Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingona Show.
We are here for a new series. How are you doing,
Thomas very well?
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well. This is actually a request that I got during
one of my Sunday live streams. Somebody said that you
always talk about how California used to be like white
America was, it was like the pinnacle of white America,
and that it was destroyed on purpose and it became
it is what it is now and that was done
on purpose. So you know, the idea is you try
to go over the history and explain exactly how that happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's two things. I mean, there's there's
a demographic situation, and there's dysfunction in that regard and
you know a kind of cultivated anarchy. But it's also
the California is also just not a blue state. It
didn't one day become a blue state in nineteen ninety two.
That's not nothings work that it'd be like given twenty
twenty eight, it's declared Illinois is now a red state.
It's as red as Texas. It can never be flipped.
And that's just how it is. You know, I don't
accept that that's preposterous and plus just the the facts
don't bear that out. Whenever there's a plebiscite, because I mean,
California's got an unusual constitution, you know, that's why they
pulled these plebiscites like somehow. Every time there's you know,
a social issue put to an open vote, you know,
whether it's what the regime ephimistically calls gay marriage, whether
it's affirmative action, there's always like a raw majority against it.
So California is just like a rabidly liberal, safe blue state.
But when people go to the polls, they always like
vote this stuff down, and then the night Circuit steps
in to reverse the plebiscite. I mean, like what so
how does that work? You know? And it the reason why.
You know, not only were Reagan and Nixon products of
the California plago culture, but even like resistance types and
fringe people like the Butchers, that was like their heartland.
Like Tommy Mesker was in Los Angeles really until the
SPLC went after him because of the unfortunate incident with
with Ken Miski and that uh mugulta Sarah guy who
you know, lost his life when incident of this fight.
It was kind of like a nothing thing, you know.
I mean it was young guys being foolish, you know,
on both sides of that conflict, and a guy lost
his life unfortunately, and you know, the local authorities swept
in and and and and Morris D's like smelled proverbial
carry on, the feast on and a way to make
money off of the misery of others, which he was
never going to pass up. And uh, you know Metzker
was was uh, he he had to protect himself, you
know from this this law fair uh that was being
deployed against him. So you end up moving to Indiana.
But you know he's the reason why, you know, like
he made his home in Los Angeles, because that's that's
fertile ground for those kinds of politics. And even of
this day, like I realized that, you know, you can't
extrapolate what a political culture is in terms of its
substantive tenor you know, from the street or the prison yard.
But somehow like California is like it's unbelievably like racial eye.
He's in the penal system on the street in a
way like that'd be unheard of in Chicago. It's like
Chicago being like massively segregated. So it's like, so California
is basically like the Sweden of the United States, but
on the street, like people only be aligned by race,
and like if you talk to some guy across the
racial divide, like you've got a problem, you know you're
gonna get like regulated for it. Like that's interesting. I
don't see that's possible, but you know something is that
and I I'll get into the substance of our discussion
in a minute, But I don't know why people take
this at face value. It's like you wouldn't you know
if MSNBC tells you that Vladimir Putin is some like
dangerous mad man, or if they tell you that Donald
Trump is is you know, a rapist or whatever ridiculous
you know in vile cap they're they're favoring any at
any given moment. It's like you wouldn't believe that, but
you believe it when they just declare that California is
insurmountably blue, Like why would you believe that? Plus, it's
just not an electoral politics works. There aren't just quote
safe states, So it's like we're not going to campaign
in Texas or we're not going to campaign in California
because it's safe. That's not how you run a campaign.
You know, like if Reagan had done that, he wouldn't
have slept the country. Like, you know, you just don't
challenge in these major and essential electoral prizes because they're
safe states. I mean, that's obvious horse trading. It's obvious
that you know, there's a combination of of the technology
and the ability to add great data in real time
and you know, kind of changing parameters within the political
culture at federal level at a bunch of things like this.
So like after the Cold War, it's like, well, we're
basically gonna take We're gonna take certain like electoral college
prizes off the table and like only fight in certain states.
That's part of horse trading. Like we get texted this,
you get California. I mean, this is this is obvious,
you know, and especially in the case of California, Like
I very much got Chicago in my DNA, but you know,
I got on a deep roots here, Like my my
folks are from what'son I mean, like my mom was
long gone, but my dad and my mom was from
from Los Angeles, and I my early life, I spent
a lot of time there, you know, and so it's
not just academic to me. You know, like I saw
what southern California was like in the eighties, you know,
I mean it wasn't. It wasn't like people claim it was,
you know, and I was there throughout the nineties too,
I mean not with much regularity. Like the last time
I was out there was was two thousand, but I
mean it was the same deal. I mean, there's weird
stuff there. There's definitely a lot more kind of open
vice and things than you'd find in Chicago or like
in the South. But this idea that it's some like
that it's a great big Berkeley or that it's or
that it's like Eugene, Oregon, and like that's ridiculous. You know,
it's incredibly racialized. It's incredibly segregated. You know, the people
there have a very law and order of sensibility, especially
considering the kind of unless you're talking about, uh I,
they're talking about East Lare, and unless you're talking about
some of these like day one white hoods, or unless
you're talking about what remains like blacks southern California, which
is ceasing exists. I mean, it's it's a fact. I'm
not talking to some shit like unless're talking about a
hoods like that, like people don't know when or trust
their neighbors, Like it's you know, it's not at all
of people claim it is. So I figure we could
probably make it a three part series. Like today, I
want to get into the kind of history of how
California became California, because that's important, you know. I I
was going to discussion the other day about Wisconsin, because
Wisconsin is an unusual state. You know, like on the
one hand, like on the one hand, they'll they'll go
for Bernie, you'll go for Trumps. Is like protest gestures.
But it's like the same population that goes for both.
And they you know, they abolish the death penalty when
I was basically unheard of. They were founded by a
bunch of Bavarians essentially, I mean, I'm in the culture there.
I don't mean like this the governmental apparatus, a lot
of whom were kind of the eighteen forty eight refuge
got to the refugees of eighteen forty eight. You know,
so they've got they had a peculiar ideological persuasion. You know,
in California from day one, it was very very racialized,
you know, and there was a there was a number
there was there was a successive incidents of secession movements
during the war between the States, and there was concern.
There's concern that a bunch of free soilers who were
for all practical purposes like rabid white nationalists and uh,
some of these some of these Spanish people both people
literally descended from Spaniards, you know, as well as uh
as well as like Mestizo people, you know who who
owned land in southern California who remained after the Mexican War.
There was concern that they were going to click up
and they were just going to tell the federal government
to go to hell and say like we're we're our
own territory, now come get us. You know, this is
not a state that is a heritage of tolerance or
multiculturalism in the way the term is bandied today or
of you know, love for the federal government. You know.
And and even if that was true, you know, again,
like let's say everything that was alleged is true, that
California just can never be flipped. It is always blue
because of Mexicans. So Hispanics love Chris senile old white
ladies like Nancy Pelosi, they love like they love like
vulgar yentas like Barbara Boxer, Like really they don't want
their own people running things, you know, I mean, if
what they say is true, you'd have something like young
like uh, you know, something young basically like socialists, like
Mexican guy whose whole thing was you know, like justice
for like the farm workers, and probably some kind of
weird pastiche of liberation theology, Catholicism and that kind of
like crusading evangelical sensibility that that tends to be. I mean,
not not in terms of sexual stuff or social matters,
but in terms of economic matters, like left wing, Like
that's that's who California will be full of in terms
of its garment. If what was being alleged was true,
it wouldn't be some, it wouldn't be some like zombiefied
hag white lead, you know, like who everybody despises. You know,
like that's ridiculous. So I you know, I'm trying to
disabuse people of those notions. But yeah, with with that
background laid will, we'll kind of get started the key
to kind of California's existence is a state. You know,
it was the Mexican War when Mexico City was charactured
by Windfield Scott. He was the commander on the ground
and the Mexican War was formative in all kinds of ways.
Stonewall Jackson, he was an artillery officer on the ground
there and he you know this, this is basically where
the guys who came to make up the the corps
of the Confederate Army like learn how to fight with
combined arms. You know. Winfield Scott, Jefferson Davis, Zichary Taylor,
Stonewall Jackson, Winfield Scott and Jefferson Davis became real rivals
in ops like way back then. And Winfield Scott, of course,
he essentially defected to the Union cause if you want
to look at it that way, and he was responsible
for he died very shortly after the onset of hostilities
and even sixty one, but he played a key part
in devising the Union battle plan in terms of you know,
mobilization and devising with this limit instructure and things like that.
But this kind of politically, California was a microcosm after
the Mexican War of the political divide that developed between
the Democrats, which were then the Jacksonian Party and the Whigs.
And we're gonna get into what that means and a
lot of and California to day is the legacy of
that in real terms, not in terms of the propaganda narrative.
But when Mexico City fell on September fifteenth, eighteen forty seven, like,
the end result was that Mexico, Mexico is essentially required
to seceed like more over half of its territory, including
the present day including was present day California and Nevada, Utah,
most of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and a small part
of Wyoming. You know, I mean Mexico after after it
achieved in the times from Spain. I mean, it was,
it was, it was, it was, It was setting itself
up to be a major power. You know, people forget that,
like Mexico today is basically like a rump state. Okay,
the American delegation and President Polk, and Polk was actually
a really good president and serious historians have started crediting
him with that. Polk was a protege of Andrew Jackson, Okay,
and he was very much like a Jacksonian executive, you know,
he he viewed, uh, he viewed the kind of like
white warrior Yaleman Rys as like the backbone of this country.
He viewed the president as having a special mandate because
he's the only nationally e lookeed representative like uh. He
had contempt for Congress. He he thought, you know, the judiciary,
he had nothing to say on on trying to restrain authority,
expressly delegated the Article two. But he was a great man,
and he he he basically accomplished all of his objectives
in a single term. See he said when he took
off when the other bobus, he said he would not
run for any more for a second term. He would
not seek in compancy, and he didn't just a great president.
But Polk realized, like, we can't impose a totally draconian
peace on these people we've you know, the Mexicans. He's like,
we've gotta we got to compensate them somehow. I'll tell
the US government paid in Mexico fifteen million dollars in
in in the literal language of the of the peace
agreement quote in consideration of the extension acquired by the
boundaries of the United States and the then the government
also like it that Polk's administra, like I said, satisfied,
like publicly held debts like oh, the Mexican government by
American citizens. Okay. So I mean on the one hand,
Mexico became like a rump state, like almost fiefdom of America.
But I mean they were compensated, you know, it just
wasn't poke. Uh. And Polk realized too, like a lot
of these Southern officers, I mean, God love them like
they're my own forebears. But uh, he realized there was
a potential of these guys like putting their boot on
the heels of Mexico's neck and and basically you know,
basically like ruling like like like you know, like uh
like occupation warlords. And He's like, we can't, we can't
have it, you know. And uh, Winfield Scott was, Ah,
it was a very impressive guy and a great general officer.
I mean, I've got no love for his politics, but
you know it and he commanding general, especially in those
days where you know, command control was truly in situ.
You know, you need it, you needed that, you needed
a president who had the actual authority behind is his
dic tos, the you know, to kind of bring that
power to bear the UH. But the UH, the piece
of h Guadalupe Hadelgo Ken went to paper on a
nineteenth of UH. It was finally ratified in the nineteenth
of May eighteen forty eight. Like I still he's ended,
you know with with the fall of Mexico City. But
it was months later that this treaty was hatched out.
Nicholas Trist, who for practical purposes, was kind of the
first Secretary of State, like in the Department of State
as we think of it. He was sent down there
as Polk's representative to Liais with Winfield Scott. What he
ended up doing was Polk, as well as the military establishment,
he wanted to Trist to push way harder from more
territorial concessions. Trist didn't do that, But initially Polk said
he was willing to pay the Mexican's thirty million dollars
the compensation. Trist literally had that number, okay, which honestly
is like splendid negotiation. But Tris kind of became persona
on grata subsequently. But Trist's associated with a lot of
know nothings in natives types. It's interesting, you know, and
a lot of these guys. Trist it wasn't he kind
of played both sides of the aisle, because on the
one hand, like he paid lip surge to these guys
who wanted to expand slavery westward, and presumably a lot
of these same elements, particularly the military establishment, who are
almost st all Southerners, you know, who are part of
this kind of court group of officers who won the
war in Mexico, Like, presumably they wanted to expand slavery, like,
you know, deep into what had been Spanish America as well,
you know. And H. Trist was unwilling to get behind that,
Like he stood on business for like slaveholders' rights, and
like he was a slaveholder, but he came down on
the side of the free soilers if we cannot expand
this westward, you know. And I think that with a
source of some of the tension. And Poke Poke struck
very much kind of the same sort of compromise in
terms of what he was willing to publicly advocate for
and like to understand the history of the West, the
American West, like you've got to take that into account,
you know. The degree to which it was kind of
a fight between these Jacksonians who basically wanted to make
the West like an extension of the American South and
this kind of like agrarian slave empire, and these free
soiler types were basically allied with big business, you know,
and what became like the kind of new Republican Party
around mister Lincoln, which was kind of like the vestigial
elements of the Whigs. You know, they didn't they opposed
to slavery, but they but not for like the reasons
that uh, like Quakers were that these creators like John
Brown tape evolutionists were One of the reasons they were
opposed to is because they were very hard line white nationalists.
