Radio War Nerd EP #496 — World of Wars: Return of the Trump Thing + Honoring David Lynch
Recorded: January 24, 2025
We discuss Trump-2, the possibility of migrant insurgency, latest in the Ukraine War slaughter + honoring David Lynch.
Total time: 1:24:18
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Comments (48)
I've been catching up on past episodes since the start of the year, and I have to say that John's prediction about how Trump would react to Zelensky snapping at him is pretty darn good!
When John said “Oh Jolani… that crazy radical” is the funniest war nerd moment i’ve heard in a long time
re: lack of #resistance this time around: i think a lot of the people in positions of power are suddenly worried taking an anti-trump stance will hurt their careers. and they really worked (kissed ass) hard for those careers!
I think the thing with (lack of) liberal opposition to Trump in the US is that they needed Russia-gate to justify fighting Trump. It was evil forrin types meddling! They had to protect America. But now that they can't deny his support any more? They basically aren't opposing him much because they think his victims - Americans - deserve it now.
was the whole Neo Noir comment a dunk on Tarantino lol? A group of older actors having a big dumb fun together and then everyone shoots everyone else for no reason, fine, I guess Reservoir Dogs wasn't my favourite of his but my man is catching strays here!
The Nerd and Ames's reflexive contrarianism is a good instinct where critique of the media and foreign policy blob are concerned but lead them into a lot of atrocious takes on culture.
I’ve always liked John’s point about the Irish Sea being named from the pov of the dominant power, but this Gulf of America shit clearly has more in common with the Saudis’ insistence on calling the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf. It’s Trump’s trademark: put -my- name on it, in big gold letters.
10 bucks he uses his “cartels are terrorists” designation as an excuse to take the canal. People are all laughing: “orange man says lots of shit….it’s a negotiation tactic…he can’t do that…”. Really? 1989 happened with a president that was much more “respectable” Any country threatened with invasion should be getting cozy the other big player on the board and collecting remote charges for their artillery stockpile. This fucker is serous.
Terrible advice
I agree with the fuck Trudeau sentiment but the effect in Canada is almost a near universal acceptance of Trumps demand of increasing border security and military spending. Basically every Premier in the country accepted the notion. While there is bluster about a trade war I’m not sure how far that will go because Canada could actually inflict some economic damage on the US and vice versa. My suspicion is that the real goal was about increasing military and border security spending but I could be wrong.
Canadians are such cucks. They're as bad as the Germans.
Oscar Zeta Acosta’s novel, Revolt of the Cockroach People, is well worth the read
Hey, there are a couple funny parts of Eraserhead. It's really difficult for me to put my feelings about Lynch into words, beyond something generic like "I really liked his works." More than anything, I think he had a tremendous imagination, and he could take ideas (even very abstract ones) out of his brain and put them on a TV or film screen in a way that most people can't accomplish. To me, he's one of those rare individuals who can give the impression of having a brain bigger than the actual universe we inhabit. He could perceive the logic and connections that undergird and define the world but which are hidden from plain view, and find ways to describe them that are digestible to other people. Also, his adaptation of Dune is still the best, most memorable, and most quotable. It's not a perfect movie, but it's better than any other version of Dune made thusfar, in my opinion.
Was just coming on to say this. I think John's overarching point about it portraying life at the bottom is on point. That, and the terror of having a child in that situation (been there). It's mostly scary but there are funny things about it. I think you can see the Jacques Tati influence in the scene where the elevator door takes several beats too long to close, in a flat comedy angle. It's really funny, but it's also another petty indignity. Overall, it is an appropriately terrifying glimse into the grim life of most Americans, especially in the Rust Belt.
