Betrayed By The American Deal

America doesn’t feel tense because we disagree. It feels tense because a lot of people believe they kept their end of the bargain and the country didn’t keep its end of the deal.

We start with that sense of betrayal and follow the trail through today’s economic anxiety, collapsing trust in institutions, and a media environment that turns politics into spectacle. When every issue becomes a team sport and social media rewards humiliation over understanding, we don’t just get louder. We get lonelier, more suspicious, and easier to manipulate. And when ordinary people are squeezed while elites insist everything is “fine,” anger stops being an emotion and starts becoming an identity.

Then we break down a rare commencement speech that actually says what many young people are living: an economy that isn’t built for them, a widening 99% vs 1% gap, and disillusionment that can function like a superpower if it leads to clear-eyed action. From there, we run an “autopsy” using thinkers across the spectrum, from Noam Chomsky to Thomas Sowell to Robert Reich and more, to show how different camps spotted different parts of the same collapse. The thread tying it together is simple and heavy: this is also a spiritual and meaning crisis, because money is never just money, it’s dignity and a future you can picture.

We close with a listener question about rising geopolitical tension and explain why the next decade may bring long-term global instability as a multipolar world forms without agreed rules, plus a sharp “blast from the intellectual past” that reminds us how narratives get contested in real time. Subscribe, share this with someone you trust, and leave a review with the biggest question you’re still wrestling with.