They didn't want like non white people. Uh they've even
slavery is like this degenerate practice, you know, in no
sol measure because they involved like recent mixing and things like.
These are the people, these are the political factions that
were like fighting for dominance in California, Like like progressives
were nowhere to be found. They didn't exist, you know.
So that that's relevant to our discussion here because it's like, okay,
I mean, if you're gonna claim that like New York
is is like a progressive heartland, that's overstated too, for
all kinds of reasons. But I'll accept it because you
do have that culture in New York and Boston, throughout
New England dating back to literally this the early seventeenth century.
It doesn't exist in California, you know, yet you're supposed
to believe that. I guess one day in the nineteen seventies,
this became the dominant culture. And now it's just now
it's just ironclad and insurmountable. It's not other things work,
you know, and this stuff doesn't matter. You know. People
they developed these conceits, I guess because they I bibe
what they're told by regime adjacent median things that somehow
precedent is just wiped away. After nineteen eighty nine or something,
and after the Cold War, you know, the enduring conventions
and any given locale just like don't matter like that.
That could not be farther from the truth. That's it's
not political life. That's not all things worked. You know.
History bleeds into the present in all kinds of ways,
you know, and especially especially when we're talking about political
cultures and the kind of nuances they're in. I mean
that that's why we have an Electoral College. It's not
it's not. It's not some weird conspiracy or whatever. You know,
the Walmart chopper types think like nor is it something
that the federal governments like thinks of some great thing.
They had no choice, you know, because otherwise it's not
going to be there's going to be a legitimacy gap,
you know, a mile wide if if such things aren't abided,
you know. And the reason why those things exist is
on grounds and historical imperatives. But moving on, Tryst had
been he'd been on liaison to Cuba, and he spoke
fluent Spanish, and he seems they have an affinity kind
of for for Spanish peoples, you know, both like the
the Spaniards themselves as well as you know, some of
their mixed race and indigenous charges and things. And there's
speculation that both at the time and subsequent, some of
which is used us as a laudable thing, some of
which is very punitive that you know, he sympathized with
the Mexicans more than he cared about with Polk wanted
and Whinfield Scott wanted him to get done, you know,
so he found a way to basically like let the
Mexicans preserve especially you know, these these military types who
were sitting at the negotiating table. He allowed them to
like retain some of their honor as officers and as men.
Well also, uh, you know, managing the managing to save
the Poke administration literally half of the expenditure that they've anticipated.
It's interesting to speculate, and I think that's probably true. Okay,
but the uh but yeah, he didn't uh he and
book book paulk and Winfield Scott were not at all happy,
and subsequently Christ's ordered to leave Mexico and he refused.
He just stayed there. He wrote a he wrote a
sixty five page letter back to Washington. Like how anybody
could write a sixty five page letter in those days
is incredible, But that's what he did. And uh he
outlined his reasons from staying in uh staying in theater,
and uh he spared uh he he he didn't have
the opportunity to go to ways to explain, you know
how he'd h executed a brilliant negotiation, you know, and
uh managed to bargain down, saying it anna to accept
you know, only fifteen million dollars in compensation for the concessions.
But you know the uh so all told Polpe uh
had wanted, uh the concessions to extend to specifically include
Baja California. Trist had drawn the line, you know, and
and and and presumably this is one of the reasons
why Santa Anna had been so amenable. He took the
line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana and San Diego
instead from Uma south to the Gulf of California, which
left all of Baja is part of Mexico. And that
that's really what infuriated Polpe. Okay, but you know, you
a great diplomat. I mean, don't get me wrong. I
think Tris was compromised. If you want to look at
it in those terms, absolutely, but you can't. You can't.
Second guy said diplomatic as to what he says, is
is a key concession that you know, you're the opposing
party will won't you know, uh, it considers to be
you know, non negotiable. You've got to defer in some
measure to or diplomatic corps. You know, even if you're
a very even if you're a very hands on executive,
and and any wartime executive is going to be hands on.
You know, so just as a complicated figure like I
forgive me if that was seemed like a boring tangent.
It's actually important not just for the subject on the
table today, but just understanding American diplomatic history. And you know,
Mexico is in It's what happens in Mexico remains important
for all kinds of reasons. I mean, we're dealing with
that today, and it's it's a key the key issue
upon which mister Trump's uh, you know campaign for the
presidency in twenty sixteen and today is is hinged. But yeah,
the uh, you know, it's important to to understand the
degree to which kind of the war between the States,
and we're gonna we'll get into the the experience of
California in the American Civil War, but you know, the
West wasn't the war from the States changed everything in
what was then kind of the established United States of America,
with you know, the westernmost boundary of the actual United States,
like not being much beyond where I'm sitting right now.
It Arizona was a Confederate territory, but at some of
the final battles in the Western skilled into the American Southwest.
But California wasn't really they weren't impacted in the same way,
you know. So it's almost like things even after the
Civil War amendments and even after a lot of this,
a lot after the radicals were able to impose reconstruction
on the South, you know, and even even during the
period people view as either alternatively, you know, the Gilded
Age or or the Long Depression you know, from like
the eighteen seventies to around the turn of the century,
like the stuff that was happening in sociological terms in
and the rest of the country like wasn't really impacting
the West, you know, it was it was like remote
to them, you know, and it didn't really like the
battle lines were still between the people who'd been kind
of like wig you know, wig slash Republicans, you know,
free soiler types and these Jacksonian Democrats who again were
basically who were basically Confederates in all but name, you know.
One of the and the thing that kind of both
held in common was this like highly racialized view of politics.
You know. We'll get into this in a minute because
it bears on one of the significant secession movements that
some of these parts of the Nights in California tried
to try to get off the ground. You know, it
was literally illegal for blacks to settle an Oregon, you know,
and that was a free soiler imperative. It wasn't racist
Confederates who were implementing that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The reason why for it, and it wasn't filming around it.
Bit was because there was concern about you know this uh,
this Indian like native population, you know, developing a real
enmity with a black population that you know, presumably a
potential to swell and was significant demographic and that wasn't unfounded,
like there'd been violent incidents between black folks and between
Indians and Oregon.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But it's also you know, the Oregonians, they weren't gonna
like turn Oregon and it's some like most like some
dysfunctional like multicultural state, you know, and they it meant
nothing to them if people you know this, uh this
was an eighteen forty, eighteen fifties, you know, the like
the that the post developed decade after the Mexican War.
It meant nothing to them. If people tried to sell
them on like abolitionists moralizing, you know, like what is
so what that that means nothing to us. You know,
that's that's that's your problem and your dysfunction, a little
corner of the country where you know, you can't you
can't come to terms over slavery. What was that have
to do with us?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: That was the degree to which the West Coast was
kind of this remote place. I mean that that carried
on to after World War Two. You know, so again
it's like where where where this supposedly like rapidly progressive
California come from. I mean one day it appeared spontaneously
in the seventies. I mean, that's that's not other things work.
But the key to this stuff too, for context, it
was the presidential election of eighteen forty four, and this
was this was key to kind of how the battle
lines ended up being droven on in in the war
between the States, as well as California's potegal culture. Polk
ran as again as a as a Jacksonian Democrat against
Henry Clay, who's the Whig candidate. And it's important at
the end of the Whigs were because the Whigs became
the Republican Party, okay, like the new Whigs, and that
the difference between the old Whigs of you know, the
the Revolutionary War era, you know, and and the guys
who called themselves the Whig Party of the mid nineteenth century,
between the between the eighteen thirty eight and fifties, like
they were like they they were, they were one half
of this was called the second party system. Okay. And
for presidents uh ran on on the Whig ticket is Way,
Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Willard Fillmore, Daniel Webster,
rufus Chow, William Seward, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay like
these these were these were also like their most prominent
standard bearers, but the way basic support. Again they were entrepreneurs,
They professional people, hardcore Protestants, particularly Evangelicals who disproportionately settled
California and the urban middle class. Uh it had almost
no backing from unskilled laborers and poor farmers and even
guys even like agribusiness types in those days.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So this again, this this was and they basically uh,
they had they at the time, they'd claimed that they
were like the descendants, like the Hamiltonians. They'd say that,
like we're like the Federalists. You know that this is
the day one Republican Party, okay, for all practical purposes,
and they viewed California as essential to a lot of
their ambitions, you know, when aside from the fact that
you know, again they had what we consider white nationalists sensibilities,
like they viewed they viewed the Confederate cause, and some
of these they were in is like holding back the country.
You know, something that's also lost in this shuffle. You know,
until until after World War Two, Republicans were high protectionists,
you know, and the Whigs believed in that high protectionism.
You know, they wanted to jealously guard American domestic markets,
and they wanted they wanted to protect and subsidize American industry.
It was the Suns who were the free traders, you know,
as anybody who's like, if you're if your economy is
dependent on what amounts to like a one crop paradigm
figuratively or literally, you know, as the Confederacy did, like
you're like, you're you're going to be a free trader
of a sort, okay, but this, you know, I this
is important because I've run across people, including guys like
Paul Johnson, who in some ways is the good His
story in in other ways. He he seems they have
real blind spots. You know, he's if you read like
his History of the American People, which is kind of
like his rebuttal to Howard's in ridiculous, you know, garbage,
but in some way that's a good book. But then
he like he'll talk about the subject before us today
it'll be like, oh, well after after, after that, we're
in the States. You know, the Republicans became progressive. It's
like that that didn't happen. What are you talking what
are you? What are you talking about? You know, it's
I think it's one part ignorance, one part people's taking
out face value. And maybe people just don't like outside
the culture, like don't stand like if you're I'm not
like I don't shade to anybody, but if people were
like a immigrants, recent immigrant stock, or like people don't
really understand like the center of Protestanism from within, they
don't really understand what I'm talking about, like a gut level,
and like why some of these claims are ridiculous. I
think that's part of it. But you know, mother things too,
and this is key people like polk Uh like manifest destiny,
it wasn't it's like like Mother Jones types, like I said, oh,
manifest destiny. You know, this this this, this is an
example of you know, white white paternalism and imperialism. Like
manifest destiny was an actual policy orientation. It wasn't just
some it was. It wasn't like abstract conceptual phenomenon or
like some sort of election year slogan. You know. It
was literally like we are going to we're going to
murk the Spanish Empire and everybody else in this hemisphere.
We are going to conquer the entirety of what used
to be Spanish America, like we're going to become you know,
essentially like the overlords of the Americas. That's what it was.
And the Whigs were die hard against that, you know,
and this was a real dividing line between them and
the Jacksonians, you know, because that kind of thing, like
perpetual war for perpetual peace is always banned for business,
like we've talked about before. That's why economic explanations for
warfare never make any sense. But it's also if your
whole notion is, you know, bringing the capital base of
America into the looming twentieth century, like you can't have
the public proffers being plundered by a bunch of Southern
generals who want to live as Cardillos by conquering Guatemala,
Like you can't have it, you know. And uh, this
was a real this is a real clash of uh
of values and an ideologies at a conceptual level, you know.
And plus two, I mean, if you're an emission of
conquests and policy terms, I mean, that's that's that's gonna
lead to a kind of globalism, you know. And and
and there's always gonna be some kind of essential market
integration there, even if it's you know, not in like
the neoliberal sense of what we view as you know,
free trade, which isn't really free trade, you know what
I mean. You know, if if your model for prosperity,
as was the that of the Whigs and and the
Republican the sentence was, you know, came in with the
American system, it's uh, you know again it's it's based
on protective tariffs, you know, high protectionism, federal subsidies for
the constructive infrastructure, you know, kind of like the Japanese
system is, and the German system was until until America
destroyed it. Support for national banking. And obviously this was
something that you know, like like horrified the Jacksonians. You know,
they they viewed, they viewed banking as a way of
uh robbing uh agrarians of of other other personally held capital.
You know, modernization, meritocracy, law and order, checks on majority rule,
you know, this stuff. All this stuff put them totally
at odds with the with with the Jacksonian Democrats, you know,
and that this was kind of the political crucible that
created California's political culture. I mean arguably arguably the Whig
Party of the of the of the mid nineteenth century.
It literally emerged in opposition to Jackson and then later
like the republic their Republican Party was like the committee
to elect president like Abraham Lincoln for pragigal purposes. And
if we accept that their Wig four bears were basically
like the official opposition to Andrew Jackson, you know, the smaller,
the smaller constellation of parties, you know what was called
the National Republican Party, the Anti Masonic Party, which was
a real thing. Uh disaffected Democratic Republicans, which is with
the Democrat as used to call themselves. The Federalist Party,
which was by then defunct as well as you know
again like a not in substantial proportional like know nothing type,
you know it. And that's important too, Like when we
think of at least uh, like when when we think
of like the American old right, like we're talking of
these are the guys we're talking about, like when we're
not talking about a much like neo Confederates, you know,
like we're talking about a bunch of guys who basically
we're uh, we're Hamiltonian nationalists, you know, and who were
like opposed to you know, Jeffersonian sensibilities, guys like the spies,
you know, like Jacksonian populism, you know, and and and
and and who are basically you know, like white nationalists,
despite like falling like solidly into like you know, the
Union camp as it existed, uh, you know during the
post war years, you know, like the guy w's when
hard demandel after the failed impeachment of Johnson and the things.
