Elon’s Twitter Apocalypse

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friend. Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller. Before we start, do two things for us.

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Tim tell her.

Yeah. You’re not watching enough other YouTube related content. I’m sorry.

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Can I interrupt with some promotion as well? Sure. I mean, for starters, you’re just so nice. Always mention Charlie’s newsletter, which is great. But the trial the trial today, not free, but worth every penny.

Certainly worth more than a twenty dollar blue check mark a month. And it was exactly what I’ve been thinking for three days. You’re inside my brain. About how, you know, that the people that were too cautious on COVID, they have to have a reckoning. But the people who held super spreader events and kill Herman Cain for some reason they don’t have to have a reckoning.

So, you know, only It’s amazing. It is amazing. So, anyway, the it’s a much better argument than that summary, but that’s a little teaser. That’s so good. And we also I just so enjoyed having Billy Corbin on.

I hope people listen to our bonus podcast. Because he was hilarious. Some people did not like the amount of sex talk. Sarah,

did did you listen to it, Sarah? It’s so It does listen

to it. I don’t listen to podcasts that I’m excluded from.

You don’t listen to any podcast unless you’re on. I’m just You only listen to podcasts that you’re on. You already know what said on those. That seems like a weird

policy. Tim, you may recall that that Sarah used to demand as the captain of her university basketball team, demand that she be allowed to warm up on a separate port than her teammates because they weren’t good enough?

Nobody remembers that. You’re the only one who cares I wish I’d never told do that little

animation. I think it’s wonderful. It shows great leadership.

Yeah. I just I don’t it is I’m a little confused. I I I listen to podcasts that other people are on, not the ones that I’m on. But, you know, teach their own teach on. I

just haven’t listened to it yet. Okay. Now, I, of course, will listen to

it. Well, it

was hilarious. It was so fun.

It was amazing.

So it was people I have to go check that out. And and and my self promotion, we were just discussing in the green room. Last week, it’s not my party. It’s about how scary China is. And the Chinese after me now, I think, guys.

I don’t know. Maybe there’s black helicopters circling above West Oakland, but Well, they tried to meme you. Yeah. They named me. There was a I I’m now on I’m now on pro China Instagram, which is a pretty weird place.

Mhmm. And there are a lot of memes about how strong chairman Xi is

when they

tried to name me as like a little baby who is getting who’s getting, I guess, murdered by

Kim Jong Un in in that why is that? Well,

they’re also pro North Korea. Oh, okay. Because they’re also pro they’re pro North Korea and Pro China. But there’s some other good memes about how America’s bad and China’s great I’m I’m on Instagram. I’m just sort of waiting through that.

That’s just an area of the Internet I wasn’t aware of before. And they tried to come after my Twitter. And I don’t, you know, I don’t know. I I think that the Chinese are monitoring Snapchat, I guess, that’s something for folks to be aware of. Imagine if your show had been on TikTok.

Yeah. Are we a little bit concerned that the guy how about this for a transition? The guy that’s taking over Twitter also has a lot of financial exposure in China. That’s not that’s probably not great. I mean, they have TikTok.

They’re they’re trolling me on Snapchat, and now they you know, have the are carrying a lot of financial incentives for the owner of Twitter. It’s pretty

good for China. Pretty good run. We didn’t talk all about that when we get to the mosque stuff. We we gotta talk about Paul Pelosi first. Okay.

That’s fine. So over over the weekend, we had a a gentleman allegedly break into the house of Nancy and Paul Pelosi. Allegedly demands know where Nancy was, allegedly beat Paul Pelosi, who’s eighty two years old in the head with a hammer and fractured his skull.

Allegedly, he admitted to all of us already.

Allegedly. Look until there’s a conviction, I am saying, allegedly, I would like to read you some of the reactions from conservative world, from John Cardillo, I’m gonna say it, I couldn’t care less what happens to Paul Pelosi. He and his wife are evil motherfuckers who have raped and pillaged this nation to give themselves a nine figure net worth. Blah blah blah. Dinesh DeSousa, one a salaried.

Isn’t

John Cardillo the guy that we found out was on the take from some foreign governments, wasn’t that him?

I I couldn’t allegedly, you mean? I’m allegedly. This is Dinesh. Number two, Paul Pelosi knows his name and tells police he’s a quote friend. Number three, a salon asks, where’s Nancy?

To make sure she’s not home. Number four, Pelosi takes bathroom break from spat and makes nine eleven call conclusion this guy was a sex partner or male prostitute from Monica Crowley The Pelosi House is the kind of place that looks normal from the outside, but has all kinds of crazy ass stuff going on behind closed doors. Do you do you get what she means? And then we have Donald j Trump junior saying that he has his Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready and it is a pair of dirty Hanes, tidy whities, and a hammer. Oh, and then there’s Clay Higgins who said, that moment you realized the new diss hippie male prostitute LSD guy was the reason your husband didn’t make it to your fundraiser

They really showed them they just owned the lips. Trump seniors also weighed in on this since since that list was made. He was on the Chris Stigel show this morning. It’s a it’s a really fact based radio program. Weird things going on in that household the last couple weeks.

The glass seams was broken from the inside to the out. So it wasn’t a break in. It was a breakout. That’s the former president, weighing in on that one. And my former gubernatorial candidate, Larry Elder, had a really great joke.

I don’t know if you saw that on Twitter about how Paul Pelosi got hammered twice. I

got this one. I got this one. Too soon. Question mark. Poor Paul Pelosi, first he gets busted for DUI, then he gets attacked in his home, hammered twice in six months.

That’s funny. Sierra Why don’t you tell me how swing voters are going to react to all this? Because I’m pretty sure they’re gonna publish Republicans for deviating from one of our cherished American political norm. Punish.

Punish.

Yeah.

I don’t think, unfortunately, Paul Pelosi is a big factor. Great

security. Okay. So Carrie Lake isn’t gonna pay any price for her little, you know, about because she doesn’t have great security out there that the Arizona Indivoters aren’t gonna punish her.