Transcript

Welcome And The End Of Tribal Jerseys

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Darome McClain Show. Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. Tonight's conversation is not really about Republicans, and it's not really about Democrats. It's not really about conservatives, nor is it about liberals. It's not about socialists, libertarians, MAGA, woke, boomers, nor is it about millennials, Gen Z, or any other little tribal jersey Americans wear while the house quietly burns around all of us. Tonight's conversation is about something deeper. It's about betrayal. Because millions of Americans, left, right, black, white, rural, urban, Christian atheists increasingly feel like they were handed a promise that never materialized. They were told work hard, stay honest, go to school, get married, raise children, follow the rules, believe in America. And somewhere along the way, the deal collapsed. Now, what fascinates me about this moment in American history is that people from radically different political traditions all saw pieces of this collapse coming. You had Noam Chomsky of MIT, Professor Marital's father of modern linguistics, one of the most quoted scholars in modern history, reporting for decades that corporations were swallowing American democracy whole while the public was distracted by entertainment and propaganda. Then you had Thomas Solwell of the Hoover Institution, the scholar, a student of Milton Freeman, and one of the most towering intellectual figures of modern conservative thought and modern libertarian economics. And he was arguing for decades that broken incentives, dependency, bureaucracy, and the collapse of personal responsibility were eroding American society from within. And here's the uncomfortable truth. Both men were saying real things. That's what makes this moment so dangerous. America isn't collapsing because one side is completely right and the other side is completely wrong. America is collapsing because everybody sees one piece of the elephant, and then they start staring at each other about whose piece matters the most. Meanwhile, in ordinary America, people sit at home exhausted, working harder, sleeping less, paying more, trusting nobody. And somewhere in the middle of all the noise, people started losing faith. Not just in the government, faith in everything, faith in media, faith in churches, faith in universities, faith in corporations, faith in elections, faith in institutions, faith in each other. And once a nation begins losing trust at that level, history gets very dangerous very quickly. Now let me say something that may upset some people tonight. And before somebody gets offended and writes me a 17-page Facebook dissertation typed entirely in capital letters while listening to talk radio and eating weather's originals, hear me out. Because this isn't about hating older generations. A lot of baby boomers worked hard. A lot sacrificed deeply. A lot of them built families, communities, churches, and businesses. But structurally speaking, they came of age during one of the most economically prosperous periods in American history. Affordable colleges, strong unions, expanding industry, pensions, single-income households, cheap housing, manufacturing dominance, a factory worker could own a home, raise children, take vacations, and retire with dignity. But now, people with graduate degrees are delivering Uber Eats while living with a roommate at 37 years old. And the psychological effect of that matters. Because economics eventually becomes emotional. Then emotional becomes spiritual. Then spiritual seeps into your political, and now your spiritual becomes political. And a society where people cannot imagine a stable future becomes vulnerable to demagogues. That's not ideology. That is historical content. And this is where the media enters the story. Because instead of having an honest national conversation about any of this, America turned politics into the WWE, the WWF, the WCW, TNA. America turned politics into professional wrestling. Everything became a spectacle. Every issue became a team sport. Cable news transformed millions of Americans into emotional addicts. One network says the immigrants are destroying the country. Another network says capitalism is destroying the country. Another network says white supremacy is destroying the country. Another says wokeness is destroying the country. Everybody's got villains and nobody's got healing. And the social media came into the picture and made it all infinitely worse. Because now Americans don't talk to each other at all. Americans get on social media and they perform to each other. They perform like they're on stage. People don't debate anymore. They don't debate anymore to understand. They debate to humiliate, to clip on somebody, to talk on somebody, to go viral. You want social media? You know, social media really became Rome. It became like a digital Colosseum. Ancient Rome used gladiators, but modern Americans use algorithms. Different technology, different time, same instake. Keep the population entertained, keep the population enraged, keep the population distracted, keep the population tribalized and emotionally exhausted. Oh brother, it is working. Now here's why I become deeply concerned on a spiritual and metaphysical level. Because America is increasingly starting to feel like a country suffering from moral exhaustion. We are over stimulated but undernourished, connected to everything, but lonely, educated, highly educated, but directionless, very rich, wealthy, yet spiritually starving. We consume as Americans more information in one day than medieval peasants consumed in a lifetime. And somehow, with all that information, with all the consumption, we somehow understand each other less. That is extraordinary. And somewhere in all of this fragmentation, ordinary Americans became disposable, factories closed, communities collapsed, opioids exploded, church attendance cratered, family structures weakened, loneliness skyrocketed, and instead of treating this like a civilizational emergency, our elites gave us TED Talks. That's what drives people insane. A man loses his job after 25 years, his town collapses, his son becomes addicted to drugs, his daughter can't afford college, and then somebody on television making$11 million a year says, actually, the economy is doing great. That disconnect creates rage. And rage always searches for an object. That's why Americans are increasingly starting to hate each other. Not because everybody is uniquely evil, but because people in pain eventually become combustible, especially when they feel invisible. Now let me say something else that may be uncomfortable. I do not believe America is uniquely wicked, but I do believe America is uniquely armed while simultaneously becoming uniquely emotionally unstable. And that combination concerns me. We're a country flooded with weapons, drowning in propaganda, fragmented tribes, economically anxious, spiritually disconnected, and increasingly unable to distinguish disagreement from evil. Historically speaking, that is not a stable formula. And yet, despite all of this, despite all the anger, I still believe most ordinary Americans want basically the same thing. They want dignity, they want meeting, they want stable families, they want safe communities, they want affordable lives, they want some reason to believe tomorrow can be better than it was yesterday, that it can be better than it was today. Most people are not ideological extremists. Most people are just tired. They are tired of the manipulations. They are tired of the outrage. They are tired of being lied to. They are tired of being emotionally squeezed. They are tired of being economically squeezed while billionaires lecture them about the morality they should have from their private jets. And maybe that's why this moment feels so spiritually heavy, because deep down, millions of Americans no longer feel like they are actual citizens in this country. They feel like they are consumers, trapped inside an empire, run by corporations, algorithms, political consultants, pharmaceutical companies, media executives, and billionaires pretending to be saviors. And the tragedy is this once people lose faith that peaceful systems can solve problems. Let me say that one more time. Once people lose the faith that peaceful systems can solve problems, history says they eventually begin searching for other methods. And that's the part nobody wants to talk about, honestly. Now, before anybody misunderstands me tonight, I am not advocating for violence. I am warning against the conditions that historically produce violence. There's a difference. I said this before, and I'll say it again: a nation cannot endlessly humiliate people, economically pressure people, emotionally isolate people, and culturally mock people's differences without consequences eventually arriving. History has receipts. Rome had receipts, France has receipts, Russia had receipts, Germany had receipts, the Dutch had receipts, the Britons had receipts. The Huns had receipts. Human beings can absorb suffering for long periods of time. But hopelessness hopelessness is dynamite. And yet, despite all my criticisms tonight, I still believe redemption is possible. Not because politicians will save us, not because billionaires will save us, not because influencers dancing on TikTok while selling protein powder and cryptocurrency will save us either. Lord help us all. No. If America survives, it will survive because ordinary people recovered the ability to see each other as human beings again. Because somewhere along the line we forgot something ancient. A nation is not merely an economy, it is a moral relationship between neighbors. And once neighbors become enemies, countries begin decaying from the inside. And that is the danger of this moment. But it is also an opportunity. Because what human beings destroy, human beings can still rebuild. And maybe, just maybe, if we stop screaming long enough to actually listen to each other, there is still enough wisdom left in this country to pull back from the cliff. Stay with us tonight. We're gonna go even deeper.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

