913 - Only the Lonely feat. Julian Feeld (3/3/25)

All I wanna be is a jumble.

All I wanna be is a jumble.

We need bombs and pistols.

All I wanna

Hello, everybody.

It's Monday, March 3rd, and we've got some Chopo coming at you.

Joining Felix and I on the program today is Julian Field from the QAnon Anonymous program, who will be sharing some of his dispatches from the Gaylord Convention Center, CPAC, the happiest place on earth.

Julian, welcome.

My pleasure.

I just do want to mention at the beginning of the show, I want to say thank you to everyone who came out last night to Nightclub 101 to support Zoran Mamdani for mayor.

It was a night for the movies and a night for New York City.

Thanks to Hesse, we had a good time watching the Oscars.

And I guess I just before we get into CPAC and the current state of QAnon and the MAGA right wing, I just did want to cover a couple things from the Oscars last night.

And Felix, I'm going to begin with this.

Did you see the DJ Academics post?

Do you mean, did I see the greatest act of civil rights advocacy?

Yes, okay.

We are indeed talking about the same post.

This is courtesy of Academics TV.

I didn't know DJ Academics had a TV network, but I mean, it's mostly, I think, just a platform

for gambling.

I have to say, that's like putting TV in your

Twitter name or your email or anything.

That's sort of unk identity politics.

That's kind of letting everyone know you're a fail lennial

i'm just on the cutoff where i don't do that

this is this is this was like an all-time oscars post because uh i just to set this at the scene here i'm scrolling and i see a split like like an image a split between uh emmett till and conan o'brien and the post reads 14 year old emmett till was dragged from his house and was kidnapped tortured and lynched by a mob of white people after false being falsely accused conan o'brien today accused drape of raping a a minor at the Oscars, and the culture celebrated and laughed.

LOL.

Is this what the culture is feeling?

Lying on an innocent black man?

And what I love about her.

Just a short aside, I love

just putting LOL in there.

That's the greatest convention of online stuff when people are like,

really?

Well, because I think I found you in my backyard going through my garbage and you're trying to clone my wife to raise her from birth and put a bomb in her pussy and come to my house and kill me l mayo

like people do the most insane stuff ever but they're like but at the end of the day it's pretty funny yeah we're all kind of laughing we're always laughing no matter how fucking awful or weird our shit is it's like ha ha ha i'm actually smiling you you have the same personality as adolf hitler And if I was, if I was the doctor that delivered you out of your mother's womb, I would have spiked you through the fucking window.

LOL?

Are we sure he didn't mean like lynching out loud?

I should point out that in addition to the superfluous LOL,

they also misspelled Emmett Till's name.

But I bring this up because it's just like the split image between Emmett Till and Conan O'Brien.

I'm so conditioned by all of DJ Academics' other posts that like I was expecting the copy to read Conan O'Brien or Emmett Till, who y'all rocking with?

Well,

that's the new citizen test.

If you're coming from South Africa after they, you know, after

the economic freedom fighters took your farm, you have to, you have to say Conan if you want it.

Obviously.

Well, he's got red hair, you know?

Yeah.

That was just but one of I have to mention another amazing Oscars night meltdown.

And this is, I have to give a shout out to like a longtime friend of the show.

He's been off my radar for a long time.

But like, he just, he announced himself with just perfect clarity once again.

An old friend, a warm embrace.

It's like he never left.

I'm speaking, of course, about Jon Podhoritz's fucking Schnippers choking meltdown about No Other Land winning best documentary.

Now, this is like a perfect night of J-Pod posting because like the first 40 minutes of the broadcast, he posted, this is the best Oscars I've ever seen.

And I've been watching since 1971.

And then No Other Land won Best Documentary.

And he was like, Subhuman anti-Israel filth must be purged from Hollywood.

Fuck you, chew-hating scum, though.

The actual post I want to read here: he says, Once you won minor movie awards for making Holocaust things, now it's for anti-Israel things.

Thank God the movies are dying.

And like, Alex Mariner is not a family.

Fucking Oscar?

A minor movie award.

But I just love what he says says for making Holocaust things.

But yeah, but not,

you can really tell how serious it is.

Just Holocaust things.

Well, I love this whole exchange.

Obviously, because it's just like, I mean, if you needed any more confirmation that you could just like tune out when people start screaming about this stuff, the fact that he like 30 posts before that.

You know,

I'm afraid to refill my popcorn because I'm going to to miss another great monologue joke.

And then, you know,

all this shit, like

all of the, all this shit, you know, Zoe saw Donna, you know, who dressed her tonight?

And then I, I just barricaded my doors.

I killed my wife because a Jew-hating mob is going to kill us.

I love this whole, I love this whole thing with this movie in particular because it's, you know, ever since that Zach Bocamp article, like a week after October 7th, that was like, liberals, that liberal Zionism, you like, is coming back in style.

Liberal Zionists, including the makers of this movie,

have been trying, like pushing with both hands, putting their entire body into trying to make people believe that, you know, there's still, you can still be a Zionist and not be like a fucking crazy person who's screaming all the time and, you know, taking your shirt off on Southwest flights because a guy has a Palestine pin on and calling everyone a Jew hater and, you know, all of this stuff.

They're like, we're normal, we're liberals, everyone could get along in Israel, everyone's like Obama over there.

And the reward they get from the other Zionists is just this.

Like, you want to nuke Tel Aviv.

You're in ISIS.

The Oscars are a great night for posting.

But

I do want to, before we get into talking about CPAC, I did want to talk about probably the biggest news story that we didn't get a chance to cover last week, which was the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office press conference and buck-breaking humiliation ritual.

I mean,

I know you guys saw that.

So, I mean, what did you make of this spectacle?

I mean, that was one of the most brutal drawing downs I've seen yet.

But I love that Trump was just talking like a casino guy.

You know, he's like, you don't got the cards, okay?

You don't have a full house, okay?

You're leaving a draw on Ace on the river, but it's not going to happen.

And Zelensky's like, I'm not playing cards, okay?

This is fucking real.

I'm going to be honest.

I didn't see the whole thing.

I just saw the highlights.

Apparently, like, it was going, it was like,

I don't even know why I'm saying this.

This is just like third hand.

I'm describing a post, describing another post of a guy who allegedly watched all of it.

But apparently it was going like fine, but a little tense.

And then

there was like a flare-up over

like Zell Disney asking JD Vance if he's ever been to war.

And J.D.

Vance was like, I've read about it.

Wasn't he in the Marines, though?

You can, there are a lot of fucking pussy.

He was like, like, he was like a Mariah guy.

Yeah, I see Marines all the time on Twitter who've only ever worked for think tanks.

I think you can be, I think it's like the, you know, like the Rotary Club.

Like there are a lot of levels of participation.

It's not like the old days where, you know, they definitely killed someone and they have a high-interest car and they take 700 Perco sets a day.

You could be a Marine and be a real pussy now.

I think like among two TV personalities, because obviously Zelensky used to be an actor, like he was just coming and he was doing the NATO script.

He was like, well, you don't feel the heat right now, but you will eventually somehow in the United States, like feel the long arm of Russia.

And Trump was like, don't fucking tell me what I feel and what I am.

And that really, that really pissed him off.

So he turned it into a punct.

But I want to say, Zelensky should have learned from the Kurds.

Do not ally with the United States.

Cannot be trusted.

Yeah.

No, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think that that is the lesson to be taken away from this because

when you have

what seems like unlimited U.S.

backing, you can take a very hard line and you can reject neutrality and want to join NATO.

The wick on that's going to run out and then you're going to be completely left in the cold.