I I don’t know. I mean, you know, right now, independents are just seem to be breaking for Katie Hobbs. Although, Obviously, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. It’s too close to comfort. Every poll I’ve seen has them exactly neck and neck.

So look, I am one of the things I tweeted on that Larry Elder. Is it a joke? Is that we’re gonna call it? Is that it’s not that he said it. Right?

It’s not that he said it. It was at the time of my screenshotting of this. It had thirty thousand likes. And that means that not only are people not getting, you know, normally in in different times, in the before times, the before times of I don’t know. Like, even three years ago, like, even in the Trump era, I feel like something like this, the violence I mean, he was, like, in surgery while this was happening.

Like, he he was it was it was the the day it happened, Rather than even like the routine, thoughts, and prayers, condolences, stuff, normie, good guy, team normal, Glenn Youngkin. Was on the trail saying, you know, oh, yeah, violence is bad, like a throwaway, and then but we’re gonna send Nancy Pelosi back so he can be with him. I genuinely I know we all know, Sarah’s like Lucy with the football

and be a

little bit naive. I am genuinely shocked not only that they’re saying it, but that there’s no pushback from any other corner of the right saying, like, don’t don’t be like this guys. Like, this is awful. But I have not seen even among people that I would think are, like, the more responsible Twitter users who try to, like Twitter users on the right who try to keep themselves kind of on the right side of the line generally on the more respectful side of line. Like, they’re not out there condemning all this.

Yeah. They’re focused on the Steve Skalise comparison that Steve Skalise didn’t get as great the media coverage for as long as Paul Pelosi. That’s who the

that’s what the good guys are doing. Tim? Yeah. I got a question for you. You you are an old political hand.

You have been around advising candidates and strategizing, middle

aged political hand. I

wanna I wanna ask you something. If you were advising a Republican who’s currently running for election, which would you tell him would be more dangerous for his electoral prospects. Would it be sending out a Dinesh DeSousa style tweet? Saying, this is a gay lover’s spat, or prostitute or would it be tweeting out the following from former vice president Mike Pence. This is an outrage and our hearts are with the entire Pelosi family.

We pray Paul will make a full recovery. There can be no tolerance for violence against public officials or their families. Which of those two statements would be more dangerous for the prospects of a Republican who’s standing for office in a week. I

don’t I’m not gonna give you the answer you want on that one. I I think the first one depending the the sad part is it really does. It’s a cab it’s a caveat. It depends on the race and where they are and what what kind of race they’re running for. I I think that sending a Dinesh to Susan style tweet about how Paul Pelosi, obvious had a gay prostitute and had a coming or whatever would not be the smartest move.

If you are Blake Masters, for example, tied in a tight race in Arizona, where things are where the momentum seems to be moving your direction. Slightly. I think that would probably be an error. But, you know, if you are running in a lot of other states in red states at think that I think Eric Schmidt in Missouri certainly wouldn’t suffer any consequences for sending that tweet and might might worry about his future political prospects, more long term political prospects for tweeting the the Mike Pence thought, Carrie Lake might not wanna do the Mike Pence one because it would it might hamper her longer term, you know, just positioning as a live owner, extraordinaire. So I I I see where you’re going with it.

And and I also think that if we’re in primary season. It might be different, sadly. I think that the more accurate and damning condemnation is the fact that, like, with a couple of exceptions, going full troll while Paul Pelosi is in the ICU, is, like, not at all a political risk for Republicans with unless they just happen to be Blake Masters or Joe O’Day in a handful of states. And it is probably good for them on their engagement online, which is what a lot of these guys care about more than anything anyway. I mean, I don’t, you know, Jim Swift has a stick about how Ted Cruz doesn’t wanna be senator anymore.

I think that’s pretty clear that Ted Cruz is dabbling. I don’t remember exactly what his his tweet was, but he was dabbling in the conspiracy world on this, and I I don’t I don’t see him suffering anything.

Yeah. He said true. If he, like, quote, tweeted one of these conspiracy weird things. And it was sort of like

Was it Dinesh?

I don’t know if it was to Nash. It was somebody else, but it was kinda like, but what are we to know? How could we possibly know? And he was like, yeah, truth. I will say on just the political, the rank political question, I don’t think it has no impact at all.

Like, I I’m not sure. I think it impacts vote choice quite. I do think it has shifted the conversation in the environment, sort of the way that it was all abortion all the time. And then armedistan just put migrants on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard, and we started talking about immigration. I do think this pulls us back into a conversation in which Republicans are on defense because the accusation here is about the radicalization.

Of the Republican Party, the violence of the Republican Party. It kind of re ups the conversation around January sixth. And that’s why people like Ben Shapiro are so defensive right now because they’re saying, I see what you’re doing. Like, you are trying to make this a bigger conversation about the right going into an election, about radicalization. And I think that that is happening.

Actually, not quite out not out of any pure political calculation, I think it’s happening because there is increased violence, increased threats against legislators, and more people I mean, like, when something like this happens, This is this is somebody coming into her house with a hammer being, like, where is Nancy looking for her? The guy said in his, I don’t know, deposition on the record that he was looking for because he was going to tie her to a chair and break her kneecaps. And like the leg and people in

Send her a message. Yeah.

To send a message.

He meant that he meant that seriously, not literally, Sarah.

Yeah. I’m sure. Allegedly. So and and here’s another thing. I just want to remark on this A lot of people are kinda saying, like, legislators from both sides have seen, like, a really increased level of threats.

And I think that is true I would like to see the breakdown though of how many of those Republicans who are getting threats are getting threatened because they weren’t sufficiently pro Trump and some way. Like, a lot of the threats that are coming in, right, to our people who were the impeachers. Like Liz Cheney’s had to get a lot more, like, she’s a Republican show count in the Republican column of threats. The people who are threatening her are the same people who are threatening Nancy Pelosi and for the same reasons. Yeah.

