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Episode 240 - We Need To Talk About Kevin (w/ Thomas Frank) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-05 07:40:54
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock our full premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast

Whenever something crazy is going down in Congress, Thomas Frank is here to talk about it. We chatted while the Capitol was stormed on 1/6, and now the historian, writer, and populism expert returns to Bad Faith as the House Republicans struggle to meet the 218-vote threshold to elect a Speaker. Inside: discussions about the parallels between this historical moment and the ones Frank has written about, the wisdom of Force The Vote, and whether Briahna is right to be jealous of the rogue Republicans in this moment.

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).

Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

Comments

Jonathan Kadmon

Oho we got Thomas Frank now we're rockin and rollin!!! 🎉🎸🎸🎸🎙️🎵🎶

Anonymous

Great episode. Speaking of political imagination, as Frank did in his December NYT op-ed, who will be the first group to lead an organized vote withholding campaign among the electorate? The Sunrise Movement? The Poor People's Campaign? DSA? Anyone, ever?

Nathan Ngumi

A great episode! The Speaker vote in the House is a total mess, and unfortunately holds up a mirror on American politics. The link to Mr. Thomas Frank's talk 'What the Hell, America?!' which he referenced in the episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWKsTzHwIsM

Anonymous

The difference between Dems and Repubs comes down to how they view their base. One Team is slightly fearful of their base.. They don't want to help them economically, but they will throw women & minorities under the bus, if that's what their voters want. The Other Team thinks their base is easily scared, easily ordered around, and weak. Their important clients are the Banks, War Profiteers & Big Surveillance. Repubs love a vicious red-meat public fight. The Dems think they can talk Lefty and be Sneaky behind close doors. Neither party cares about average Americans. But the Dems have an example for how to make America love them again. This FDR guy who saved Capitalism. But they're too greedy and arrogant to follow that win. Repubs only have Reagan and Lincoln, but the Dems have given them too much ammo (thanx Obama) by abandoning workers and the poor. Guess which Team is gonna harnass that working class anger? Hint: The Loser thinks Americans will vote for a man with obvious Dementia, AGAIN.

Anonymous

Democrats: We don't talk about Kevin no no no! (insert music)

Merfy Mac

It always seems to surprise everyone the way the same old stories about similar politicians get repeated, recycled, republished, to enable the same corrupt politics, time and time again. The fact it surprises everyone should be a clue to why the same misdirections keep getting replayed (albeit often with different cast members): because it works, because the powers-that-be see how 'everyone' is shackled to repeating the same reactions. The left/right lie works the same way. It's a bullshit spigot that's able to perpetuate because nobody holds onto lessons learned from one news cycle to the next. I think one reason there's no progress is the way independent media - Rising and Brie less guilty but still guilty - slavishly follow the mainstream news cycle. Each new news story "resets" to the orthodox Establishment framing (as peddled by the MSM). Independent media goes along with this framing - even if their angle is debunking it. It's the wrong approach. Because the entire mainstream news environment is constructed never to evolve. Anyone who follows it, will never evolve. There can be no progressive political opposition if we're all trapped in the perpetually recycled news cycle world.

Anonymous

Thomas Frank paraphrased says: what we need is a grassroots populist movement against corporate money...the last 6 interviews going back to Ralph Nader have said basically the same thing. There is a grassroots movement against corporate money called Represent Us. Could you please take 15-30 mins to look into them so that, if you think they have a viable strategy, you can bring them up with your guests, in the same way you talk about AOC, DSA, the squad, force the vote, and all the other stuff? https://represent.us/unbreaking-america/

Absolute0

Does anyone else just want to sit at a bar with this dude, get fucked up and listen to him tell stories? He's fuckin' great.

Cclear
>>98997925

He's like one of those professors (like Gerald Horne) that I could listen to all day.

Michelle B

Dying laughing at the bit about how everyone is supposed to learn to code... My father literally told me that they only way he would ever pay for college is if I went to MIT to study computer science. Quite a statement both because they could never have afforded MIT and I dropped out of the only coding class I ever took because when I had one typo in five pages of c++ code and it wouldn't work I got incredibly close to a throwing a 40 lb computer out the window 🤣 I've been incredibly grateful that I didn't go to school for it when I see how silicon valley companies use h1b visas to bring in workers who will work for cheaper and drive down the wages of their employees in a city that costs so much to live those workers are often living four to or five people to an apartment trying to make ends meet. And if you watch the lovely new promotional video made by America and the Ukrainian government, it makes very clear that the new plan for tech is to outsource this work to a newly labor law and regulation-free Ukraine. Which is crystal clear in the investments of people like Joe Biden and his family and our congress. Totally agree Brie- a Ponzi scheme through and through. And what makes it even more disgusting is that they're still pushing this. When I was chosen as they creator by the YouTube Creates program I pitched a sketch about how abortion rights were at risk (This was in 2015) and they told me I couldn't use that word, but what they would like for me to do was something on women in STEM. Because that is where the money is. That's where the messaging is. Everything is about women going in that direction. Never mind the fact that the field is openly hostile to them and the number of women who go to college for these subjects is about equal to men but the number of women working in the industry is a fraction of that. The stories about how toxic the environment is for women was the main thing that I came across and so I ended up making the sketch about performance reviews and the double standard put on women in these environments. It's so icky. Sooooo icky. I felt like I was in high school again. Good on you both for calling it out. The idea that there is a safe job in a country that is deindustrialized where all of the industries are still looking to outsource is such a joke. Especially if you are a country that is perfectly willing to overthrow other countries Democratically elected leaders to ensure you can exploit that labor cheaply.