The Grand Unified Conspiracy

David (00:00) Human beings hate a messy world. We'd rather believe one enormous explanation than ten unrelated ones. That's why conspiracy theories can feel so satisfying. They eliminate coincidence, they eliminate ambiguity, and they eliminate uncertainty. Suddenly everything fits. This last week in American politics, we watched dozens of seemingly unrelated stories get woven into one master narrative. Not because everyone suddenly became conspiratorial. But because one political story absorbed nearly every headline of the week. Tonight we're going to talk about why the brain loves that. And why that's sometimes exactly where we should become suspicious. This should shrink the nation. Let's go. David (01:15) Alrighty, hey, welcome back. I am David. I am a board certified psychiatrist twice over with over 20 years of military experience. And tonight, Robbie, I'm drinking mainly because I'm sitting in a hospital room in a state that is not mine. there was an emergency. With a kiddo and long story short, I'm trying to be a good dad, but not good enough to put off an episode for our tens of listeners. So Rob (01:33) I'm so that's how much you care. Hey everybody, it's Rob. board certified psychiatrist. many, many years doing that job, many, many years in the military. And my heart goes out to David tonight. He is setting in a state that's not his in a hospital never comfortable. I did offer to call in, talk to the attendee, and see if I could get them to prescribe him some prescription beer for our. tens of listeners and I don't assume they still do this in the modern world, but back they do still? all right. right back in the day when I was a training physician, it was not uncommon to identify your patients who had high risk for alcohol withdrawal and prescribe them one beer with meals. And David (02:06) They do. They do still yeah, it still happens with lunch or whatever with meals. Rob (02:25) It was hospital beer. so it really did come in a can that just said beer. white can, black label, beer. Can't imagine it was good. Did have alcohol in it. David (02:35) Yeah, not enough alcohol. to make it worthwhile. I mean, we could get into the neurobiology of alcohol withdrawal, which we're not going to, but essentially that might be the single most useless treatment for alcohol withdrawal, a single beer with a meal, generally a light beer. So it does happen. it shouldn't. It's not effective. Rob (02:41) Right. Yeah, too. David (02:54) there's your psychiatry for the episode Rob (02:57) Uh-huh. All right, we had a busy week, David. it was yet another full fledged pedal to the metal. god damn, I can't keep up. stuff happening constantly. we're bombing infrastructure now. we've got the strait completely shut down. Trump's giving speeches again. he looked a little sleepy, but you know, he he got out there. there's a lot going on. David (03:18) There is, and before we get to that, have you ever thought I wish there were a place where a middle-aged army colonel could explain army regs while maintaining prolonged eye contact? Well, oddly enough, there is. This episode is brought to you by Robbie's OnlyFans. Every week, Robbie unbuttons one additional button on his flannel and reads DOD instructions in a voice that's somehow both commanding and disappointed. Premium subscribers unlock exclusive content like top ten ways to fold a poncho. Live reaction to haircut rags and the wildly popular ASMR leave form approval. So whether you're into military bearing, impressive mustaches, or just watching a psychiatrist slowly lose his dignity one subscription at a time, there's something for everyone. Robbie's only fans, or mustache rides aren't extra, they're expected. Rob (04:03) Mm-hmm. still don't have mustache. And if you pay for the extra, I get to the army regulations, they get sexy. The army regulations are yeah. David (04:10) Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. All right. it has been one of those weeks where I actually had a really good episode planned. Like a really good one. And I was very excited for it. but then Trump just kept on trumping. Rob (04:22) Trump's gonna trump, baby. David (04:23) He he really is. And so the episode that I was gonna lay out, we're gonna have to push that. We're gonna do it some other time because I think it's still applicable. but this week we had just gosh, so much more to talk about. and then every time I thought I had a pretty good episode lined up, something else would happen and something else. So now Rob (04:31) We'll do it. David (04:42) Hopefully we will get it all in, but that's life sometimes. Rob (04:46) just for our tens of listeners, I I gonna assume people get as bored about hearing about Trump as I often feel talking about him. there's a psychological theme built into that, actually. that incredible need to be the center of attention, constantly in the middle, constantly the the spotlight on you, it's profound. It's also a little bit numbing. the population gets a little numb to it. So it's so much stuff. coming constantly from every angle. he's back to talking about the reflective pool. Now it's Iran, elections, communism. it's overwhelming to the point where you just kind of tune it out which actually is dangerous for us as a population. we shouldn't get to the point where we're tuning out the president of the United States. and I think I'm there. trying not to be, fighting against it, consciously aware of it. But this week's been one of those weeks and it's been everywhere. And it does make me wonder, if you're paying attention to everything, how are you paying attention to anything? And I think there's an answer there. He's not. David (05:52) it's definitely