And also the lower level stuff which is it’s all against, like, you know, election officials and, you know, the the people you and I have never heard of. Right? Reuters did a giant six months long investigation on this, poll workers and ballot counters and all that. Those people, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, they’re all getting, as you say, death threats from the exact same people. Right?

I I

get a question about about our anti anti friends. So just like, you know, why isn’t Brian Kemp the future of people who want the normal, the the team normal Republican Party back? Here, Mike Pence, is yet again on the side of the angels. Right? Mike Pence is doing what every Republican should be doing.

It’d be the easiest thing in the world to simply say, yeah, I’m with Pence. Right? Don’t say anything about Steve’s sleeves. Don’t say Just say, Mike Pence has it exactly right. He’s a true conservative and I stand with him.

But these people want nothing to do with it because he’s radioactive. The only reason he’s radioactive is because he was anti cool. Howard Bauchner: I

think that’s right. And I think the last few focus groups just I’m always reminded, pants came up. And they don’t hate my pants. They don’t like my pants, and they think he’s boring and a snooze, and that was a big part of, like, the people say, like, he’s boring, he’s lame, whatever. Here he is lamely condemning violence.

And that’s not really what people want. Right? They want.

They like

the jokes. And that this is this has become in this sort of infotainment right wing world. Right? Like any any onage of the lips, even if it comes at the expense of decency. I mean, one of the guys who tweeted something horrific, I know I I it was the one that I was like, I must be naive, but I can’t believe this.

He’s a member of congress. She is his colleague. It’s like me walking into my office and having something terrible happen to somebody with whom I’m having a disagreement. Like, of their children get sicker, like someone in their families assaulted and me making a joke about it, which I would never do because it’s an inhuman disgusting way to behave. Yeah.

I

I think that you hit that on what the voters looking for. It reminds me of that focus group we did together, Sarah, which was the Alabama. I think it was Alabama and Florida together where, like, you know, their perception was that Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green were fighting, and that’s what they wanted. But, like, fighting for them, pushing them, being more conservative. Being more conservative really just meant being actually brooder.

Right? Like being more obnoxious, you know, more performatively anti left. Right? Like, that’s what they’re looking for, and that’s the difference between them and Kemp. Like Kemp, get some points with the Eric Erickson of the world for, like, signing very conservative legislation in Georgia.

Right? Which he has done. Right? The brain cap is no moderate. But, like, for the broader Republican electorate, like, that doesn’t get you very far.

Like, that gets you some kudos on commentary in national review and from Eric. But, like, it doesn’t get you very far with the actual voters what they want as somebody that’s gonna stick it in the eye in Nancy Pelosi. And make me clutch my pearls on this podcast. Like, that’s what they want. Right?

You know, I I think this is, like, to me, the key difference. And that is what is stoking, you know, more of this radicalization on the right. It’s fine and fair to say at some point that, yeah, there’s some radicalization on the left and there’s some overheated rhetoric. Like, it’s okay to say that. Like, the question then is, how is how do people respond to that?

Right? I mean, you know, even with the Kavanaugh example, they attempted assassination, I guess, whatever on Kavanaugh, they didn’t I didn’t even make it into his house. Like, there were some, you know, there’s some lefty Twitter people that were like, ah, you just are, you know, saying gross things. Right? But, like, the diss course is all about how responsible Democrats and, like, public figures, you know, on the left, were saying, guys, no.

Like, this is now what we’re supposed to do. And then, you know, they they got some backlash from, you know, the the ranking file. Right? Like that, but so this is, like, you did not see, you know, whatever, Rashida Tlaib or Jake Achin cloths, like tweeting, like, hey, are we sure that this guy that went after Kavanaugh was a lefty. I mean, maybe he was an enraged mega voter who was unhappy that Trump didn’t steal the election and hardcore enough.

And, like, are, you know, are we are we sure that this wasn’t a false flag by Brett Kavanaugh and, like like the idea that there would be a democratic like, member that would do that, like, they would they would face widespread a program. Like, after making such a comment, I and and so, like,

that culture is, I think, the difference at this point. We had a package of clips. We’re not gonna wind up playing them, but we’re in which one of them says, somebody on some cable news shows, you know, and and after they tried to kill Brett Kavanaugh, Joe Biden didn’t say anything. It’s not right. Well, I heard that I thought to myself, Is that right?

I I don’t remember that. And so I went to the Google machine and I typed it in and literally the first the first result you get is from Fox News dot com, and it is Biden unequivocally condemns Kavanaugh as attempted assailant. And the story is like not only did Biden rush out to condemn it unequivocally and pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family, but to then propose that we spend more money on protection for for judges. Like like an actual policy response on top of on top of the thoughts and prayers. He didn’t suggest

it might

have been a breakout. He didn’t suggest it might have been a

drink hour

that that

Then said Brad and

the guy might have been they might have had a tiff while they were drinking beers because Brad Cavanaugh loves drinking beer so much or anything like that. Now, the other thing that I think is an interesting subplot and all this that is worth and that’s what might not my party’s on this week, but it’s just kind of worth exploring, is just how close the the horseshoe is now almost an oval. Oh, yeah. Right? And, like, this guy, the attacker,

you know, the

horseshoe there if you will don’t appreciate it. Is that, like, is that politics is not online, left to right, really. American politics, it’s a horseshoe where those of us at the bottom of the horseshoe where it connects are, you know, you’re squishy, never Trump, rhino, Republicans and you’re, like, conservative, you know, remaining Democratic, you know, moderate types and, like, we’re together on one side and the other side of the horseshoe is, you know, the super maggas and the Bernie Bros. The Far left us. Right?

And and they are getting closer and closer together to the fact that the horse has almost created a circle. And this guy, the attack is like the prime example of this. And a and a misunderstanding of the horseshoe is what is allowing some of this this the the Republicans to demagogue on this. Right? Because they’re all going out and saying, well, kind of Berkeley nudist really be a conservative, really be radicalized by the right.

