demonstrates that the strategy is indeed successful, although I think that there are some limitations which we'll talk about. 
But first, let's talk about the positives here, because Bernie Sanders explained how oligarchs like Elon Musk are basically able to run the country by buying off politicians. And a lot of Americans, they have a sense that money in politics is an issue, but I don't think that they're able to articulate how with much specificity. And Bernie Sanders provides this audience with a very digestible explanation with two main focal points, Citizens United and their Super PACs.

Speaker A [00:02:11]:
The Supreme Court ruled that billionaires that advertising is freedom of speech. And I can. You can't limit my speech. So if I want to spend $100 million on TV ads, I have the right to do it. They say you're Right. So the issue is democracy versus billionaires being able to spend unlimited sums of money. Supreme Court went with that. And then the form it took was what's called a super pac. You sought an organization, Americans for Freedom. Okay. And billionaires could put as much money as they want into that. That organization then runs ads on television. It does political stuff. That's what it's about. 
So bottom line, though, most importantly is if you are a billionaire, you can put as much money as you want into a super PAC. And in Musk's case, he spent $270 million to help Donald Trump get elected president. Do Democrats have billionaires putting money at the suit PACs? Absolutely. All right, what does that mean in real life? This is what it means. Right now we're dealing with a bill called the reconciliation bill. 
It's a fancy Washington term for a very big bill which will have a lot of stuff in it. In any case, if a Republican stands up and says, you know what, in the House of Representatives, I don't like this bill because, you know, it's giving tax breaks to very wealthy people and it's going to cut Medicaid and cut nutrition programs, it's a bad bill. What do you think happens the day after that Republican stands up and says.

Speaker B [00:03:39]:
He opposes those super PACs organize and they primary out. You got it, politicians.

Speaker A [00:03:43]:
Exactly.

Speaker C [00:03:43]:
Now, the commodification of our democracy didn't start with Citizens United, but what it did do is open the floodgates. And it's to the point where Americans are no longer able to even compete with the oligarchs who are dumping millions and millions of dollars into these election. More than 10 years ago, a Princeton study found that regular working class Americans have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes compared to elites and special interests, which makes sense in this climate because regular Americans, they might be able to vote. So we live in a democracy in that sense. 
Sure. But that's the beginning and end of their influence on politics. They don't have the money to hire lobbyists, lobbyists that exist, they disproportionately lobby on behalf of the interests of. Of wealthy people. Right. So if lobbyists are constantly pressuring politicians to do what they want, which often hurts working class Americans, and they supplement their lobbying with bribes in the form of campaign contributions. I mean, the result is what we have now where rich people always get what they want and everyone else gets nothing. 
And things have only gotten worse since that study was published. We've reached the point now where politicians are committing atrocities because they're either being bankrolled by the corporations or governments benefiting from said atrocities or they feel like they'd be targeted for opposing it, as was the case with Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman. And since they didn't back down, they were challenged and they lost their seats in Congress. The clearest example of this is aipac, which funds politicians in both parties to support Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. 
Bernie Sanders is going to explain in this next clip how organizations like AIPAC perpetuate this system. And he also talks about how they sanitize their image. And it seemingly has led to a type of light bulb moment for Andrew Scholz in particular. So let's watch and then we'll discuss.

Speaker A [00:05:30]:
I introduced legislation to say we're going to block the sale of certain military weaponry to Israel. I got 15 Democrats to support me. I got zero Republicans. Why do you think more Democrats didn't support me? Because the Democrats support me. They will have to take on apec. You mentioned Jamal Bowman. Yeah, that's what you're talking about.

Speaker B [00:05:50]:
They supposed. Would they spend like 15 or 20 million to get him out of there? This is up in Westchester, too.

Speaker A [00:05:55]:
You got it. Okay. Bush in Missouri, St. Louis was defeated. A woman in state of Washington, Pramila Jayapal Sister, ran. So if you want to speak out against Netanyahu's government and oppose military sales, aipac, which is also funded by billionaires who support both Democrats, Republicans, we'll go after it.