floating the zone, which is a good strategy in sports. Turns out it's a pretty good strategy in politics when you wanna sneak stuff through. And i i it's one of those strong points that Rob (05:53) Yeah, yeah. David (06:04) Trump seems to have. in fact this entire administration, I wouldn't just say Trump, but the entire last year and a half has been nothing but flooding the zone. if you do enough crazy things eventually, you said, you just get so numb to the idea of any of it, you're just not impressed by it. And so you keep pushing the ante and doing crazier and crazier things, but you do enough of it and you kind of forget about the first one. that's where things really go off the rails. But I agreed, man, I'm getting really sick of talking about this guy. which I think means that we gotta not get sick of talking about him. We gotta keep talking about him. We gotta make sure that we're still bringing it up Rob (06:39) Well, and it reminds me of psychotherapy actually. That sometimes like when you're seeing somebody and you're on the same topic over and over again and from a human standpoint you wanna move on. But if that topic keeps coming up, you gotta deal with it. focus on it. keep it in the middle of the room. you certainly have to be considerate of the fact that, if this is the easy thing to talk about, what are we missing? so we have to stay wary of that. but you can't ignore the elephant that is sitting in the middle of the room. David (07:07) when you're in there with the patient and you're thinking to yourself, Man, I'm bored right now. that usually says a lot. it usually calls attention to the wait a minute, what are you distracting me from or what are you distracting us from? Like what are we missing in that conversation? what are you trying to convey So what's going on? Yeah. Rob (07:25) David, you just gave away the secret that psychiatrists get bored. David (07:28) that's a signal, when you're talking about something enough to get to the point where you tell yourself, wait a minute, Why do I feel bored? because you want me to be, because you're distracting the conversation from what's actually interesting. But that's an important thing. the secret is, yeah, we're human, but the difference is Rob (07:37) Right. David (07:45) When I start to drift off, I rein myself back in and go, Wait a minute, why are you pulling me away from whatever we're trying to talk about? Rob (07:51) in the interest of saving our profession for our tens of listeners. Here's the reality, folks, that you know, as it turns out, your psychiatrist is human and we have emotions. What we are trained to do though is certainly when you do feel bored, and sometimes you do, when you feel angry, when you feel anxious, when you feel anything. your first question is what is going on between me and this patient at this moment that is therapeutically relevant to make me feel that way. So, we don't just yawn and ignore it. it's a tool. but yeah, sometimes you feel bored. And lately I have felt very bored with Donald Trump. I am sick of looking at his face. it reminds me of a little girl with Down syndrome I once treated who said. God, I hate your face. That's how she used to reference me. God I hate your face. Like David (08:40) thought that story was going in a different direction and I thought, man, I'm not gonna be able to let that play out in the final cut. Rob (08:44) I I I can't save that one. Yeah, n no no. God, I hate your face. and you know, I'd say, you know what? I hate my face too. So you're not the only one, baby. Yep. David (08:53) You're not the only one, sweetheart. You're not the only one. Rob (08:56) one of the things that struck me this week is that as all these disparate things were coming at me, all these different little data points, communism. Communism, we're not gonna tolerate communism, communism, communism. My gut instinct was I don't think communism even exists anymore except in Cuba and they're not doing well. So why? so communism, Iran, straight of Hormuz, election integrity, all this stuff was coming at me. What I found myself trying to do was develop some kind of cohesive narrative. that tied all those things together. And that, in and of itself, I found interesting and worth discussing here. Why did I do that, David? David (09:40) Why did you decide to tie everything together? Rob (09:42) what occurred to me is that we have this as humans, and this is sort of psychologically fundamental. if I were to have one of our tens of listeners in a room and I were to dump a bucket of things onto the floor. Their gut instinct would be to try to identify the connections between the objects. They could be completely random, no connection whatsoever. But our brains tend to want to develop a connection. they tend to want to develop some cohesion to whatever is presented to it. And what I found interesting in myself, and I assume other humans were experiencing this I was trying to make a cohesive story of all these disparate things that were happening to make it make sense to me. you know, one story to rule them all kind of scenario. and my guess is that might resonate with some of our listeners because it is a very human thing to do. With disparate information. David (10:42) Yeah, the Brain Wants one story. Rob (10:43) Yeah. David (10:44) that conspiratorial thinking the path that we go down as humans, because it's just simpler. when you start getting into the actual nuance of the world and life, it gets confusing, it gets difficult to follow, it gets difficult to remember. And so when you take all these different narratives. and you condense them down into one story, it just feels better. It's just easier. what Rob (11:03) Mm-hmm. it feels