And and, like, I think for a casual normie, they might look at that and say that it’s kind of a good point to Ted Cruz has on that. Right? So gives him even more cover to Troll when, like, the reality is, that that this guy is is going down the same radicalization pipeline that you see all the time if you, like, are on YouTube and suffering through political discourse, like I do, which is you know, your anti Iraq War, occupy Wall Street, anti, anti deep state liberal, Like, is now Mosey and Glen Greenwald. Tosey. Glen Greenwald, Tim Pool.

Like, they’re now mega Republicans, basically. Right? They don’t say that because it hurts their brand, but, like, it’s densey all of their rhetoric is that, and they’ve hopped. And this guy is that. Right?

He was your Berkeley liberal and and but he’s got radicalized into being anti anti state. And now it’s like, well, Pelosi and Hillary, like, they represent what what in his mind used to be represented by, like, bush and the big banks. Right? It’s business establishment elite, you know, thing. And and I think that, like, that is that gets lost.

In all of this conversation because the Republicans’ troll about it and, like, the, you know, Liberals, like, don’t wanna, like, there’s some that do, but but there’s a lot of incentives to not, like, bring that up. Right? But that connection is happening and that that radicalization pipeline is taking place. So I

I don’t wanna spend a whole show on this, but I do wanna ask Bill’s view about this question because it it strikes me as interesting. The Bernie Bro Dirkbag left types. Who’ve clearly been radicalized. They did that without the prompting of Bernie Sanders. Which I have always thought was interesting.

Like Bernie himself, like Bernie is a Democratic socialist, but he is, you know, and his politics are not my politics.

But

he is not of the character personally or ritorically of the people who wound up like making that horseshoe jump. I’ve always wondered, like, why and how that is? I

think Telsi filled the vacuum. I guess my short answer is that’s how why Telsi is filling that vacuum right now, honestly. And it’s, like, being the representative sort of, like, politician leader even though she’s not anymore. My answer to this my short answer I’d be interested in tariffs take is that it’s the same bottom up thing that you see on the right that, like, a lot of this is driven. The radicalization of when that Bernie Broker is is driven by the rank and file.

Like, they hated the banks and they hated the wars and they hated the establishment and that got them matter and matter and more open to conspiracies. And and whereas on the Republican side, the politicians started being like, oh, yeah, I’m gonna feed this and stoke it. Like Bernie for whatever reason didn’t feel like he had to do that, you know, because he’s a responsible politician that has some wrong views on economics. But I guess is the answer. But But I I think that’s why that that I guess that’d be my answer

to your question. Yeah. I think that’s right. And so mine’s

a little different. I mean, I think it’s it’s a part of this coalitional transformation. Right? We talk about political realignment, but I think political realignment is actually a little bit of a soft term for what we’re really seeing. Colonial transformation is the idea that, like, when I was coming up or when we were coming up in the Conservative Movement, Republican Party, there was all these anti Vactors on the left.

And they were, like, anti what MGO would

MGO? MGO. Yeah. Like,

all this. Right? And they would and and we used to be against them. Right? Like, doctor Oz was the progenator.

Like, in my old job, we were constantly going after doctor Oz for being the snake oil salesman. Like, BS guy I don’t know. I just said that it’s

GMO. NGOs as non government organizations. That was

I think they also would dislike NGOs as well. I think they they dislike both. Sorry.

Thank you. No. I knew I knew I was saying it wrong. I knew it was wrong. But it’s been a long time since I thought about this.

But it’s like this quack stuff, the anti virus, they were on the left, they have politically realigned to now be part of the Republican coalition. It’s why, like, a place like Arizona when I say, like, the people who are moving, like, when it when also, like, we’re geographically self sorting. Like, the people who are moving to the outskirts of Arizona, are often these, like, anti vaxers who, like, maybe, like, live in a van or something or, like, a whatever they used to be

Down by the river. I

don’t know. But they used to be Democrats, and now they are Republicans. Right? And because that’s where they go to get their conspiracy theorizing validated. And so the parties have self sorted along those lines in many ways.

Alright. I wanna

move on from this unless you guys have anything else to add before we go. Well, I wanna get to the chief tweet but we’re gonna we’re we’re in a good ten

after. We’ll get there. Alright.

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I’m so easy to shop for. Really? But Okay. Well, whatever. Yeah.

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So since we last got together, Elon Musk has consummated his purchase of Twitter before we came online today, his twenty dollar special champagne room premium tier has been downgraded to an eight dollar special whatever tier. Man of the people tier. Man of the people tier. This is like classic musk. Right?

So he says, I’m gonna fire seventy five percent of the workforce. Then we only fire is fifty percent. It’s like, see, it’s not so bad. I’m gonna charge twenty dollars a month See, it’s only eight dollars a month. Do you guys have thoughts about all this?

Because I am as I wrote over the weekend in something Sarah didn’t read, actually quite hopeful that he may destroy the site. And I think that when he destroys it, if he destroys it, it’ll be for very prosaic reasons that have nothing to do with politics. It won’t be because there’s a bunch of in cells on, you know, screaming the n word. It’ll be because, you know, forty percent of all tweets. I don’t think that’ll help.

Yeah. But that won’t be the the real problem. The real problem is that forty percent of all tweets and, like, half of the blue check marks will be people pushing crypto scams or only fans accounts.

And once

it becomes basically just a big spam trap, that’s what’ll push users off, I think. I

think that’s

probably right. I can’t figure out because here’s the the problem or one of them. So psychologically, I’ll just use myself as an example. I have a blue check mark. The idea of

keeping.

Congratulations. Thank you. I know it’s a big deal for all of us. Right? I would never as a social signaling pattern.

Like, forget all the other things. But even as a would never want anyone to think I was paying eight dollars for that blue check. It’s one thing for somebody to have converted upon me. That’s fine. I have it.