He goes in, he he uh shocks everybody and goes rogue and actually drops some fucking truth bombs here for this commencement speech. And you guys know the deal. Usually with commencement speeches, it's like you gotta be boring and sort of like, you know, very rarely do you get a commencement speech where you're like, oh shit, that actually was moving. But he goes in here and he lays out some real shit. So let's listen and we'll break it down. Here we go. In your short lives, you've seen a pandemic and an insurrection, natural disasters and artificial intelligence, mass shootings and mass deportations, all hyped through your screen into your souls. You've had scrolled through more suffering, more division, more chaos than any generation in human history. You've grown up in an economy that isn't built for you. The American dream is on my support. 90% of baby boomers went on to earn more money than their parents. For millennials like me, it's 50%. And for Gen Z, it's even lower. Damn, that's a lot of negative shit and quick succession right there, bro. That's a lot of like, hey, hey, by the way, you guys are cooked. Hey, by the way, you guys are ultra cooked. Hey, by the way, you guys are like mega ultra cooked. And we know that black Texans have 10 times less wealth and are half as likely to own a home. This current cost of living crisis is the culmination of 50 years of trickle-down economics. 50 years of the top 1% rigging this economic system and this political system for their own benefit. Young people, young people can't afford to buy a home, but Jeff Bezos has 12. That's bars. Oh man, that's a good ass line. I gotta start using that one myself. Jeff Bezos has 12 homes, and young people can't afford to buy a home. Oh no, oh no, that is not, that is not acceptable. Not a chance. Young people can't afford to fill up their gas tank, but Mark Zuckerberg is launching helicopters from his line yacht. Okay, James, I see you. Look, you guys know I've been on the record um as saying, like, I I think he's a good candidate. I think he's got a very good chance to win in Texas. Uh, I will say I've always been a little biased against him. Uh now that's on me. That's not on him. That's on me. But the reason I felt biased against him is because I have a natural uh inclination against anybody who I feel like is doing an Obama impression in the year of our lore 2026. I don't like that. I never like that about Ben O'Rourke. I never liked that about Mayor Pete. I never like that about anybody who has Josh Shapiro, he's the worst of them. Anyone who seems like if they're copying that Obama case, I do have a bias against that. However, having said that, this shit is substantive as fuck, bro. Like, this is substantive here. Like he's acting, he's actually spinning here. He's actually telling the truth, explaining how it is 99% versus 1%, right? Absolutely. This is this is Epstein class versus the rest of us. That's what we're witnessing right now. And uh he's putting it in stark, easy to digest, and understandable terms. Helicopters from Gazetta Yacht, young people pay more than their fair share of income taxes that someone like Elon Musk can get away without paying a penny. All of this has left your generation disillusioned. Disillusionment has a bad reputation. But being disillusioned means being freed from illusions. To see reality, to know the truth. As painful as it may be, your disillusionment is a superpower. You can see the world as it is and dream of the way it ought to be. That's a good ass point, man. That's a good ass point. How can you make shit better if you don't acknowledge how horrible it is? Republicans are actively trying to make everything worse on a daily basis. And unfortunately, too many Democrats are comfortable with like tweaks around the edges and sort of like, you know, minor upgrades when we need a motherfucking page one rewrite in this bitch, okay? We need like, we gotta start from scratch, is where we're at. Because that's how broken this system is. Any system that could produce Donald Trump, the oligarchy, the kleptocracy, the failing empire that can produce uh a genuine cancer like Donald Trump. That shit needs to be fucking reworked from the nuts and bolts and the studs, bro. Listen to the poetry of Langton Hughes. I am so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind. Let us take a knife and cut the world in two to see what worms are eating at the rind. We are living in an era of corruption. When I say corruption, I don't just mean illegal activity. I mean corruption in the deeper sense. The rotting of something from the inside. Politicians serving billionaire mega donors instead of their constituents, that's political corruption. The top 1% owning more wealth than the entire middle class, that's economic corruption. For-profit social media algorithms sowing division in our communities and turning neighbor against neighbor, that's social corruption. Our systems are rotting from the inside out. The ties that bind us together are unraveling. The most powerful people in this country are profiting off our pain, profiting off our division, profiting off our disconnection from one another. This is, at its root, a spiritual crisis, and it will require a spiritual solution. This is what makes him uniquely uh suited to make a good run in Texas, is that he's a Christian, but he uses his Christianity for actual positive ends. Now we're so used to looking at white evangelical fundamentalist Christians, and they use their Christianity to rape kids and cover up the Epstein files and defend carpet-bombing innocent people. That's how the fundamentalist evangelicals use it. But he uses his Christianity to say, hey, what if we actually gave a shit about working people and poor people? What if we actually taxed the wealthy and took that money and used it to help out regular people? What if we gave people healthcare? What if we looked out for immigrants? And uh, look, that I mean, I love that because what it does is it flips the right wing's own tools against them. Because a more direct, straightforward interpretation of Christianity would be Talerico's vision of Christianity versus like fucking Ted Haggard or any of the 17 disgusting grifter pastors that are around Trump that are like trying to profit off of his corruption. So you love to see it. It you know, it it's a natural fit, taking the Christianity and using it for democratic politics and left-wing values. The author, the author Bell Hooks, wrote, A culture that is dead to love can only be resurrected by a spiritual awakening. I'm not gonna lie, quoting Bell Hooks is woke as fuck, bro. That's a woke.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, he got me with the Bell Hooks thing. Everybody knows that as far as female literary writers goes, Bell Hooks is my favorite female writer. And she's definitely in the top contingent, it's one of my favorite writers, period. Um, her book that I really like the most was a book called All About Love. And then when I wanted to understand feminism, I did read a book by Bell Hooks called Feminism Is for Everybody. And the way that she explains some of the ideas uh gave me a more clear understanding of uh a feminist thought that I had not um considered. So that is uh Belle Hooks, who passed away uh, I want to say two years ago, and has a Bell Hooks Institute in Appalachia. Uh probably back to the video, though.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