Speaker B [00:06:17]:
How can they do this effectively? Like, how can they sway a vote if the people don't support the idea?

Speaker A [00:06:24]:
You know how you do it?

Speaker C [00:06:25]:
How?

Speaker A [00:06:26]:
This is rather amazing. Great question. You don't talk about the issue. To the best of my knowledge, and I'm 99% sure I'm right, they didn't say one word about Israel.

Speaker B [00:06:35]:
Wow.

Speaker A [00:06:35]:
The argument was he's a bad Democrat or whatever. The usual negative advertising didn't talk about Israel.

Speaker B [00:06:41]:
So this is quite interesting because if a group like if a super PAC was honest about what they were raising against, for example, they spent that 20 million specifically defending their position on Israel. I wonder if we would be more amenable to that because that is the issue at hand. Instead of using funding to make this person radioactive, which they might not exactly be, it is duplicitous. You're undermining the people. And that's where you remove.

Speaker A [00:07:09]:
Wow, that's a very good point.

Speaker C [00:07:11]:
Bernie is absolutely correct. AIPAC spent a record breaking $15 million to unseat Jamal Bowman and their Stooge George Latimer barely mentioned Israel at all on the campaign trail. He framed Jamal Bowman as the mirror image Donald Trump and implied that extremism on both sides was really the reason why D.C. was so dysfunctional. 
And this example seemingly made it click for Andrew Scholz. You can almost see the light bulb go off over his head. But this right here is where you have to connect the dots for him, specifically his audience. See, if elites and interest groups hide their real agenda with an issue as serious as genocide, then you've got to think about the other ways that they're misleading the public. 
Perhaps when super PACs that run ads on behalf of Republicans tell you that immigrants and trans people are the cause of all of our country's problems, maybe you should question their motives there as well and ask yourself if they're also trying to hide their real agenda. See, sometimes you have to hold their hands and guide them to the most obvious conclusion because they're not going to automatically connect the dots themselves. But to be clear, the goal is not to win over Andrew Scholes. 
The goal is to plant seeds with the audience, to win them over. Because Andrew Scholes is not someone who is an honest actor, in my opinion. And I say that because he talks about how Democrats are out of touch with working class people, which is true. But he never has the same energy for Donald Trump in the Republican Party who are gearing up to cut Medicaid, which means that millions of Americans would lose their health insurance. 
Low income Americans in particular. And I don't think that he's doing this on purpose, per se. Frankly, I think that he's a simpleton who bases his politics on vibes. And the only issue that really seems to galvanize him is pussy. For example, in 2021, he thought that Trump was a pussy for throwing a tantrum about the 2020 election. But by 24, he supported Trump because Trump gets pussy. I guess.

Speaker B [00:09:00]:
You know, when I was younger, like, Democrats were cool. They were getting their dick sucked in the office. They were like, right. They were like, they were like supportive of like hip hop music. They said, do whatever you want. Like, we don't want to be in your bedroom. They were cool with gay people. Like, it was cool to be a Democrat. Now conservatives got three baby moms. The President got three baby mamas. 
He's getting pussy left and right, right? He's cool. He's the one saying, say whatever you want. So now conservatives have become Democrats. So I don't think I've changed. I just like the Dudes that get pussy and say whatever they want. So it's very. You want me to be a Democrat again, get some pussy, tell me, say whatever I want.

Speaker C [00:09:35]:
Yeah. So needless to say, I don't have a very high opinion of him and I think that he's not qualified at all to say that anyone else is out of touch. This man doesn't know what issues affect working class people. If he bases his own votes on who's getting pussy and which politicians are telling him that he can say what he wants. 
If you literally vote based on who you think is more cool as a 40 something year old man as opposed to policy, I don't think that you should be the one to accuse anyone else of being out of touch. You should look in the mirror. Furthermore, if it's the vibes that matter the most to you, if you want politicians to tell you that you can say whatever you want, then this moment from the same podcast should have forced Andrew Scholz to reconsider his support for Donald Trump.