Great. I don’t think about it very often. But I would now it’s like, absolutely not. I don’t want this. If it means that now everyone knows I’m giving Twitter money.

To do this because then you’re just showing people it means too much to you. And only lame people would do

that. Yeah. It is a misunderstanding on on a couple of fronts. Like, there was this guy, the guy that wrote chaos monkeys, did is, I guess, a panel of Elon was doing a tweet thread about how great of an idea how this was, and how he should she charges more. Mhmm.

And how these blue checks are all pretending? Like, they’re That guy turns out

to be the worst, by the way. Yeah. And the

and and he basically is, like, people like Sarah. He’s talking about Sarah who make that exact argument do not understand their own motivations and actually their entire status is proffered to them based on these blue checks, and Sarah thinks she won’t pay for it, but not only will she pay for it, if you charge more, it would make her even more likely to pay more. And I’m just like,

you guys

are have your brains have been broken by the Internet. And and they and and by this meme about the blue checks and how, like, they think it’s so cool and all of this and it’s and it and it’s, like, not actually real. And and the the whole point of having this, the blue checks originally, and the whole point of having verification on a platform like this is actually for the platform’s benefit. Not for the people’s

The users?

Yes. Yes. Because because you it it is good for a platform for users to be able to know I’m actually talking to the real Sarah Long well, not a fake Sarah Long well that is trolling me or pretending to be her or imitating her or whatever like that. That creates value and makes people wanna use the platform because they can trust it. It was like when I went on Getter and wrote that big article Getter by the pussy last year, for the bulwark.

When you go and get her all of these there were all these fakes, you know, sites pretending to be sonic, fake little Caesar. Yes. Yeah. Big dominoes, fake little Caesar’s And and cadet went to things like there was like fake Corey Lewandowski. And this was the one example I had where it was kind of clear to figure out like the Domino’s that was getting get getters about, like, pissing was, like, not the real dominoes.

But it was kinda hard to tell if Corey Lewandowski was, like, the real Corey Lewandowski or somebody pretending to be cornered, Lewandowski. And and that makes it kind of a hellscape. And so then what happens if you don’t know who’s who, Like, and you don’t know what’s real, that makes things so much easier for scammers, which takes you back to your point JBL. Right? Which is like it’s not really so much about politics, but that that scammers now can come on and do easier.

Like, he he tweeted in this thing. He’s like, for an additional eight bucks, you can get higher priority in the people’s mancheese.

And it’s

like, great stuff. Perfect for scammers. If you’re a scam pack, you’re like, hell yeah. Like, I’ll pay you eight dollars a month, and then I’ll tweak the link to my you give me two dollars. And all I need to get is five idiots to give me two dollars and click on that link, and I’m making money on this.

So so it it is it is a one way path to Craigslist.

Which is

the

number one example of of what not to do. And you can want Craigslist go from like b premier classified site to totally unusable because of all the scammers. And like that that is where they’re going and it’s based on the fact that these guys think they believe this caricature of the media elite that is not true. Like, they have hoisted upon them this caricature where they sniff each other’s farts and care so much about their checks and that’s what they all love. And it’s kind of like I there’s a handful of people from whom that’s true, but that’s not really right.

And and those are, like, the worst people that you are now projecting out into everybody that you don’t like. And because they don’t understand people’s motivations for why they use the site, I I I do think that it’s gonna be a total backfire. And and I think that it also speaks to why that that he sent that tweet at Hillary this week, you know, about just asking questions about Paul Pelosi. This is like a prime example. Right?

So what happens then?

Elan tweets at Hillary. Oh,

actually, it might not be true. Hillary, here’s this link to a story about Paul Pelosi being a gay having a gay lover And he links to some site that literally had done another story five years ago about how Hillary was dead, and there was

a lot he doubled. Okay.

So then what happens after that? Everybody makes fun of them? What does he do? He deletes it. He deletes it.

The the new chief tweet censored himself because but why did he censor himself? Because there’s value to fucking censorship on these sites. People want to be able to trust what they can see on the site. But they don’t understand that. They think that it’s all conspiracy by the elites to keep them down.

And and until they fucking get it through their head that there’s value to have incredible information on their sites, then the fight when the site’s gonna keep going down the toilet. That’s my rant about the cheap

sweat. Sarah,

I have a question for you.

Because what if the

counterpoint to maybe this is a genius idea, is that I think we’ve basically established that you can’t make a business model that is at scale, meaning, like, at the at the level of social platform. Where people would pay eight dollars for credible information. You can do, you know, you you could do the Atlantic or the Bulwark or the New York Times. And and you can get to that level, but you can’t do it at scale. We

are times. It’s pretty big scale. No.

Not compared to platform. Right? But what Musk is saying, maybe you could

get a bunch

of mouth breathing Internet trolls to pay eight dollars a month. And maybe that number is greater sign than the number of people who are willing to pay eight dollars a month for credible information. Maybe

look, I just think there’s, like, a bunch of other ways that he could have gone with this. Like, you could get blue checks. Like, I actually would I think be like, it’s a service. I enjoy Twitter. I might be willing to pay to maintain, like, my check mark if what I was doing then was, like, was, like, maintaining something that they get.

Like, they’re, like, you to get this. But, like, the idea that they open it up to everybody and that you can just pay to get the check mark totally eliminates the purpose of having one. Here’s the problem. Right? Elon overpaid for this thing.

And

so

now he is trying to figure out how to make money on it. And I think he is doing that at the expense of long term ideas that would enhance the user experience on the website, of which there are many things that one could do to improve user experience and create a model of paying for it. Like, you need to buy a subscription. Like, you could sell subscriptions to Twitter. Right?

Like, at a really low amount, regular users have just it cost you two dollars a month for blue checks that cost you. Fifteen dollars a month, but, like, and so you pay and you eliminate a lot of the thoughts, but, like, when you say you can get verified, if you just hit this amount of money, you have created a complete all the perverse incentives you can imagine. Yeah. And I

you might be able to make money on this. I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t wanna be clear. I don’t I’m not in the I wish you were right, and this is like Twitter’s dying. I don’t really think that that’s gonna happen. Some people will pay for this.