Dis honorable Jon, dat honorable Mark
The embrace by the Democratic Party establishment of Neo-conservatives and people like the Cheneys, really turns the whole "resistance" idea into a complete absurdity. In 2004-2008, opposition to George W. Bush administration was a central part of the Democratic identity. Twenty years later the Democratic establishment has effectively become the George W. Bush Democrats. The only real difference is social liberalism. On foreign policy the party is Neo-conservative. And on economic policy the party is Neo-liberal. By 2024, even on the issue of immigration, the Democrats are further to the right of even George W. Bush. As far as things like street protest are concerned, I think we have to look at this in the context to of what has gone on in Gaza. A year before the election we had mass street demonstrations in favor of a ceasefire. The Democratic Party base favored the policy by 80%. A majority of Americans favored the policy. Yet in the end, we have the Democratic Party agreeing to crackdowns on campus protests and ignoring voices that were inclined to support the party. Following Clinton's loss too, I suspect there was also a flood of money into various party committees that made the anti-Trump positioning much easier to do. This time around, after completely demotivating and demoralizing the base, I assume the party leadership is just hunkering down. One of the problems on the Democratic side too is just a massive void at the level of party leadership. Pelosi's politics on many issues may have been subpar, but at 77 she had a lot more vitality and influence than she does at 84. Even in the case of McConnell you had someone who was old 7 years ago, but who had deep relationships within the party establishment. Obama's interventions have almost without exception been counterproductive, so it's probably for the best that his Netflix producer career is the higher priority for him now.
Amber Frost from Chapo Trap House has said they've given up on making new Democrats, and it's true. They're still a big tent party, by default, since they're the only option for voters besides the Republicans, who have become the cult of Trump and nothing else. But they aren't interested in courting anyone; if anything, they're more contemptuous of their own voters than they are of their supposed political enemies. I don't really understand how they can keep going like this. Just simple inertia, I suppose. But the Democrats, as a political force in America, seem to be completely dead. A majority of Americans support their policies over the Republicans, theoretically, but that doesn't seem to matter at all. Above the state level they might as well not exist. It's really an indictment of the whole national project of the United States that a relatively small minority can exert such total control over the government without an explicitly authoritarian regime to enforce their rule. But as the 2024 election showed, if you want to stop Donald Trump and the GOP's agenda, you would honestly be better off just trying to assassinate them rather than relying on the Democrats.
so what do we make of his disbanding of a laundry list of army units?
Pretty much any statistics on Latino people, and probably Latino men most of all, are going to undercount their numbers, rate of participation, percentage of the workforce, etc., because so many of them end up stuck doing work that's paid way below minimum wage, all in cash, by contractors and suburban assholes who'll call ICE and have them deported if they complain. For the 3 last years I lived in Texas, there was essentially a roll call for day laborers in the parking lot of a nearby QuikTrip, every single day, around 5:00 a.m. ... and when all those workers got dumped at the QuikTrip again that evening, there were cop cars idling at the parking-lot exits, and they'd hit the day laborers with a stationary lights-and-sirens "woop-WOOP," then extort them (again via threats of ICE and DHS) for most of the money they made that day. Nobody's listing THOSE guys anywhere, and this was every single goddamn day, including the summer of 2011 when it was 100ºF or hotter for 90 straight days.
Important to remember, not just for data on Latinos, but all data & statistics in general. People want to boil everything down to one number and/or one sound bite but reality is always more complicated than the simplified modelling will suggest
Thinking about it more - this slow, open pit mining approach also has the advantage of making guerrilla war/insurgency impossible, giving time for populations to move and keeping the UAF in a functional enough state for it to continue to drain all viable manpower
My impression is that Ukraine has more casualties than Russia, given Russia’s massive artillery, air support, and material advantages
It's still a defensive war for Ukraine, in modern war I'd be surprised if Ukraine truly has more casualties (especially when you consider the Russian tactics in Bakhmut, specifically). Regardless, even if it's roughly equal, that's a complete disaster for Ukraine
There are still a few brown berets around. Young people, not elders. And they're still good friends and terrifying enemies.
great episode. i love that wallace stevens poem, one of my all time favorites.