And like, honestly,

I have have to feel bad for Zelensky because he has to go home now to a country where like half of the people in his government and military absolutely will kill him if he tries to like end this war and negotiate a ceasefire.

Yeah, this was all, this was all like, I mean, exactly the course of like the last couple months here was very predictable back in 2022

for anyone who's paid attention to any U.S.

ally that doesn't have

favored customer status or

a

really annoying lobby.

Actually, Ukraine has an annoying lobby, but not as annoying as the one that I'm referencing.

Yeah, no, you would get screamed at if you pointed that out then.

But yeah, no, it really, it's like, you know,

I think you're heartless if you don't feel like a little fucking bad for them at least.

Like, shit.

Yeah, it's horrible.

It sucks.

It fucking sucks.

And like, yeah, you know, this is sadly like a predictable path for U.S.

allies without favored status, but it's like, you know, they got rid of their fucking nukes.

That's the, that's the real thing.

Just never get rid of your nukes.

I mean, I think the, the real, the real star of this TV spectacle was, of course, uh, marine jughead, uh, JD Vance.

And like, I saw a lot of people being like, he, he showed what American masculinity was is like.

He looks like he is ALS.

He was like, every time I see his legs, don't talk like that to dad.

Yeah.

And like,

you know, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of horny posting about J.D.

Vance.

And you know what?

You can make fun of it, but given how many people have compared me, my looks to J.D.

Vance, I say keep the horny posting coming.

This is the new look that we're all very hot for.

But I got to say, he sounded like, I mean, speaking of relationships, he sounded like a girlfriend when you forget her birthday.

You know, which is like,

have you ever thought to say thank you?

Have you said thank you once in this entire meeting?

No, in this entire meeting that you said thank you.

If you went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.

Yeah, that's the same tone of voice when like your girlfriend's friend gets you the like most passive aggressive gift of all time.

When she gets you like a book on how to quit vaping.

You're like, oh, thanks.

I'm already having so much fun at my birthday party where it's only your friends.

Well, like like I said,

it was a, you know, it was a quite, quite a, quite a TV moment.

But, like, I, once again, with Trump, it's just like, it all seems so grotesque, but like, really, he's just laying bare what U.S.

policy has basically always been.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, it's just like the fact that it's happening to Ukraine and not a government in South America or Africa, I guess, makes it feel different this time.

But, like, this is just like, he's just putting it all out there.

I mean, at least,

I guess you can call them a lot of things, but I suppose, you know, dishonest on this account is not one of them.

No, it's like he's showing like you will be prey to my personal whims.

It's whatever the fuck I say and not otherwise.

And that might change from day to one day to the next.

And Zelensky was just going in there, like, okay, well, let's, you know, let's keep this thing going.

But it's, yeah, Trump is just, everything is very personal for him.

So

it's just weird, though, because it's like...

There is all this posture about like, yeah, how he didn't say thank you and he

did a bad job at Ukraine And it's all, you know, it's all his fault.

He fucked everything up.

But then like Trump will say, and I'm all, I was the first guy to send them javelins.

And if he doesn't like get his act together, I won't let them fight the war anymore.

And it'll be a new guy fighting the war.

So like after all this, he's he, after the mineral deal, after everything, he's like, no, I'm still going to like do the Biden policy.

But we're just, we're just going to have this weird, weird thing where JD Vance makes him say thank you to donald tusk and also i gotta say a special shout out to lindsey graham uh who was like doing selfies with zelensky five minutes before this uh oval office encounter and then like as soon as it was over he was just like zelinsky is a disgrace he didn't even wear a suit to the white house And I got to say, like, it is such a stupid complaint, but like, if I was in Zelensky's position, I would probably put on a suit.

Yeah, that, yeah.

Like,

I have to, like, if you're meeting fucking Donald Trump, if I, like, if I was being brought to the White House because they're executing me you know like i i you know i did something really bad i i gave a cartel some uranium you know

i i blew up one of the most beloved trump grandkids you know i was playing with my gun and i shot a red barrel and kai trump exploded um

i and they're like we're gonna behead him and everyone everyone's cheering for me you know for my death i would spend my last i wouldn't get a lawyer i would spend my last money on a brioni suit so when trump saw me you know on the news he's like now that's a you know sharp looking guy and then you know i'm all the way i'm all the way uh on my way to a pardon trump hit his kid for like dressing in the baseball outfit instead of a two-state game

so it's like yeah saw this one coming i i i have to say it's like i have always kind of disliked that about zelensky because it's like okay if you're if your country's invaded, sure.

But when it's like, okay, I'm going to Israel to ask them for some Israel stuff, it's like, you know, you're staying in an embassy hotel.

You don't need to wear your war sweatshirt.

Yeah, people used to dress in like cool uniforms with like a bunch of medals that they didn't earn, you know?

And this is like the kind of like everyman

war general look.

I don't know.

Well, yeah, it's like the, it's like the new style of,

operator where they all have their own coffee brand.

And they like, yeah,

this is operator shit.

This like crew neck and like cargo sweatpants shit.

Death squad coffee.

This coffee will have you filling a mass grave in no time.

Cold press, gang.

Very good.

I am become meme.

Yeah, pretty much.

I'm just, I'm living the meme.

It's like there's living the dream and there's living the meme, and it's pretty much what's happening, you know.

Julian,

before we get too far into the news, I do want to talk about your trip to CPAC the other week.

Now, I'm glad someone was there covering it.

I feel like CPAC this year just crept up on me, and I had no idea what was going on, but I'm very glad that someone was there in, as I've mentioned it before, the happiest place on earth, the Gaylord Convention Center in Maryland.

Julian,

from your writing on CPAC, and I want to talk about

the current state of QAnon as well, but the thing that came across to me was that as compared to the last Trump administration, when Felix, Matt, and I, when we visited CPAC, it seemed like the first Trump administration CPAC,

it was a happier affair.

And even though they're sitting on top of the world right now, the impression I got from your coverage of the second Trump term CPAC is that they're all really angry.

And even though

they fulfilled their grandest wishes, politically speaking, they seem very,

I don't know, uneasy and upset and angry.

Am I correct in thinking that?

A lot of revenge seeking.

And I feel like that is the difference between who Trump appointed this time around.

Last time it was like a bunch of useless people that he kind of fired, but this time it's like anybody out for blood.

You know, the ICE guy was talking about how they're bringing back some of the good old boys, like people who were fired for being too fucking wild even for ICE.

So they're deliberalizing all of these empire kind of tools.

And I think that is the main thing.

It's like it's an internal argument over whether we need the carrot in the carrot and stick configuration of the American Empire.

Do we even need the carrot?

Fuck the carrot.

Why don't we just like, you know, get rid of USAID and

use the money for force?

And I know like certain fissures have arisen between the MAGA right, which is like totally dominant and more traditional conservative Republicans over a number of things.

Like, you know, more traditionally neoconservative, hawkish Reagan Republicans don't like his appeasement of Russia.

And I guess more like, you know, morally traditional people don't like his, you know,

carnival of porn stars and pimps and sex traffickers that he keeps parading around the White House.

But like, Julian, can you detect any tensions or fissures within the MAGA movement itself?

No, actually.

I mean, there are so many inherent contradictions, but I feel like that is what we're just getting better at

kind of shoving aside because everybody has essentially a fictional

subtext to whatever they're experiencing, right?

So there's what's being said on stage.

And then for like someone who's super into QAnon, he's like, oh, well, yeah, they're talking about the storm.

And then for someone who's a bit more of a Reaganite, it's like, oh, yeah, that's good.

They're asserting, you know, American geopolitical dominance.

