#AIS: Glenn Greenwald & Matt Taibbi discuss the new political divide, moderated by David Sacks
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So gen Green wall, they met tae b folks. So by way of introduction that I went to sort tell the story, how this panel happened eroes out of almost a thrown comment that Jason made on an epo de of the pod, where he was talking about you, one of speakers for this event. And he said that know he was having a hard time getting liberals.

And all he could find were like right wingers like ginger molder mattie. And in intervals of to explain their backgrounds a little bit, you know, that used to be the they're both independent journalists who write phenomenal columns on substances. All of you should check IT on subscribe.

And by the way, they also do Colin shows on a fomentation podcasting platform you should all check out. But but mad, that was sort like the left wing fire brand or populist firebrand on writing for rolling stone, who back in two thousand nine was asking the question why the people who cause the great financial crisis, why no one was going to jail. And glen broke the snowden story about how the government was engaging in mass surveilLance on all of us and raising questions about the infringement of our civil liberties.

So both these guys have, i'd say, um well established bone of few days used to be concerned a left wing sort of liberal beneficed days. But now today, somehow they've been read out of what you would call liberalism today. And so that comment that Jason made, sort of I think they're so much to impact there on how that happened.

What does liberalism today mean if IT doesn't include you guys? And and so maybe that's the place to start, is trying to understand what has happened in our politics that makes you guys not liberal anymore, and what is liberalism and then what is conservatives? And are even thinking about the political divide in our country the right way, if left versus right, doesn't really capture IT anymore. So that was sort of the starting point for this. Who wants to just react anything I just said?

yeah. Well, first law is, of course, very gratifying to realize that your attention, that of conferences due to a throw away line from. Super on us to hear that, that the reason why we were invited.

man.

We open sources to the .

fans and just got.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I guess we joined a long list of other far right liminal ies like rustle brand who has spent the last fifteen years as one of the most vocal to the socialist Jimmy carbon.

He's now also on the right and joe rogan, who just eighteen months ago said to millions of people that his favorite cannabis running for president was bernie standards, the socialist left fling candidate from vermont and even now elon moscow voted for barack obama two thousand and twelve over mt. Romney and is one of the largest owners to the use. Sometimes, somehow he's also on the far right.

So in some sentence, just become a kind of punishing label that's designed to stigmatize or demonize anybody who in any way to send from or divergence from liberal, ethical oxy. Is this kind of an enforcement or coercive label that has no meaning, just perhaps, of any actual substance. But I think there's a broader dynamic underneath at all, which is that, you know, that is true that every five years, ten years, what was once an issue at the forefront of our debates goes to the background and other issues go to the forefront.

So ten years ago, we were spending a lot of time debating things like obama's drones program where guantanamo not being closed. Or as you said, the work matt was doing on, you know, derivatives in the fraud and wall street, we don't talk much about that anymore. We spend a lot of time now talking instead about whether the internet should be this instrument mate of censorship and information control um whether we should trust the U.

S. Security state to dictate what is and is not this information, whether we should be involved in very similar kinds of proxy wars like we spent the cold were doing over places like ukraine. And so in one way, it's natural that political alliance shift is different issues go to the foreign alliance changes. And but I think something much more important is that liberalism itself has changed a largely by virtue. I've done all trump because liberals as a defining view, maybe as an overarching view over craters yeah.

by liberals.

they just mean kind of the mainstreaming of the democratic party the way he, hilary, could not cause ourself agressive. So again, illustrating the bankrupcy of these terms. But by levels, I just mean kind of like the anc's polo about obama, hurry and shocked human wing have come to believe that the overarching way to understand politics is that there's one primary menus and rest to the united states, which is Donald trump, his movement and republic and party. And it's not just that they have that ideology, but that their actual fascist is trying to instill a White nationalist dictatorship.

And if you actually believe that that something that you genuinely believe and some level that becomes irrational to start embracing authority, italian uh methods of resisting that of combatting net serving um you know using uh due process free processes to punish people and deprive them of their liberty. And I think any time political movement gets convinced that this is no longer involved in a political debate, but a historic war between pure gd and pure evil, IT starts to turn to authoritarian and tactics to win, because IT believes that justified or even necessary, and the authorities, authoritarian, toxic, happens to be the ones that the left traditionally had opposed and now were embracing. And I guess, matter, I didn't decide that we were going to change our views of the last thirty years about these issues. And that has caused this organic breach, not just between us, you, but you know, others like us. And as I said, anyone who finds themselves outside of every earth and axy automatically receives the far right label.