You know, this is really interesting and it you know,
this is uh again, this is this is the foundation
of this is the foundation of California's political culture, you know.
And I wanna how long are we been going for? Yeah?
I want to get a little bit into like the
war between the states, like in and how that impacted California,
like with the time we got left. Let me let
me see where I'm at here. A yeah, a key
to this too, you know. After the Treaty of Headlo,
this is a this is there's people who dropped like
conspira almost conspiratorial uh narratives about this. But the Treaty
of Guade Blue Pandalago was ratified on February second, eighteen
forty eight. You know, America absorbed California, you know, and uh,
the remainder of of these this Mexican territory that became Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah.
But uh, literally a week before the formal annexation of
the area, like massive gold reserves were discovered in California,
you know, and then this and this legitimately happened Like
it wasn't. This wasn't why like Triste uh proceeded the
way he did. Polk didn't know about this, Like like
nobody knew about this. Okay. This totally altered the state's
demographics and finances. So there was like a massive influx
of people in California, you know, not just not not
just a bunch of not not just a bunch of
guys from you know, back east, you know, and like
what's now the Midwest and what was uh and and
what wasn't is the South. We had like a bunch
of immigrant populations show up there. You know, you have
a bunch of like Europeans, you know, you had a
bunch of Asians you've been trickling in, like especially Chinese.
This caused real problems, okay. And this caused, uh, like
among other things, it caused like a massive backlash against
non white immigration, you know. And again this is one
of the founding aspects of California is we do not
want non white immigrants here.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: This is not New York, this is not Chicago. We
do not want this, you know, for like just just
for just understand, like the scale of this. Between between
the time of annexation in eight and forty eight and
eighteen seventy, the population of San Francisco and the day
of annexation was was around five hundred people. By eighteen
seventy it was one hundred and fifty thousand, you know,
since this was unprecedented, okay, you know, and this and
this idea that people were happy about, you know, a
bunch of like like you know, alien element. It's like
streaming in there and that just like streaming in there,
but to like try and extract goal that they viewed
as theirs. I mean this people were really really really
mad you know at and this also California then obviously
as tensions, you know, during the Buchanan administration, you know,
if you can was it, I think you can was
probably the worst president we've ever had other than Biden.
I mean, like Biden is king shithead and he will
like never be dethroned. But but Buchanan was a terrible president.
And Buchanan was pretty openly gay, which is interesting too
because like I mean, I think I think it's a
combination of conceptual and literacy and just like nobody wants
to claim him because he was a shit executive. But
like I it's it's it's it's amazing how like how
none of the like none of these simpletons uh in
academ like they just say, pretend that wasn't the case
or something, you know, Uh, But I find that kind
of interesting when in any event, you know, even even
early on it Becan's administration, it became clear that there
there was gonna be some kind of crisis you know
between north and South, and the Union had like eyes
westward to California because it's like, okay, like these these gold,
this gold we're pulling out of the ground, is is
gonna is what's gonna like fun like our war chest.
You know. So California took on this outsized importance, you know,
and California court history suggests that there was like this
massive like volunteers from uh west of the Rockies to
fight for the Union. That's really not true. Like there
were some but you know Democrats from inception again Jacksonian Democrats.
They dominated California like from inception from day one. The
issue was though that uh Southern Democrats were a minority
in the state. I mean, they weren't like a small minority.
They were probably like fort you know of the of
the Jacksonian element, but they were the minority. And Northern
Democrats they generally they either like typically back the Union
or they were like neutral, you know. So this this divided, uh,
this divided the Jacksonian vote. And this basically this this
is what basically like handed California to the to the
whigs of slash Republicans who then like reigned for all time,
you know, until literally one day he was declared that
this is no longer the political culture. You know. And
for clarity to like California didn't quote go purple. It
wasn't this like phase where it's like, Okay, things are changing,
you know, uh, preferences are changing, you know, the Democrats
and generationally it was literally like one day, it's just
this is how it is, you know, for context, uh,
for contacts. Yeah, all those Southern Democrats were a minority.
They were a majority in Tulane County, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Monterey,
and in San Francisco and San Francisco. In the eighteen fifties,
they had a succession of mayors who were removed either
on trumped up charges or in substance of charges of corruption.
They had huge problems. It was called the vigilance committees,
like literally like vigilantism, who said, like, you know, we're
not we're we're not going to abide the mandates of
or the mayoral office or the sheriff, you know, whether
it's on you know, no matter no matter what the
issue is, you know, Like it was it was a
kind of a. It was the kind of gangsterism people
associate with, uh with New York City and the era,
but it wasn't being guided by some equivalent in Tammany Hall.
It was just like guys like you know, at street level,
like basically like making themselves like a power into themselves.
It's crazy, but you know it was. Uh. It was
like like San Francisco was uh was the outlier. But again,
like the way they were the outlier was because they
were they were a bunch of they were a bunch
of like redneck as Jacksonians. They weren't like an outlier
because they're like, oh, we're a bunch of progressives and
we don't you know, we're not keen to this kind
of like these uptight wigs you know, trying to like
impose their will on us. So that's I don't know
what I mean wrong. Like San Francisco is a repository
of ship and it is full of like it is
felt like degenerates and like some humans and ship like today,
like it absolutely is Like I'm not saying that's not
the case, but it's like my my point was that
you know, if if people are looking for like deep
roots and the stroke of record ing for that, like
they're not there, Like what happened to San Francisco is
a it's like a port town, I think, I think
frankly like the the like warm permanent war mobilization and
then like really fucked it up, you know, because that's
that never ends well for a community that becomes a
you know, a hub of a of military basing. Like
I'm not I'm not trashing service people, but that's just
a fact. But that uh but that this dynamic between
uh northern and southern Democrats in California, that's what allowed
Lincoln to carry the state. Albeit he carried it by
a very slim margin, but he was uh But but
unlike most unlike most, like non slave holding states like
uh Land didn't win a wrong He didn't win out
my right majority. He won California by plurality, which is
highly significant. But this uh but, following their admission to
the Union, these tensions UH created uh. I mean, they
they created a real popsibility of uh of parts of California.
They're trying to achieve a separate statehood. They're trying to
secede altogether. You know, there's there's a number of attempts
in the eighteen fifties, and I none of which came
to like open combinate at scale, but I mean they
were they. I mean it was a serious thing. And
in eighteen fifty nine the last there's pass was called
the Peico Act, and it was it was passed by
the California state legislature and it was signed by Governor Weller,
Jerry B. Weller. It proposed a territory of Colorado, which
would basically include uh, you know, northern California, part to
southern California, parts of Colorado, and parts of Oregon as
uh it is essentially like its own, its own territory
that you know, did not have formal status as a state,
but did you know, have like some rights at law,
but that the federal government would have had like no
power over a way like the Commerce Clause or anything else.
You know. Senator Milton Latham was a strong advocate of it.
So this had legs. Okay, What tanked it was, uh
the secession crisis following the election of Lincoln. And when
it became clear like what was underway, Lathan and the people,
uh like the real persons behind it realized like, well,
we really want to get lumped in with, you know,
the Confederate secessionists, and you know, before we know it,
we're gonna we're gonna find themselves like you know, down
range of of Union guns. But that didn't that didn't stop, uh,
the San Francisco Jacksonians though, months later, at the beginning
of eighteen sixty one, you know, as the actual secession
crisis set in visa visa South, the San Francisco Secession is,
they tried to separate California, Oregon from the Union. Like
they wanted to do this forcibly and carve out what
they called the Pacific Republic. And this was one of
the reasons this kind of sensibility had been floated before.
And that's one of the reasons why Oregon had their
like a highly like racialized code of laws. Because I
believe even among the I mean, I mean, I don't
I don't believe, I know, I mean, even among the
mainstream playbo establishment, there was sympathy for these kinds of propositions.
But they were they were willing to become strange bedfellows
with these like Jacksonian Confederate types in San Francisco, but
they were not going to allow we're going to become
like a slave state that was then like flooded with
uh you know, like blacks in bondage or otherwise, and
all the what they received is like these pathologies that
you know characterized them the South. So this is this
is really uh, this is this is really interesting, I think,
and and and really important. Like I hope, uh, we
will We're coming up on the hour, man, I'll uh,
I'll get into the nuts and bolts of uh, because
I'm sure what people want really is of like the
hard and fast data relating to electoral patterns like in
the twentieth century to the present. I'll get into that
next time. I just this was this was an important background,
I think. So I hope people wouldn't find it boring.
Speaker 1: No, I think the history. I think most people just
don't know the history of like the West, and you know,
they know, oh gold Rush and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
get getting deep into it. You know, people don't know.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: While you were talking, I was like remembering that like
as late as like nineteen seventy nine, it was illegal
for like a gay person to be a public school
teacher in California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even even in Illinois. Like people here are
pretty despite we're seeing the news, people here are pretty
like socially conservative. We didn't have any laws like that,
but like California did wild supposedly either, like the liberal heartland.
Like this doesn't make any sense, you know, and it's like,
uh the uh yeah, you know. And it what's like
my friend Anthony, I mean you know Anthony, Yeah, I
mean like he Anthony Romonto. Yeah, what's like he if
he and I become pretty good, pretty good buds, and
he was nice enough to take us, me and him
not to eat in Portland, you know. And he, I mean,
he grew up in LA. He's about your age if
he was the one in me. He grew up in
LA in the seventies and eighties, you know. And he's like,
it was massively segregated. And that's like what I remember
like a little later, you know, like the early to
mid eighties, Like it was it was massively segregated, you know,
even by and I'm and I'm from Chicago, and it's
like this jumped out at me. You know, it's like
it's crazy that what people suggest. It's sort of the
like in in its cultural DNA, you know, and what
it's this idea that oh no, you know, it's this
kind of permanent uh that you know that the Democrats
are just the ruling party in California because that's how
it is. That's not how it is, that not at all.
But yeah, well I'll, I mean, I'm already coding the
data for to properly discuss, you know, the next kind
of aspect of this. So yeah, well, I don't know
how you want to play it moving forward. I mean,
I'm I'm obviously on Friday, my dad there, We're gonna
observe Thanksgiving on Friday, probably, I mean not probably, definitely,
Like that's when I was gonna cook a turkey, but
I I got reservations at at a really good restaurant.
But because it may like other than other than that,
we can. I'm ready to go any time this week
even if yeah, okay, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah do you plugs and yeah, well isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure? Man. The best place to find me
is on substick. It's real on this seven seven seven
dot subsec dot com. I'm trying to throw more free
content up there, you know, especially more like video content
and stuff. You can always find me on my website.
Which has a newsfeed, so whenever I upload anything new
like it pops up there regardless that we're it's it's
just number seven h O AS seven seven seven dot com.
I'm on social media at Capital R E A L
underscore number seven h O M A S seven seven
seven dot com. Like you go to my website, you'll
find my Instagram and like other shit I'm into on
Telegram as well. I got like a Mersed brand and uh,
we just drop some like winter hats and stuff. So
if you want, like, if you want like winter gear,
like we have that now. So if I can, if
I can be a show, like, I recommend you buy
one of our winter.
Speaker 1: Don't worry and I'll link to it as I always do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks great man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecanana Show.
Thomas is here to to part two of our series
on California. How are you doing, Thomas, I'm.
Speaker 2: Doing well, repard to I'm going to continue discussing the
sociological factors they created California and some of the historical
imperatives that shape its potical culture. You know, they're in
the final part. I'll get into some of the data
I coded about you know, post war electioneering and things,
and why the claim that's alleged about it being you know,
a permanent blue state is cav I know that's kind
of what people are waiting for. But this is important
and for for not just for context, but you know,
if you're like, you really gonna understand that California is
an outside significance, not just because of the electoral votes
that it holds. You know, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's election
was a really really big deal and it was far
more significant than Leg Obama's election. I mean, Obama was
like the equivalent of an industry plant anyway. It was
a kind of a fake candidate, Like don't gonna be wrong,
like Obama actually did of a ground organization. And Obama
is like a very cunning campaigner, unlike unlike Missus Harris
and unlike unlike President Shithead. You know, he like he
wasn't like a totally fake candidate in that regard, but
him being just this kind of like random immigrant guy
who was you know, being promoted within the kind of
broader narrative of wokeism. Like it's really not that remarkable,
Like Kennedy, like this, this Irish Catholic guy being president
in ninety sixty. That was that was a really big deal.
But it's also what's no about that is that was
like the last hurrah, like the East Coast establishment, unless
you count the Bushes, and I really don't, because the
Bush family really made their fortune in Texas, you know,
and they they they've got like East Coast roots, but
they're they're not part of like the East Coast establishment.