So everyone's filling in the blanks.

And I think that's one of like the main things is that everybody's yes ending now.

And currently, I think the Fishers are not, they're not going to show up until revenge has been taken.

That's the main thing.

It's like, fuck these liberals.

We put up with it for four years.

We're going to

get Comey.

The J Sixers were there and they were talking about that.

I mean, one of the women said the hunters have become the hunted.

And

there's this idea of like, well, now it's our turn to use, you know, the guns and the power and the judiciary system.

And we're going to, we're going to use it against you guys now.

In general,

you know, just with presidential politics, it does seem like the fractures are much more evident the

thinner their margin of victory is.

Yeah.

Because, you know, then individual factions.

of the coalition that can command larger swaths of votes can extract more out of the president and uh you know uh his subfactions and we did we did see that a lot with trump one that um there was this push and pull between both the more traditional republicans the jared and navanka people the evangelicals and then like the the bannonites but yeah this time well you know when you win the popular vote and there's a clear majority then there's a lot more breathing room for everyone, even if those,

you know, special interest groups or pressure groups can't extract the same things out of the president.

Bannon followed Musk, and like he had, he had, he had, I guess, commented that Musk was an illegal alien and that what he was doing was, you know,

shit.

And then, you know, what he called them on stage was like, oh, it's going to be hard to follow like this genius, this Superman, you know?

So even if he's kind of, I think, being a bit bitterly

false about it, but, you know, it's like, I feel like they've all agreed agreed now is the time to assert power and not argue about how we feel about each other, even though Bannon can't help but being a catty bitch.

I do kind of wonder,

just because, I mean,

I don't know if people have seen the Fed projection, but it's already one point shittier than it was yesterday,

like a 2.9% contraction in quarter one.

If the logical conclusion to austerity happens and the economy really takes a shit, I anticipate that it's going to be like a Bush 2 type thing where it's like, you know, everyone is just going to be stepping all over each other to say, well, I knew it was bad pretty early on.

Yeah, it's not looking great.

I mean,

the president was pumping some of the shittier

crypto coins over the weekend, like Cardano and XRP.

Cardano?

Yes.

What the fuck is Cardano?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Let's just put it this way.

David Sachs has a bag.

The strategic crypto reserve is one of the most insane.

And I really, I'm looking forward to this.

I'm really looking forward to a world in which Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that cannot be relied upon, even though it's paid out for 90 years without fail.

But meme coins are now a strategic asset, strategic economic asset of this country.

Like, how would a strategic crypto reserve even work?

Like, I like, you know, usually, like, what are they going to tap into it if a Dogecoin collapses?

Like, I, what if the government needs to buy Molly on the dark net?

There's currently no mechanism for them to do that.

Um, yeah, I, I, it's like the only plan besides, you know, just like looting the treasury for fucking David Sachs and every other member of the all-in podcast is like just looking at Argentina and going, How about that, but worse?

Yeah, how about Mile?

Julian, did you get to see Mile at all?

I did.

He had a really poor performance as far as his speech went.

He had his reading glasses on, kind of tilted down over his nose, and he was just reading his speech the entire time.

So, you know, and even then it was in Spanish and they did the live translation.

People loved it, but they mostly loved it because he handed a big chainsaw to Elon Musk that he had uh i guess like custom engraved for him melee um he's interesting to me because he like really wants to get in good with trump obviously but the first sort of uh communication he had with trump it was like a video conference thing i think at another cpac and melee was like like weeping during it and i think it really grossed trump out like he does not like that but it doesn't surprise me the crowd liked him because melee um someone pointed this out that you know his speech is very, you know,

you see the translations are like, you can't give left hards anything.

They're shit.

We have to kill them.

And that sounds so good in like Rio Plot and Spanish, like a language where you trill your R's.

Yeah.

You know,

going back to Zelensky and everyone shitting on him for not wearing a suit to the Oval Office.

How come Mile doesn't get danged for like not cutting his fucking hair like as a world leader?

Like, how can you be a world leader, like in good standing with the United States government and have a fucking mop of hair that looks that stupid?

Melee looks like every, like, you know,

the type of kid that's like clearly autistic, but the mom is like, he's just quiet.

I mean,

he's bitten every teacher he is that he's ever had, but it was all their fault.

Like Melissa George's kid in the slap.

Put him next to Musk, though.

Musk comes out with like a fucking toy gold chain and like

sunglasses and a t-shirt.

And backstage, my favorite like little detail was that they in the green room, Millay did like a kind of gifting to him of the chainsaw, which they then recreated on stage for effect.

But there was this point where like the camera crew that wanted to film the moment that was probably with Millay walked in with him.

And you just see Elon Musk like he's at the craft table.

And as he turns around, he's slipping on the glasses.

I really have a feeling that he didn't want anyone to see his pupils.

Yeah.

I did, someone did get a shot of his eyes peeking through his big glasses, and they look insane.

I don't even think he's taking Molly.

Like, when you, he went, he's not acting like a guy on Molly.

I think it's like he's taking like super Riddle.

He's giving something they give to the worst kids ever.

Yeah, it was, it was like interesting because he clearly could not speak coherently it was it was outrageous and the interview was so obsequious the guy was like oh what's it like to be in the brain of like a genius you know what's it like to like do so many things all at once that was a very literally a question and he he ended up mumbling after like i don't know how many seconds of uming and awing he he was like oh uh it's a storm but while he was trying to get that answer out there was like an older woman in the in the audience next to me and she turned to her friend and she's like he's such a genius like he he he can't even uh speak

yeah

which again that's perfect you know it's like there's so much yes ending there's so much like generosity of interpretation i love it well i wonder if you ever tried that with biden like his his thoughts are too brilliant to to reach his lips he's he's he's concocting this amazing theory on world systems but what what it what actually comes out of his mouth is president trump

Julian, I mean, I love that you describe it as like everyone is yes-ending right now.

Because, like, you know, when QAnon became a thing and, like, you know, through your coverage of it, I think, like, the most interesting thing about it was that it was like this collective auto-fiction project in which it was telling a story, but each person reading the story could contribute to the story, and like the story would become part of their lives, and that they could create the narrative as they were reading it.

Like, they could, you could, like, decide what happens next because it's all this, like,

self-referential um like hodgepodge but like in

second term trump cpac i mean like what has happened to q anon is it a matter of q and like because you said like there's way less explicitly q branded things but isn't this just a reflection of the fact that q anon has just succeeded like i mean the swam is here it's arrived they've the great awakening has happened like so what utility is it like how like how do you describe this evolution and like and like the these like the people now that they have power?

I will say that there was absolutely no QAnon on t-shirts, not even a sticker.

So, the label is gone.

But I was talking to some J Sixers that were in the back of the room because they started basically interacting with the press back there

when Trump was speaking.

And I spoke to one guy who had written down his information on the back of his prison federal ID, but he had written it in ink on plastic, so it was kind of smudged.

But I could see that his username was Crumb with a Q.

So I was like, hey, why do you spell Crumb with a Q?

And he was like, oh, yeah, I'm a follower of Q.

So I kind of asked him a couple of things.

And one of my questions was, like, do you think that the storm has come true?

And he just pointed to the stage and he said,

he's right there.

So it's like this idea of,

yeah, obviously it didn't happen exactly like we thought.

We didn't get the executions.

We didn't get the military tribunals.

The very first Q post was, Hillary Clinton will be arrested within 48 hours.

Obviously, that did not happen.

But they're kind of, since they can do this yes ending or this like creation of a kind of fictional subtext,

almost like adding a like a folklore story to whatever's being said on stage, they can interpret it however they want, right?