smarter too. Like one story versus five stories just feels smarter. David (11:10) Well, it feels comforting. It feels like I understand the big picture in a way that other people don't. it does feel smarter, it does feel easier, it's simpler, but you also feel like you know something that other people don't, like you get it. What I find fascinating, is the direction in which you go to to be able to dump a bucket onto the floor, have a bunch of unrelated objects. And then the way that the connections occur is so very dependent upon the person who's trying to make those connections. So if you were leaning one way, going to have a completely different path on what you think connects all those objects than if you're leaning another way or just somebody different. What I think it's kind of interesting on top of that would just be the person choosing the objects to begin with. does have some sway, even if you're saying these are unrelated objects. Well, they might be unrelated to you, but why did you pick the ones you picked? So there's a lot of psychology that you could really go into and find out a lot about both sides of that equation. but it's definitely interesting. Rob (12:09) Well it is it also reminds me of how people on an individual level that when I'm sitting with somebody, and I think any therapist who's actually sat with patients understands how someone who comes to us can find evidence to support that every bad day somehow proves they're worthless, or every disagreement Proves abandonment. Criticism proves everyone secretly hates them. That we we do as people tend to err on the side of a unifying explanation versus lots of disparate explanations. One story always feels better than five different stories. David (12:47) when we say it feels better, doesn't necessarily feel good. And it doesn't necessarily have to feel good. it feels better in a comforting kind of way of I understand this feeling. Not necessarily that I like it or that it's good for me, but I understand it. whereas digging into the nuance of each individual thing might actually help you gain a much better appreciation or understanding of it. and that can actually feel quite a bit better, to resolve the anxiety that comes with trying to connect everything into one and landing on the greatest common denominator rather than identifying what actually makes those things different. But what's really important to understand is that a coherent story across many stories doesn't mean that it's true, no matter how good it feels. Rob (13:32) yes. and this week has been one in which the stories have been all over the place. interestingly though, despite the fact that we just talked about how this is a human tendency, I think there is potentially a unifying story here. and I don't think I'm just falling for baseline psychology, but Let's hit some of the stores. David (13:53) Yeah, let's talk it out. so the first thing that we were looking was this story that keeps coming up with Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of New York. He is a democratic socialist. He won an election in New York that even the Democratic Party wasn't super happy to have him win. but he won the people picked him they liked him for a lot of reasons. now there have been other candidates that he's supported that have also won elections or primaries And that's becoming concerning to some people. Rob (14:21) it is. to watch the news coverage on this, we apparently the United States now has an insurgency of hardcore socialists who are taking over much of the nation. Yeah, now the reality of that is is that it's been really small, very localized to really blue districts, districts that are historically Democrat it's a handful. like five reasonably major it's running rampant. and these are all individuals who identify them as part of the democratic socialists of America. they're identifying as Democrats who are DSA, and again, the news presented it as, is this a DSA wave that's taking over the country? and I think for most of us we can look at it and say, Well, no. These limited few districts are not representative of the entire United States. but certainly it was a clickworthy link that major news organizations took up for their own purposes. do they honestly believe this? I don't think so. it's not widespread enough, but it led to a story worthy thing for a 24 hour news cycle which captured a lot of the news cycle at a certain point. But what has been interesting is that it has been captured by the opposition, the Republicans, and they have translated that and they've made it Communism. And an interesting little statistic is in the last two weeks, Donald Trump has said communism 81 times. And as far as I can tell, communism is no more prevalent today than it was three weeks ago, and as far as I can tell. those who are members of the DSA are in no way communistic. they're not proposing a communistic state. their proposals really are very much centered on workers' rights, redistribution of wealth. Yeah. David (16:19) affordable housing is one of their big things Rob (16:21) they do have their scapegoats, which are, trillionaires or billionaires. they might make a point. I don't know. but it has set up a straw man for the other side to say communism, communism, communism. And for many Americans, I fear The difference between socialism and communism is much more narrow than what it is or what these individuals at least tout. David (16:48) so it's interesting, for a lot of reasons. One, the eighty one mentions was prior to the speech on Thursday for sure, and probably actually a few days before that. So Trump mentioned communism a lot. He's gonna continue keep mentioning communism. and a big part of