Radio War Nerd EP #480 — Worst or Worster, feat. Ryan Grim

somehow the only problem with everything that got said here was that it was far too optimistic

I suppose there was limited time in the episode, but I was surprised that you didn't cover the link between Biden-worlds economic populism and their drive towards a confrontation with China

I bring this up in good faith, but the clip that John referenced, of the young Harris supporter screaming in the face of a two year old, that’s not what she said or the context of what happened. It was a pro-far right pro-lifer, protesting abortion rights, and he brought along his toddler. The young woman screamed, “I don’t give a shit about your father, bitch”. Not, “I don’t give a shit about Gaza, bitch”. It was easily mistaken and fooled a lot of people, but a Harris supporter didn’t scream at a toddler about Gaza.

The only good thing to happen tomorrow is one of these two reptiles will lose and their insufferable supporters will be sad, and that sadness will be publicly available for our amusement. Hating is all we have left.

I wonder if Kamala Harris wins, and if the Israelis are just so vitriolically hateful towards her, if that could create a legitimate rift between the US and Israel purely from a place of Harris being so personally offended (and so ideologically vapid that there would be no Zionist attachment like Biden has)

Excellent, love Ryan

This plan aint gonna work with patreon iphone all that.

The ones who walk away from Omelas.

Free Market now means let Capitalisms self cannibalizing tendencies of rent seeking, monopolizing, imperialism, slavery, etc run amok. It means something different in China, which is why China's hated. But it still sucks

Ryan's an interesting figure. I used to be a lib and I think that's a common trajectory. I wonder if this is slowly radicalized him versus being shamelessly opportunistic with starting dropsite. Listening to him and scahill speak, I think it's sincere so it's something to watch.

Being a covid conscious person and trying to protect myself and now having a member of my household who has it... I totally understand why everybody has given up. I hope Mark gets better with no after effects.

Is this episode not appearing for anyone else using Overcast? Or just me?

Great episode but no matter what you think of Trump, Harris wasn't elected on any process to become the candidate and for Harris to win would surely mean that the " most democratic" country in the world isn't even hiding it now and just run by a regime...the democratic party isn't even democratic 😂😂

I don't think the question of who wins the election is the most interesting question, but rather what the aftermath of it will be. The risks, for both sides, associated with losing seem quite high. You've seen the return of lawfare to US political norms after Trump's initial defeat and it seems high profile Trump supporters like eg. Elon truly believe the Dems will come after them and try to destroy them if Trump loses, and the reverse is probably true as well. The Trump crowd is primed to believe that the election is stolen if they lose; the Dems have a convenient scapegoat in Gaza politics, but I'm not sure if that'll be sufficient or if the will is there to diffuse the fallout from losing the election.

Wake up, babe—new Brendon interlude just dropped

"I saw a funny meme" - Ryan Grim

To give a little bit of grace to the militant kamala people (but not too much) I think trump very much is, this time around, greatly seeming like, well, Hitler. Which is something I have been very critical of when other people have said it over the last 8 years. It's also pretty hitlerian to annihilate with bombs a captive population of a specific ethnicity. I actually think this is maybe the most brutal election in most of our lifetimes, I don't think it's as much of a stretch as many people think that we're choosing between Hitler and Hitler. I mean trump running on putting 20 million people in camps getting rid of them is what Hitler ran on, the final solution was partly carried out because of how economically unsustainable it was to detain and deport that mant people, much easier just to kill them. The language trump is using is insane, like the "america is an occupied country" line is insane. He just tweeted that along with that he's going to declare January 21st or whatever as a national holiday called liberation day. He is pretty baldly fascist this time.

Americans shouldn't be allowed to vote in American presidential elections. Everyone else in the world should vote instead. The choice of POTUS matters so much less for Americans than the rest of the world. The typical American voter isn't affected by who's president. There's so many countries whose fate hinges more on what the Americans choose to do rather than their own politics. It's absurd and sad and infuriating.

They sent that letter with the deadline after the election because they want Israel to continue while making it look like they don’t. It doesn’t make the us look weak, it makes them look mad. It signals “USA, or we burn your country” to everyone in the region.

I saw someone say for Trump’s next trick he should bring wounded Iraq war vets on stage and dare Liz Cheney to tell them to their faces that they should die for Ukraine.