So the person on stage will say one thing and what they're hearing is, yeah, the storm is here.

And I think to a certain extent, everybody is doing that now, right?

It's like we're all becoming very, very good at cope creative writing.

Yeah.

Q is, yeah, it's like they're writing loss together in the final.

That's exactly it.

Nobody knows where the fuck it's going or how to end it.

Yeah, yeah.

But

you are right also, though, that like,

to a certain extent, that is all understanding of politics, like

pure wish casting.

Like on the Democratic side, I think a lot of that, like, oh, when the, you know, when the Musk-Trump rift comes in a week, you know, a year ago.

I think people also ignore the fact that Russia Gate was born at the same time as QAnon and was basically a mirror narrative.

It just had like tonal differences, you know, instead of like military tribunals and executions, it's like the FBI will do a great job and this person will serve their time in jail.

You know, it was like a more fair, liberalized version.

But we've been fucking splitting off into like these creating creative writing exercises more and more.

And I feel like liberals also recently, you know, with with the assassination attempt, the amount of people that still think that was staged, and then the amount of people that turned on the mainstream media and said, we actually have to like start listening to podcasters and like independent outlets because these people have it in for Biden.

You know, everybody is

as paranoid and as like, you know, you got to do your own research as QAnon,

I think, like, presaged.

Essentially, it was just like a kind of freak strand that was like a good shot across the bow of like, this is going to be how we all deal with the fact that none of what we want is coming true.

Because QAnon was created as like, Trump is not doing what I need him to.

Oh, what does that mean?

Well, he's fucking doing 5D chess.

Same way as that fucking tweet where it was like

Biden talking about like the Finlandization of NATO or the NATOization of Finland.

I can't remember, but that guy who tweeted like, oh, this guy doesn't have a PhD in like foreign, you know,

it's like, just, it's just like you see what you want to see, you know, and we need to think that these people are not just up there melting and bumbling, they actually have a secret plan.

Well, you know, where the um 5D chess meme comes from, the tenure of the O'Bungler.

It was, it was, it was, it was a way for, um, you know, Obama bots to deal with the

kind of first term that O'Bungler had, where it's like, you know, a stimulus bill that's just like all tax credits for like like ExxonMobil and shit.

And, you know, and it was another kind of proto-Q thing.

Oh, just wait for second term Obama.

That was a huge fucking thing on like Box and all those places.

And then it was like, wait, wait till lame duck Obama.

Then when he's really unleashed, you know, he got, he has no fucks to give at this point.

Remember that Key and Peele sketch?

That was the

sort of like hinge point of the

fuck, what was his name?

The Time for a Game Theory guy.

eric garland oh man eric garland that that was what that entire thread was hinged on was the oh people think obama is doing nothing after russia gate happened well trump is going to be executed on january 19th right before inauguration i mean steve bannon remember he was supposed to be executed for treason oh yeah it gives me no pleasure yeah it gives me no pleasure to report this i'm proud

yeah uh but julian What I'm interested in is like now that QAnon has at least like at least the branding has receded in and you know and like has been washed away by like just the politics of just you know being in the White House

what has happened to like that first generation of like Q influencers like people like the praying medic Liz Kronkin

and even even General Michael Flynn like have they been also displaced by like a new

a new brand of influencer but like how are they how are they metabolizing this this evolution I feel like they were always about the brand right they were like QAnon is what we're pushing.

Whereas I think the people who've kind of like Marjorie Taylor Green, or even actually Flynn, even though he didn't get a spot in the current administration, probably mostly because he was yelling at Trump to put in martial law, I think, like at the end of his last term when he lost the election.

But he must have pissed off Trump somewhere in some back room, I'm sure.

But Cash Patel appeared on like more than 50 like episodes of podcasts from some of the most bizarre, like QAnon independent media outlet things.

And he knows what it's for.

He knows that it's just a mechanism to

kind of encourage people to write the fictional aspect that will allow them to continue supporting you.

And he knows that these are some of the best soldiers.

But like the digital soldier thing, which was coined by Michael Flynn.

Everyone now is a digital soldier.

And I feel like everyone's in an information war.

Like Alex Jones has won.

Like we are just fighting over narrative now.

And even if I'm wrong, like there's no point pointing that out because you're giving a point to the other team.

Like

you're letting the other team win, right?

It's not at all like, you know, there was that whole liberal phase of like fact checking and shit like that.

Now it's just like, no, like we need to get our word.

It's like Kony 2012 like awareness campaign stuff.

We need to win the hearts and minds because everyone has resorted to like, well, if there's no material change, like the best we can do is win the PSYOP, right?

Like the best we can do is win like the

hearts and minds of our own population now.

Do you want to be the person humiliated by the ritual or do you want to be the person running the humiliation ritual?

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Whose side are you on anyways?

Like that is, that is a universal feeling now when there's an argument online.

It's no longer like, well, is that true or does that make any sense?

It's just pointing fingers.

And

I think that is the true legacy is like both this creative writing, like fictionalizing, like folk storytelling storytelling that we're all able to contend or all able to participate in, but also it's like posting for the hearts and minds.

Like we are information warriors online and this matters.

The discourse matters because otherwise

what does matter?

Because I think we do feel even worse than like during O Bungler, that we're just like further and further from the levers of power.

Another one of the lasting legacies of QAnon, I think, is

our widespread cultural obsession with and hysteria over pedophilia and human trafficking.

And like, I'm wondering, like, you know, like the thing we started talking about the show, the Conan O'Brien joke about Kendrick calling Drake a pedophile.

Like, like,

this current moment of like the Drake-Kendrick beef, which is like assuming popular culture for the last year, is all over accusations of pedophilia.

Like, would that have even been a thing were it not for QAnon?

And, like, the other thing that, like, you make clear in one of your pieces about this is that like the net result of this has made like actually prosecuting people who abuse children like a great deal harder in many cases.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Of course, because the real way that people are trafficked is just so far from anything that is shown even in like the most

kind of sterilized version, which is like the Sound of Freedom movie, that kind of stuff.

But definitely the QAnon vision of like how children are trafficked is insane, you know?

But felix i wanted to ask you because i felt a bit like um damn uh you know i predicted it in my piece or something uh because meek mill i think a few days ago posted i have a new song coming out called pizzagate

got his finger on the pulse i see

oh man he's just always coming in at the wrong time

just unconditionally that's it you like look at the kendrick and like uh you know you're like well he's making it work he had a fucking Grammy, fucking Super Bowl.

I guess I'll just go full QAnon.

You know, that's like the dumb guys

logic.

But I do feel like, yeah, the fact that now the debate is like,

you know, was this or wasn't this a demonic ritual anytime anything appears on television?

Yeah.

That's, that is, that is an incredibly like normalized thing now.

We're just doing 80s satanic panic constantly.

And also, like, as like part and parcel of like this folk storytelling and everything now is an an info war and a psyop, if you don't like someone or disagree with them, just call them a pedophile or a groomer.

You can do it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

What are they going to do?

Yeah.

I mean, that's also, I mean, Donald Trump really pioneered that.

It's like, just say the thing.

Just fucking say it.

What are they going to do?

And once you realize that there's no bumpers, it's like, fuck it.

Just go for that.

And like, who would ever defend a pedophile?

You know?

But like, I mean, like, one of the things that like your piece about this current CPAC makes clear is that this is, I mean, it was true when we went but it seems like even more in your face now that this is just a carnival of jubilant cruelty I think is the phrase you use and like I can't help but think about this you know

this like obsession with rape and pedophilia and human trafficking like there's a distinct flavor of like

wish fulfillment fantasy in like the people most obsessed with this.