That's some more shit, James. I see you. We've seen these spiritual awakenings happen in America. Historians have identified four. In the 1730s, America's first great awakening shook the religious establishment and reminded ordinary people of their own. Spiritual power. In the early 1800s, the second Great Awakening gave birth to the abolitionist movement and the fight for women's rights. In the late 1800s, the third Great Awakening produced the social gospel, which inspired the labor movement and the New Deal. And in the 1960s, the Fourth Great Awakening gave us the Civil Rights Movement, Liberation Theology, and the Great Society. These spiritual awakenings occur roughly every 70 years. Moments when political instability, economic inequality, and social upheaval lead people to look inward, to reclaim old traditions, to live out of their roots. I believe we are on the verge of a new great awakening. I never thought of it like that, but yo, from his lips to God's ears, because that's what we need right now. And this new awakening better be a fucking massive one. We better lock up all these Trump regime criminals. We better end the corruption, get the money out of politics. We better tax the shit out of the wealthy and take that money and use it to actually make regular people's lives better. Um, because this one, I mean, we are so far behind. Even other developed countries, we are so fucking far behind them. They have free college, they have free health care, they have better wages, they have everybody's unionized, they have uh, you know, uh, you know, uh free daycare and paid vacation time by law. They got all these positive things. We got nothing. We got nothing in this country. It's time to fucking uh that awakening can't come soon enough. And I believe you are going to lead it. That's what's up. Shout out to him for this speech. This was a great speech. You can go watch the whole thing if you want, it's on his uh his YouTube page, but that was some real shit, man. That was some real shit. Uh I actually want more. Here, he makes it a little more tangible for everybody, too. Listen to this. Here we go. A few weeks ago, an Amazon worker died while working in one of Amazon's warehouses. And as he lay on the floor dying, management told the other workers, just turn around and don't look. Get back to work. By the way, that's literal. This is this this actually happened. And I've never seen a clearer example of the sickness of capitalism than this. You don't matter. You're not you're not a person, you're not a human being, you don't have rights, you exist to make this company profits. And if you fucking don't fill that role, you are fucking replaceable. You're not a human being, you don't have rights, you exist to make this company profits. And if you fucking don't fill that role, you are fucking replaceable. Well, this is what the logical end result of that system leads to. Somebody dies next to you and they go, shut the fuck up and keep working. Think about that. Think about how dark that is. And we're supposed to be a Christian country, you know, where what 70 something percent of this country is Christian? We're supposed to be Christian, and that's the economic system we've created where we don't even treat people like people, we don't treat human beings like human beings. You're fucking replaceable, you're useless. Get back to work. That was a human being, that was a child of God, that was our sibling, sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed. Don't conform to this world. It is not healthy to assimilate in a SIG system. I know we're here at your college, but I'm asking you to question everything you've been told, at school or at work, or at church, and certainly anything you hear from a politician? Reject, reject anything that makes you less human. A different world is possible. What if we built systems that brought out the best in us? What if we invested the same resources into peace that we invest into war? What if what if the only hunger was for justice? Well said, sir. Well said. Hey y'all, do me a favor and like and subscribe. It helps out big time in the algorithm. Click the bell as well for notifications when videos drop, and watch that video on screen right now.