Like, they’ll be they’ll he’ll, like, be able to make some money on this. And think about this just a scale. No.

That’s what I’m saying, though. It will make some money

in the short term. Short term. Yeah. Yeah. But but but

I’m not sure. But

long term, I think it’s the path to destruction. Right? But I’m saying because he’s panicked, I think, about overpaid for this. Right? The dude bought this.

Like, at the numbers that are coming out for meta, and for Zuckerberg. Right? Like, when he bought it, it was the tech stuff, was it at peak? Like, when he just threw out the number, the valuation. Right?

And everything’s been cratering since then. And, like, TikTok is crushing and American social media companies don’t know what to do. Mark Zuckerberg’s lost, like, I don’t know how many billions of dollars on meta because no one wants to live in the metaverse. Like, it’s just a it’s it’s like that is not a thing people want. And as a result, Mark Zuckerberg has staked his whole deal on this, and it’s going down the tubes.

And so on Twitter, I just think if Elon took a serious approach, to this and thought, how do I make this user experience better that has a lot to offer? It’s a good platform. People like it. And, like, how do we how do we get rid of the bots? How do we get slightly more control, potentially over what they see, whatever.

That’s

all he

had

to do, but

that’s not what he’s doing.

Well, I don’t know. That’s all

he had to do because of the overpay. The Bill Cohen stuff over on puck and, you know, I don’t we don’t need to get on the this round hole in this podcast. We have expertise, but I recommend if you’re interested in this, Bill Cohen and puck has been awesome. Just in

place. I gotcha. It’s

just how and just the short of it is how dire the finances are. Yeah. So

the the problem is the thirteen billion dollars of syndicated bank debt. Which are gonna be very hard for the banks to move. When they do move, they’re likely to move it to Vulture capitalists. And with the vault once you go to Vulture Capital, the minute you miss a payment, they take over the company. So the concern is that at the end of the day, Musk is going to have to buy out the bank’s version of

that debt,

which is another thirteen billion on top of the twenty two billion that that he’s got in equity. You need cash, maybe. No. This I mean, the the problem the fundamental problem is that Twitter is not a business. It’s a it’s a utility.

And it it I don’t think there are ways to make Twitter wildly profitable as a business, certainly not at the valuation that must pay for it. And all of the imperatives that that go towards making more money for Twitter in the short term, which is what he has to do, are also the kinds of actions they’re going to drive Twitter into the ground as a platform. And, you know, so when people say, well, oh, well, he could save Twitter. Sure. He could make Twitter better.

That’s, like, you know, there are a lot of nerds who have written policy papers about how to save Twitter and make it better over the last decade. The problem is that all of them mean negative growth. You’ve gotta

get away.

You gotta kill the retweet with comment button. You know, no quote tweets. You’ve got to to eliminate the like. You’ve got to enable down voting. These are the things that are gonna tamp down engagement.

And that’s that’s not what is gonna make you more money. Well, I’ve been losing followers

and, you

know, some people, God, love them, don’t wanna participate in the chief Twits thing. And so, you know, that is life, but people gotta come well, the, you know, the Bolt work, you know, you gotta come find us on the sub stack. And Instagram. I don’t wanna have to go on to TikTok because the Chinese are actually worse. We’re spending Elon’s more interesting and bad and there’s kinda shot in Freud element to it and like an element of like, oh my god, what like a car crash element, what it’s gonna happen next, but it’s less bad to to the underlying discourse than what’s happening over on the TikToks.

So I think that

we’re very quickly gonna get to a place where whether you are verified on Twitter is gonna be come a an ideological badge in the way that your vaccination status is an ideological badge. And so that the only people who will be verified on Twitter are Trump types and anti anti anti’s, and everybody else will not be verified in the same way that, you know, you ask somebody who are evacuated, and that’s a pure political tell. What a

world that ever released these assholes, these populace on the both the left and the right were like, we need to break up the social media companies, their monopolies, and, like, that was two years ago. And now all of a sudden, we’re gonna have Twitter, parlor — Yeah. — truth, gab, like the world. Is there a oyster? If you’re if you’re a mega and you wanna shit post?

There’s like so many choices now. Coke has been broken up and and been replaced by four Maga RC colas. You know, somehow it

was bad to have publicly held tech giants, but which are answerable to the market, but privately held tech giants which are beholden to a single person. That’s cool, ma’am. Who has been to China? Totally right. Right.

Yeah. Don’t you think that there

is a total possibility of the like, people are leaving? Yes. Why can’t all the big super users and accounts just go somewhere else and create a new Where? Like, right now, like, truth social, True truth social is is like actually doing kind of okay? They should all

go to truth.

Why don’t we all go to truth social together? No.

But why why why why wouldn’t we have something else? I think that’s possible. Jack is

starting Blue Sky and there are other that’s possible. It takes time now scale. And the Twitter that that Twitter’s one competitive advantage was that it was like, if you wanna see what people are talking about about big event x — Uh-huh. —

you know

there’s one place to go. And so if there’s a fracturing, you know, that that then it will just never be at the same scale, maybe that’s fine. Maybe there’s just fracturing, where the other bunch of network

effects? No. It’ll be good. It’ll be good for the world, for Twitter to die. Okay.

This is our last show before the midterms. Thank God, because I can’t talk about the midterms anymore with them not having happened yet. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do two more shows. Oh, you’re really

you can’t you’re excited to move immediately into talking about Trump twenty twenty four for two years? I mean, I guess, it’ll be better to guess. No

Walt. And no Walt.

It’ll be worse.

So

I would like to make some predictions.

Would anybody

else care Would you like to play a game? Mhmm.