that is just coming down to the fact that they workshopped it and they found that communism is a much scarier word to people than socialism. Rob (17:08) Socialism, yeah. David (17:09) especially yeah, especially in today's rhetoric, people are I think much more in general more accepting of the word socialist than communist, though I do agree there are probably a lot of people who don't know the difference between the two and feel like it's basically the same thing. it's not. But what's really interesting though is that the use of the word communism by the right it's more than just a scare tactic. it does bring up memories of the cold war. it does prime people to have this kind of negative taste in their mouth for people who fall into that category again. Only a handful of democratic socialists out there socialism is not communism but what it does do is it it puts the Democrats in a really interesting position who are not socialist because they can either support it and now they are seemingly supporting communism, or they can try to separate themselves from it, but also then be seen as not supporting the causes That are strong within the Democratic Socialist Party, which is affordable housing, workers' rights, things like that. And so it kind of puts them in this really odd position. But what's yeah. But what's really, really interesting beyond that is that it's not what's said, it's what's not being said. And when Donald Trump Rob (18:11) Taking care of the poor, child care. David (18:23) talks about the socialists as being communist, what is then implied is that they are pro-capitalist. I'm not an economist, but what's really interesting is that if you look at the stance that the Republican Party has taken, they're not capitalists. They haven't been capitalists, they've not been pro-capitalists. the idea of a free market. where nobody's putting their thumb on the scale to choose winners and losers is capitalism. But in no way is the Republican Party doing that. they're not capitalists. They're not. But when they say that these people are communists, they're implying that they are. that's a really not talked about thing, you can use this cognitive shortcut by calling somebody something that they're not, you're then suggesting that you're something that you're not without having to claim it. and it's a powerful thing. Rob (19:09) another interesting little tidbit is how many companies that under the leadership of DJT the United States has taken a percentage of ownership in. if there's anything more communist, then taking an ownership as a government in a private entity, I don't know what it is, because by definition, that is what communism is. And just off the top of my head, Intel, the United States took a nearly 10%, 9.9% or something like that, percent stake in Intel. there's a company called MP Materials, the United States took fifteen percent. Lithium Americas, the US took five percent. US rare earth, the US took ten percent. That is by definition communism. And so what we're talking about here is not necessarily definitionally what is communism, what is socialism. David (19:55) Right. Rob (20:03) what is capitalism, we're utilizing words solely for their psychological effect, emotional effect. And communism harkens back to the Cold War. communism harkens back to a different time, a different set of anxieties. I don't know exactly how it plays out with a younger demographic. But my sense is if poll my kids, they're gonna go, meh, I don't care. Communism, whatever. I do imagine people of my age group, people who are a little older than I, which aren't many anymore, that they might be impacted a little more by the communism moniker because, I grew up in a great ethical struggle between David (20:28) Yeah. Rob (20:44) the the US and communism and I suckled at the teat of the hate of communism. and I'll tell you, that milk wasn't good. it wasn't tasty. David (20:53) the younger generations the younger millennials and younger than that, I do think they look at socialism as a different animal than communism because they did not go through the Cold War. and so the use of the term communism definitely is meant to try to whitewash what the socialists are doing. it's a strategy. what's really interesting beyond that is now you have Rubio who is then trying to expand. Communism, not just internally, but try to tie that externally to of an international thing, by talking about communists and then Marxists and then radicals, activists, domestic extremists, and trying to tie this messaging of communism bad to domestic terrorism. Rob (21:35) Mm-hmm. David (21:36) and an actual threat to national security. Marco's not a dumb person. little Marco is a calculated politician. So I would venture to guess that when he's talking about these things And there's obviously some free licensing that goes into connecting what he's trying to connect. there's intent behind it because I don't think he would say probably anything without there being a reason that he would bother s talking about it. Rob (22:00) Well I'm a young guy, and not Y O U N G. I am a J U N G guy. what I'm always struck by is the power of symbols, archetypes. And what they've done is captured an archetype that has emotional resonance. Young would often talk about emotional complexes. communism occupies an emotional complex for much of the United States, maybe much of the world, because it was such a dramatic element of a significant portion of our history. in the last 70 years. it was presented when I was a kid, life and death. It was a life and death struggle. nuclear war the existence of the world was on the line. We went to war in Korea. We went to war in Vietnam. we fought skirmishes in