And that really was the center of the political universe
in America until the seventies. Man, and then after that,
you know, there was Johnson and I you know, Johnson
went down in Flames, and arguably in sixty four he
was running against like a lame duck in gold Water,
but the fact that he was on the ticket at
all was significant because he was this Southern guy, you know,
in post reconstruction, like the South, I mean, the South
was never not significant in electoral college terms, but they've
very much been like marginalized. But then so subsequently you
get Nixon from California, you get Carter from the South,
you get Reagan from California, you get Clinton from the South,
you get Bush, who's a you know, like a text
like a Southwest guy for all practical purposes, you know,
it's the governor of Texas. You know, you get Clinton
to the Southern guy like this, Like the Southwest became
like the new like the center of the political universe. Okay,
in California like started shooting ahead of New York. It's
not just the most populous state, you know, but also
kind of like the center of high tech, like the
terrestrial economy during World War Two, Like people don't understand
that agree to which there was this like like savage
hostility to capitalism. And that's onely that capipal in Rooseveld
and in power, and it wasn't just it wasn't as
New dealer as you thought that way, like arguably other
th the social engineering stuff, like Roosevelt basically appropriated Hewey
Long's platform, you know, and and Long in the American context,
longs that we'd consider like a radical right wing populist.
I mean, like yeah, like he he was a socialist
in terms of his like redistribute redistribution schemes, and it's
like a state tech scheme. But that's the way everybody
thought in the nineteen thirties. So I go to getting it.
It's like a cross the entire spectrum. Like basically like
would would characterize everybody's politics was like a hatred of
big business and a hatred of Wall Street, like World
War two kind of change that accidentally because Roosevelt obviously
he had to go all in with like making nice
not just with Wall Street, but also with these guys
who you know, were at the helm of these of
these terrestrial like valuated manufacturing firms, you know, particularly these
nascent like aircraft firms, you know, and uh, people who
are on the forest model to make you know, like
war materials and these industries that could be converted you
know to you know, to to wartech manufacturers and things.
And this was this was centered in California, Okay, and subsequently,
like California became kind of like the hyper capitalist like hub,
you know. And I emphasize this not just because it's
the key to understanding like California is important and it's powerful,
and also why they kind of like after the Cold
War and you know, and and and the subsequent like
information revolution and the financialization of the economy, like the
reason why California inherited that like high tech mantle, like
for the reasons I said, So that's a get another
reason why this idea that California is like just like
rabidly socialist uh political culture like that cap like that
that doesn't make any sense, you know, Like don't get
me wrong, they're like the they're not just kidding about
the you know, the taxation scheme and and then they're
killing your capital base like like outright you know. But
that that always to like what I'm getting at is
that that's not organic, Okay, Like it's not it's not
something that came from the bottom. And it's not because
the California voters like slip like slew the perial Golden
goose because they just like rose up one day and
they're like, yeah, we're not going to tolerate this anymore.
Like we you know, we want we want this absurd
tax rate and and we we we hate McDonald douglas
and we hate Silicon Valley like like none of it,
you know, like it. I mean that that's we'll get
into more of this in part three because some of
that was two to like the the fibrication of the
of you know, the managerial elite like from the high
tech and manufacturing sector and that that was a huge thing.
And like some of the people like Burnham didn't really
foresee like Seawright Mills, He's probably a little he's probably
a little left wing for some people's tastes. I think
he was an important sociologist and in some ways I
think he had inside Burnham didn't. But you know, Burnham
and Burnham wasn't incorrect in is that. But really from
really until the end of the Cold War, although by
the close of the eighties, like this was changing. There
there wasn't there was an integral aspect to the managerial state.
You know, the guys who in policy planning were else
the guys who you know worked for big companies in
advisory roles or CEO roles, you know, like Reverend manicon
Era was like the case in point. Okay, So there's
this there's this kind of like rotation of elags from
like the public to the private sector. And like applied
technology was king in terms of what had clout as
well as what you know, could could kind of compete
for subsidies and things, you know, And it was it
wasn't just it wasn't just defense contractors either. I mean,
it was a general Now we used to be called
like general technology firms, you know, telecom obviously, but slowly,
with surely, you know, like political managers and private sector managers,
they came like started coming from different places, you know,
and and increasingly like there was less of this kind
of like incestuous like cross pollination, you know, and then
by the nineties it was kind of complete, you know,
and that's not accidental either. Then suddenly like oh, California
is no longer you know what it's been for one
hundred and forty years, Like now it's you know, now
now it's this like radically progressive you know, kind of
kind of like socialist experiment that can never ever go
republican again. Like that's like like of emphasizing this stuff
to demonstrate why and kind of totality of circumstances terms
like what's the legs about it is not possible. But
we're going to continue first a bet on, you know,
in the same vein as in the first episode, and
that people seem to respond well to that. So I
don't think it's gonna bore them, but I mean it's important.
I'm not just you know, this isn't just like a
hobby of mine or something that they drop, you know,
factoid heavy nerdives or something like it's it's essential to
understanding kind of like my thesis. And we'll get into
that part three. But anyway, I think we left off
last time. We're talking about these guys like Winfield Scott
and Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis and the Mexican War
and how the Mexican War and President Polk who's an
underrated president. You know that this was kind of like
the day one experience of California, you know, and and
and there were there was a profoundly like economic imperative
behind California's capture. You know that that that wasn't the
whole story. You know, like there was like like we
talked about, I I've got nothing about love for the Confederacy.
I've got nothing about love for the South. And I
mean they're they're like my people, you know, like ethnic
and sectarian terms. But there was there was a very
thirsty element among them who who believed in manifest destiny. Okay,
like California was kind of the gateway to that, like
literally you know, because a lot of these guys they
wanted to essentially replace the Spaniards and and same themselves
kind of as as this as this boss element over
this formerly Spanish American slave empire. Like quite literally, that's
not some sort of dystopian Mother Joanes kind of narrative
or something like. That's true, not passing real judgment on
that that would have went a dysfunctional outcomes. But you know,
not not for not for reasons of a purely ethical
nature or anything like that. But you know, even before
the war, when the States kicked off, it kind of
became clear that that that wasn't gonna be abide it.
And then you know, the the California Golden Rush, I
think we got in. I think that's about where we
left off. The California Golden Rush, you know, change everything
and for all time. It meant that, you know, the
federal government was going to be deeply insinuated into into
California's fortunes and in terms of its infrastructural development, in
terms of its political assimilation, you know, like all of that.
It's so when the gold Rush, California was like fast
tracked for a lot of like nass and infrastructure, Okay,
from like the eighteen fifties until like really until like
the nineteen fifties and sixties. Okay, the uh there was
this there's this giant logistics firm and this guy named
John Butterfield. He got a federal contract to carry mail
overland from Memphis and Saint Louis, you know, which was
kind of the that's kind of like the westernmost frontier
of truly developed America, you know, like the South and
the like the near South and the Midwest, like near
near in Proxi terms where I am, and so like
twice a week, these uh, these stage coaches that had
run through Prestonal passed so Yuma to the Pacific coast,
and like he had paid, it would take twenty to
twenty five days, which was like rapid in those days.
The Russell Major and Woodell Company, they were another like
big logistics firm right before the Civil War. They they
carried something they had a fleet to something like six
thousand wagons and oxen like all told they were they
were all they were like a big rival to Pony
Express also, but eventually like they they kind of developed
their own like niche and and they were they were
wing more like freight rather like what we consider to
be like freight, you know, rather than like like letters
and telegrams and stuff like that. But you know this
was this was like an her of you know, not
just because you know, there wasn't like the kind of
concentrated necessity you know, to serve like a discrete market
like that. But you know this this was being like
rapidly subsidized, you know, like the like like washing them
like haded sites in California as like a literal gold knight,
you know, after the at the discovery of these like
massive gold reserves. Samuel Morse, yes, that Morse, you know,
they get the architect of Morse code. You know, he
was like an early telecom like pioneer obviously you know
the uh like wiring up uh like like why why
he got thirty thousand dollars appropriated for the Washington Baltimore
like uh like telegraph line, which was like an incredible
like fortune in those days, you know, and like the
it was that line was first used. It transmitted cable
like by it transmitted by cable between the wig and
the and the Democratic Republican conventions and in the eighteen forties,
which is kind of wild, that was like the first
uh that that was like the first like news wire
between and you know conventions. You know, so like people
had both situated at both locales, could could like be
advised of what was happening. You know. That's why we
talked about literally the news wire, you know, like that
that term like never thought of favor for whatever reason,
you know, and so the so the uh Morris died
in the early eighteen seventies and memory serves, but you know,
like they him and his firm got like a huge
amount of public money, so like wire up California and
like before I mean, it's nothing like a twentieth century obviously,
or the twenty firth century in terms of like a
lobbying and like modern lobbying as we think of it,
that really didn't come into existence. So like Grant administration,
like this idea of like I'm a I'm a businessman
or I am or I'm some Wall Street type and
I can I can just approach Congress and like make
my case and be like yeah, I need you know,
I need thirty thousand dollars, which I adjusting for inflation.
I mean that's that's like tens of millions of dollars today.
You know that you know this idea, you can just
kind of like approach congressman or senators or approach the
cabinet like the secretary the Interior or something of a
of an incoming president, and it's like make your pitch
for for subsidies, like I was basically unheard of. It's
just like something you could do, you know. So but
I mean if you but if you had business in
California relating to the infrastructure, like like basically like like
watching it like shovel money at you you know, and
that that that's hugely significance, man, hugely significant, you know,
and like a telegraph, it quickly became like indispensable to government,
you know. And this is also the uh, this is
uh this is also the origins of the Associated Press,
you know, like AP, like the AP news wire started
in eighteen twenty seven, which is insane, you know, and
originally originally it was it was it was local in
New York, you know, but then they like like AP
started like utilizing the fact that California is going wired up,
you know, to to literally be able to like disseminate
like coast to coast news like how look like how
validated news was? Is is an open end question. You know,
like fake news isn't like a new thing. But you know,
like all this like what what President Polk's angle and
all this was, and aside from like the obvious and
this is hugely important too, you know, Texas was always
basically what the reason on the reason the federal government
had its site so much in California and it was
like salivating that's what they'd wanted Texas to be. You know,
like like Texas is a it's just like a bounty
of of of natural wealth in the New world. You know,
like it's it's incredible. You know, it's got, it's got,
it's got the it's got the commodities and and the
and the convertible energy resources of like ten countries you know,
like to this day, like it's it's insane. But you know,
Texas is always problematic. In Texas of course also like
joined the Confederates. You know, we weren't there yet, you know,
during Pokes administration, but I mean the Texans basically wouldn't
play ball, and like Texas political culture there there was
always these problems. I mean, those those kind of endoor
to this day, although it's different now. I mean in
obviously Texas is no longer they they've lost their they've
they've lost the stones as it were, for any kind
of like rebel political culture. And they're they're so deeply
insinuated into into the military industrial apparatus that they'd be
kind of like a thinkable today. But you know, but
Texas has always typing on its own program, you know,
and it's always there, and there was like discrete power
bases there, you know, particularly related to what became like
agribusiness and stuff. You know, so people like Pope they
were looking at California and saying, like, you know, well
this we can we get basically like make California and
whatever image we want, you know, and we can allocate
it to resources and stuff we want, you know, and
we're not gonna like brush up against this uh like
established power there, you know, and we're not gonna we're
not gonna be have to deal with like a house
of political culture and you know, such that we can
like convince able to move there. You know, they're gonna
credit us with with kind of creating this utopia where
like everything's wired up. You know, you got you've got
you know, you've got like electricity it's another huge thing
and I'll get to that in a minute. Was like
literally wiring up California electricity and like farmhouses and residences,
which is like a herd of its scale, you know,
basically like making California is like attractive as possible. And
then like when people like when even when these when
these day one pioneer types arrived there, you know they'll
they'll have like you know, they'll look at Washington. It's
like this benevolent agent. You know, they've made this possible.
And I'm sure that people like listening or watching right now,
they're making the connection that like this is a lot
like how Walt Disney thought, and they're right, it is
no way to that in a minute. But you know,
the uh, the Pokes interesting too because he he was
he was like this genius polymath. He was an expert mathematician.
He was born in North Carolina. He migrated the Tennessee,
served in Congress, he was Speaker of the House, he
was governor for two years. And but but he was
also he was also like an old school Southerner, like
you know what a plantation. He was a slave owner,
like he was part of what you know this the
Confederacy's ops, you know, the rice that we called the
slave power. But again, he was like this high speed
mathematician and this kind of like polymath and like he
had a deep understanding of technology, you know, but he's
kind of casts like this. He's kind of cast as
like this stodgy, like old guy who represented this kind
of reactionary tendency, you know. And yeah, I mean it's
not totally false, but that that's kind of like the
wrong takeaway from Polk and his administration, you know. And
he uh, he was an acolyte of Andrew Jackson. I
can't remember we got into that or not so much
of that. People called him young Hickory, so he had credibility.
It's like this kind of like populist uh, like white
Yaloman type, you know. And that's one of the reasons
why he was like so effective, you know, because like
he actually was those things. It wasn't it wasn't just
this kind of like fake narrative around him. A remarkable guy.