The Autopsy Through Rival Thinkers

The Meaning Crisis Behind The Economy

Are We Entering Global Instability

Blast From The Past On Gaza

SPEAKER_00 28:39

You know you want to. The children of children. A beautiful poem written by Oscar Brown Jr. The children of children, by the time they have grown, they have habits like rabbits and young of their own. The children of children from their mama's laps hop down to the ground to be taken in traps. The children of children are trapped in dark skin to stay in and play in a game that no one wins. The children of children, while so young and sweet, are all damned and programmed for future defeat. The children of children are trapped by adults who failed them, then jailed them to high bad results. The children of children unable to cope with systems that twist them and rob them of hope. The children of children are sinned and ashamed, preparing and bearing, and who do you blame? The children of children cry out every day. They beg you for rescue. And what do you say? A beautiful poem written by Oscar Brown Jr. The Children of Children. Written by Darrell McClane. Now, family. If the opening monologue was a diagnosis, this second segment, I'm considering this the autopsy. This is why I'm gonna open up my analytical mind for you because it's one thing to say that America feels broken. It is another thing to ask who saw this coming, who warned us, who explained the machinery before the machinery swallowed us whole. And this is where we have to bring in the heavy hitter thinkers, not the uh TikTok economists, not cable news mascots, not somebody's cousin with a podcast microphone and a ring light arguing about gas prices while mispronouncing Keynesian economics. I mean, we have to bring in the thinkers, the philosophers, the economists, the public intellectuals, the politicians who have spent decades wrestling with money, power, class, labor, government, empire, and the spiritual condition of the modern man. But what's fascinating about me trying to bring in all this to show you how I think about this stuff is I have to bring in people from radically different traditions, belief systems, ideological camps, and somehow saw all these parts of this collapse coming. They just blame different demons. We're gonna have to bring in the thinking of your Noam Chomsky, the MIT emeritus, you know, professor, the father of modern linguistics, one of the most cited scholars in modern history, and perhaps America's most relentless critic of corporate power, who would say in this moment that we got here because democracy was slowly converted into a managed consent system. Chomsky argued that neoliberal societies turn citizens into consumers and commodities into marketplaces, leaving people atomized, demoralized, and powerless. And listen to this, whether you agree with Professor Chomsky or not, you cannot deny that description seems and feels painfully familiar. Because what are we now? We are no longer primarily citizens, we are primarily consumers. We are primarily customers. The school treats the child like a future economic unit. The hospital treats the sick like revenue. The church lots of times treats the congregation like a brand demographic. The politicians treat the voters like a data set. The corporation treats the worker like a replaceable battery. So from a Chomsky and lens, we look at America and say something like, You were told you were free, but in the range of acceptable choices was already narrowed for you before you even entered the booth, I dare say before you were even born. Now, standing across the room from Chomsky would be someone like Thomas Sohel, the Hoover Institute scholar, former student of Milton Freeman, who was one of the most influential conservative economists of the modern age, and a man whose entire intellectual project is built around incentives, trade-offs, culture, and consequences. So Sowell would say, hold on here, Chopsky, hold on, Durrell, you cannot blame everything on corporations and capitalism. At some point, bad incentives create bad outcomes. Sowell's arguments matter because he would tell us that when government's programs reward dependency, when schools stop demanding excellence, and when culture stops honoring discipline, when family structures collapse, when people are taught grievance without responsibility, society begins to decay from within. Now, here is where Darrell McLean stands on this particular question right now. I think so well see something concrete and real, but I also think Chompsey sees something concrete and will as well. And here is the problem. And it's a not uniquely American problem, but it is an American problem in the sense that we have become so tribal that to admit when our perceived enemies are partially correct, it causes us some pain. And this is where wisdom begins. Wisdom says, my side does not own all the truth. Because Chomsky can be right about concentrated corporate power, and so well can be right about broken incentives. Those two truths are not enemies of each other. They are two headlights on a very, very same dark road. Then, if we bring in somebody like Milton Freeman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, University of Chicago giant, champion of monetarianism, intellectual architect of modern free market conservatism, and one of the most influential economic minds of the 20th century, Freeman believed capitalism was necessary for political freedom, though not itself sufficient. He also argued that the government must establish and enforce rules for the game. Now that second part matters because people love to quote Freeman like saying, let corporations do what they want while the government sits in a corner eating crayons. But no, that is not the true uh Milton Friedman thought if you read his word. Freeman believed in rules. He believed the government had a role to play. He believed the market needs a referee. But what happened in America? The referees started working for the teams. And that's the problem. The umpire got a Goldman Sachs hoodie. The judge got a lobbyist business card. The congressman's got a donor class leash around his neck. So Friedman's ideal free market became in practice a rigged casino where the House always wins and then lectured losers about personal responsibility. That's what we um say, that's what we think about when we say terms like crony capitalism. Now we slide over to somebody like Professor Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, the Berkeley professor, best-selling author, and one of America's most recognizable progressive economists. Reich would say that the great divide is not really left versus right anymore. It is democracy versus oligarchy. In his book, The System, Reitch actually argues that old labels hide the fact that ordinary people are being economically shifted by concentrated wealth and power. And brother, that well, oh that one is hard. Because people keep saying, if is this socialism or is this capitalism? And right is saying no. The real question is whether democracies or republics can survive when billionaires have more power than voters. That is the question. Can democracy survive when a handful of people can buy the media platforms, fund campaigns, shake tax policies, crush unions, influence universities, and then convince ordinary Americans that the real threat is their neighbor making$19 an hour with dental insurance. That's something. That's something. But that's not democracy. It's feudalism, if I have this Pete Frankie about it. It's feudalism, but with a Wi-Fi. Somebody else became popular as of late, a psychologist who I always I have some critiques of psychologists. Uh being one, I think sometimes they try to explain the way society we're not dealing with right in front of them. But it made me think about in this moment, even though he's not an economist, somebody like uh Jordan Peterson, the Canadian clinical psychologist and a former University of Toronto professor. Now, he's also a best-selling author and one of the most influential voices on, I would