Yeah, first, I agree with all that. And for me it's even funny. Or because prior to two thousand and eight, I would say that I was sort of like the triumph in solid comic dog of journalism, basically my job of rolling stone was to throw off one liners about republicans.

My editors almost never sent me to a democratic function because they didn't want me describing those events. And in a colorful way, let's put IT that way. So I I got sent to a lot of events where people like Sarah alin or friend thomson, or microcode would be speaking, actually won a national magazine award for a colum about how could be called my favorite, not job.

And but then after cheat, as an eight eight after obama got elected, they assigned me to do a story, one story about, uh, the two thousand and eight financial crisis, essentially with the idea of explaining IT in terms of people who are not financial professional was could understand. So I did one story that was really about ig. And we got this overwhelming response that we'd never gotten before from readers we'd never heard from before.

And that LED to me, doing eight years of work instead of one story. And one of the themes that came out of that reporting was that in the sort of post bailout economy, the wealth gap was widening. And, you know, I just read a statistic that said that during the obama years, the bottom ninety nine percent saw their average wealth decreased by forty nine hundred dollars, whether the top one percent south wealth increased by an average of four point nine million dollars.

And so now I didn't make that much that big of a deal of this in my important but went two thousand and six scene came around yeah. In covering both the trump and sander's campaigns, IT was abundantly clear that this widening wealth gap and the stress that I had placed on populations, on both the left on the right was a significant factor in this race. And when I started to write this in the context of covering trump, rather than just doing the usual thing of talking off insults about the canada, which is easy enough to do with throat, I started to say things like, well, there are reasons why he succeeding.

He's attracting crowds that are not just the use republican crowds, their former union members here um they have a lot in common with the crowds who show up at bernie Sanders events and I started to notice distinctly unpleasant reaction from people inside the business where quickly became taboo to explain don chroma in any way other than this is a White of premises movement and he's appealing to know the lowest common to nominator through that kind of message no, I happen to believe that that that was part of certainly part of what was going on, but IT wasn't the whole explanation. But I think trump is is the dividing line of what you're talking about. If if you don't have if you have a nuances explanation for donal trump um then you you can't be part of a club anymore because the the dominant narrative requires that he be cartoon ized in the same way that we used to do IT with figures like so I was saying or or putin now we call IT to hit over the month club right? If you're not willing to just do that, and if you try to actually explain where all these voters coming from, why are they upset what went more wrong that this would happen?

Also known as the purpose of journals.

Yeah, exactly right. Which is supposed to be our job.

I think both of us quickly learned that was not welcome. And you know, after truck got elected, I think that that instinct to crowd out anyone who was interested in going there and trying to figure out what was wrong that IT caused a two thousand and sixteen suddenly became in a post state. And by the way, that includes some politicians like bernie.

Standards, I think, was one of the people who was very interested in examining what happened in two thousand and sixteen. And and I think that's one of the reasons why there was such a violent reaction. His candidacy in both two thousand and sixty and two thousand and twenty.

So for me, I think that's the dividing line. It's not like something to change so much with liberalism or it's it's really about trump, I think. And and journalism has adjusted IT is we we've gone from being people whose primary job is to be curious about why things happen to being advocates who believe that you certain people have to be opposed at all costs. And even if that cost is, you know a little bit of the truth or a lot of IT.

even so, having ripped the empire jersey off their backs to basically stop the trump menus, that seems like journalism can now go back to even a pretend of neutrality is out. So that basically has .

happened now I think so I think and I think you see that in that what's happening with the ratings at cable stations. I warned about this in two thousand sixteen, and I wrote a column and in that summer saying that a model where basically right wing media wrote about the evils of the democratic party and blue media route about the evils of the republican party um that that just wouldn't work audience wise because audiences with no other trust either source to be objective and to report the facts.