You know. I'm a big fan of him, as people
probably discerned, and I don't think he's a president people
read about her anymore, but you know, at uh, people
like Paul Johnson playing that Pope was the first president
who was killed by the office, you know, and he
kept uh he screwags. They kept a diary, and it
was clearly like the stress and the workload was killing him,
you know. And at kind of the most like obvious
inflavorant instance of that is Wilson, what I mean, poke, also,
like the pressures these guys were under are incredible, like
even today, even kind of an empty suit like Obama,
like he've made a lot of the fact that you know,
like in a few years, like all his heroin gray
and stuff, you know, like it's it's like an exhausting
role even now when there's all kinds of advantages and
you're basically a pr man and not like a real executive.
You know. That's why when I mean obviously a lot
of the stems from a kind of debased hostility to
the man. But with the world media outlets and not
not just American ones, they talk about how like awful
quote awful Putin looks. It's like, well, he's a guy
in his seventies. I think he probably beat cancer because
I'll see all the indications point to that. And the
Russians are notoriously close to the chest about health problems
with anybody, let alone their leadership. But you know, he's
a war executive and the pressures that man is under
are unfathomable. I think ust are margably good considering all
of that. But that's nothing of a tangent forgive this.
Speaker 1: But the.
Speaker 2: The kind of key to all this that I just suggested,
I mean, obviously, like the gold Rush happened immediately after
the Mexican War, and a lot of these ideas at
scale kind of ossified in the aftermath of of the
of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty. But Pope, Pope, Pope wanted
to go to war in mexicoaks he wanted California, Okay,
Like the men who actually fought the war, you know,
guys like Jackson, Guys like Zagary Taylor, guys like Stowall Jackson,
not Andrew, guys like Winfield Scott. I mean, they had
they had a sense of like white man Southern honor
about it, obviously, and you know they had they had
they had like a warrior's mentality about it, you know,
and a lot of uh, you know, these manifest destiny types. Also,
they viewed it in like nakedly theological terms, and there's
nothing wrong with that. It's one of the things that
made America strong. I mean, that's one of the things
that makes our people strong, like you know, white dissenters.
But uh, that was not Polton in popelond California, Okay,
because he was. He was kind of like Wilson and
kind of like Eisenhower in this regard like what everybody
thinks like Wilson or I politically, that's not what I'm
getting at. Like they they had serious foresight in terms
of infrastructural potentials and you know, the exploitability of nature's
bounty and as well as you know how America's incredible
wealth could translate into applied technology and in industry and things.
And that's also why you know, I can't remember I
mentioned this before. Pope Pope promised only served one term,
and he did. And I think that's part of why.
You know, back in those days, like medical treatment wasn't
what it is today. I mean, Pope was not particularly
good health. I I when when he he he was
a war executive who won. He was a conquering hero.
America got Mexico. He was able to lock in basically
these kind of key infrastructural projects. Like I think it
was basically like mission accomplished. And I the younger people
don't really understand this, I don't think, but it was
on the slight on them. There's no way they would
And I plan to be around for a minute. I'm
not like planning to die. But I do have like
more time behind me than in front. And I do
understand now why people, especially men, when they're like okay,
mission accomplished, it's kind of like their body almost gives out,
you know, like it's it's interesting. I'm not trying to
be morbid, but it's significant when we're discussing the the
kinds of personages and historical imperatives that we are. But
you know, the uh, you know. And again there's a
lot of cap around the Mexican War. There's a lot
of historians, a lot of traditional historians kind of cast
the Mexicans with a bunch of fools, and people who
aren't don't have a charitable view of of Polk or
or the Confederacy or the South or white people. The
viewpo were just kind of like this greedy opportunist. Other
people like Howard's in types. They claim, well, obviously there
was fore knowledge of California's gold wealth and so that
this was this was like based like an economic heightst
like none, none of those things are true, Like that's
the demonstrably false, like this was what it appears to be.
And that's we got into the whole issue with the
negotiation between between Larkin and and Slowed and this kind
of informal contingent that was based in Monterey, that that
then managed to low ball the Mexicans and pay them
only half would have been allocated for you know, these concessions,
which originally was slated at thirty million dollars then had
you know, fifteen million. But it's you know, but when
Mexico's actually treated pretty generously, you know, they were they
were compensated there there a lot of their debts were repudiated.
And in Mexico then is now had a terrible reputation
for accruing massive public debts and then just simply like
welshing on them. And somehow that tracks like with Mexicans.
And I'm not trying to like trash like like Spanish
people or something, but it's just funny to think about.
But uh, the U and also too, and we'll move
on from this in a minute, but this is important.
You know, the Mexican government was was violently anti American.
You know, it's that that wasn't just some sort of
rationale and in books as the causes. But you know
that is true, and some people seem to forget that
because they do Mexico is albeit you know, of the
in the era. I mean, they do it, you know,
possibly as corrupt and stuff and the way that unfortunately
a lot of political cultures based on the Iberian model are,
but they viewed it as basically this kind of like
European colonial power that was uh that that was fighting
a race war against the Apache, and so they they
they for some reason in their mind it's like, well, no,
you know, how how in America and how especially the
American South and Mexican not be friendly. They were serious.
There was serious enmity there, and the Mexican's hated America
like their government. I mean, I don't it's outside the scope,
but one of the reasons why, like Mexican people and whites.
I mean, yeah, there's tensions there, as there always are
between peoples, but they do get along better than than
other populations like on the street, in in in square
life than ever. And that's an interesting topic, but obviously
it's outside the scope. But I I don't believe that
Mexican people and some like a biting hatred of America.
You better believe that their government did, you know. And
and that kind of divide between I mean, there really
was like a chasmic distance between like the ruling caste
in Mexico and like the common manner woman like that.
Speaker 1: That's what really screwed it up when when it became
blatantly communist, Oh yeah, became that much more hostal.
Speaker 2: No in Mexico is a screwy. We're getting ahead of ourselves.
But even like the Zimmerman Telegram, a lot of that
was cap Like, I don't it's not like the Mexicans
are imminently going to like assault the Southwest. But the
very fact that I mean, I mean Wilhelm was was
not a good ruler and just not a good guy
in all kinds of ways. But I and I'm no stupid.
I mean he he was always saying stupid things, you know,
whether it was like firing off a cable to Paul Krueger,
to antagonized the British for no reason or you know,
sending off the Zimmerman Telegram. But but the fact that
the Mexicans were receptive to that, I mean that kind
of speaks for itself, you know, like the I mean,
the Mexican government today doesn't like America and vice versa.
I mean, I realized they got like a fake government.
Now they got to say dumpy Yenta lady. I mean
it's it's it's like a combination like hertel shit and
and you know, big big money interests of a transnational
sort and like like security state interests. I mean, she's
not like the real there, but with the reason why
she always like mouths these stupid platitudes about you know,
like evil weighty and evil Yankee to I mean that
that that's got deep roots there. You know, it's not
it's it's not some like new thing or whatever. But
the and the and it's all too we'll move on
in a minute. But for the military hounds on deck
or are gonna be watching, and this is important too.
You know, the the Mexican Wars and specifically the assault
on Mexico City that was like the first real use
of combined arms in the sense we think of it. Yeah,
I know, field artillery, it existed for a long time,
but that coordination between you know, artillery and the infantry
element and that kind of like advance of fire in
Closewitzian duc Trintal terms, those are the first time that
have been that. It's that had been practic this and
and you know at scale, you know, and and especially
it was it was, it was. It was certainly and
into a first impression in America. And that one of
the reasons why the Confederates were so tough. It's not
just because of you know, like the the kind of
warrior culture of of of the American South which still
exists today, is because these guys are all cut their
teeth fighting the Mexican War, you know, with what was
then cutting edge wartech man, you know, like they and
this was splendidly executed. And that was it was guys
like Zachary Taylor and guys like Stonewall, you know, who
were like leading company level elements, but like Winfield Scott.
It was Winfield Scott really planned that operation, you know.
And uh Robert E. Lee was a captain on the ground.
McClelland was there, Grant Jefferson Davis, who was a it
was a full colonel. It's literally like a who's who
of you know, the men who commanded forces. And in
the War between the States, it was also uh Scott's
when Jeld Scott's army. It was the first amphibious assault
ever mounted by US forces on March March ninth, eighteen
forty seven, at Vera Cruz. And it was carried. It
was it was it went off without loss, with with
like no no attrition on on the side of American forces.
So it's the Mexican War was important a lot of reasons.
And I think people way you look at it, it's
kind of like this this nothing thing, or they look
at it like the War of eighteen twelve contra the
Revolutionary War or something. I mean, Warring twelve is important too,
but they it's it was really important. It's own right
for oh all kinds of reasons. But yeah, I I
realized I gotta pick up the pace. But but you know,
just don u on its in in in brass texts terms,
just in in value neutral terms and in a political terms,
California wasn't even greater prize than Texas, you know, like
not not accounting for the things that were precluding the
full kind of realization of territorial potential or exploitation they
were in depending on we fall on judgments, I suppose,
but California the name it's it's it's it's got a
name that's like resident in fantasy, like it's Providence. I
mean it was named after this imaginary island in this
kind of like epic romance by or Donat's name on
Talvo that was published like right around fifteen hundred and
Hernan Cortes has uh like like new knew of it
and would references and at uh, I guess I thought
like at first true, like permanent settlement by the Spaniards
didn't begin until the seventies sixties, like a settlement at scale.
I mean you know of of of you know, of
both sexes and of you know, like a yaleomanry as
we'd think of it, you know what I mean. Before
then it was it was Franciscan missions, and it was
uh freebooters and and like pirates, you know, like Partez
Himsel was, but he was like a warrior like pirate,
like freebooter, you know, and uh, the Franciscan missions between
San Diego and San Diego were San Francisco and San
Diego were ubiquitous. You know, the uh the Catlic Church
owned a huge amount of California until the Spanish crown
and then later you know, these various uh charter companies
began like the besting Rome like of its holdings. But uh,
you know there California has got an incredibly rare climate.
The fertility of its soil was basically like unheard of.
People had never seen anything like it. The range natural
resources is literally boundless. You know, everybody wanted a piece
of it. The Russians had formed a plan like the
Czarist Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they
formed a plan to establish permanent settlements in California at
the mouth of the Columbia River and also in Hawaii.
They want to do the same thing, like Hawaii is
going to be like their springboard. Basically, like nothing came
of it for a lot of reasons. And you know,
by the close of the by the close of the
the nineteenth century, I mean, Russia was was very much
like uh, like like the sick man of Empires. But
this wasn't just fantasy, like you know, this just to
get an idea like how much it was coveted, you know,
and we're gonna go ahead of ourselves one of this too.
It wasn't totally insane, like it was to pretend that like, oh,
the Germans are coming to kill us. It wasn't totally
insane to postulate that the Japanese would want California to
I mean, obviously, like there would have there were a
bunch of there's about half of it dozen like preconditions
that would have needed to kind of be splendidly realized
before japan couldn't even count like they had in operational terms.
But you better believe that was one of their kind
of like that that would have been like the jewel
in the crown of like ultimate objectives for for like
a victorious like Japanese empire, you know, because it would
have had to have been you know, the uh. One
of the things that ruf the Russian ambitions.
Speaker 1: Was that.
Speaker 2: When relations between the United States and the United Kingdom,
which didn't really mend until, you know, until the first
decade of the twentieth century, but in the eighteen twenties,
the US Navy and the Royal Navy basically collaborated to
cut to cut off the Russian Navy's like Pacific Fleet
from being able to uh access the sea lanes that
needed to in order to realize these ambitions it had
in the West coast of the New World, you know.
And that's I mean, what really took Russia out of
the out of the game as as a maritime power
that was able to project transcontinentally was the Russo Japanese War.
Like the Japanese literally like slaughtered and sank the Russian
Navy and in nineteen oh five. But that was such
a big deal, not just because it was you know,
the not just because it indicated that Japan had arrived
as a world power comparable in the power projection capability
into the European naval forces, but also until then, the
Russian the Imperial Russian Navy was was a serious threat.
It had serious threat potential, you know, to whoever was
likely to be situated as opposing force to it. And
that's one of the things that in bolden Polk, because
after the eighteen twenties he was basically being told by
many would know, look like the Spanish slash Mexican hold
on in California, Oregon is is feeble at best, which
it was, and what really steal the deal? A guy,
even Wilkes, he was a young officer. He was a
lieutenant or a yeah, I think it was a lieutenant.
I can never remember, like what the what the naval
equivalent is of an army captain, because like a naval
captain is like a colonel, but uh, we're also some
kind of junior officer of the US Navy. And uh
in eighteen forty one, you know, half a half a
decade before the Mexican War, the Strategic Survey was commissioned
of the Eastern Pacific and what came to be kind
of the focus of it, like as it got underway,
was you know with San Francisco and then the entire
like San Francisco region, you know, and and how it
was literally like a gold mine and how it was
you know, it was like an essential it had it
was an essential capture, you know, if America was going
to become a if America is going to become a
like a truly like self contained like continental power, like
the idea like superpower is obviously didn't exist, and it
was contemplation then, but like it's fascinating to read, like
what Wilkes like put the paper and you just like
the impressions of these guys were worldly people. You know,
like a lot of these guys had been around the
world even though we had like they'd basically been like
all through like the Spanish Empire and stuff. Uh, you
know it. They talked about California like it's like freaking
shagro lot or something, which I guess it kind of is.