say, meaning, responsibility, hierarchy, and modern alienation. Peterson looks at this and would say that you cannot build a civilization out of resentment. And again, he sees something here very real. Peterson would be right on this. Dr. Peterson's central message has often been that meaning comes from and through responsibility, carrying burdens, ordering your life, telling the truth, refusing to collapse into nihilism. His public work repeatedly links responsibility with meaning. Now, I do not agree with Peterson on everything, but I do believe this is fundamentally true. A society that gives people nothing meaningful to carry will eventually give them something destructive to worship. If a young man has no purpose, no family, no vocation, no faith, no discipline, no moral framework, no rite of passage, no elder to bless them, no work that gives them dignity, do not be shocked when they've run into the arms of chaos. Nature hates a vacuum, and so does the human soul. Then I would think, because of his right teams and influence on me as a young adult, what would Christopher Hitchens think? The British American polemicist, literary assassin, anti-totalitarian fire brand, and one of the most feared debaters of his generation, Hitchens, I think, would say, beware of every system that demands you surrender your mind. He would not let the left off the hook, not let the right off the hook. He would not let religion off the hook. So he would not let empire off the hook either. Hitchens hated can't. He hated that fake moral language powerful people use when they are trying to make a theft sound like virtue. And America is drowning in can't and in can't. When corporations destroy towns, they call it efficiency. When politicians serve donors, they call it public service. When media companies inflame hatred, they call it engagement. When billionaires avoid taxes, they call it innovation. When workers ask for dignity, they call it entitlement. Hitchens would slice through that like a British man with a cigarette and a thesaurus full of knives. And then I have to go, of course, to the my first literary love. There has to be Gore Vidal, the novelist, the historian, the aristocrat, the dissident, the acid tongue critic of empire, and one of the greatest American literary skeptics of the 20th century. Vidal would say America became an empire pretending to be a republic. He warned us that empires are restless organisms that must constantly renew themselves or begin leaking energy and dying. That is powerful. Because the powerful, because empire, because it costs money. Empires cost attention. Empires cost morality. Empires cost sons. Empires cost daughters. Empires cost truth. You cannot spend trillions abroad, neglect cities at home, hollow out the middle class, materialize the national imagination, and then act surprise when the Republic starts looking sickly. The Dow would look at America and say you wanted Rome's reach without Rome's consequence. And that bill has always come due. Now let's bring that politician in who have been screaming about economics from the inside of the machine. I think about Ron Paul, the physician, the former congressman, the libertarian icon, Australian economic evangelist, and a man who turned in the Fed into a political battle cry. What would he say? Would he say the rot begins with money itself? Ron Paul has long argued that inflation functions like a hidden tack, especially harming the poor and the middle class. And listen, you don't have to be a full Ron Paul libertarian to understand this. When groceries double, the wealthy adjust their portfolio. The poor skips meals. And that's the difference. Inflation does not hit everybody equally. A billionaire experienced inflation as an accounting irritation. A working mother experienced inflation by saying, which bill can I pay late without losing this essential good? That is not a theory. That is what we used to call kitchen table economics. You have somebody in that tradition right now, you have Thomas Massey, the MIT trade engineer, a Kentucky congressman, a libertarian-leaning Republican, and one of the few people in Congress willing to vote no when both parties are drunk on spending. Massey would argue that America has a bipartisan addiction to debt. Republicans spin, Democrats spin. Both sides complain about spending only when the other team is holding the credit card. Massey has repeatedly criticized the omnibus spending and rising national debt, including opposing large spending bills that exceed spending camps. And he is right about that. There is no adult in the room when everybody benefits from pretending that every bill never arrives. Then we have, of course, the Bernie Sanders wing, the independent senator for Vermont, a Democratic Socialist, two-time presidential candidate, and America's most consistent critic of the billionaire class. Bernie would say this is oligarchy. And Bernie has been saying this is an oligarchy for decades. He warned that America is moving away from a government of buying for the people and toward a government of buying for billionaires. That line matters because Bernie is not merely complaining about rich people having nice things. He is actually saying that wealth has become political power. And once wealth becomes political power, democracy becomes ceremonial. We still vote, we still argue, we still wear stickers, we still watch debates. But the donor class has already wrote the menu before we even sat down at the table. Then you have people like Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law Professor, the bankruptcy scholar, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and one of the Democratic Party's sharpest critics of predatory finances. Warren would say the game is a rigg. And that has been her whole economic message since the financial crisis. The rule that the rules are written to favor the powerful, while the ordinary families are told to blame themselves for losing at a rank concession. And Warren's contribution is important because she understands the plumbing. Berning gives you a sermon, Warman gives you a blueprint. So she is not just saying the rich are too rich. She's saying, look at bankruptcy law, look at credit cards, look at student loans, look at banks, look at consumer perfection, look at corporate lobbying, look at how the rules are written. And once you see the rules, you realize the cruelty was not accidental. It was all engineered. And then you have an economic young person, like here Alexandria Costa Gortez, the Congresswoman from New York, former bartender, Democratic Socialist, generational political figure, and one of the most effective communicators of economic possible populism on the Democratic side of American politics. She has argued that the elite and the billionaire power often depends on dividing working people, and she has called Democrats to become fighters for working class. Now, people can mock ALC all they want, but here's what she understands. Politics is emotional before it is technical. She understands that people are not just mad about policy, they are mad because they feel insulted. They feel like the economy is arranged to extract from them, lecture them, shame them, and then sell them inspirational mugs about resilience. And finally, we go back to somebody like Michael Moore, Oscar-winning documentaryist, populist bomb thorough, and a longtime critic of corporate capitalism would say capitalism and democracy are fundamentally intended because capitalism concentrates power while democracy is supposed to distribute it. Moore has argued that capitalism means a few people do very well while everyone else serves the few. Now Moore can be more uh theatrical. Lord knows more has never met a camera angle that he didn't want to turn into a revolution, but underneath the theater is a serious question. Can a country survive when the workplace is authoritarian, the economy is unequal, the media is corrupt, and the politics is donor funded? That is a serious question, not a silly one. And that is the