And I think that's where we are now like we see the declining the declining ratings of of companies like CNN and M S N B C, which were previously thought of as more kind of down the road, down the middle road, news agencies and now our thought of as politicized. And they're having a terrible trouble kind of going back as well once you cross that line into politics, you can get your reputation back. Is a neutral fact funder anymore?

Yeah I think people forget what things were like before trumps and he's such a you know kind of ubiquity presence as that was saying. And for me, he also defines and is responsible for most of the changes. We're disgusting.

But back in two thousand fifteen, most of these news organizations were on the brink of collapse. Every ms. Nbc hose was on the verge of being fired.

You know, a couple of a months of life being fired because nobody was watching the york times, had severe finances difficulty there was talking about whether they would have to declare bankrupcy because baLance sheet was so drowning in debt. And trump saved them all. He saved the entire industry.

They all their jobs, their second homes, the ability to pay off their irs, that to donal, because you can trace his emergence on the scene to when people started watching those programs again. And what they did was they rebranded as the resistance to deal trump, and they sacrifice any even pretense of journalistic function. They know if you and you just look a polling data that ninety five percent of the people who watch mm bc and ninety three percent of the people who read the new york climes and trust IT identify as democrats um so there was a completely polarized media.

You know, one of the kind of not media examples is the you there was an article in twenty fifty and the sale about the sale in the washington that they were mass laff had to engage mass layoff. So there's sucked as that no money trump gets inaugurated. They start tweet.

You know, every day we'll see you in court, mr. Trump, and like stimulating the you know kind of g zones of every liberal and suddenly they're drowning in money like millions and millions of dollars like building jack the S L. U.

It's always financially and as a result, they are completely captive now to that kind of an audience. You know I have friend. I guess I had a friend.

Um he was he was a host of A M C. show. And they once called me that they don't get show by showing tings. They get segment by segment ratings.

And ever since trump, they told me, the minute you put on anybody who is critical of the democratic party anyway, you can just see the audience completely disappear, which you can imagine a person in that position what an enforcement mechanism that is to know that they have a salary and kids and the need to pay for college and their mortgage, and they know if they do anything that deviate at all from democratic party doctor, they're going to lose their audience. The new york times knows that. The you knows that.

And so yeah, I think they're all not. It's not just that they was their credibility can get IT back, which is absolutely as that said. It's also that they're now captive to this kind of prison cell that they built for themselves chasing the sugar hair that from provided just .

really quickly. I going to tell the story in the middle of all this phenomenon, reporters were arguing about whether or not we should be covering unless, because maybe we had helped get the nomination. I covered drum's campaign, and this was A A hot topic in on the bus at the time.

But then I was sort of decided that now he is making us all so much money. Let just less just go with IT. And I remember being in indian apple lus when trump showed up the the nomination by beating crews. We still had a mathematical chance of winning, I guess, if he had done well there. But trump, if you remember, during that particular race, accused crews of being the odie killer, which was the areas because crews was born two years after the killings ended.

So but there was one reporter, I know who, who actually got the nerve up to ask I I believe I was, I believe was cruise as wife about about the the accusations like, what do you have this of the idea that that your husband is, is this audio killer and he's telling me the story about this afterwards. And because, you know, I felt so dirty doing IT, but I also felt so great. So I think that's where they were. They were in that space for a long term.

The the media and trump ata, we are good dependent relationship just in terms of trying to appeal to people out there who may not be trump fans or to get through them on this point. IT seems to me that when you lose an election anytime and you lose an election as a party, you need to analyze what went wrong, and especially when the candidate is a complete political novice with no prior experience.

And I had so many attributes that historic were considered extreme negatives. And IT seems to me that if you are distant, look at what happened in two thousand and sixteen, trump was able to ride a few k all the way the White house. One was these foreign wars, these interventions that we've had in afghanistan, iraq, seria, libya, that were disasters we hadn't got out of afghanistan yet.

But he was on its way to being a historic twenty year failure. He shadow the republican party with that message. No more bushes. He then took the issue of trade and basically broke down the democrats blue wall in the rust belt by basically pointing out the way that our our bypass and trade polls, you just like our bypassing a foreign, our war policy, had LED to the d industrializing of the of the rust belt. And then he also use the the issue, immigration, which was sort of closely relate to that idea of a creating wage pressure on the working class. So you would think that having wrote those issues all the way to the White house, that there would be some sort of reappraisal.