*of Hispanic people who voted
Liberals are either in denial or have gone back to agonizing over “dumbfuckistan”
“Yeah, I’m mutuals with an appointee” okay mark, we get it
Growing up in the Central Valley Cesar Chavez was absolutely taught about in school and had lots of things like parks and streets named after him so it did surprise me when I got older and learned that he wasn't as well-known or celebrated among the US left. I think when you read up more on the guy's life it's pretty understandable tho- as Mark said, he was a "complicated" figure which is putting it mildly. He did some absolutely incredible things for agricultural workers and brought real material change to the feudal conditions on Valley industrial farms. That said he was a weird dude on a personal level and got involved with some very questionable things. He was so viciously anti-immigrant he had UFW members form gangs that patrolled the border at night and violently beat anyone they saw trying to cross illegally; supposedly they also killed at least one man. He also ran his union and organizations he led like a tyrant; he even set up his own commune in the Valley that was heavily based on Synanon- which he was a big fan of- and made the UFW members living and working there engage in regular struggle sessions. He also buddied up with Ferdinand Marcos in a really weird attempt at outreach to Filipino-American ag workers in the Valley. I think he made some incredible gains and was a huge figure in California and US labor history but he just had too many skeletons in his closet to be celebrated as much as some other civil rights leaders.
Regarding Trumps health, I have found him to be strangely resilient. His demise/descent into senility was being predicted in his first term due to cheeseburgers and golf. Yet in the first debate, he was totally alert. I speculate that it is due to a lack of stress. I think he is one of those people who don't have any stress because they shit-dump on everybody else. Other than that, I think he has fun and does what he likes. Everybody has been focussing on Musk, but the elephant in the room is Thiel who influences Vance and who probably believes the same things as Musk.
I really don't understand the anti Ukraine in this podcast?
I don't think they are anti UIkraine per se but I think they are trying to extract what is really going on from all the narrative-shaping that passes for modern journalism these days. For example, many supposedly reputable sources (MSM) spent the whole first year of the war telling us that Putin was at deaths door.
Gotta do a War of 1812 ep. More relevant than ever
John and Mark (грозный)
Didn't a lot of Latinos vote for Trump? I don't see them mounting much of a resistance.
I thought I should recommend the war nerd leaders watch the new Netflix series „American Primeval“. About the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the Utah war in 1857-58. it is Narratve fiction but the best portrayal of westward expansion, you really feel the cold, the grime, and desperation… Mormons have been a topic a few to here, maybe an episode on the worst massacre in American history is worth an episode? Thanks for all!
I’m not sure how we are defining the “worst”…it’s pretty awful, but I don’t think it’s the biggest…I’m not even sure if it is the biggest that involves women and children, but these things can be hard to measure. It would surly make a good episode
I liked the zoot suit mention.
As much as I would love for Latinos to wake up and organize an underground resistance in response to mass deportations I don’t have any faith in my peoples capacity for this unfortunately. But a second Mexican-American war might do it
It seems far-fetched, to say the least. I don't want to say "it will never happen," but... I would assume it's never going to happen.
Cesar Chavez sold out communists pretty sure they got deported as a result
The United Farm Workers were also viciously anti-immigrant, and under Chavez formed their own anti-migrant patrols. Chavez also believed that women had no place in leadership in the labor movement and belonged in the home. Dolores Huerta was the only exception he made.
He was a fuckin kapo worm
Can I get a source for the mobs fighting police to protect freed slaves? Would love to read about that.
Abolition Riot of 1836 at the Leverett Street Courthouse in Boston, MA is one instance. Lemuel Shaw who oversaw the case was Herman Melville's father-in-law. George Latimer's case in 1842 is another. The Boston Slave Riot of 1854 is one of the more famous cases.
You're spot on regarding RussiaGate, Mark . The only thing I would add is there are some "holdouts" remaining, albeit mostly oline. Like most baseless conspiracies, it's extremely hard to convince the diehards that it's false, even more so when irrefutable evidence (or lack therefor of) is out refuting the claim. This is mostly on reddit, THE most out of touch social media platform in existence. Put pop onto world news and any Trump story. You'll have comments with thousands, maybe more, of upvotes (support) claiming that this is "all Putins plan!"
Sometimes the Russiagate stuff reminds me of the joke about the rabbi who enjoys reading anti-Semitic rags. "According to these guys, Jews run the banks, the media, the government... We're doing great!" If I was Putin, I'd like to imagine I had this kind of control over the world.
Just what I needed.