Central America, this was a battle. and we armed Western Europe in defense of it was huge and it has taken on a symbolic meaning that extends well beyond the definitions and certainly the modern context and it does several things. that symbolism allows them to draw connections to the other couple of communist states, most notably China. and potentially Cuba, because I'm still not convinced we're not gonna invade Cuba. it's still on the table at least. Greenland and Cuba still up for grabs, baby. there may be a party either way. we're starting the evening, we're doing a little pregaming. We don't know if the party's going north, we don't know if the party's going south. We're ready to go either direction. but that symbolism allows them to connect it to China, it allows them to connect it to Cuba, potentially, it allows them to connect it to the Democratic Socialist Party. it allows it to connect them to Antifa. it connects to all these different little disparate things that they can unify under one symbol. And it's so much easier to talk about. It's so much easier to make it a slogan, to put it in a sound bite, to make a poster, to make a meme. so now we have communism. And I don't know before two weeks ago if anybody was all that worried about communism. David (24:11) no, I agree with you. what's kind of got my brain in the wheel spinning is that we start off talking about we naturally go to these simple explanations for these seemingly unrelated things. then we can pull these different narratives. and realizing that as we break down each piece of these again seemingly unrelated topics. the central theme is this idea of communism. But communism is serving a purpose, right? who is connecting the dots at this point? And we'll get to that. But before we move on, Robbie, This episode is brought to you by doctor Robbie's Alpha Mail Academy. you tired of entering rooms without everyone immediately wondering who's in charge? Do you drink coffee because you enjoy it rather than because weakness has to be punished? Have you ever allowed another man to finish a sentence? Then you may not be living at your full alpha potential. 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Rob (25:55) Hey, that reminds me of an army story. It doesn't. It doesn't. yeah, folks. Look, I'll always and forever have lived by the motto that a lack of knowledge of a subject has not stopped me from having a well formed opinion about it. So sign up. nothing but good can come from it. David (25:57) But it does. Rob (26:11) And now that we have that out of the way, here's the thing. and I don't know if communism's going to be our bugaboo of the modern times, but it does make me kind of look backwards in time and in looking backwards in time, Civilizations tend to develop master explanations. the Romans blamed decadence, medieval Europe blamed witches, the French blamed the aristocracy, Marx blamed class, Freud blamed childhood. my gosh, my nineteen eighties. blame Satan. Everything's satanic. today we blame the algorithm. So we do have this tendency to want to find the master explanation that blames all our ills. It just so happens right now. And again, this has been a reasonably modern development. So you know I could be reading too much into this. But at this moment this communist thing does seem to set I shouldn't even say the Republicans because I'm not entirely convinced that the party as a whole is bought into this but I will say the administration it has set them up to make it their boogeyman that they can tie to China, they can tie to Potentially Cuba, they can tie it Antifa, they can tie it to the DSA. By extension, they tie it to the Democrats. by extension, now, because we've had this speech China is interfering with our elections. so communism, by extension, is interfering with our elections. it becomes the boogeyman that is really all consuming. it is everywhere. It has its fingers in everything. it is a clear and imminent threat. We may need to render them as terrorist groups or threats to national security. and I cannot help but connect those dots and maybe I'm doing the human thing of trying to find an overarching theme. But I'm connecting all those dots right up to our elections that are coming in just a few short months. that this seems to have a purpose, and that purpose is really elections. David (28:16) what it brings us to is the Thursday night speech, where Off the rails is it's hard to say that. if anything, one might argue that might have been one of the more on the rails speeches from our dear leader in a while. Mainly because I think he had to read a teleprompter. So he was, you know, But well but not without Rob (28:29) Sleepy. And stay up late. wait, he always does that. David (28:37) you know, truthing or whatever. but what you What you alluded to already was that he was tying China to election interference. there's some real mental gymnastics that I think we'd all have to go through to believe whatever he said about that. One, he was talking about the 2020 election. two Rob (28:40) bleeding. David (28:55) He was, suggesting that in spite of the intelligence communities saying that they actually did not believe China was involved with any election interference in twenty twenty. he still without any support or glimpse said that they were. which, to his base doesn't matter. If he says that it happened and they're gonna believe it happened. what I find odd or difficult to put together in my own mind would be why China would interfere with the twenty twenty election. But not the twenty twenty two, not the twenty twenty four election. Yet they're gonna plan to mess around with the twenty twenty-six election or twenty twenty-eight or any election that