And instead, IT seems like what did to protect itself was creates these mythologies that trump somehow got elected, not because the people of the country were fed up with the way that I had been run for twenty years by both parties, but rather because the russians somehow were behind IT or or the country was shopped through with White supremacy and that somehow explained IT um and so we never really got A A true sort of accounting or reappraisal of what trump election men. Instead, the media toronto like this, has steria this mode that were not even out of yet. Your reaction to that?

No, I think you is one of the most amazing things about the twenty sixteen election, which is first, all you know, in a lot of ways, brock obama being this kind of once in a generation political talent paper over the the incredibly serious systemic problems the democrats had, even while he was being reelected underneath obama and all of his glitter and glamour, the democratic party was collapsing. They were losing state houses and congressional seats and governor ships all over the country.

And the reason for that is the anger, the growing anger, with the new liberal policies that the democratic party in the early nineties, nineties had decided to embrace, and of the working class politics for which they're always been known, the kind of clintonia a pronouncement that the democratic party needs to start embracing corporate amErica instead of unions, that IT needs to move much closer to these place, this politics that says we're going to encourage corporate america, we're going to embrace the pentagon and all of that. And IT radically changed the the democratic party into this party of technocracy and the elites, culminating with the obama presidency. And the only, and what is amazing is in twenty sixteen, the democrats lost the Whitehouse to a game shows hold.

And so you would think they would wonder why that happened, as you were saying, right? You would think they would wonder what is IT about us that caused us to lose the Donald trump. And instead, they invented the longest of people that they decided we're to blame.

Instead, bottom Y A poot, principally Vicky leagues jill stein, for having the audacity to continue to run for president. You know, whole long list of billions. Essentially everybody accept themselves and the people who are responsible for IT. And and I think the most toxic narrative is the one that said, the only reason trump one was because the country is radically and fundamentally racist. And he capitalized on that.

And what so amazing about that is there are literally millions of voters in excess of ten million, depending on our u count, but even in access in ten million voters who twice voted for barac obama in two thousand and eight and twelve and then in twenty sixteen voted for another trump, there are increasing numbers of nonWhite voters all over the country moving through the republican party under trump and voting increasingly for trump y at a larger share of black booters latino voters, each an american voters than any republican. Ada, in decades on those transfer only worsening. And so you have this media that has.

No interest in and no ability to understand how the majority people in the united states live, because their lives are completely separate with in these isolated on claves, in this kind of liberal bubble. And you know, just today there was this amazing a article by rolling stone. IT was about what most of you probably heard, which was this horrific mass murder in buffalo, or eighteen year old weight kid, feeding on this kind of ideology of racial hatred that has become fringe, but a very dangerous around the west, went into a story that he knew was pronominal back and shot as many people as he could kill in in ten of them.

And the article by rolling stone that was publish this morning was he is not a lone wolf shooter. He is a mainstream republican. So I think all of you should be very careful because you're currently in a country where a half of the people in this country apparently are psychotic notices on the verge of like some sort of mass murder outbreak, including huge numbers of non weight americans were supporters of there are republican party.

And the more you kind of immerse yourself an in a set of institutional beliefs and a kind of ethos of your on clay, you know, just constantly hearing a belief reinforced and reinforced, the more you believe that, the more you are emerging, the more immune become to fact that negate IT. And so that's the reason why the media is so incurious, because they've embraced this narrative, that the only reason anyone would vote for republicans, the only reason one would vote for trump, is because their races, or their fascist or or their rights promise is, and it's left them completely unable to grab with things like ten million people voting twice for obama and then for trump. Or the fact is maluet ude, there were all kinds of people in twenty sixteen who have you asked them they, yeah, I have two favorite candidates this year and you'd say, who are they? And they would say, berny standards.