Like I do get the impression that they're like, we have to stop illegal immigrants from like raping and kidnapping women because there are women and that's what like we're allowed to do to them now.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, like we've been, we've been doing cope about like America, because if we keep telling ourselves that the United States is a good country and that we want a fairer, better world,

whether you're conservative or liberal, there's got to be on some level like a subconscious thing of like, well, what about like the fact that, you know, we founded it on genocide?

What about all these horrifying things we've been doing abroad?

And, you know, the fact that we allied, you know, in Afghanistan with like boy rapists and, and we ran all these black sites.

I think that we're just kind of seeing,

we're seeing like the fruit of empire, the mental toll that it eventually takes, where, you know, you, you start to fantasize because you can't, you're looking at like a beautiful, I don't know, Walmart or something, but underneath that, like we can sense that something rotten is afoot and that maybe this is not right.

Like, whatever this is, maybe it actually isn't good.

And so it's like, yeah, I mean, my neighbor's probably a pedophile, you know?

Like, I think it is like a way of coping with the fact that like, are we the baddies, you know, kind of.

I don't know.

I mean, like, I think.

I think like in a lot of cases, people do definitely like underestimate how much culture is downstream from politics.

And there are a lot of like very direct sometimes very indirect, weird knock-on effects of like you know, having an empire that isn't explicitly called as such.

Um,

but I do, I don't know, like, how many like local news pages have you ever followed on uh like Facebook a few years ago?

Because it's, it's, I, I do wonder if this is just like the natural state for a lot of people, yeah, just the this is just what, like, this is just what you do when you're bored

that you're like, you work yourself into a frenzy.

Like, I bring up local news pages because, like, I have a distinct memory of like going on Facebook in 2012 and seeing people like, you know,

there are pictures of them with like their family, their kids, their workplace, their full names, where they live.

And

there would be like a news story about like, you know, someone who committed like, not even like a felony robbery, just like shoplifting.

And they'd be like, we should hang this piece of shit.

Yeah, we should like, oh, I can't wait till he goes to jail and gets raped.

Yeah, and

yeah, I don't like, I, you know, maybe that is because of uh, you know, the underlying horrors, or I, in a lot of cases, I do just think that's what you do when you're bored.

Well, I mean, it gets back to this like auto fiction quality to all of this, because I think, like, the truth of the matter is, for like the American Western middle classes, life has never been like safer or less dangerous.

And I think that kind of drives people insane.

And I think they need to like create a sense of like

invigoration in their lives by creating all these fantasy contexts for like violence and a miseration and human degradation and torture.

Like it's just you have to sort of goose yourself to keep getting out of bed every morning in your safe, boring life.

Yeah, it was Sebastian Gorka during his speech that like played footage of a bombing in

Somalia of like jihadists And his whole kind of talk around this was like, President Trump is now in office.

And, you know, we told him, we've been observing this Somali jihadist camp.

And, you know, it's like, well, why don't we kill them?

Well, Joe Biden has been observing them because he actually loves them, of course.

He loves these beautiful jihadi Somalians.

And then, and then it's like,

you know,

his like punchline was Trump going, kill them, you know, and then he showed the footage of like a guy crawling a mountainside, just disappearing into a big fucking plume of smoke, and people were cheering like crazy.

But even for him, I don't think it felt real because the way he compared being in the situation room under the um

under the like the west wing was it was like being on an episode of 24 or in a jason ball movie So even the people doing the

kind of horrifying violence, I feel, I think feel completely removed and also even understand their relationship to it through

fiction, through movies, through TV.

It would be so fucked up to be like killed partly by Sebastian Gorka.

I mean, like, the American Empire is a lot of things, but chiefly among them, ignominious.

Just like a horribly undignified way, like author of your death.

Even, even like the incarceration aspect was interesting because, you know, there's this whole Salvadoran mega jail that like Naib Bukele

has set up and said, hey, you can send your people over here.

And apparently the plan is, and we'll see how this goes, but even like some American citizens technically would end up there.

And what's interesting about that jail, once you look into it, is that there's no rehabilitation program at all.

And there's no release date for anybody.

It is.

You are thrown in here and you will never see the light of day.

They don't try to rehabilitate you.

They don't try to like make you exercise or

there's none of that.

It's just, you know, put them in jail, throw away the key.

And

the exporting of

prison,

that would be a new, kind of a new low.

Well, yeah, and they actually, they,

that prison that, you know, they started ostensibly because of like the gang problem there, where they're just like, you know, doing these dragnets where they pick up like tens of thousands of people and just, you know, declare that they're in a gang either because of like tattoos or whatever it's you know they wanted to build it but bukeley said well it costs a lot of money the only way we can get a deal is if we let an american private prison do it and like you know skim some off the top and it's yeah it's i mean

kind of a logical endpoint of this entire system Well, I mean, I think about whether it's the prospect of incarcerating American citizens in the Salvadoran super jail, or I mean, I'm just seeing here just like something I saw before I started recording.

This is just marking that Iowa Republicans have just ended civil rights protections for transgender Americans.

And this was like after they had passed laws like, you know, banning discrimination in housing, employment, and education.

If you're trans.

So this would be like markedly removing the civil rights of people after you've already, you know, recognized those civil rights in a very short amount of time.

And

I think when I think about, like, like you said, this carnival of sort of, you know, gleeful sadism is that I think for these people, freedom is something that's experienced by their ability to take away the freedom of other people.

Because I think it's just like when you don't have freedom or authority or power over your own life, and you know, chances are you probably never will, then like this is the next best thing.

And I think, like, when people on the right talk about freedom and liberty, I think it should always be understood in that proper context of like my individual freedom to oppress and take away the freedoms of other people I don't like.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole matt thing of like free real estate.

And if we run out of it, we're going to have to find some way to assert and take.

And yeah, I don't know.

I mean,

it does feel like the logical next step, but it is,

it's pretty fucking weird.

Julian, in your time spent at CPAC,

who are among your favorite characters?

Like, are people just flogging their merchandise or these weird groups?

I mean, my personal favorite was the Japanese right-winger who's the founder of something called the Happiness Realization Party, which I think is my favorite name for a political party.

I love Japanese far-right parties because it's all like it's the opposite of Israel, where like all the most insane parties are called like the Life Rejuvenation Center.

They're all like founded by like the survivors of Unit 731, and they're like the happiness project.

Yeah,

there's there's like a

kind of layers to this one because originally it's a cult called happy science and it does

so this guy Jay Aeba like he he is obviously below the cult leader who is like, you know, a bit like the Moonies, you know, a kind of god figure.

And then Happy Science created the political party and then the political party

created another

sub organization.

And then it ends with CPAC Japan.

And it's kind of the same thing as like CPAC Korea.

It feels like the Republicans love an Asian cult,

whether it's the Moonies, Falun Gong, or in this case, Happy Science, which I did not know even existed until I started looking into JAEBA because the, oh, that's right.

The organization in between

Happiness Realization Party and CPAC Japan is called the Japanese Conservative

Union or something like that.

So it's like, yeah, obviously it's kind of been stripped of all its weird, like, cult-y origins, but it's the same.

It's the same shit.

I personally love JFK Jr.

It was really nice to run.

Oh, yeah, you met the man himself.

I love this guy because he's everywhere.

I have never been at any event without him kind of popping up like a leprechaun, and I could not get away from him.

Like he seemed to have a magical ability to be in every corridor, around every corner at CPAC.

And he always had like middle-aged women coming up to him.

And he was like pulled like crazy.