Speaker A [00:10:18]:
There are people, as I'm sure you're familiar with, a young woman from Turkey, for God's sakes, was in Massachusetts, went to Tufts University. You remember that? This woman walks down the street suddenly, guys, yeah, Grab a with masks on, throw her into a van, take her to a detention center. Why? Because she wrote an op ed critical of the war in Gaza.

Speaker C [00:10:39]:
Now that came up at a later point in the podcast. But if Andrew Scholes were an honest actor who didn't know about that, but he genuinely did care about free speech, that issue alone should be the wake up call that he needs to repudiate Donald Trump entirely. 
Will he do that? Probably not. Because another element that we don't often talk about is when you have a podcast and you start to bring on guests and you cultivate a particular audience that wants to hear certain things from you, you begin to worry that the gravy train is going to dry up if you start to question what your audience was primed to believe. 
So there's often this incentive that emerges once you cultivate a right wing audience to not challenge their beliefs. And insof far as you do do that, you let somebody else come on and talk about things that your audience might not want to hear. Because, you know, at least you could say, I'm just letting them talk. I'm not saying it, they're saying it. But I don't think that Andrew Scholz has enough brain cells to actually make the connection between free speech and rooms of Ozark to be clear, because you know, when people like him talk about free speech, they usually only mean that they want to be allowed to say slurs on social media without getting banned. So many. 
Even though, you know, he was personable and agreeable with Bernie Sanders, I don't think that Andrew Scholz is gettable. But again, that isn't the goal here. Right. The goal here is for Bernie Sanders to win over people in his audience who are gettable. And they're gettable because most of them presumably don't have coherent views on politics. Like the hosts, they probably have opinions on certain issues and follow politics here and there, but there's no underlying philosophy tying it all together, which is why they go back and forth between Democrats and Republicans. 
This is what a lot of Americans do, not just this audience. And what's interesting about this podcast is that all of the hosts told Bernie Sanders that they supported him in 2016, but they felt really disillusioned with the Democratic Party after they sabotaged him. And that feeling of disillusionment might have led them, as well as their viewers, down the path that they're on today. And I want to show you how Bernie Sanders addressed this. We have a question.

Speaker B [00:12:37]:
We want to ask about what happened.

Speaker C [00:12:38]:
To you in 2016 with this Bernie Bros. Movement, where your.

Speaker B [00:12:42]:
Your followers are seeing they have a.

Speaker C [00:12:44]:
Racism problem, misogyny problem.

Speaker B [00:12:45]:
Do you think that's a super PAC thing behind that?

Speaker A [00:12:48]:
That was the Democratic establishment. That was the.

Speaker C [00:12:50]:
Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker A [00:12:51]:
You know, that was just. They were sitting there, we had a lot of young people, we had people of color, and, you know, they create this kind of myth with the help of the corporate media and all that stuff.

Speaker B [00:13:00]:
You know what's kind of interesting to that note is during this election, the podcast space, which the Democrats largely avoided, they feel had some influence in the election, and they started to label us the podcast Bros and said that we were sexist and we were racist and bigoted. It's almost like it's the exact same strategy to get you out of there.

Speaker A [00:13:24]:
Yeah, that's what the liberal elite China does. They run away. Look, getting again, I would hope that everybody who's watching the program is that we as a nation have got to end all forms of bigotry. Right? Yes. That I start off as a basic assumption.

Speaker B [00:13:42]:
Unless it's to your close friends, Right?

Speaker C [00:13:44]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:13:45]:
Whether it's racism or sexism, homophobia or xenophobia, whatever it is, but. And you know, liberal Democrats talk about that all the time. And then you get to what we call identity politics that you're black, you're wonderful, you're tremendous, you're gay, you're the greatest human being on earth.