But we're gonna time. We got Okay, we're going for
about forty two minutes or I'll pick up the pace
if I'm being boring or repetitive, like let me know,
but it's a it's all good, okay, good deal. This
huge boom Like by by the eighteen eighties, California had
about a quarter million people. You know. It was uh,
it was rapidly becoming the financial and cultural hub you know,
of the West, which at that time was still like
wide open space. Obviously even is there really is Like
the eighteen eighties, knob Hill was a knob Hill was
a was like Beverly Hills o the day, but even
more so there was like you had mansions that were
worth a million dollars, which is basically like a billion
dollar house like in today's money, Like I think it's
point to people a lot. They can't really contact the
wealth if you were like a millionaire in like the
eighteen sixties or eighteen eighties, it's like unfathomable. It's not
just like being a rich guy or like these guys
like Andrew Carnegie, like the like the power they had,
Like these guys literally were uh like masses the universe,
you know, like they could like they like like world
leaders and like gravel before them, you know, like they
they owned like double digit percentages of like the GDP.
Like that's like unfamomable.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Like even a guy like Elon Musk I've got like
tremendous respect for and I just think he knows a
lot of like awesome stuff, even like I like him,
is like nothing in compared to the the kinds of
wealth accrued by these guys, and in in percentage terms
and stuff.
Speaker 1: And n in like nineteen eight, nineteen o nine, JP
Morgan paid off the American debt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there you go. And he was he was
probably he was definitely like one of like the top
five like most important men on this planet, like Morgan. Uh,
I mean basically like I mean World War One basically
started because because of uh, it was like Morgan's firm
that it's that like at todder to Wall Street, and
it was it was JP Morgan that essentially called up
the White House and demanded Wilson like fixed this because
they had debt that wasn't gonna be serviced because they
got sold the Billy Goods by the British Crown. I mean,
I think we got into that our World War One series.
But yeah, it's like unfathomable. And and this this guy,
this new money he was concentrating in California. You know,
it's but something else that was happening. A lot of
people attribute the decadence of California to post war stuff
and Coulter Comfin and what they kind of improperly describe
as cultural Marxism and like low and precedes that that's
like a that's like a whole different issue. What was
called Barbary Coast euphemistically, it was basically that it was
basically California Red Light District. For context, because for the
geography contexts, I look this up. I mean, I know
that garea California reasonably well, but I'm not like I
was never truly lead local there. You must spend a
lot of time there. But the Barbary Coast like as
a red light district and like as a as a
community area as we call in Chicago. It was bounded
by Broadway, Kearney, Montgomery and Pacific Avenue, and its primary
revenues came from you know bars and taverns, but like
gambling joints and like dance halls that were basically just
like whorehouses, and there's like a burgaining uh trade, not
just for like teenage girls and adult women, but like
men as well as like kids, like really awful stuff
basically like a smartest bort of like Detancy. It was
William Randolph Hurst who shout all that down, which is fascinating,
and this he plays an essential role in in the
kind of rehabilitation of like the capitalists and the public mind.
And incidentally, filmed Citizen Kane is all about that, if
you read between the lines. But reading a little bit
ahead of ourselves. The first like actual like strip joint,
like it's been like peep shows and stuff obviously going
back like as long as there were like people in America,
but like a dedicated like strip bar you know like
newdi bar, Like the first one in America was at
the corner of Kearney in California and it opened in
eighteen eighty five. You know when this became uh, this
became something California was known for, like especially in San Francisco.
It wasn't only a port city, but you know it
kind of had like Alaska demographics early on. It's because
of like all the all the eighteen forty nine minors,
you know, so you had this like majority male population
of kind of rough hun guys, like a lot of
boomer fue in trouble with the law honestly and stuff.
You know. The women who were there, like the like
the young and youngish women who were there were disproportionately prostitutes.
I call them prostitutes. And I know that these like
figgy like wiki editor types in all either house, Like, no,
they're sex workers. Like now you're not you're not working
at sex if you say your pussy year prostitute. If
you like sling dope, you're not like an unlicensed pharmacist,
you're the dope man. You know that this really really
really bothers me. I Like I've had to like check
people in real life when they use that term, and like,
don't don't ever use that term. But where was I, oh,
you know, in these days, there wasn't a you know,
there wasn't like real like like as we think of
like a law enforcement that's a night that's a mid
nineteenth century innovation. It arrived in the East Coast first obviously,
but really until like the turn of the century, it
wasn't this ubiquitous thing, you know, and like this idea
that there's just like this police force kind of going
around looking for people committing crimes and like shaking down
the local whorehouse or the local you know, uh or
the local like poker den, the local opium den like that.
That wasn't the thing, you know. I find it fascinating
because people think like the police had this like permanent
perennial thing. They think the police or like the stars
or something like they do like the national state, like
the Westphalian state. They think it like has always existed,
it can never not exist, and it's like it's like
time or matter or the weather. And I try to
explain to them, like no, you don't, like like the
police aren't like one of the elements like get your
head out of your ass. But but point being, there's
this psychotomy in California, you know, and honestly, I mean
that's part of the creative destruction of capitalism.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was like vice, you know, because I'm not I'm
not falling back on Marxist trophes or something about a
capitalism like assaults the soul. And but I mean when
anytime you have people with money to spend, especially when
you have like a heavily male population, Like men aren't
any more prone to sin than women, but there's certain
kinds of stuff that's bad for you that men like
I think we can all agree on the next we're
all adults here, and that tends to the demand that
kind of thing as well as people willing to make
it available. That there's there's like a minuet between those
two tendencies. But so I'm getting as well describing this
isn't to say, like, see, things have always been this
way on the West Coast. I'm not saying that at all.
I mean that's true, but there there was a tremendous
backlash against it, and California became known going in part
to these guys like hers to build entire careers out
of out of kind of like cleaning up vice and things.
But this kind of this kind of crusading like moralist
culture that was very much based in congregational Christianity, specifically
Methodism from day one, like took roote in California, and
the only thing really comparable is kind of like the
church culture of the South. You know, it's this idea
that this idea that California was always this kind of
like massive uh like then of ill repute that was
always different from the rest of the country, and it's
always had this kind of like tolerance for for debased passions,
particularly of a sexual nature and things that wasn't true
at all, like if anything, people were I mean, it's
not only a culture of extremes, but in some ways
like people were like way more uptight in r which
I'll get into an episode three. We're in r like
way more uptight a that kind of stuff than in
the Midwest. Like it plays like shy town. It's very
much below Bard. You don't see it, but everybody knows
about it and there's not people like crusding against it.
That's that's like a California thing and a Southern thing.
I'm not putting shade on other culture, but you know,
the the point is that if California is like anywhere,
it's like the South, it's it's not this, you know,
it's not what people think it is. You know, it's not.
It's not It's not a bunch of people who think
like Berkeley liberals, is what I'm getting at, you know.
And even even where the even where the even where
the institutionalized vice comes from there, it doesn't come from
the places people think it does. But but yeah, it was.
It was basically William randolf Hurst who became this like
anti kind of vice crusader during the progressive era, and
like what immediately preceded it, you know, Hearst Also he
was the first real like newspaper like magnate he he
he founded the San Francisco Examiner, which was like a
huge paper, which like I remember it was a huge
paper still like when I was a kid and like
a teenager. You know. The uh, Hearst has sank eight
million dollars into it to compete basically with like the
top like East Coast media brands you know, which again
that was beyond like a princely sum in those days.
He people claim he helped start the Spanish American War.
I mean, you know, Heurris was obviously considered the father
of yellow journalism and Citizen Kane. Like you know, it's
obviously he spoking about Herst, and it paints him and
some ways as a monster would also paints him. It's
kind of just like it's just kind of like godlike
figure almost like I don't know if people are familiar,
if you yourself are, if you're familiar with the glass
bes by Ernesty Junger, like like Hearst was like Zapperoni
was kind of like Walt Disney. He meets like William
Randolph Hurst. That's why like I think of him. But
you know Hurst, uh he uh he ran this uh
incredibly hostile and Bellacho's copy against the uh the Spaniards.
He uh endorsed political assassination of America's and of quote
America's enemies, and he backpedaled when people criticized him for
it's like, oh, this was only this was only a
mental exercise, but it was like obvious he was talking
about like assassinating, like assassinating the Spanish leadership. It's just
kind of like crazy, reckless stuff. But he Uh, he
hated McKinley. President McKinley so like some of his ops
like tried to blame him for the the assassination of McKinley. That, uh,
it's a very very interesting guy and obviously too like
when World War One arrived that California got with another
infusion of capitalization by way of public subsidies. But sorry,
that really that really built it as an essential hub
of military industrial power, and it also made it even
more cephilidic because you had this mass of soldiers, sailors,
marines and the camp followers that attend that you know,
there was a whole army of prostitutes and all kinds
of other incidental goodies like drugs and gambling and alcohol,
which I've always been with us even't used to be
promoted over your smartphone. But you know, sometimes people convince
themselves that these are new things because they want to
idealize the past. It's like what progressives do in reverse,
Like progressives are symboltons, you think that, like the thing
that the future is, like the Jetsons, you know, like
like they're they're kind of bourgeois like nominal ops or
people who who think that like the asked, was the flintstones.
It's fucking returned. But even though it does seem like
a natural stopping place, and I keep going like I'm
gonna it's it's gonna be, I'm gonna have to like
interrupt the kind of next phase of what I wanted
to talk about. Yeah, I I'm sorry didn't get to
as much as I wanted today. I promised episode three,
like I'll I'll wrap this up and I'll get to
the meat of like data and things about blue California.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, no problem at all. Do some quick
plugs and uh, we'll finish this up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly you can find me on social media at
Capital r e A L underscore number seven h O
M A S seven seven seven. I. I recently started
using my own name, like my my Christian name on
social media, my government name because X terrorizes me when
I have a post that like catches fire and like
the algorithm goes nuts and says I'm doing heat things
and it got triggered somehow and or activated and saying
that my name was like a heat word or something.
So I put in my government name. So like if
they say that again, it's like, well, how can I
how can I? How can my government name be a
hate word? But yeah, so what's the same. It's the
same alt it just displays different. But best place to
find my work product and to just kind of get
acquainted because we've got a pretty active chat there. Two
is on substack. That's where my podcast is and all
kinds of other good stuff. That's also kind of where
I announced, like when I'm organizing meat meet ups and
fun things. It's real capital R E A L. Thomas
seven seven seven that's substacked. I'm on T Graham. I've
got my own website. It's number seven each one as
seven seven seven dot com. I mean my Instagram, I'm
on Telegram. I'm all over the place just seeking you.
She'll find all.
Speaker 1: Right, Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate it. Until part three. Yeah, man,
I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana Show. Thomas.
It seems like it's been a while.
Speaker 2: How have you been doing I've been all right, man.
Happy New Year to everybody.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year. Yeah, we're doing this on New Year's Day.
We are going to uh close out the California series,
so jump right in.
Speaker 2: Seeking a look at Pappy Cannon's book State of Emergency
from I think I think it dropped around twenty eleven
twenty twelve, somewhere around there. The context is his book
on World War Two. It's a good kind of at
a glance volume. It's kind of like the cliff notes
version of a lot of stuff Harry Elmer Barnes wrote about,
and JB. Taylor and people like that. But the endnotes
that very useful, and some then even utilizing it for
some things. But the canon obviously, he was somebody who
was always kind of raising the proverbial alarm bells about
the immigration crisis, which is well placed, but he missed,
he misdiagnosed what was going on in California. And I
think to this day people continue to like they talk
about I mean, first of all, they claim that like
California is liberal because of Hispanics. That's not true. When
we're gonna get into that, that's not why. But also
they talk about California almost like it's a giant ulster
or something like. What I mean by as they talk
about it, you can included like, oh, there's this core
population of Mexicans like identify with Mexico. That's really not
what's going on, you know, and like like traditionally Spanish California. Yeah,
they're not particularly assimilated. Like yeah, they're very much kind
of like hood local in their perspective, but they they
don't want to be part of Mexico. There's not guys
in like East La who are acting like the provos
in nineteen seventy and trying to like cultivate ties with
Mexico for some political union. Like it's not happening. And
if anything, even in hoods where like people mostly speak Spanish,
like people come over the border are kind of like
look down upon, you know, I mean like that's even
to this day. I mean, uh so, like that's not
what's happening. You can't look at the situation as again,
like something where it's like a giant ulster or like
a Bosnia situation where it's like there's kind of like
organic migration of like Mexicans and oh, you know Mexico
is reabsorbing California. That's that's not happening, and if it was,
it'd be playing out totally differently. But that's also why
it's cap the claim, oh California is liberal because of Mexicans.
It's like I mean, like I was saying, so so
so Hispanics love Barbara Boxer, you know, and like the
something Buchanan was saying was you know, like after I mean,
John McCain was like a total piece of shit, but
he was also just like a fucking idiot and like
you know, he was his kind of idiotic uh Poluca
stand in campaign contra Obama. I remember, Like that's that
was kind of the peak of the narrative, Like like
white California is done. It's like, well, apparently it's not
man because much of them a dislike the people who
represent you know, my own tribes demographic, like Gavin Newsom
is almost certainly gonna be like the nominee in twenty
twenty eight, and that guy's like as that guy and
his wife for like his old money in California is
as it comes. You know, this is very very fake,
is my point. You know, like it's not like the
way people talk. You'd think that Mexico is making like
sovereign territorial claims on like California, and that like Caesar
Chavez type guys were popping up and demanding access to government,
Like nothing like that is happening, and that's one of
the ways you know that this is fake. And like,
don't get me wrong, there's like definitely a capital flight
from California and they've lost like a huge number of
like white people, but anybody who can is leaving California,
and which inter thing too. You know, I make the
point of you know, I emphasize the point a lot.