I mean, that's why he shows up to all the people.

getting more he is getting more clown than barnum and bailey yeah

he is he he's incredible uh and in his old like wink wink nudge nudge was like i'm jfk jr but his new one is based on the fact that he was i don't know if you guys have seen like the assassination footage uh or the assassination attempt footage of that uh donald trump rally but he's the one standing behind donald trump he's the only one who doesn't duck and react properly to the shots

only history you know he just

memory.

He looks around confused.

And

first time.

Yeah.

And so

exactly.

And he now is like really milking that.

Like he made t-shirts that were his own design that say Trump's guardian angel.

And if you ask him, like, so are you Trump's guardian angel?

He goes, well, I don't know, you know, I don't know.

Kind of like the same act that he does with JFK Jr.

And I asked him, I was like, so is Trump's guardian angel, a guy who's definitely not you,

JFK Jr.

And he got the biggest smile and he was like, you know, too much.

And that's it.

His whole thing is like a circus act of like, he, he keeps his new line is like, those three seconds when Trump was shot at, they're like three hours.

I've had so many thoughts about this.

So many, but I can't talk to you about them right now because it would take too much time.

We'd be, we'd be standing here all day.

So he's always pushing it to the next time.

And then I was trying to buy the t-shirt off him, which he was reticent to sell me because he wanted to get it to Nigel Farage.

He was going to give Nigel Farage his t-shirt.

Julian, what I love, what I love about JFK Jr.

slash Vincent F is, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but like, I mean, he's obviously at all these right-wing events.

He's sort of like become a mascot for all of these.

you know, various causes and politicians and political movements.

But like, has he ever said anything overtly political about any of this other than like, I love Trump?

Yeah, no, that's it.

He's, he's really way more of like the carnival aspect, right?

Like, I've never heard him talk hard policy.

He's, he's a bit, uh, he's halfway between like a huckster and a mystic, I guess.

Yeah, he's kind of a perfect person for the moment because he, he even seemed to know Matt Schlapp somehow.

He was like, oh, yeah, I was talking to Matt about this.

Like, he was legitimately seemed tapped into everybody.

So he would be talking intimately with everybody involved.

And yet, like you said,

Matt Schlap is not tapped into him.

Yeah, he grabbed him by the crotch and looked at him in the eyes.

Did you guys follow a little bit that Match Slap story?

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, if my favorite thing slaps in the news, we're covering it.

My favorite thing about that is that when he got kicked out of that bar for grabbing the guy's dick,

he left his card and his tab unclosed.

So at the end of the night,

yeah, at the end of the night, the bar guy was just calling out his name over and over.

Matt Matt Schlap.

Matt Schlap.

It's like the Simpsons phone call gag.

I'm looking for a schlap.

A Matt Schlap.

That was fun to run into.

I mean, I don't know.

I guess I got to take photos with people that for me were just like cartoon characters we've covered.

Like I took a picture with Gorka.

I took a picture with Lindell.

Definitely JFK Jr.

I love the photo of Lindell's book, From Crackhead to CEO.

Yes.

And

it's like one of those holographic things where you turn it and it changes his face.

Like base head to pillow entrepreneur.

Yeah.

Oh, hell yeah.

Oh, my God.

That is horrifying.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know which picture of him looks worse to be

honest.

That's what I'm saying.

It's like, I don't know.

You kind of look similar.

Oh, my God.

That is brilliant.

That is so cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I got that.

I got a G.I.

Joe logo.

Let's go Brandon t-shirt.

I see, I don't think he should be selling the conversion.

I think he should just be like, I'm the crackhead CEO.

How smoking crack can like help your business and productivity.

It was great to run into Liz Truss.

It was strange to just be standing in a room with her and Bannon.

And Bannon was a delight.

You know, he did like the Nazi salute thing,

which was really fun.

And then the French,

one of the two French far-right party leaders dropped out because of that.

And I was there with a French reporter called Antony Montserry, who works for this like print-only outlet called Society.

And he actually

kind of got to sit down with Sarah Knafu, who's like the head of the other far-right French party.

And she was talking shit about Bardella for dropping out.

And like Bannon later called him, I think, a pussy.

He said he's like even bigger of a pussy than Macron.

But anyways, Knafu was like,

he asked her, like, well, what do you make of like the Nazi salute that Bannon did?

And she's like, well, yes, I will say that that was a Nazi gesture, but like it doesn't define what CPAC is.

And

she turned to the door and she was like, for example, do you think that

he would be here if this was like an anti-Semitic Nazi rally?

And she was pointing to Amichai Shikli, who's like a representative of Israel.

He's like the minister of diaspora.

And right as she said that, he walked over and sat down with the far-right party of Austria that was founded by literal Nazis.

Well, I mean, like, that guy's job is to empower Nazi-based parties in Europe to make it as unsafe as possible for any Jews still left in Europe.

I mean, also, just like the beginning of that, where it's like, oh, if this was a fascist rally, would one of the participants of the world's worst ongoing genocide be here?

Oh, so you think that you see, you think this is

a racist party, huh?

Well, let's see what my friend Hitler too thinks about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he said on stage, like he was on the expo floor, so it wasn't part of like the big recorded speeches, but he was talking about how he felt like Israel was teaching the West how to win a war.

That that's like the effect.

Yeah.

Okay.

Which is like, maybe Europe, maybe Europe, maybe the West should do more genocides, I guess.

We should be sniping children.

Well, I mean, they still haven't actually won the war.

Yeah, no, yeah.

They failed to take over a place the size of Hyde Park, Chicago.

Yeah, I mean, that was grim.

There were guys with kippahs everywhere, and like everybody had to suck Israel's dick, like in every speech.

It was just relentless.

I mean, I think at one point you said that they identified who they regard their enemies to be.

And it's like a long list of like, you know, subversives, degenerates, communists.

And then they included jihadists, and then they include anti-Semites in there, which I think is really funny for like the historical,

like the historical, I don't know, lineage of the far right in this country.

They're like, yeah, our enemies, anyone who hates Jewish people.

Yeah.

Ami Chai Chikli said to the Hungarian far right,

a party representative that he thought that

Budapest was

the safest European capital to be a Jew in due to their

immigration policy.

So

that's where Israel is, like

telling Hungarians that they're doing a great job.

Okay, so

moving on from CPAC, I do want to get to a reading series this week because this is my favorite article that I read.

And it is a profile of everyone's favorite senator, John Fetterman, in the Wall Street Journal.

And I don't want to give anything away here, but the headline is: John Fetterman on being the loneliest Democrat in Washington.

Every day is like your son's birthday.

The portrait of Fetterman that emerges in this piece is about as depressing as watching a Mike Lee movie.

I mean, I don't know.

I've just been watching them recently, and that's what's on my mind here.

And it says, just the tenor is set early on.

Walking into Senator John Fetterman's reception reception office in the Russell Senate office building, I first noticed the walls.

They are covered with 8.5 by 11 images of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Atop each is a red banner reading, kidnapped.

On one wall are images of those who remain in captivity.

On the other are those who've been rescued or returned alive or otherwise.

I knew of Mr.

Fetterman's unequivocal support for Israel after the Hamas attack.

What I hadn't appreciated was the degree to which that support is now central to his political identity.

He is an outlier in his party, only about 33% of which view Israel favorably, as compared with 83% of Republicans.

Come on in, he says in monotone, gazing downward.

I take a seat on the sofa across from him.

As I sit and adjust my phone to record the conversation, he says nothing.

Eager to fill the silence, I mention something about the walls of the adjoining room.

Yeah, he says, still not looking at me, and begins a minor harangue on the outrages perpetrated by, he doesn't say Hamas, the Palestinians.