Speaker B [00:14:01]:
Yeah.

Speaker C [00:14:01]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:14:02]:
And rather than say, what do you, what do you stand for?

Speaker B [00:14:06]:
Exactly.

Speaker A [00:14:07]:
You're gay, that's fine. Who cares? Yeah, but what do you stand for?

Speaker B [00:14:09]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:14:10]:
You know, is every gay person brilliant and wonderful and great? No, of course not. Everybody's a human being.

Speaker C [00:14:15]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:14:16]:
So the issue is what you stand for. Which gets you back to what we discussed earlier, class politics in the sense of which side are you on? Are you going to stand with working families? Are you going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage or not? Are you going to guarantee fight to guarantee health care to all people or not? Are you going to demand that the wealthiest people start paying their fair share of taxes or not? Those are the issues. And no one cares what color you are, you know, what your gender is, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker C [00:14:45]:
First and foremost, working class quote, Bernie Bros. And multimillionaire podcast hosts are not similar in any way, shape or form. And the reason why they accused you of being right wing, Andrew, is because you platformed fascist politicians like Donald Trump and helped to launder his reputation. 
So suffice to say, I don't think that you were unfairly smeared. I think that the characterization given to you by them is fair, given your own words and actions. As for Bernie Sanders, even though he's correct on the substance, he's right to say that Democratic Party elites do cynically weaponize identity politics. I don't think that he did a good job here in this portion of the podcast, given the type of audience that he was speaking to. 
Yes, Democrats weaponize identity politics, but there's a meaningful difference between the weaponization of identity politics and advocating for social and racial justice, which is important to right wingers, I don't think they know the difference. It seems like to them they're one of the same, because they often accuse marginalized people of weaponizing identity politics if they simply talk about social justice issues. 
So this conversation is often used also cynically, ironically, as an excuse to dismiss the importance of social and racial justice issues when these issues cannot be dismissed because they are important and they require politicians to address them. But in that clip, Bernie Sanders, he almost sounded like a class reductionist. And even though I know that he's not that, I worry that the people listening might feel like they're forced to make a false choice between class issues and social issues based on that conversation. 
And if a politician, you know, signals support for racial justice causes, they might think, okay, well, they're against class issues and they're against me. And you have to make it abundantly clear that it is not a zero sum game. You have to fight for both and you have to reject that false dichotomy. And I don't think Bernie Sanders was clear enough here. Furthermore, Bernie Sanders should have pointed out how obsessed Republicans are with so called identity politics. White identity politics is still identity politics. And since this was brought up in the context of super pacs, I wish Bernie Sanders would have explained how both parties cynically weaponized identity politics, specifically for oligarchs. 
I mean, for Democrats, since they're beholden to special interests and large multinational corporations, getting more women and people of color elected to them is their way of showing the base that they're making progress. It kind of does two things. It says, hey, we're still moving forward as a society. It placates the base while not upsetting their corporate donors who want them to not push as far as for certain policies, you know, Medicare for all, for example. But Republicans, they also focus on identity politics. They focus on white identity politics because demonizing minorities obscures the nature of our capitalist political system. And if you think trans people and immigrants are the cause of all of our country's problems, you'll be less likely to not look at the people at the top as the real culprits. 
So if you like, like plant those anti capitalist seeds and understand how everything goes back to capitalism and defending and protecting capital, then it might have been better. But I don't think Bernie Sanders did that, nor did he explain identity politics well in this particular section of the podcast. Not to mention both parties also invoke anti Semitism all the time to shut down criticism of Israel as well. So you can't just say, oh, well, this is just a Democratic Party problem. It's a problem that, that both parties do, right, for nefarious, cynical reasons. So I think that this was a missed opportunity from Bernie Sanders here, at least with respect to this issue. 
Because these podcasts, what they do, if you listen to them, they always try to bring the conversation back to how Democrats and Democrats alone are bad. Which means that you've got to challenge that when you come on these podcasts and burst their bubble and let them know it's not just the Democratic Party that's bad. Sure, they're bad, but Republicans are bad. And not only that, they're worse. And to be fair, Bernie Sanders did that all throughout the episode. But when it comes to this issue. You can't give Republicans a pass. You have to explicitly name and shame them. 
Otherwise it's going to come across as you conceding that Democrats are exclusively and uniquely bad here when that is not the case. And focusing more on, you know, Republicans in particular is actually, I think, a good strategy, even if, you know, you might not like Democrats. Because the people who listen to this podcast probably don't hear critiques of Republicans very often. And to the extent that they do, it's probably a pro Trump critique and, you know, talking about how Rhinos are bad or whatever bullshit they come up with. 
But I do want to move on because there's one more clip here that I want to show you where they talk about the Democratic Party again. And I think that this gives us some insight into why these types of guys in particular moved away from the Democratic Party. And then I have a lot to say about that as well. So let's watch.