That's a mistake to try and like extrapolate from what
goes on in the street or in the penitentiary or
you know, to like broader political demographic tendencies. But it
does tell you something. You know, Whites and Mexicans on
the street in California like click up very heavily, and
California is hyper racialized, and like both Serranos and whites
like look at blacks as like they're ops. I go
as far as to say they actually hate them, you know.
And South Central interestingly, you know, California see Council, Like
they don't call it South Central anymore. They really kind
I've been trying to like wipe its reputation out of
existences like this kind of failing black hood you know,
in the middle of LA. I mean that's kind of
another issue. But you know, what's now South Los Angeles,
Like basically within fifteen years it lost like forty percent
of their black population, you know. I mean that's the
real ethnic cleansing in my opinion. But the you know,
like we were talking about the other week, and I'll
get into the brass texts of data and things.
Speaker 1: In a minute. What can I can I can I
jump in real quick? Yeah, of course was that a
I mean I've heard stories of Mexicans basically going in, yeah,
armed to clear out parts of South Central and to
chase blacks out like it is an open war.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, it's possible, like all. What
I do know is this even like seriously racialized, like
white guys they click up. It's not just convenience, like
them in the Serenos have this weird affinity and they
both like really really really have bad feelings towards the blacks.
And it's not like that here, you know, like racist
as we are in Chicago. Even dudes in the game,
even like white dudes who gang bang, and even in
the early nineties, like when things were really bad, you
generally don't find dudes who like hate blacks, even if
they don't like associate with them, and even if they
like respect the color line kind of rigidly. So I mean,
I I guess my point is it's I don't except
the California is one day being super liberal everything else aside,
when you've got this like profound enmity between people's like
that just that doesn't happen, you know, like that that's
just not the way things are. And I think too,
I think one of the things that kind of killed
the fortunes of black folks in California, I mean, the
LA Riots. It wasn't despite the way I mean now
people just don't talk about it, which is interesting. I mean,
like regime people and adjacent media elements. But you know,
the LA Riots were basically blacks becoming like ebk's like
they went to war with everybody. Like It's not like
it was some like you know, colored revolt or whatever.
I mean, that kind of shouldn't really happen anyway, But
it is like very nakedly like black folks on the
warpath and that really scared a lot of people, would
also like radicalize a lot of people. And like after that,
it's kind of like the gloves came off. I mean,
I know, you got this like random black lady who's
like the mayor of Los Angeles, but that but that's
fake as fuck, you know, like California's got they do
not have like a friendly relationship with their black population,
you know, and a lot of that. Uh, but that's
also too, you know. I mean that's one of the
reasons like when people try and painted with something like Reconquista,
there's not some like equivalent of the Watts Riots, where
like Spanish people like went berserk and started like burning
shit down, like that never happened, and like it's not
about to happen. I mean, not that that's the metric,
but it's okay. If if if Mexicans are supposedly these
guys with like conquest on their mind, who you know
again are basically like the you know, the provos of
the of Latin America, who are trying to like turn
California to Mexico. Why aren't they doing that, you know, like, uh,
it doesn't really play out and it's a different like
it's a different culture like these these a lot of
these La guys too, I mean, their families have been
there for like a century and a half. Like the
fact they don't really identify with America, okay, but they
don't like want to be part of Mexico either. I
mean it's like its own.
Speaker 1: Thing, you know, Like they're sort of like they're sort
of like the Tajanas in Texas.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. Like in
East La, it's very much like a proletarian culture and
it's very rough culture, you know, but it's it's like
its own thing, man. You know, like uh, and I
do have. I haven't been out there in a long time,
you know, since like two thousand. But as a kid,
I was like around this ship, you know. I mean
like I spent a lot. I spent a lot of
time in La and in like Ventura, ox nart In,
and you know, like it's not like my point of
the time, I was just like going to like Orange
County or something, you know, like I I I was.
I was around like Sokale like Mexicans. You know. I
could play like ball with them and stuff, you know,
and like skate with him and ship. You know, I
got to know somebody these guys like reasonably well. And
it was I mean I realized the nineteen eighties were
a lot different, But you know that well, for our purposes,
it's it's material, but it's also just you know, I'll
get into our dad in a minute. But you know too,
I can't remember who made the point. It might have
been Ron Onnes. They made it for a different the
conducting booked it was different. But from this nineteen sixties onward,
like the early sixties I'm talking about, like Kennedy era,
both houses of the state legislature were usually Democrat, at
least by narrow majority, but they weren't particularly liberal. You know.
So this idea that uh oh, you know, if the
Republican Party dies in California, then everybody's liberal, like that
doesn't track either, you know, like you had you had
you had these name mestizo people who are not remotely
liberal in their outlook, and you had these guys who
worked in you know, like machine shops and stuff that
kind of served the aerospace industry. Like a lot of
those people they vote Democrat because like their union ship
Steward is like, yeah, this is who we vote for,
you know. So that's that's kind of like a false
vinear too, because like the supposedly the metric of what's
going on in California is like who's voting for Republicans?
You know? And I I don't know, Schwarzenegger is a
total idiot, but he uh, you know, the the way
he got elected was basically he was basically a single
issue campaign and people were outraged at was it Davis,
Gray Davis or was it somebody else? But who Wilson
are Great Davis? I can't remember. But the big issue
with Schwartzegger's campaign was he was, you know, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna repeal the I can to repeal
the statute that allows illegal aliens to get driver's licenses.
So then suddenly like people like swarm to Schwarzenegger is
like their candidate, you know. And I mean so supposedly,
you know that. I mean, why would that even be
an issue of California after ninety two? Is is like
this irridentist like Hispanic Paradise. That's basically like it left
wing is Swedened. I mean, like that doesn't that doesn't
make any It doesn't describe a political culture that actually exists,
you know. And I think what's most kind of damning.
Speaker 1: Is, uh, by the way it was Gray Davis.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, yeah, yeah, thanks, ML's sleepy, like forgive me.
But the uh, you know, the referendum votes are really
kind of what tells us that this narrative is false.
And you know Proposition one eighty seven that's kind of
like ominously named consider.
Speaker 1: Oh I know, I remember that. When that happened, I
was like, oh, that they did that on purpose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Prop onety seven it was. It was also
known by the political action committees that devised it as
the SOS Initiative Save Our State. So this is in
nineteen ninety four, supposedly after like the new majority is
controlling political processes, only the democratic shifts it. Uh. It
was basically the harshest legislative regime in the country that
would have deprived the illegal aliens of like all health
services other than you know, like emergency care, public education,
you know, social services. Like basically it basically precluded anybody
who couldn't prove they were a citizen from availing themselves
if they any of any of any social welfare aspects
at the state level, you know. And uh, this passed
by supermajority on November eight, nineteen ninety four. I mean, uh,
it was over five million votes about three and a
half millions, I mean about a fifty nine percent majority.
But what's most significant it was only the Bay Area
that opposed it. And I mean the Bay Area is
not urban in the kind of I mean in the
conventional sense I under the semny Europeans like to visit it.
So basically, you've got California with prop Oneity seven. You
got California from the Oregon border to San Diego. You
could drive from tip to tip, and every single county
you'd passed through voted for prop Oneity seven. With the
accept of like San Francisco and Berkeley, like that's that's
freaking insane, you know, like that's that's an absolute landslide,
you know. And and again too, we're not I don't
accept this notion that, you know, a majoritarian consensus in
counties is meaningless if they're quote like a rural or flyover.
That's this cap. But it would tell us something if
LA had come out against one eighty seven. But LA
fifty six percent voted, yes, you know, and it's like, okay,
that was thirty years ago. But the whole point is
nineteen ninety two was when it was declared that as
of now California is permanently blue, you know. So then uh,
the Supreme Court steps in and reverses it, you know.
But the follow up two years later was Prop. Two nine,
which was euphemistically branded the California Civil Rights Initiative, which
basically it was basically like the quota ban that was
floated by people like Jesse Helms like federally, but it
went further and it amended the California Constitution. It prohibited
like any state government institution from considering identitarian categories like race, sex, ethnicity,
national origin. Like they had to be like totally blind
in their hiring, in their contracting and allocation of education resources,
college admissions. And this was a big deal. It was
authored by these two sociologists, these two academic types, you know,
and they did that because that way opponents of it
couldn't come out and see like, well this is a cynical,
xenophobic ploy. It's like no, they really dotted their eyes
and crossed the baverbial teas. This was the first referendum
on affirmative action, like true referendum. You know. It passed
with fifty five percent, and once again, like the entire
state like went for it. You know, it was the
same basic breakdown as Prop one eighty seven. You know,
so it's like so what so what exactly is happening here?
You know, And the the recourse of the open borders crowd,
you know, was to shop around for a federal judge
who'd repudiated and uh Pete Wilson. Pete Wilson was willing
to fight in the in the federal courts, but when
Gray Davis replaced him, like like they is basically just
uh he basically with the appeal died just by like
refusal to take action on it, you know. And so
once again, I remember at the time and people were
still banding this a decade later, during like Obama's campaign,
like oh this this was the last gasp of white
America and conservatives It's like, what the hell are you
talking about? Like you it's like every time one of these,
every time one of these referendums comes up, it passes
by super majority, and basically, you know, basically like the
Ninth Circuit intervenes to like undo the mandate. I mean,
like that's not you know, and of course too, I
mean obviously, like a like a substantial number of Hispanics,
like voted for these initiatives, you know, like this idea
that oh, Hispanics will to compete with illegal aliens for
you know, for for for jobs, and they're totally cool
with wages being bottomed out, and they're totally fine with
you know, paying property taxes to you know, to provide
like daycare and grade school for for random people who
grass that border. Like why, that's ridiculous, you know, I
mean it's you know, so it and that's what should
have been that that's what should have like allowed people
to allow the verbical scales to fall from their eyes.
You know, even even if you're one of these deluded
people who thinks that like the Republican Party is something
like synonymous with like white American opinion, or even if
you think that the way to you know, diagnose the
the political culture of any cal is like by how
the Republican Party's doing. I mean, that's that's fucking ridiculous.
But even if the rebuttal as well, what's the alternative metric?
It's like, well, in California, it's right here because they've
got this constitutionally mandated referendum structure or system. So there
you go, you know, like we talked about when last
week convene, you know, for to talk about this series.
It was from nineteen fifty two to nineteen eighty eight,
every presidential election but one went Republican, and more often
than not it was a landslide, you know, and then suddenly,
suddenly after nineteen eighty eight, you know, the Republicans always lose,
the always lose California in the presidential election, and it's
always by ten points or more. Like that's not a
statistical impossibility, obviously, But that doesn't really make any sense,
you know, because there was no there was no there
was no transition period. It's just like one day this change, supposedly,
and not only did it change, but it's like now
California can never be a swing state. It's just always blue.
You know, it just can never be flipped. You know.
That's not that that doesn't make any sense. You know,
there's a obviously, California is like the single greatest electoral
prize if you had an actually competitive system, like no
matter how solidly in like actual organic Termsfornia was aligned
in partisan capacities. Obviously, in an actually competitive system, you
campaign your ass off in California to try to flip it,
because anywhere can be flipped, even if it's just a
single issue like this idea that oh, this is a
safe state, so it can't be flipped. That ridiculous, that's Soviet,
you know, like why it metaphysically he can't be flipped?
Like what does it even mean? You know, the people
should be smarter about that shit. You know, it's and
the only you know, and again too, I mean, like
I said, Schwarzenegger was an idiot, but the and he
is an idiot, but uh, you know, the whole the
reason why, like his his campaign and his ultimate election
that was that was like the big Republican comeback. And
again like the only thing that campaign was built on
was like single issue immigration concerns, man, you know. And
so it's like and then every time something like this happens,
whether it's Prop twenty seven, whether it's Prop two nine,
whether it's you know, at Middle East, you know, he's
an idiot, but like somebody like Schwarzenegger getting elected, or
whether it's you know, a sudden like massive upstick and
like support for Trump, like it's, oh, this is the
last gasp of white America and conservatives. It's like every
ten years, there's like another last gasp. I mean, like
I don't, you know, and like I said, I don't
I stipulate that there's been this like massive capital flight,
but such that there is any so that there is
like any any, any equity remaining in California. It's you know,
it's it's it's the it's the vestigial white population that's
responsible for that. I mean, it's just like a fact.
I don't if if if they if they truly get
chased out, there's kind of no more California. You know,
nobody really wants that to be with self fulfilling prophecy,
like they don't, you know, And obviously they don't because again,
like it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not. It's
not some Spanish guy who's you know, talking about a
more dignified life for migrant farm workers, who's he's like,
he's like leading the California Democrats. It's uh, it's Gavin Newsome.