I've seen that video, he says, meaning the video reporting is compiled by the Israeli government of the October 7th murders, and I can't believe it.

He stops, where is that kind of depravity, that hate?

Where does it come from?

Even the Nazis, with all their depravity and their evil, they tried to kind of hide those atrocities.

These people filmed it with their GoPros and they cheered like they scored a goal.

In the videos, they call their parents and they're like, hey, I just killed some Jews.

Where does that kind of hatred come from?

Could you imagine?

Could you just imagine

being in a room with this guy?

The journalist is there, you know, profile you, and he starts being like, Have you seen the snuff film I have on my phone?

Yeah, he's like evil Rocky.

I just don't understand why all this footage is shot from a helicopter.

Yeah.

Who gave these sick people

anti-vehicle rounds?

It's so not right.

They say they can't eat food, but they have Apaches and they know Hebrew.

It says here, he isn't done.

It wasn't just Hamas either, he says.

Now he's looking at me.

Let's not forget the majority of Palestinians support what happened.

Referring to the lurid ceremonies in which Hamas soldiers released hostages, Mr.

Fetterman says, Whoa, you're so tough terrorizing a woman you've kept in a tunnel for over a year.

Like, you're so tough with your shitty rifles parading around.

That's why I'm always going to be on the Israeli side, all right?

I nod, wondering if there's more.

Yeah, he says, Print that.

Oh, you heard it here first.

I'm not afraid afraid to be a U.S.

senator who supports Israel.

The most dangerous position in the world.

God.

He's such a fucking oap.

I feel like his version of jacking off to the Victoria's Secret catalog is like the underwear being held up by the soldiers.

Yeah.

Did you see that?

When a journalist asked him about how he said a year ago he would never vote against anything that like endangered the legal status of dreamers and he voted for that fucking whole Lake and Riley Aggression.

Yeah.

And he went, uh he just like looked at his shoes and went I don't see why people care so much about what I wear the only two things he can remember are that he like schwartz in Israel

yeah it says here 12 Democrats voted for the Lake and Riley Act requiring federal authorities to detain illegal aliens charged with crimes but mr.

Fetterman was one of the only two democratic co-sponsors and he enjoys dwelling on the subject I was always very and still I'm very pro-immigration, he says.

But he asked what a jury of 100 people in a Walmart parking lot would think if he told them he favored letting criminals stay in the country illegally.

They're going to be like, hell no, that's crazy.

Other data points.

Mr.

Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote for the imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court for charging Israeli officials with war crimes.

Democrats and media commentators insisted that Vice President J.D.

Vance had triggered a constitutional crisis when he observed that judges can't control the executive's legitimate power.

Mr.

Fetterman dismissed the claim as hysterical.

And when the president suggested the U.S.

could evacuate, rebuild, and repopulate Gaza, Mr.

Fetterman, virtually alone among congressional Democrats, declined to express outrage.

The journalist asked him about when he was like anti-Trump, and he says, at last he says, I regret some of the dumb shit I said on Twitter at times.

On Groundtalk Day in 2017, when he was mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, he joked that Mr.

Trump saw his shadow four more years of fascism.

Other similarly unkind remarks litter his old posts.

As he explains his answer, though, it becomes clear that Mr.

Fetterman has more in his mind than stupid tweets.

Okay, I don't think that's a physical thing.

Well, his response to that is,

Efreman, your death thing.

I kind of lost my appetite for all that.

He says, I don't doubt his acuity, but the effects of his stroke are detectable in his halting speech and his occasional struggle to pronounce words.

Yet what he lost in fluency, he gained in equanimity.

Mr.

Fetterman mentions some of Mr.

Trump's cabinet appointees who have appeared on Fox News.

They've all said negative things that it was about.

It was like, just doesn't bother me anymore.

We could all say dumb things, and at the end of the day, it's just cheap heat.

This is stuff of the world that would probably be better without.

He sums it up.

It all feels different after facing mortality.

I almost died.

Is the reporter pulling the fucking string that comes out of his back?

Holy shit.

This fucking idiot has nothing going on.

You talk to him for five minutes and he's like, you know, the first five minutes, I just watched footage of them eating a baby.

Can you believe it?

They say they invented isha warmer, but I know they invented eating baby.

And they still do.

And they still do it.

Minute six.

You know, I don't know why people care that I spilled this cheese on my short.

Everywhere the worst guy in the world could wear a suit and the nicest guy could wear a tattoo.

Minute seven.

I nearly met Santa in hell.

And it changed my life.

I relate a lot to Trump.

I also narrowly was missed by the bullet that nicked my ear.

I was holding the gun.

I put the gun in my mouth, but I got hungry.

I used to do this.

bad shit.

I would post gritty and say he gonna guillotine capitalism.

Then I realized that everyone's a person at the end of the day, and we all go home to our wife, Giselle.

We all married to our mom.

How is he not third mic on Red Scare?

Like, it's the exact same arc.

Uh, it says here, um, he has the blowback from his own side.

Has the blowback from his own side been hard to endure?

Defending Israel after October 7th has had a significant impact on my small donor base, Mr.

Fetterman allows.

So, the Democratic base is against him.

He offers a curious formulation: I'm no much of a you should, I'm more of a I'm doing.

That is, he would rather do his job than dilate on why he's not doing it.

No, sorry.

That is, he would rather do his job than dilate on why and how he's doing it.

But I also know that for the base and for small donors, small dollar donors, that's really not what's selling right now.

I think they want more of the performative stuff, the yelling and the explosive things.

But I've lost my taste for that.

And that's why I say it feels lonely right now.

i'm sorry i'm sorry

what do you say

i'm not a you should i'm an i do like i love that because it's like yeah i'm not about all that stuff where you say what an issue is or what you think about it i just go to my job and i breathe in and out

is that so john you don't like the part where you articulate what's wrong or what's good about something

why people always ask me what senators senators are doing?

I just, I do, I do what I do.

CEO, at me.

I go to the bathroom one leg at a time like anyone else.

I sit down at the UNO and I read my thoughts.

I just try to put the square piece in the round hole over and over, okay?

I don't think about why I do it.

I also like these.

No, I'm no different than a plumber.

I go to my job every day and I put the poop in the sand.

I'm no different than a plumber and that, like, my crack is always showing.

As we get to the end of this article, it says here, Mr.

Fetterman no longer slumps in his chair.

He sits up straight and seems exercised.

So I asked the question I doubt he'll answer.

Are you going to remain in your party?

I feel lonely and I'm struggling to find what the true North Star is as a committed Democrat.

I'm not changing my party, but what's the way forward?

Look, I can't follow every example.

No, literally, what's forward?

Which direction is it?

I can't follow every example of performance art because I try to be honest.

I don't ever want to lie.

But I'm trying to explain to people, America America has made us sit in the corner.

Republicans don't need our votes, and now that's where we are.

I just love when he's just saying, like, I feel lonely, and I'm struggling to find my true North Star.

Like,

to hear this from a fucking senator is just so insulting.

It is so insulting to think about a U.S.

senator being like, I'm lonely.

I don't know what around me are familiar faces.

Like, are you fucking Meadow Soprano's first roommate?

Shut the fuck up.

You're 57!

You live in a house that your dad bought you!

You got your first job when you were 49.

You became mayor of a town with one basketball hoop, and that's all you talked about for 15 years.

And now for the next 30 years, you're going to talk about the time that I almost went down the tunnel.

I don't get it.

He's got no energy except when it comes to Israel.

Like, it is insane how that's the only thing animating him.

He's like a fucking zombie.