And Donald trump, to a working journalist, most most working journalists, or ponders, or a political Operate, that makes no sense. They can't comprehend that because they see the world through this traditional left prism that for increasing sections of the country, I would argue a majority is no longer applicable, is no longer how they see the world. And this is so dangerous when you have this radical breach between the opinion making, journalistic class and elite class on the one hand, and most of the population on the other, they just live completely different lives, work with a completely same set of beliefs about the world, have completely different sets of interest. And if you look at countries throughout history where that has happened, where there's been this complete divergence between the people who hold power in the country and the rest of the country over exercise that hour, instability at best, and usually much worse things inevitably. And I really think that's the point they were .

out just quickly to pick you back on that. One of the big stories that were uncovered and and continues to go uncovered is the transformation of the democratic electorate. The last time I looked at this, forty one of the richest fifty congressional districts in amErica had democrats in those seats, and all of the top ten richest districts were won by democrats.

Well, as recently as one thousand nine hundred and ninety two, the split was more like fifty fifty if you live in an aflush suburb. The overwhelmed majority of the voters, as they are going to be democrats now. And the big divide in american politics is no longer about ideology.

It's significantly about income and and even more education. Uh, it's split between people who have high school degrees are less and people who are college educated. And this is one of the reasons why Donald trump was so effused have been saying, I love the poorly educated because they both for him but this is, this is another taboo subject.

Nobody likes to talk about this because that speaks to a transformation that happened in the, in the democratic party that began, I think, with clan when they went away from relying on unions for financial support. You know, the D, L, C is big. Gic idea was, let's be more competitive on the fun raising front by, you know, be more pro business or pro growth that was determined that they used a lot.

And a couple of decades later, we what you end up with is a party that no longer has any real organic connection to to working people of any kind. And so you know I think I think that's that's a massive factor in all this is that the reporting on class politics has become taboo. Um all you have to do that was is go to a dollar trump event and you can you can see IT clearly um that the that the composition of the crowds is vastly different from what you see at a democratic event and that's one of the reasons why they hated the media because they saw us as upper class representatives of the coastal lee who all live in new york, L A.

Washington, which is true for the most part and you know got increasingly hostile, is as time went on. And that's why trump was scoring so many points going after us because we were symbols of the upper class. And that's another reason why I think the divide isn't a longer neatly between left and written more. It's IT has a lot more to do with class that I never do before.

Okay, David, mop here to you. Hey, I know you want to take a question or truth from the audience as we were. And I thought I would kick IT off great discussion about the left moving really far left and taking advantage of the trump bump in their ratings. I'm curious, you kind of left out fox news kind of mastering and rubber murdoch, they kind of created this playbook in a way. And the left competitive. Isn't that basically how what happened that people saw? Well, fox media is just making so much fox news because there is making so much money by picking aside that the new york times in msnbc, acta all to say, you know what, we might also the other side and just take this playbook and get the money that's .

kind of what happened isn't in in an I read a book about this called hating uh which yeah that's basically basically the thesis that fox pioneer a new way to make money in media which sort like the audience optimization. An model like you you pick a group demographic and then you try to dominated by feeding the news that you know that those people are gone to respond to that that was never the the way things worked before for an ordinary news agency, they would just cover what thought was important. And try.

has anybody stayed neutral map? I mean, like would you look at reuters or A P, it's clear the new york times. And is abc, they've just gone full, subscribed to us. If you hate trump, you know we're going to give you what you want. But anybody in the middle still map?

Well, I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing sub stack do well, right? It's not so much that it's left door writer. It's just that this most people are not partisans.

Most people live somewhere in the middle right and have opinions that are all over the place and they cannot stand turning on the television and knowing exactly what they're going to say ahead of time. And so they're looking for some place that's that's different where you have differences of opinion. And that's that's why I think independent media is doing Better than ever.

I mean, the most influential son in in media even know the being part of the media and ever talks about him because he is not part of them is without question, joe rogan. He speaks to more people who are under, you know, eighty five years old, which is the cable audience, then anybody on television by far. And it's because, as matter said, you cannot pin him down ideologically, nor is he does. He have felt to anyone, political faction, or certain to any political party, he's just a curious person, sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right, and sometimes neither exactly like most americans.