he doesn't necessarily agree with. so do whatever mental gymnastics you need to to make that one work. But why twenty twenty four was a completely fine, secure, wonderful election, but twenty twenty six, that one's not gonna be. so he's been saying this for six years. he didn't bring any more information in. It's not new. it's just we have this new idea coming from that narrative, which is communism, and so now we're tying in China to election interference. which I think that gets us to good friend, Rob (29:55) our recurring friend, the man that you and I both hope to be. One day, David (30:00) our war surviving. Rob (30:02) non war participating, but war surviving. David (30:05) He did survive the war. he knows what war smells like. Mark Wayne Mullen. God, it's hard to say his first name. Mark Wayne. Mark Wayne. But that brings us to him. Rob (30:10) It is. It is. It is. But it it is it's very plumber-like. I'm pretty sure I hired a plumber once named Mark Wayne. so it may have been. It may have been. yeah, so now the Department of Homeland Security is gonna get involved in election integrity. David (30:20) How do you it wasn't him? Rob (30:28) And th this is, I guess, one of the interesting things about our country, I don't wanna to say our founding fathers were infallible. they clearly weren't. And they were also guilty of some, mind numbing levels of hypocrisy, but they did set up some amazingly present structures that have sustained us and one of which is giving elections to the states. It is really difficult to rig an election, period. It is really difficult to rig 50 different elections, even more so. And every state in the union has a different election system. They use a different election process. They have different election laws. they monitor it in slightly different ways. it's so hard. I mean, it's just so, so hard to legitimately interfere with an election. And it is absolutely striking. And I'm glad you brought it up that we're not talking about the twenty sixteen election in which there was some talk about election interference. we're not talking about the twenty twenty two election in which Republicans prevailed. we're not talking about the twenty-four election when Donald Trump won. We're talking about a very singular election. And that election is the election in which he lost and we are now sitting here X number of years out, the year of our Lord 2026, July, in which there have been ample, ample opportunities To both bring lawsuits, have lawsuits adjudicated, none of which have been found, and I I don't even remember the number at this point, some ridiculous number of lawsuits that all have been found without merit. but here we are still talking about it. Not because there's data, not because there's proof, not because, look at all these lawsuits that came to fruition, pointing at this thing or that thing that has been proven. a rhetorical tool that is setting something up for this upcoming election. David (32:23) Yeah. when you hear an old man, an old, old, old fucking man who has flat out said that my ego cannot tolerate losing that election gets onto the stage and drones on for drones on for twenty five minutes about Rob (32:37) I thought you were talking about me. David (32:41) an election that he lost again ignoring an election that he won afterwards, and all the crazy conspiracy that he's come up with as to why and all the crazy conspiracy as to why he thinks he's not gonna win this next one. ignoring the fact that the economy is not doing well, that we're in the middle of a war that nobody wanted to be in, that other than promising to I guess fuck up a whole bunch of stuff in the government, he's not come through on any election promises to make things cheaper or more affordable for anybody. I mean if you're a billionaire you're probably good with the guy because of the one big beautiful Bill Act law. That's a tough one to say. but rather than ignoring that as the ramblings of a old, old, old, old fucking man who has been given a platform, you got Mark Wayne Mullen who given his background, I guess he smelled shit and he thought I should get to work. And that is what he's doing with the Department of Homeland Security. they've decided they're gonna have some sort of federal review. he's already accusing states of not cooperating with him, which I'm not sure they have to because federally it's not their jurisdiction. But there's been, pressure, he's already threatened states again who have not said they won't help, but Trump had made the claim on Thursday that these voting machines are really super easy to hack. as far as I'm aware, the voting machines aren't connected to the internet. So I feel like they'd actually be really difficult to hack. But they also have physical copy backups from all the ballots. And so when they do their audits, they generally will run physical copies through and check them with the results. And really hasn't been and that's where my brain goes, is like I'm I'm so confused as to why the Department of Homeland Security Rob (34:16) I feel like you're talking logic. I know. David (34:24) would have anything to do with states elections. Rob (34:26) Okay. So what departments have been at least ta tacitly assigned to this, it is it is well national intelligence and homeland security. I mean I could make an argument where the Justice Department might have a role. to some degree, but that also one of the strengths of our system. David (34:30) Yeah, the Department, the director of national intelligence, yeah. Rob (34:49) interestingly this is also where I'm not gonna even call it the Republican Party, where the administration of DJT is diverging from the longstanding orthodoxy of the Republican