Radio War Nerd EP #512 — World of Wars: Capitulation in the USA + Sudan

The reason Maher made those tweets is because she was bullied into it by the Robin DiAngelo crowd, so of course she was libel to get bullied into renouncing it. None of the elite who were buying books by Coates and Kendi (and doubtfully reading them) believed that stuff. That whole neoliberal race project was about fear, not solidarity. It was about confessing your racisms in the C-suite, and pretending there’s a difference between good inequality (what they practice) and bad inequality (eg racism).

NPR sounds a lot like CBC in the great white north. Recently they had a lengthy radio segment discussing the Trump annexation bluster asking people to phone in and talk about how it made them feel. It’s a feelings network for people who have lobotomized themselves on social media self-help slop over the last decade.

Katherine Maher never meant any of it. They didn't mean it during 2020 and she doesn't mean it now. While I get that it is contemptible, I never took it seriously. A pretty baseline condition for rising to the the top of the pyramid in the US is being willing to say whatever garbage it takes to get ahead and to lie convincingly. Honestly, I'm cynical enough to think that even most people who aligned with her believed it either. That's why the statements were so over the top, you were just supposed to make a big public show, smile and nod, tacitly knowing it was a dog and pony show and that all this would go away in a few years and things could return to "normal." That's exactly what she's doing with the Trump crowd. Lying convincingly, kissing the right asses, knowing that in a few years the Trumpers will be gone and no one will really remember or care about any interviews she gave. Everyone just needs to start accepting that they don't mean it...any of it.

Getting into McCarthyism. She should immediately called his first erroneous assumption of "cultural marxism" and schooled him on it like an idiot schoolboy. Instead she's saying "sir".

Re. Gill's accent: am I the only one who thinks of Nixon? The way his Rs sound (1:09:18, 1:09:26, 1:11:34). As for the MAGA slime being not so tough, remember Juli Briskman? She of the loud middle finger? You'd imagine plenty of scum and vermin would come after such an easy symbolic target, but nothing concerning her since 2020.

I have to stick up for 'good egg': For my part of London, it's a decent intentionally non-specific endorsement. It's not just confined to the common-room, for people sucking on their pipe and looking for their matches like Tolkien. We don't have 'un bon type', 'pukka' isn't something you hear all that often outside BBC sitcoms set in Peckham, and 'geezer' is right out. Having said that, I will always distance myself from something in my idiolect said in an NPR accent.

Hearing Katherine Maher capitulate, and thinking about what the class she represents has at stake, and I compare it to the espers in The Demolished Man: go against the Guild, and the sentence of Ostracisation entails that you're shut out from the nourishing and delightful mental weaving that you share with your cohort, and condemned to have to rely on... language. Except that the intricate psychic tapestry you're banished from is mostly the smugness of living without consequence.

Thank you for talking shit about NPR. It is like listening to two colleagues politely trying to make small talk about current events while at a mandatory function they don’t want to be at. Nothing of substance and easy to tune out.

A little biased to not mention the degree of corruption in the justice department in Georgia regarding the unproven voter fraud though… for many the 2020 elections still feel wrong. However the evidence proving fraud has never been proven in court, very true.

I think what y'all said at the end about this not even being the toughest Right is 100% correct. MAGA world comes across as absolute whimps and whatever popularity it seems they have would turn out to be incredibly brittle if there ever emerges a legit, ambitious working class resistance

I was aware that the cops in Moscow stomped the anti war movement hard but I didnt know they murdered anybody, ill have to find out more on that They lasted like a week so they weren't in the news very long

This October, I visited a good friend from college who lives in Wilton. Passing through Ridgefield, one town over, I actually saw someone flying a NATO flag next to the Ukrainian and American flags on a multimillion dollar residential home. It made me bust out laughing at the time, but now it’s haunting me; it truly sums up the NPR/liberal ruling class demographic and what they value (i.e., nothing but virtue-signaling and clout among their nausea-inducing circles).

Mark it's extremely stupid to say the current mega austerity program is popular imo. Idk your gloating at trumps approval ratings tells me you don't know how to read a poll. Dude's still unpopular even if he came in at a slightly higher approval rating "Overall, 45 percent of Americans now approve of Trump's performance, up from 42 percent during his first term in 2017—a modest gain of 3 percentage points. The poll had a margin of error of ± 2 percentage points." learn how to read a poll

i hope we all last long enough for John to finally learn what skibidi toilet is

Watching the last two months has been really testing. The most important thing I try to remind myself of is that, and this is as depressing as it is reassuring, is that the Trump administration is doing its power grab on the most precarious grounds imaginable. Usually would-be dictators have some preponderance of popular or institutional support at the outset. But he doesn't. He's not Pompey sitting outside Rome with an army that would die for him, he's an asshole at a desk coasting on a two vote majority in the house and the overwrought power of the executive. And they’re incredibly stupid, the gap between what they’ve threatened to do and what they’ve actually accomplished is massive because they keep face planting due to their own incompetence. It would take very little to actually reign Trump and MAGA world in. In fact, they'll very likely blow themselves up. But the well ensconced liberals won't do it, because they're feckless, or they're stupid, or they don't care. And as long as they're sitting there, taking up space like carbon monoxide we're all gonna suffocate.