And then when you say Israel, his like eyes, like light up again I I collect videos of sort of like you know when like angry constituents or like activists confront him because like him on his feet is just fucking hysterical I don't know if you saw that video of him in the airport where like the guy's confronting him about Gaza and Federman just sort of like he stares at the moving walkway trying to remember if all sidewalks are like this or if it's just his lucky day

and then after like seven minutes he goes you know this guy's like it's a genocide.

They're like shooting fucking children.

Like, this is all, how do you support this?

Seven minutes of this, and Fenderman goes, this is devastating.

You're just devastating.

He's like, I mean, he talks about like, how would this look to a hundred people in Walmart?

They should have your job.

The dumbest fucking person I've met is capable of more abstract thought than you.

I like.

This is the most submental man ever.

Activists should stop protesting him and just start gluing quarters near him to different surfaces.

Like a crosswalk that he's trying to

stumble across.

You could keep him from so many votes by treating him like a hitman NBC.

Just throw coins like within 20 feet of him.

Wait, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Are they changing how I get paid?

He's got a question mark over his head constantly.

He's looking at the nearby bushes like, I can't see anything.

He picks up the quarter.

Wait, are they paying me every two minutes?

If I miss this quarter, they might not give me another.

I better pick it up.

I mean, look,

depression is no laughing matter, people.

Yeah.

It's just, you know, but you're like, you know, it's just, you got to get out of bed every day.

You got to like, you know, clean up, do something active with your life.

Horribly depressed.

Fight against this passivity that's that's like ruining your life.

You gotta, you gotta be an active participant in your own life as a U.S.

senator.

At no fucking point, did my depression cause me to become like a fucking disgusting Zionist who doesn't think La Senior people?

Like, there's no excuse for this.

You know, you can't just be like, well, you know, he's been through a lot.

That's why the only thing that animates him is like, you know, the thoracic cage of a fucking child being crumpled.

Something, something that,

you know, to give the, to, to give the normals a little insight into the mind of the entertainer.

Many clowns are crying inside.

Yeah.

You may see us rock a microphone, but the real rock is our brains.

I'm Mike Fetterman.

No,

one of my,

you know, my hard and fast rules

was that, and I think like everyone on the show has always been like great about this and I've I've never even brought it up but I've always hated like

you know when when someone who has a podcast or is like a streamer or just generally someone who can make the same income as like a medium good lawyer

by doing content every week like complains about like how fucking shitty it is or uh you know complains about how mean people are to them because it's it's just like you know no one wants to fucking hear it.

It's, you know, it sucks out there.

It sucks to answer to people and to, you know, have all these responsibilities.

No one wants to hear any of us complain about it or complain about people being mean to us.

And, you know, we try to never do it.

The only people that I think have even less of a right are fucking senators who work like two days every three years.

And he's doing, he's doing all these interviews about like, I just feel all alone.

Like,

okay, then fucking end it.

It's your son's birthday.

Yeah.

John.

Jump off.

Jump off the roof of your house then.

Remember to go down the street, not across next time.

Do I even deserve this free health care?

All right.

Well, yeah, I'll leave you with that, with that, with that rather banal and unbearably bleak slice of life inside the emotional and psychological well-being of a U.S.

senator.

Oh, Well, sorry, sorry, one more thing.

Do you think it's just a coincidence that his wife wasn't around to answer any questions for this big profile?

Well, I mean, he does.

He does say that he's

lonely.

I mean, he's lost like almost all his staff, too.

I mean, they've all hit the exits real quick over the last year or so.

Yeah.

Crucially, none of these staff left over ideological reasons.

Like, all of his staff are like fucking assholes who agree with him on all of this dumb shit, which means that, like, in addition to being a Dullard's Dullard, he has to be like shittier to work for than Klobuchar I mean Felix there was there was a there was a news report about his departing his departed staff in which one of them anonymously said that when they would like

in a car with him he would just be constantly showing them snuff films on his phone of like Russians being killed in Ukraine or Palestinians getting blown up like he is a like a really rotten person Like he's so depressed that the only thing that can like, yeah, like get his get his heart beating a little faster, feeling a little joy is just seeing like murder footage what a fucking idiot i i feel sad all the time i wonder if it's these murder videos that i'm mainlining into my weak psyche i just want to that i can't oh i i own that my i'm all i only have such a weak spirit that uh you know i i you know when my son got a ps5 i i walked into the middle of the road and said i'm about to be the senator from heaven

i better watch a million fucking videos of murders every day That'll cheer me up.

That won't obliterate me.

You can't,

Senator Fetterman, you can't make it through Bluey.

Why are you watching Live Leak?

I just wanted to give the mouse a hug.

No, it's not moving.

All right.

Let's wrap it up there for today.

Julian, thanks for your time.

Thanks for joining us today.

And everyone, please check out QAnon Anonymous.

And we'll link to both of your pieces about CPAC in the show description.

But

before we go, I'd like to

have another little plug for you that I'm quite excited about.

So as many of you may already know,

we, Shopo Trap House and our production company, are the producers of a feature film that premiered at Con last year.

It was also featured at the New York Film Festival.

It's called Ephes, the feature directing debut of Carson Lund, which is co-written and co-starring friend of the show Nate Fisher.

It's a movie about baseball and the lovable schlubs who play it.

About two New England Beer League baseball teams playing the last game at their local field before it's decommissioned and turned into a school.

Those bastards.

All of them are coming to terms with probably never hanging out with each other again.

It's funny and bittersweet and beautifully shot and directed, and it's great getting some great reviews, and it is absolutely movie mindset approved.

It is going to be screening all across the country starting this month, starting in New York City this Friday at the IFC Center and Lincoln Center, and then at a theater near you in the coming weeks.

You can find out when it's screening and where at www.musicbox.films.com slash film slash ephis.

We'll be promoting this movie more throughout the month, but please, especially if you're in New York City, in New York City, go check it out at IFC Center or Lincoln Center this weekend.

It is perhaps the only sports movie to feature cameos.

from legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman and yours truly Will Menoker.

Wiseman's in it?

Holy shit, guys.

I mean,

Wiseman and I have voice acting cameos in it.

We are sort of disembodied voices on the radio that are played at various moments throughout the film.

But seriously, like, I know I'm a co-producer of this picture, but if you like movies about sports, if you like baseball especially, this is a really special movie.

It's a really unique, warm, funny, and contemplative movie about the passage of time and male friendships and just kind of like how baseball is this weird, this weird mental fixation that men have as a way of kind of like coping with and categorizing our passage through time and space, leading ultimately to only one destination.

But you got to fill the time with something in between there.

And one of those things is baseball.

And this is a great, this is a movie that really captures that feeling beautifully.

So I'm just like to give you my pitch.

Yes, I am a producer and I am in the movie slightly, but I would like to give you my pitch for seeing Ephesus.

It's a great movie and I hope you all go out and see it and support it because we are also the producers, one of the producers of the movie.

So, Ephesus, March 7th, opening in New York City throughout the rest of the month, like I said,

hopefully, it'll be coming to a city near you.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And even, like, look,

even if you're one of these guys who's like, I don't care about sports,

how am I going to watch the movie?

I don't know if you've heard, but

Jewish people have to take over entertainment to be safe after what happened at the Oscars.

I'm a producer on this movie.

I'm trying to break into the industry.

I'm trying to be the first.

I'm trying to do good trouble by becoming the first Jewish movie producer.

So, like, help us out here.

All right.

Till next time, everybody, thank you so much once again to Julian Field for joining us today.

But till next time, everybody, talk to you soon.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

And I'll be so lonely.

Without you loving me,

I know it's gonna be lovely.