Speaker B [00:19:32]:
We felt that over the last four elections, Democrats, we felt that we didn't have a say on who could be president. We talk a lot about the Republicans being autocrats and oligarchs and taking over democracy. But from the Democrat perspective, and I'm a lifelong Democrat, I felt like the Democratic Party completely removed the Democratic process from its constituents. And they, I think they need to have some accountability of that.

Speaker A [00:19:58]:
No longer been here.

Speaker B [00:20:00]:
I donated for you. I, I mean, I wanted you to like 2016. I was like, this is going to happen. This guy's going to do it. And it felt like they, it felt like they stole it from me. And I'll be honest.

Speaker C [00:20:09]:
Honest.

Speaker B [00:20:09]:
It broke my heart when you, when you supported him.

Speaker A [00:20:12]:
Look, but you have, in the world that I live in, you got a choice. And I mean, a lot of people, including my wife, agree with you. But, you know, you're down to a choice. Is it going to be Hillary Clinton or is it going to be Donald Trump? Not a great choice, but it ended.

Speaker B [00:20:29]:
Up being him anyway. So why don't we burn it down?

Speaker A [00:20:33]:
Well, because it's easy to say. Burning it down means that children are not going to have, you know, food to eat, that the schools will deteriorate, people will not have health care.

Speaker B [00:20:42]:
Ostensibly, there hasn't been a fair primary.

Speaker C [00:20:44]:
For the Democrats since 2008.

Speaker B [00:20:46]:
Are they not also a threat to democracy? We often hear fair enough.

Speaker A [00:20:49]:
That is, that is, yeah, I'm not going to argue with that point.