question. So what do we do with all these questions and all these voice cases? Chomsky says corporate power, manufacturing consent. Sowell says incentives and culture collapse. Friedman says freedom requires markets and rules. Reich says democracy is being swallowed by oligarchy. Peterson says meaning dies when responsibilities dies. Hitchens says beware of ideological lies. Vidal says empire rots the republic. Ron Paul says the money is corrupted. Massey says the debt is unsustainable. Bernie says billionaires bought the government. Warren says the rules are rigged. AOC says working people are being divided. Michael Moore says capitalism and democracy are at war are at war with each other. And here is the way I try to synthesize this. They're all describing different rooms in the same burning mansion. Some of them are in the basement talking about debt. Some of them are in the kitchen talking about wages. Some of them are in the attic talking about empire. Some of them are in the living room talking about the media. Some are outside yelling that the whole structure was built wrong. But the house is still on fire. And the ordinary American is standing in the smoke saying, I don't need another theory. I need something to tell me how to breathe. That is where we are. America is not simply having an economic crisis. America is having a meaning crisis dressed up as an economic crisis. Because money is never just money. Money is time. Money is dignity. Money is security. Money is whether a father feels like he can protect his family. Money is whether a mother sleeps peacefully. Money is whether a young couple believes they can have children. Money is where an old person can afford medicine. Money is where a community feels abandoned or supported and seen. So when people say it's just the economy, I say no. It's never just the economy. It is the moral architecture of our daily lives. And if the economy teaches people that they are disposable, politics will eventually become cruel. That is the road we are on. And this is why this particular segment matters to me. Because before we can fix anything, we have to stop pretending this came out of nowhere. The prophets warned us in religious texts. The economists warned us in theoretical, mathematical texts, the dissidents warned us everywhere they could. The philosophers warned us. The populists warned us. The libertarians warned us, the liberians warned us, the teachers warned us, the socialists warned us, the conservatives warned us. Everybody saw a peace. But America was too arrogant and sometimes too tired and sometimes too annoyed. And sometimes we should all just get over it. But at the end of the day, America did not listen. And now the bill is sitting on the table. And the only question is do we have enough wisdom left to pay attention before this whole thing collapses under the weight of his own contradictions? We'll be right back with a blast with the intellectual past, and I'll see you on the next episode. Welcome back to the show. Before we get into our blast with the intellectual past, we got a question here, and for another segment. Are we entering a new era of global instability? So the audience question says, with the rising geopolitical tensions and shifting alliances across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, are we entering a new era of long-term global instability? Or is this just a temporary realignment of power that will eventually settle? That was a really good question. If anybody wants an example of how you ask a good question, um, that was it. That was that was a good question. So um so my answer is this. Now that matters because World War II and after that, the United States helped build a system of alliances, trade institutions, military commitments, and financial arrangements that, for all of its hypocrisy and violence, created a kind of predictable global architecture. But now Europe is trying to figure out how much America has changed and how much it can rely on this new American. The Middle East is becoming more combustible, especially with energy and maritime routes under pressure. Assai ministers recently warned that the Middle East conflict could significantly slow regional growth because so many Asian energy depends on routes like the Strait of Hormuz, or as the president liked to call it, Hormon Street. Asia is watching US-China competition, South China Sea tensions, Taiwan anxieties, and supply chain realignment. And the global risk report of 2026 warned that global shocks, technological disruptions, climate instability, and social fragmentation are overlapping rather than arriving on the same time. Now that's key word there is overlapping. That is not one storm. That is ten storms sharing the same sky. Ukraine, Iran, Israel, China, Taiwan, Russia, NATO, energy, AI, trade, migration, debt, climate, and cyber war. Pick your horsemen, because we got a whole stable. Now some analysts will say, calm down, this is just a multipolarity. The world is adjusting. America had its unpolar moment after the Cold War, and now China, India, Russia, and the Ghost States, European and all the regional powers are asserting themselves. And that is partially true. Power is redirecting and therefore redistributing. But here's the problem. The world is becoming multipolar before it has agreed on the rules of multipolarity. And that is the danger. A stable order requires shared rules, shared expectations. Who controls the sea lanes? Who controls and what counts as aggression? What triggers collective defense? And what happens when cyber attacks hit hospitals, banks, or elections? What happens when drones, AI, and hypersonic weapons compress decision making from days to minutes? We are inventing the new world order while standing inside of a burning remains of the old world order, and that means the next decade is likely to be very unstable. Not necessarily apocalyptic, but very unstable. More regional wars, more proxy conflicts, more energy shocks, more trade fragmentation, more military spending, more country hedging their bets, more allies acting like customers, more enemies acting like business partners, more government saying one thing in public while cutting deals in private. This is not the Cold War all over again. This is Cold War if it had too many polls. This is messier. This is Washington. This is Beijing. This is Moscow. This is Brussels. This is Tehran. This is Rahada. This is Anaka, this is New Delhi. And all the all the powers try to shape their table at the same time. That's not chess. That is a bar fight with nuclear weapons and everything else of the Coke Clause. So my answer is yes, we are entering a new and a long-term era of instability. But not because chaos is destiny. We're entering instability because the old referee is weaker and the new players are more ruthless, they're stronger, and nobody fully treats the rule books like it means anything, because nobody trusts the rule book. So the question is not whether the world will eventually settle, it always settles. So we'll probably settle again. The world systems always settle into something. The real question is how much damage will be done before the new balance emerges. And that's what should concern all of us. Because when empires decline and alliances shift and economic fragments, ordinary people pay first. Not think tank fellows, not billionaires, and not defense contractors. Ordinary people. Why? Well, they pay through higher gas prices, higher food prices, inflation, refugee crises, military deployments, dead sons, dead daughters, dead nieces, dead dads, dead wives, cyber attacks, fear, propaganda, and leaders who use foreign chaos to justify domestic control over them. So no. I think the plane has entered a different atmosphere, and the passengers need to stop pretending that the seatbelt sign is just for decorations. We have to buckle up because this, my friend, with the great question, is about to be a very tough damn fight. Blast from the intellectual passive.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