Mhmm. Mhmm. I

I

would. I love games. Alright. I wanna

start

by

saying that

I’m rain cloud and a bad gambler. So just everybody take that into account is when you’re listening to my

my coming predictions. I’m gonna open the bidding at fifty three Republican seats in the Senate. Okay. Which

okay. Well, then who do you have? So Yeah. Okay. So in Georgia, that’s that you’re given the r’s ours in Georgia?

Walker. Okay. Masters. You’re given

it Arizona.

Okay. Vance. K.

Black salt. It’s

a Nevada. And

Oz. Right. And so the Oz holds Ron John holds. Yeah. Those are those are mine.

I I think that your pickups your pickups are

George Arizona and about. Georgia,

Arizona, Nevada. I think Colorado does not come home for the Republicans. I think they hold in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And What about New

Hampshire? There’s some REALLY FRIGHTENING AND POLLING OUT OF ST. ANSWOMM THAT HAS A OLD BOLT — THE GENERAL — THE GENERAL — Reporter: LIKE NECK AND NECK. I I’m

not going that dark, but that’s why if you wanna take the over at fifty three and a half, it’s not crazy. I mean, it’s a low percentage play, but it’s not

crazy. Where where are you,

Timothy? Yeah. I’m going I’m going with fifty two. I’m gonna go fifty two. I I think that I I find it hard to I I don’t hard as an overstatement.

I really don’t think the Republicans end up sweeping Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. That’s like four coin flips. Even if the coin is really like fifty five, forty five Republicans on all four, that you’re still winning for you know, for pretty close to coin flip races at this point. I I I kind of think the Democrats will squeak out one of those the early turnout numbers aren’t spooking you? The early turnout numbers spooking me particularly in Florida, not really so much in Nevada.

The Nevada early turnout numbers aren’t horrible. Right now. The Florida ones are really bad sign just kind of broadly and some of the other blue state ones are pretty bad. Broadly, the Georgia I’m pretty spooked by Georgia. But, you know, that’s why I’m that’s why I’m I’m saying I think that the Republicans win three of those four.

But I don’t know. And my range is basically the best case scenario for the Democrats I think is holding at fifty, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen. All the way up to, I think, fifty four Republicans. But so I’m gonna go right in the middle of that with fifty two, and and I think the Democrats hold on and either probably Nevada is the most like Not Arizona. I think Arizona’s English.

Pennsylvania. I I I’ll yeah. Well,

the the libertarian is out of the race and endorsing Blake Masters because Yeah. That’s bad. That’s a bad development.

Libertarians believe

very, very deeply in using the power of the state to boss private companies around. Yeah. Which is all it’s all right there in Iran. Really? I mean, it’s you know, she lays it out.

That’s what John Gault says over and over again. We must use the power of the state to compel business owners to do what we want. Yeah. Right? Isn’t that liberal libertarianism?

I don’t think so. Am I wrong? I don’t think so. So confusing. Sarah?

So I, the

last time we did this, It’s not on my board anymore, but I had it holding at fifty. I can make a case for that again But to make that case, I would have to believe that Ryan has a chance of picking up Ohio. Which I gotta tell you, this has been my big indulgence as I caveat it. Is I just have trouble with

kind of a

GLib, no Republican can win in Ohio — No Democrat. — when

he’s running such

a good race, And with Vance, people there’s this really actually good dispatch from from Ohio in sleep. Yeah. This I read that It’s a great piece. The middle of the night last night, and it’s a terrific piece. And and it’s sort of the main point.

This is something I’ve really seen in the focus groups. And it’s the thing that kinda makes me just not be able to write it off is people don’t like Vance. They don’t know. They don’t know he’s running. They don’t know anything about him.

It’s not that interesting to them. Like, he’s just not doesn’t have any juice. And so you just gotta assume, and Ryan has been everywhere. And people like him and he’s winning the shared brown voters and brown, one by six at eighteen. That was a great year for Democrats.

This year is not gonna be so it’s it’s hard. I just, like, it is not in possible, and I’m gonna keep it on my board. And if they were gonna hold even, they’d probably it’d be because there was, like, a big upset there just because of Ryan being such a good candidate. I think Georgia goes to a

runoff. Okay?

And then

I’m not sure what happens from there. Right? I am I genuinely am not sure. I think it will become clearer to us down the road.

Right?

Is, does it help worn out to not have Kemp at the top of the ticket. Presuming that, like, Kemp is gonna have a blowout on Stacey Abrams or, like, at least four to six points, let’s say. So does it help to not have that? But also, if Georgia ends up being decisive in terms of who controls the senate, Mitch McConnell will, like, bury the state in money. Like, they will do everything they can.

Every Republican will be there to, like, physically carry on their backs every Republican to the polls. Yeah. In a

weird way, warn knock, I think,’s best chance is to go to a runoff, which I think is still realistic and have the Republicans have

fifty

one. Yeah. That’s right. I wish case. So it gives everybody kind of a lot of cover just to be like, I don’t have to vote for Hersha Walker.

I don’t have to vote for Hersha Walker, actually. I don’t have to hold my nose for this guy. The the the soft, that that little this is presuming that that group exists, and this is in a runoff, and VirTra ends up winning a fifty two percent vote. That’s not there. But I I I think that and I think that’s really possible.

And I think that’s kind of how you get to fifty one if you’re the Democrats, not that that really matters that much, but is, you know, sort of an odds and masters or a lax salt win, and then warnoc goes to a runoff and and kind of does what the same thing happened in twenty twenty. Yeah. And going

back to my thing about the candidates and how much they matter, I mean if it’s a wave, if it’s a wave in Arizona, but I think in Nevada is probably where the Republicans have a better chance in part because Kelly’s been a pretty good candidate. He’s an incumbent people like him. Cortez Masto, people don’t have strong feelings about her. It’s a weird state. You know, I had Rolston John Rolston on the the Focus Group pod.