Party, which was states rights, states rights, states rights. Don't get in the way of states' rights. the old joke is I'm from the government and I'm here to help. that was the Republican joke for so long that it was states, states, states, states. States need to be able to manage their own stuff. they need to have control. And that now all of a sudden we have the Department of Homeland Security, which is really dealing with, I'm gonna be literal here. homeland security, and we've got the director of national intelligence now involved in elections, but how do we have that? Because now communism. Communism is that both internal force and external force that we can say is a homeland security and national intelligence thing. so I think personally, and maybe I am looking for the one theory to rule them all at this point, but I think communism comes in both as an election cycle slogan and a justification to interfere with our elections. David (36:03) And I think that's ultimately where we kind of get to with this is I think you're right. I think that what is really interesting about you being right here isn't that we figured it out. It's not that, look, we've tied together all these things. I think what's interesting is that I kinda get the feeling that we were meant to. this wasn't a we're gonna take five unrelated things and see if people can tie together. I think what this was and that's where we come the full cycle on. This wasn't just let's see if people on one side of the aisle can tie these five unrelated objects together. I think this was, let's throw down five objects and try to get people to connect the dots to this one thing because that's going to be our ticket into managing this next election. which I again I think says more about the people collecting the objects to show them to people than the people who are trying to make the interpretation. So while I think it's it's a normal, natural thing for people to do that, sometimes you throw down objects because you want people to connect the dots. and that's really what it seems like at this point. So am I being conspiratorial or am I reading the cards that are being laid out in front of me in the way that they've are meant to be read? Rob (37:14) Think there's a conspiracy here. David (37:15) Well I don't want to call it a conspiracy. I guess that's it, is I don't know that it's a conspiracy. and maybe that's where I disagree with you. and I don't know, you tell me, or think through it yourself, I don't know that it's a conspiracy, when the intent of planting This idea of communism out there is because that's the cleanest way to make a strong case to pass the SAVE Act, to try to quote unquote secure the elections further. I don't know that it's conspiracy. I think it's the route by which this administration is choosing to make their case for what they want. And It works really, really nicely because you do have Zoran Mondani who won. You have a couple of people who are socialists, so you call that communism. You start to tie in some other things that have happened around the world and say, Well, look at the communists. You start talking about election interference and you s blame China for it. Look, they're communists, they're trying to mess up our elections. ironically, the Chinese are coming back and saying, Will you s just fucking leave us alone? We have not tried to mess with your elections. I mean, to be frank, if I was gonna believe that the Chinese were trying to fuck with our elections, I would have said they were trying to fuck with the twenty twenty-four election because they know how disruptive Donald Trump is to our own economy. we are far weaker as the country today, since he's been in charge than we were before that. I mean, Iran is damn near a superpower in some ways. We've proven that we can't defeat Iran. we've pissed off our allies to the point that they are trying to be stronger. I mean, if you're gonna argue that China was fucking with our elections, I'd argue that they wanted Trump in place. I don't think they give a I think they're but I but I don't think they are. I don't I think they've been clear that they haven't been either. but if they were going to, I think they'd want Trump to win. but I don't know that it's conspiracy. Rob (38:46) absolutely. David (38:55) for Donald Trump over the last you know two and a half weeks to say, people don't like communists. Let's start using the word communist so that we can get the Save Act passed because that's what we need to win this election. That there's no way they're gonna unless they can manipulate the election in their favor. And they know that because shit's not good right now, Robbie. look around you. It's not good. The Republicans are gonna really struggle in these midterms. they classically always do the party in power, so that's normal. But they don't have a good argument otherwise. So the only thing that they're gonna be able to say is somebody's fucking with our elections. Now ignore the two that we like, but they're gonna definitely mess with our elections. Okay. I don't know if that's conspiracy. I think That is doing the experiment with a bucket full of shit. Only you're not picking random stuff. You're saying, I really need these people to tie communism to election interference. Let's do that. And then let's have a press conference where we explicitly tie communism in China to an election interference. Is it conspiracy when it's being said to your face. Tie these two things together. Rob (39:58) Well it's not, but it's totally on brand for DJT. everything he's done, all the grift, all the things have been right out in the open. it is a conspiracy in the sunlight. and we all see it coming. David (40:08) Yeah. Rob (40:15) We selection interference coming. And we don't know to do with it. we're like, how do you prevent this? You see it coming. It is a slow moving train wreck. you see it, you have no ability to stop it. It's just gonna happen. And we're crossing our fingers, holding our breath, waiting for it to play out, but we can all see it. David (40:35) It's to be fair and I will to be fair and before we all get too comfortable, and we think, this is just something that Donald Trump does, everyone does this, right? These are just grand narratives, right? Progressives will say everything is capitalism, conservatives always say everything is communism. Rob (40:37) To be fair. It's not yeah. David (40:51) The populists always talk about the elites. libertarians are always talking about the government. Activists are talking about oppression. everything in my family, it's drunk dad in the garage. Rob (41:01) Doing a fucking podcast. that's what your kids are going to be talking to their therapist about. Dad and his goddamn podcast. David (41:10) if you ask my kids what I do for a living, they'll say he gets drunk in the garage and talks to his friends. Rob (41:15) God, they're so accurate. David (41:16) So every I mean everybody does it. it's a universal mechanism. it's not about who's brought into it. it's which facts, who's in power, I think, what's really interesting is using this line to say that our elections are being stolen while you're the one sitting in the office. I mean, there is nothing funnier than the elected president of the United States whining. about elections being rigged against them. this brings us back to things we've talked about so many other times if you talk about something that's so outlandish, you have to just assume certain truths that don't exist. And so here you have president of the United States talking about this election interference, and nobody is bringing up the fact that, dude, you were elected. you just jump right over that. just completely ignore it. odd phenomenon that our brains do. Rob (42:08) It is and I have a feeling that for the next fifty years historians and psychologists are going to dissect this time. However, do you have a prescription? If not, I do. David (42:20) Why don't you start with one? Rob (42:21) All right, we absolutely must stop letting communism function as a magic word that turns political opponents into foreign enemies. the accusation appears, demand specifics which policies, what evidence, what mechanism. Democracy dies when disagreement is recast as treason. David (42:42) right, so my prescription, I fear I'm gonna actually have to listen to this one myself. my wife, when she hears this, is probably gonna be like, You're doing it again. But if you've started a sentence with when you really think about it more than three times this week, your conspiracy privileges have been suspended until further notice. I think mine are gonna get suspended, Robbie. Rob (43:00) Agreed, we are experiencing that rare conspiracy that's happening right out in the sunlight, right in the open, right for all of us to see. And interestingly, because we can't all see it, we're now questioning whether it's a conspiracy. Conspiracies work better in the shadows, and it lets our imagination work a little more. David (43:18) Yeah. a conspiracy theory usually you gotta really draw some pretty strange connections to make them work. This is the exact path that is being used and it's a good one. For some people that really don't like communism. So if you can tie all this stuff to communism, it makes a ton of sense. But that's exactly what's being done. So I see it as the process by which Donald Trump is trying to save his ass in the midterm election. and all he has to do is drop the word communism a whole bunch of times and then accuse China of doing more than he's accused them of doing anyway. So once he starts manufacturing evidence, then maybe we'll talk about conspiracy, but I don't think she even bothered to do that. He's just fucking saying it. So yeah. I don't know. It's it's laughable, but it's gonna fucking work. his supporters are already like this is the most important speech we've heard since the Cuban Missile Crisis. come on. Come on Rob (44:12) I guess we always have to draw our lines in the sand, so David (44:16) Alright, folks. well, thank you so much for sticking around. If you did, if you didn't, then we know you're working for the deep state for sure. Ums. Anyway, no, we're really appreciative of everybody for listening to us. hopefully you sign for our newsletter that's coming out every Friday. Go ahead and check out our website. there is Rob (44:23) Communists. Damn communists. David (44:35) option to get a little bit more content if you log in. it's free. Anything else? Rob (44:40) wash your lettuce. David (44:40) Or just don't go to Taco Bell. I I wondered how long it took them to figure out that Taco Bell was responsible, like hey, this diarrhea is slightly different than what I usually get. Rob (44:42) for that. No. No, that that's just Tuesday for a Taco Bell, but David (44:53) Yeah. how did they figure this out? That's that's where the real conspiracy is. How they figured out Taco Bell lettuce was the problem. Yeah, it's the lettuce. It's it's not the rest of the shit. Rob (44:58) Yeah. you made me hungry for taco, though. David (45:06) yeah, wash your lets and and go grab some merch. Rob (45:09) yeah. David (45:09) we got some cool stuff. I thoroughly enjoy the cups. I like my anti Nazi, anti rape anti murder shirt. And Rob (45:16) Used to be on a beer mug. David (45:18) we'll make a mug with that on there. So all right folks. Well I'm gonna cue up that music and we are out.