They are mistaken about the woman yelling at the child about Gaza. Apparently that was edited on Twitter and IRL those were vicious anti-abortion protestors at Kamala’s Texas rally. Without the sound you could tell those were the kind of people who protest abortion clinics, just by seeing dad’s professional microphone and his cool response. It’s not an uncommon sight in the south, I live near a planned parenthood…

I have an acquaintance who has been all over the Middle East as a service member, he was part of the Afghanistan withdrawal. His main gripe was that when he came home he was really tired and none of the California restaurants would let him in because he wasn’t vaccinated. I don’t think he thought any of the War on Terror was a mistake

I live in Hamtramck MI and there will absolutely be a backlash of racism by American liberals against Muslim immigrants if Kamala loses Michigan or something similar. The groundwork is already laid (liberal values/ feminist objections to the legislation/rule of Muslims in city council etc…) it will only ramp up if they are blamed for a Trump victory for not towing the American liberal line

Not just AIPAC - can't ignore Zionist infiltration within the State plus Harris' husband and Trump's kids and the circles they move in.

I was born and raised on Oakland ,CA. Moved to TX in 2013 for work. I have always voted Democrat. They gave me thousands of dollars during covid. I approved of leaving Afghanistan. They forgave my federal student loans of $183,000. But fuck em. I voted Jill Stein to say fuck em for this genocide. I've been one of those annoying guys at work. Cheer up guys... at least we spent murdering children in Gaza.

Excellent episode. I also listen to conservative talk radio, and the sense I get from them is that they’re quite confident Trump has this in the bag. Which I find pretty funny given the fact that their segments are sandwiched by advertisements for emergency food stores and gold-backed investment accounts.

Oh this might be interesting.

I think what trips John up is that Trump doesn’t care what his base wants - he only does what he thinks will make him look good. Ryan hit it on the nose when he said Trump would probably be embarrassed to have the war continue for too long. In my opinion, he probably wouldn’t want isreal to ever blow him off like they do to biden

Omelas referenced

Kamala is climbing the mountain of konflict

If trump wins and puts soldiers on the streets to round ppl up I’ll be hunting humans. As much as he wants to do it I don’t think he could

Mark Ames compares Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. The Warsaw Ghetto was a pitstop to the Treblinka extermination camps, and when that was realized, the uprising occurred. The civilian death in Gaza is because their elected dictators (with an army of 10s of thousands of fighters) decided to kidnap and kill a bunch of people in Israel. To compare the two is retarded. UNRWA: 10% of UNRWA employees had links to terrorist groups (higher than population baseline), and 12 participated in Oct 7th.[1] UNRWA membership includes top Hamas commanders.[2] A Hamas datacenter was directly under the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza.[3] UNRWA is emblematic of the connection between global left-wing and militant Islamists, but then again so is the POV of the War Nerd podcast/commentariat. “Biden told them they can’t go to Rafah”. Yeah, and where did they kill Sinwar? Rafah. On Jewish-American support for Israel being age-polarized. Yes, this is definitely the case, though the clear majority of American Jews age 18-34 are on the pro-Israel side.[4] And perhaps more importantly, the latest crop of Jewish billionaires (e.g Zuckerberg, Sam Altman) are pro-Israel, so Jewish pro-Israel influence is declining but not significantly enough to alter the power of the Israel lobby in this generation (though it will likely decrease in relative power as broader public opinion shifts). In terms of Michigan: The Michigan election seems incredibly important for determining whether the Democratic Party bifurcates from the GOP on Israel policy. If Dems lose it, the pro-Palestinian movement gets a much bigger say in the party. If Dems win it, both parties will ignore them for years. Trump is the high-variance candidate on this subject, and in general. He and Jared Kushner have a better record on Middle East geopolitics than Biden. The Abraham Accords showed that the conventional wisdom (expressed by John Kerry[5]) was wrong and that Arab countries would be fine normalizing without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel signed normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco during Trump’s admin. Though they initially were working with the Palestinians, the Trump admin (and the aforementioned Arab states + Saudis) eventually came to the conclusion that former were not willing to accept a Jewish state in the course of their rejection of the Trump Peace Plan (no opportunity for a compromise/agreement). The funny thing is that Kushner had no FP experience but navigated the conflict better than FP establishment. Sources: 1. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/at-least-12-u-n-agency-employees-involved-in-oct-7-attacks-intelligence-reports-say-a7de8f36 2. https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-hamas-commander-killed-unwra-employee-israel-999ec22c1fef953f4f1b8b40a4c95b35 3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/directly-beneath-unrwas-gaza-headquarters-idf-uncovers-top-secret-hamas-data-center/ 4. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/ 5. https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/12/264824.htm

Blinken couldn’t grasp his own ass with both hands, let alone the consequences of his stupid fucking decisions

Send Liz Cheney somewhere else, like Iraq.

I’m not a music but Ryan grim is a good punk name?

Ooh Vancouver / Victoria RWN get together? 👀

My favorite coastal warlord is Grom the Paunch

An hour and 20? Guess you can't Skim with the Grim. Also, first