He’s actually coming back. This week, I’m doing a Nevada Focus Group tonight. And one of the things that’s interesting about the state is because it got hit so hard by the pandemic, a lot of people left, and then a lot of new people came back when, like, they reopened. And so there’s been, like, a real turnover in in just the population. And so it’s really hard to get a beat on like who showed up and is it possible that you know, the people who wanted, you know, came for jobs and wanted to work at a casino that they’re not more Republican than they were previously.

You know, I don’t know. But I would give it’s Nevada as the one that I would give them as a pickup to get them to that fifty one. The Nevada polls, the last

two cycles, have gone the other way from

Yeah.

On

the miss. You know, it’s it’s like the working class Latinos have been harder to pull just like working class whites have been, and that has benefited Democrats in the past maybe not this time. There’s enough of the Latino switch that that doesn’t happen this time. But but that that that’s I think the blue sky argument for Massto over over the other day. So I’m gonna go fifty

one.

K.

Fifty one fifty two fifty three. It’s

gonna be

great. I hope no Supreme Court justices decide that they wanna go spend more time with their family. Because, you know, if there’s fifty one Republican senators, you ain’t gonna get a supreme court nomination voted on beginning, like, January three. Right? Or January seven, the day after day, Mitch McConnell sworn in.

We will have to go two full years with a with a single seat vacant because I guess that’s how we do things now. And you know, we can get off to the races with Donald Trump’s announcement that he is staging the hugest, most historical

come

back ever, and then he’s gonna win the presidency for the third time despite never having won the popular vote. And we get to live with that for another two vote years. Before you transition this out, I know we’ve had a long show, and it’s

been a good show. But I do want Sarah’s take really quick on governor’s races. Yeah. Just just go really fast. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona.

I think Mastriano

loses in Pennsylvania. That polling has held in terms of Shapiro, they’re beating Mastriano, which is good because I live with, like, eight twenty five. What?

Shapiro twenty twenty four. I I I’m starting to feel that way too.

I have some some I I think he’s running a great race. And I’m worried, I think Tim Michaels who just if if this is this just happened, but when you hear this tomorrow, it will be a day old. But he said when he is the governor of Wisconsin that a Republicans will will never lose again. They will never lose again. Oh, because he’s

gonna govern so well. I suspect it’s

because he’s not gonna certify the the results of an election in which a Democrat wins. Thing.

I assume that the People of Wisconsin will punish him for that. I don’t know. I’m quite concerned about

Michaels. I do think EVERS holds on there. So I think I yeah. I know. That’s a big one.

Because that’s that’s tough. If if I was feeling really gloomy, I can certainly say Michael’s wins one. But

do you think Ron John will run ahead of Michaels as hated as he is? Yes. Wow. I think

Ron John will run ahead. And the reason is is that evers is kinda boring, but people are not mad at evers. And so so I’ll give you an example of a place where they are mad. So In in Nevada, there is a Republican running against the incumbent, and and the incumbent is this guy’s bottleneck And people are pissed at him about how he handled the pandemic, and they are mad at him about, like, his payments. They didn’t get the payments out to people.

Like, they’re whatever it is. It’s been a big cluster. It’s like they’re actively mad at him and so they’ve got the sheriff running Joe Lombardo as a Republican. I think Lombardo is gonna win. But Evers, people are kinda like, oh, he’s fine.

Is what I’ve heard in the focus group, and so I’m gonna go ahead and say he hangs on and then incumbency helps him. Michigan and

Arizona.

Arizona is my sad story because I think Cary Lake’s gonna win Arizona. And I think it’s gonna be a squeaker. I think it’s gonna be a squeaker either way, and I think we’re in for hell either way because Carrie Lakes either gonna win by a point or to or she’s gonna lose by a point. And then we are in for her not conceding and recounts in a bunch of hell. I think I think Whitmer’s fine in Michigan.

And I think then At what time

on election night local time, not eastern, does Carrie Lake declare victory? I say that she declares victory the minutes polls close. I

don’t know about the minute polls close, but I agree with you that she she probably declares victory before we have the results. I think shortly after polls

close, she takes the stage and declares especially

because we’re gonna be in a situation again where day of returns are gonna favor Republicans and they’re gonna be ahead and the Democrat stuff’s gonna trickle in and it’s gonna tighten. And, you know, we had a very sad election night in twenty twenty where we did, like, a livestream. And we were watching stuff come in and we were just like, oh my god. And then over time, you know, the even and we even knew and we couldn’t get our heads around it. And so people are gonna need to know that this time and internalize it, that it’s gonna be days before when the if the races are there’s some places where we’re gonna know the night of, but there’s a bunch where we won’t.

I was still kind of

sad even once the final results came in. I was hoping for a repudiation of Donald Trump. So, you know, that that So I guess to find my final

thought

is it’s really great news that we’ve got the leader of the Republican Party, the the coming potential governor of Wisconsin and Arizona, are all less interested in in maintaining Democratic norms than Jair Bolsonaro, the neo fascist leader of Brazil who just lost his runoff election and is is acting kind of just like a normal bad loser. Normal bad loser. Is even

directed his

cabinet to begin working on the transition?

Yeah. Which

is something that our previous president did never do. It’s unbelievable.

So, you know, great. So it’s

— Alright. — that’s a nice place to leave us. Good show, long show, guys, it was great to have you. Everybody, hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, and come to the bulwark dot com. Sign up for all the stuff we’ve got.

It’s all free. It’s all great. And make a

plan

to bring somebody to the polls. Bring a friend to vote. That might help. Sure. Guys, we’re gonna

see you we’re gonna see you again on the other side. Okay? Go vote,

take a

friend, take all your friends. Grab some young people on the way. Just pick them up off the street. The street. Good

show. We’ll see you next time.

Hey, everybody. I hope you

enjoyed this week’s mid term election preview. Next week, the show is gonna be delayed a little bit. We’re gonna tape it on Wednesday, so we have the full election results. We can give you all the analysis you need. Let you know who to be the most scared about, what to be excited about, and preview what’s coming in twenty twenty four.

We’ll see you next week on Wednesday.