@14:18 Hard not to despair at the notion that Ukrainian nazis will have a valid, honest-to-god "stab in the back" myth

I don't know what they're talking about when they say that the liberal-left never tried to push the Overton Window. They pushed hard on culture war issues and all it did was alienate an electorate that was weary of the Democratic Party's two decades of failing to follow through on their economic proposals. Even those have become tainted as the progressive elite finds itself unable to address class issues without conflating class with race (see for example universities announcing that they would begin offering more scholarships to poor students... but only because they are a legal proxy for minorities).

Jesus Christ I had to pause multiple times during Mahers questioning. Trump might not even be around in power in four years!

I have a borderline irrational hatred of Timothy Snyder. He's done more than almost any other 'mainstream' figure to legitimize Holocaust denial and revisionism. The central thesis of all his work is essentially that the crimes of Stalinism are somehow morally equivalent to the genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust. As a Trotskyite I'm no supporter of Stalin's purges, but only a vicious anti-Semite could see them as in any way comparable to the Holocaust. Snyder's "scholarship" here has fueled the rehabilitation of the most vile collaborationist of WWII

Gill is a common Indian surname so when I saw a picture of him with D'Souza on Twitter, I assumed it was his nephew or something. I'm not seeing anything about this big 'diversity win' on his wikipedia, so I honestly don't know for sure. A sign of the times we are in.

I have to admit I agree at times with the mainstream liberal position of struggling conceptually with the idea of people who make a good income and have a nice house and send their kids to good schools who then turn around and vote to blow that system up. It speaks to a particular psychosis which John has well described before as calling in a strike on your own street so long as it gets some liberals too. You understand it from the people who have little or nothing to lose, but from a comfortable class it really is hard to wrap your head around.

I don't think it's even possible to call what Maher did "lying" - she says the thing that she thinks will benefit her career, at any given time. whether the thing she says bears any relation to the truth is just ... not something a person like her worries about

Why are these guys fleeing to Canada when Canada is about to become the 51st state especially when they elect Pollievre soon

My wedding was featured in the NYT - you submit a description to be featured and we got a whole story for free because it’s a story their readers would like. Others pay for it for sure, but that article discussed should’ve been “this is why no one likes lawyers”

I believe his accent is “shameless cunt”

Funny how the only play in the lib’s “stand up to fascists” playbook is appeasement

Mark and John and the RWN gang- First, John is right about the biblical reference. The exact quote depends on the edition of the bible (so much for biblical inerrancy!), but Jesus does tell Peter that Peter will betray him three time. As for the rest of the episode that discussed the complete collapse of the Left (such as it is,) does anyone else feel like we are living in an age that could be entitled "Apres moi, le deluge?!" Ten of the hottest years on record were the last ten years. There is almost no old sea ice remaining in the arctic. Wildfires are becoming the go-to method for urban renewal. What does it matter- apres moi, le deluge!" Ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank (no Palestinians, No Palestinian Problem!) Israel taking parts of Lebanon and Syria? What does it matter- there won't be any water in the mideast soon enough anyway. Apres moi, le deluge. I could go on but the anger will not be good for my heart. Keep these episodes coming. If outrage is all we have, then outraged we shall be!

Love you guys

Such a pure mind to have never heard of the Overton Window. I wish!

Can you guys get Carl Zha back on to talk about the state of US-China relations?

Wasn't the huge ass table an airborne infection precaution ?

I kind of wish that horrible NPR woman had been executed by Trump just for wasting everyone's time. "So you said some things on twitter, let me quote it here..." "Oh no, sir, I don't actually believe in anything. I am a hollow shell of a human being." "Huh. Well, then no one will mind if we kill you, right?" "No sir, please do whatever you want sir." So fucking gross the way she calls this pig 'sir.'

I've never been able to bring myself to listen to more than maybe a few minutes of NPR in my whole life. I don't know how anyone stomachs it.

Great episode, really helpful to make sense of the Sudan situation.. side note- awesome Brendan drop during the intermission. That drop to the open E on the acoustic goes hard

Great intermission soundtrack as always

this podcast keeps me sane, thank you Mark and John as always!