I'm just the generic democratic strategist, although I've never been a Democrat in my life. I was just black. They brought me on because they thought I didn't know anything about it. And then out of their people just mop the floor with me. It didn't go the way they wanted it to. They have an international responsibility, according to Hague Regulations, Article 47, to treat Gaza very differently. That's just wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

Israel ended its occupation completely in 2005. That's untrue. Between 2000 and 100 and 2007.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:48

It's absolutely true. Why is it not true? It's not true because there are international standards for occupation. They still control electromagnetic space, the airspace, the naval space, the population registry, every single measure of occupation.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

They need satisfying a military occupation can continue until the military threat is over. That is clear under international.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

But Alan, okay, so now you're at least conceding the fact that there isn't military occupation. I've always been interested in the Middle East, particularly in uh Palestine. I have a graduate degree in Middle East for Studies, but I became increasingly interested after I worked at CNN. First, they would bring me on to the big Dershuits. I'm just the generic democratic strategist. They brought me on because they thought I didn't know anything about it. And then they just mocked the floor with me. It didn't go the way they wanted it to. They have an international responsibility, according to Hague Regulations, Article 47, to treat the Gaza very differently. That's just wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Israel ended its occupation completely in 2005. That's untrue.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

Between 2000 and 2000, it's absolutely true. Why is it not true? It's not true because there are international standards for occupation. They still control the electromagnetic space, the air space, the naval space, the population registry. Every single measure of occupation they need.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Okay, the G the military occupation can continue until the military threat is over. That is clear that they're international.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Okay, so now you're at least conceding the fact that there is a military occupation.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

So nice we had to play it twice. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you on the next episode.