I mean, it's such a great point land. In fact, if you were going to pin him, if you just looked at how we voted, he'd be a democrats. And the fact that the democrats have joe rogan and elon musk having been their supporters and voting for them for decades and they're too stupid to pull them into their party.

is just so that the opposite, they say, no, joe rogan, we know that you a berny centers, the most far left candidate ever to be viable in decades. But even though you have him, we're going to demand that you're an enemy and call you of our right fanatic, even though you don't think you are.

We're going to demand that berny standards, renounce joe rogan and endorsement. That's our plan for winning the election.

I mean, sex as much as you and I go happened with, like how actually horrific the republican party is. I mean, the democrats are so incomplete to not court the two most influential people in amErica today.

rogan, in even months.

I mean, it's.

they're alienating them. They're radicals in them. The way from them is is even worse. I mean.

is there any insects ist just flag goes. But is there any week? Then you can comment on this and explain what you think the democrats are thinking. Or are they just not thinking strategically about .

winning elections? No, I I think in addition to what you guys just talked about in terms of c or M S B C N N copying the model, there has been a radical change in the company tion of the republic ican party ideology ally, because of trump, not because trump is some sort of like discipline, political theorists or deep thinker, but because he ushers in.

As David was saying earlier, he ran in twenty sixteen in opposition to push jani foreign policy, in opposition to rag in economics. He railed against the power of large corporations that be expensive, the working person, something you have never have heard from region. But he also wished, in a lot of hostility toward agencies like the C.

I, A and the N. S. A, and the FBI, something that had always been the province of the left.

And so now you have an enormous amount of space open on the right for all kinds of use that had previously been closed. And I think there's just a lot more vibrancy on the right. A lot more internal debate was in the democratic party. It's just a very much you either with us or year against us mindset and any deviation as we were talking about at the beginning automatically result in them proclaiming you the enemy, which doesn't see make a very effectively of doing politics to me.

Okay, let's take a question from the audience.

Let's talk about elon behind his back before he joins. What is is take as you serious, is he going to buy IT? And what is what do you think the fall outs going to be, I don't know, is going to buy. I think.

I haven't really gone into the details of that but but I do think is fascinating as the reaction by people in media to even the proposition that he might buy twitter inside people who have been absolutely comfortable with you know a handful of people controlling um you know ninety five to eight percent of the media distribution in this country for years now they never ever once complained about IT anytime you ever complained about censorship, they say, oh, that's not censorship that this is a private platform. They can do whatever they want. That's that's always been the response. Suddenly elon must comes along and it's, oh my god, the threat of an olive arch taking over a media platform. What are we ever going to .

do means like that in the washing pose, which is on by jb bases.

Yeah exactly. Yeah, the idea.

And isn't the new .

york times run by a family that's .

not really that poor? Yeah.

five generations. Take a final question from the audience.

So I actually agree with a lot of what's been said here. And one of my questions is now we are talking about isp, even ideologically, a republic an. My question is, as long as one of them is winning, the republicans of the democrats. Aren't both of them winning like you guys have any thought on that long?

As long as one of them, the republicans .

or democrat, are winning, are they collectively winning? I guess shouldn't be a third party.

I mean, isn't that the issue? That was it's such a binary, polar ized ed system. I think glen said in the middle that we are really all more moderates. That's my belief. But just curious.

No, it's a great you know, I think probably the worst media myth is that the two parties can never get along. There's no more by parties and ship. They're so radially different. They can agree on anything.

When the reality is they agree on most things is, is that the only things we hear about all the times when they disagree? But overwhelming and foregone policy and economic policy, obama himself said, the two parties are essentially playing within the forty airline. So the entire rest of the playing field is basically not part of the political process because they have the same fundamental belief. And I think one of the reasons why trump s had a shocked to the system was not because the trump minister itself was a deviation from the american political station IT wasn't but because some of the things he said by questioning nato and whether IT has viability was designed to undermine that by parties in consensus but I think in general, you're right that the establishment links of ball parties are far more agreement with one another than they are different. Um and I think you're also write that as long as those two wings of each party continue to trade power, the rule and caution out the states is very happy.

right? Let's give IT up for gland.

Let your winners, right.

man, give.

And I said we open sources to the fans and they've .

just got crazy with the queen.

We should all just get a room, just have one big huge orgy because.

Special and release.