Speaker C [00:20:53]:
So I think it's hard to say that these guys are representative of average men since they're very wealthy, so they're not going to have the same lived experience as regular people who listen to them. But this feeling of disillusionment was probably a turning point for a lot of people. People, not just them. I mean, as a Bernie bro myself, I felt extremely disillusioned with the Democratic Party. And I still do. I still don't trust them. 
And everything that they said in that clip was absolutely, factually true. In 2016, the DNC chair had to resign in disgrace after she was caught sabotaging Bernie Sanders when she was supposed to be neutral. And in 2020, when Bernie Sanders was running away with the primary, party elites were prepared to steal the nomination away from him if he wasn't able to win an outright majority. So if the centrist Democrats didn't coalesce around Biden, Bernie ended up winning. We might have seen a very ugly situation unfold where the Democratic Party establishment might have actually taken the nomination away from somebody who won with a plurality. 
With that being said, feeling disillusioned with the Democratic Party, even if you're justified, is not a justification to jump to the opposite end of the political spectrum and support a fascist. And that's why it is so important to point their audience in the correct direction and help them form a more coherent political ideology. Because without any underlying goals or philosophy or principles, you could be a Social Democrat one election and then the next you could support a fascist. 
Now, to be clear, I don't think that it's as simple as them supporting Trump because they hate Democrats. I think that a lot of people are lost and they feel aimless politically, but some of them happen to stumble upon these podcasts and they see Joe Rogan and Andrew Schultz and they think that they're relatable and they form these parasocial relationships with them.
And once that trust is already established, it's easy to follow them down the right wing paths that they take. And I think that this phenomenon is obviously happening. And Democrats have to understand what's happening and why it's happening in part. And they have to rebuild the trust that they lost with these kinds of people if they want to win them back. See, Bernie Sanders was bringing people into the Democratic Party, but it wasn't the kind of people that the Democratic Party wanted. 
They wanted center right suburbanites and anti Trump Republicans because those voters had much lower expectations in terms of policy. See Eliz Cheney supporting anti Trump Republican isn't going to ask for Medicare for all. They're going to be fine with tweaks around the edges, but A Bernie Bro. 
A quote unquote Bernie Bro, however, is going to want something much more substantial like Medicare for all, which would put the party at odds with their health industry donors who do not want them to support that policy for obvious reasons and the fact that so many Democrats simply won't acknowledge this reality or they'll speak around the issue of money in politics. That is why there's a trust issue and Democrats have to address this. 
The fact that the party is at odds with their own base because of their donors has to be addressed directly. But even though there's nothing wrong with what was said in that clip, it kind of goes back to my point about both sidesism and false equivalences that bothers me about these podcasts right now. Democrats are not in power, Republicans are. And Trump is violating the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth and fourteenth amendments. 
His authoritarianism should be the primary focus for center left guests going on these right leaning podcasts like this because not addressing the elephant in the room might make viewers think that Trump's authoritarianism isn't so bad. Because if the Democrats are also authoritarian and undemocratic, then why does it matter matter if Trump's also authoritarian and undemocratic, why does it matter if Trump wants to do away with due process and habeas corpus if Democrats would probably do the same thing? You have to be clear here and make sure you are not creating a false equivalence, even if it's inadvertent. 
Because these kinds of audiences are extremely impressionable and I think that you want to make sure that you are challenging their pre existing biases and not affirming them. And on a different platform I wouldn't be as nitpicky. But on a right wing platform like this one, the one goal is to do everything you can to delegitimize the fascists in power. That doesn't mean that you have to be a Democratic Party hack. 
You can be honest and critique them, but it has to be more of a yes and and not a yes period. And to be fair to Bernie Sanders, I think that he brought up Trump's authoritarianism all throughout the episode. So it's not like he didn't push back enough. But you do have to be quick on your toes here because these people are very good at bringing everything back to the Democratic Party party and they're uniquely bad as opposed to Republicans. Right? Even if you don't say Democrats only are bad, people are primed to think that that's the case, which is why they end up tacitly supporting Republicans, because if they just hear Democrats bad, Democrats bad, Democrats bad, then the impression is, oh, well, I guess I'll support Republicans. 
And that's how I think some people from the Bernie bro community ended up down this Trump supporting path, as these guys were the case to the extent that they're representative of average people, which is limited, but, you know, nonetheless, you know, know, you. You don't have to defend Democrats, but you should definitely reject the false equivalence, because as much as I loathe the Democratic Party myself, the difference between them and Republicans is very clear. But I don't want to sound overly critical of Bernie Sanders in this section, because I think that overall, when you step back and you look at the entire appearance, I think it was fine. 
Overall, I think it did really well. I don't think that viewers of podcasts like this typically go out of their way to leave their bubbles, which is why I think it's really important for people to go on these platforms and meet them where they are. But if politicians are going to continue to do things like this, which they should, they've got to be mindful of the pitfalls that could ultimately undermine the message that they're trying to get out to these communities.

Speaker B [00:26:39]:
The Humanist Report is fake news. Mike only cares about crazy Bernie and his wacky socialist ideas.

Speaker C [00:26:48]:
Sad. Very sad.

Speaker B [00:26:50]:
I'm unsubscribing.