He's like a caricature of a caricature of some douchey
old money you know, uh, social registered type. You know.
So I mean, none of this really by the metrics,
by by its own metrics. It doesn't. It doesn't track
with anything, you know, and I, uh, yeah, the uh,
that's the that's the core of a that's the core
of the issue. And it's also to something that peak.
I don't I don't know what. I've had a hard
time finding meaningful data sets on this. But in in
the later nineties through I think about two thousand and three,
about one hundred thousand self identified white Californians were leaving
a year, and people claim this is what was responsible this,
this is primarily responsible for Asians capturing a bigger slice
the verbial demographic pie in terms of overall relative population numbers.
But uh, that seems to have stabilized. I mean, California
is still hemorrhaging people. But it's also these these minority
populations as they're called, you know, they're they're not monolithically
left wing like quite the contrary, you know, and uh,
if you look at in terms of income and assets,
you know, I I find it hard to believe that
a bunch of Taiwanese and Koreans and Japanese Americans in
California are really really enthusiastic about, you know, voting for
some like permanent you know, social justice regime out there.
You know, it's just not it just doesn't track man
And maybe I think this is somewhat difficult for people
to fully grasp who haven't spent time there, because it
is a strange state culturally and in every other way.
But you have to spend time at a fully grass
But it's not a liberal state culturally. You know, it's
very segregated, it's very there's a very sharp there's a
very sharply defined distance between people who are well off,
and we're not far more so than here for example.
You know, So any any kind of effort reconfigure or
social engineer the political culture there, I it would right
much be an edifice that isn't really propped up by
anything but rhetoric and jerrymandering, which will take you fairly
far in at the state level in a corrupt system.
But it's not, it's not it's not sustainable, and it's
it's certainly not some spontaneous development, you know. And the
point I make, that's all that Jay Burden about this
on our West Radio Free Chicago episode. I don't I
don't understand whether Republican Party still exists like that? Why
why does it premnier league exist. You know, that's not
really precedented in America for the for for party systems,
you know, to exist in perpetuity. I mean, just like
it doesn't really have a context anymore, like the Republicans don't.
But even if that weren't the case, it really doesn't
have a context in California, you know. So again, that's
a really piss poor metric for trying to discern the
mood of the culture in terms of political values. If
if like your your canary in the mind, for verbially
is like how the Republicans are doing, I mean that
that doesn't really mean anything. You know, like if I,
if I live in a truly battleground state, I'd vote
for Donald Trump, but I fucking hate the Republicans, and
I'm by by the by American standards, I'm pretty right wing, Okay,
I'd uh, I'd rather have a root canal than like
vote for the Republicans, you know, like they're Vegas like it,
So that that doesn't really tell us anything. And and
plus two, I mean even beyond that, beyond any kind
of like ethical objection, like what are the like, like,
what are the Republicans done for California? Like the nomine
idiots like Schwarzenegger, they don't. You don't even get like
tash relief from them in California, you know, like any
time that they don't, they don't have the stones too,
they don't like like like again, I mean Wilson, he
mounted like a kind of token challenge when the Federal
Circuit overturned overturned Prop onety seven. But I mean they
don't even like deliver on that stuff. They don't even
go through the motions. So it's like even if you know,
even if you were inclined to be like a GOP loyalist,
like there's no percentage in that in California because they
never deliver on anything, you know, so you're better off,
you know place like Tom Metzger said, Like when Metzger
during his brief career even like running for Congress and stuff,
and he actually did pretty well. It's an interesting story
in its own right, but you know, Metzger generally ran
as a Democrat because like what difference does it make
it doesn't you know.
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's a very it's very it's very
imprecise and as far to say dishonest, you know, now
that I expect a lot of integrity from it's kind
of superficial sociology that supposedly deciphers the meaning of electoral
patterns and things, you know. But in the case of California,
it's particularly dishonest to invoke the Republicans as anything other than,
you know, the official opposition. But it also.
Speaker 1: I was reading the other day and I can't remember
who it was. It might have been like William Lynn
Bill nd or someone like that was saying he does
I think he was saying he doesn't think that, like
you can even have a circulation of elites, like a
new class of people ruling until the dollar falls. So
you asked, like, how does the republic you know, why
do we still have the Republican? I mean, can anything
really change until there's a like a drastic a drastic
cause something like a dollar failure, which has never happened.
And Stormy says it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: I agree with that, Like people talk about how there's
going to be like a punctuated event like the crash
of twenty nine like that that wouldn't happen. And again,
it's the systems too rubberized, and information awareness and and
you know this literally like the velocity of data like
to precluded. No. No, I I agree with the fact
that I I understand. I understand exactly why there's it's
like a closed circle, you know, like the circulation of
the legs as it were. But like this like this
like totally out of date branding, like oh, this is
the Republican Party. All the Republicans were was the committee
tooilect Abraham Lincoln that they became like the America First Party,
like post reconstruction, like the party in Northern industry, and
then they became like the Cold War Hawk Party, which
didn't make a lot of sense in legacy terms. But
it's like why are we still talking in these terms?
You know, like it doesn't it doesn't really make sense.
I mean, diddo, how did how?
Speaker 1: How?
Speaker 2: Like in the UK is like the Labor Party, like
what what? What are like the laborers are they representing?
You know, it's you'd think that there would have been
like a rebranding or they in America they do a
way because America because the like Repulicans aren't a party,
you know, Like, I mean there's that too. You would
think that, especially after you would think that after Wrule
War two, especially after the Cold War, you'd think that
it'd be like, Okay, here's the president, you know, here's
like his loyalists. This is like the ruling coalition, and
this is the opposition, Like why are they the Democrats
like that? That's what's herded. You know that there are
a bunch of people like Andrew Jack really like I
take some.
Speaker 1: Exception of that, but well, and well they it seems
to just be holding onto ideology. So you the party
adopts an ideology, whether it's a good ideology or not,
whether it's coherence or not, and that keeps that keeps
a certain portion of the yea of the population on
one side or the other. Oh, we believe, you know,
we're fit, We're we're fiscally conservative, but you know, culturally
liberal over here in the Republican side and on the
Democrat side, you can be completely nuts and do anything
you want. It's just it seems like it's just to
keep people, you know, motivated, to keep this thing moving
in existence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important, because it's not it's important not to
confuse people. So it's just familiarity that like sustains it.
But it I I think it's very strange. I mean,
that's one of the I I haven't published it yet,
but I did a write up on James Webb because
I reread his novel Field of Fire, which is one
of my favorite novels. The Web was an important guy
in the later Cold War, and he also he takes
uh like the center uh like Ulster Scott identity seriously
and I appreciate that. But you know, like Web like
ran as a Democrat, you know, like later like after
he left the Senate, because he's like, what is it?
Why why am I a Republican? Like why why would
a southern white guy like run as a Republican? It's
asine and like people understand what he was talking about.
And unfortunately is his campaign was kind of dead in
the water. I mean he I like what he did
in the Senate, but I he kind of lost way
I think in tactical terms subsequent. But he was but
he was absolutely right about that. You know, it's doesn't
it doesn't make any sense. It's you know, if I
I mean I'd never like I was talking to one
of the fellas we run the road. I mean like
I I'd never run for office. But if I did
ease where I'm at, I'd run as a Democrat, you know,
because that's just what you do here. You know, Like
does that mean I does that mean I'm suddenly like
I become like gay and like open borders, like you know,
it's a yeah, shit doesn't make any sense, but it's.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, politics is supposed to be a tool.
So if you run as a Democrat, you're supposed to
be using a tool, wielding a tool. Why does a
tool have to have an ideology attached to it?
Speaker 2: Especially it's not even a party. I mean, it's like
the whole. You're a party if you have dues, paying members,
if there's some apparatus in place like enforces consensus. There's
an actual party manifesto and platform I and if you
don't abide it, you get kicked out of the party.
Like there's there's not like a Republican party, You're like
a Democrat party. I mean, arguably you can't have a
political party and in a system where there's single member districts,
you know, and and a winner take all like electoral paradigm,
because like how could you you know, it's the whole
as designed, you know, the the constitutionally mandated electoral system.
It's it's basically set up to like prevent the emergence
of parties. So yeah, there's that's why it's goofy as
hell when when these coach are cons and and and
these cringe fucking people just the Democrat Party, you see,
it's like what what is the Democrat Party? Like what
like who are just dues paying members? Like what's it's
what's its what's its official like platform? Like none of
these things exist, you know. It's just it's just like
Randos saying like, yeah, we're the Democrats, and in some way, yeah,
like what's called the Democrats they're they're like they're like
the official ruling party, you know, and the Republicans the
faux opposition. But it's like okay, so then say that,
like say that like again, like whoever the president is
and whoever is loyalists are okay, they're you know, this
is the ruling coalition, like be outside of that is
the opposition, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that also that also points to like how
you can't really have a party without an ideology, and
whenever somebody comes along with like okay, well here in ideology,
like the paleocons did, like in the early nineties, you
have to kick them out because it's like, no, we
can't have an ideology here. We have to be whatever
we need to be at this one from moment to moment,
which makes sense, Which makes sense in a in a
structure where you you're just trying to get elected and
you just want political power. But if you're actually going
to be a coalition like a party or something like that,
you're gonna need an ideology. So all ideology has to
go out the window.
Speaker 2: No, And that's what that was the reason for like
the coup against Nixon, you know, and I and that,
because that's exactly what Wallace did. Like wall Is basically forced,
which is incredible because he basically got like he basically
forced like Yankee Republicans like take on what he viewed
as like the essential aspects. So like the you know,
the Dixiecrat play like manifesto, albeit they were like moderated somewhat,
but like that's exactly what he did. And so then
like the deep state shit, it's pants and they're like
this cannot be allowed to happen. You know. Trump's a
little bit different, but it's it's the same tendency like
on display. But it's what I'm curious about. I mean,
this is a simlarly another show that I mean to
go straight too far afield from the top focus. But
you know, as there's this weird paradigm emerging where like
complex in independence, like true globalism on the economic side
is like the permanent reality, but in terms of self governance,
like it's it's all gonna be local and uh, you're
gonna see, you're gonna see, you're gonna see like cities
and even like at state level, like systems emerging where
they basically have like what amounts of a proportional representation
system and like all the name and you're you're're gonna
see the emergence like real party structures, even if they're
not called that. There's like echoes of that in a
lot of municipalities, which I pay more attention to because
like in Illinois it's weird, and like the outlying areas,
especially south, especially south and especially northwards like Detroit, we're
we're all kind of the same like sociological ecosystem and
like good ways in bed. But you know, there's there's
a kind of a di y and ethical secessionists, the
tendant see a foot Like I'm not saying people want
to like formally secede, but the fact don't they kind
of are. And there's a lot of that goes into that,
everything from what you know what technical like consumer technology
facilitates to traditional ideas about policing and law and order
kind of going by the wayside, and you know, people
being able to make money in non traditional ways. And
I mean that that. I mean, that's not my bread
and butter. That's what I'm trying to accomplish, and I
think that's going quite splendidly. I might add, but you know,
that's that's the future. So a lot of some of
this is going to take care of itself. But I
am the California thing because like I said, I it's
very positive especially among young people like zoomer people and
like a little younger like they they don't they they
look at legacy media is being totally full of shit.
You know, they're not susceptible to the bully pulpit, like
the what remains of it, But for some reason it's
still got the capacity these like legacy, this legacy apparatus
taken like in total, it's you know, it's it's it's
like man made weather. You know, that's the quote from
the movie. And people say, take a face to value, like, oh,
this is what the electro map is. You know, like
California is just like safe blue. It's like, no, it's not, man,
you've got stuff thinking that way. That's not reality, you know.
And uh, it's not just about like being right or
kind of like thumbing your nose at this, you know,
kind of pitiable, octogenary and tyranny. You know, it's important
because this this is built on an edifice of eve
fault elsehoods, you know, and that's that's that's what soulcial
nations and can say. With the Soviet Union, you'd be like,
it's not as that the Soul Union brutalizes people and
like it sends them to these artic death camps, or
that it punishes you for putting God over a man.
I mean that that's obviously that those are like very
evil things. But he's like it forces you to like
accept a lie. And if you accept a lies long enough,
and it's kind of like abide to them, like pretty
soon you start lying to yourself. You know, pretty soon
you kind of lose not just the ability but any
interest in you know, behaving as a rational adult. You know,
like even in the conversations you have yourself and that's
kind of that that's kind of the ultimate like self
conditioning towards slavery. You know. That's why I I I
hammer home the point about the twenty twenty steel It's
not because like I care as much about Donald Trump,
because I don't care aout Donald's from, you know, And
it's it's not because like I I care so much
about you know, arguing with like infertainment adult morons. It's
because you know, you you can't just like accept like
abject lies at face value or like act like it's
not important, because it is important, you know, categories of
minor categories of reality. I like this idea that like, well,
if i'm if you know, hypothetically counterfixedly, I'm an authority.
So I mean it's kind of like an event conceptual
reality is because it's it's a noble lie. Like no,
that's not acceptable, you know, and any no rational like
no rational adult like whatever is creed or race, but
especially a white person like not think that way even
for a minute. You know, it's not that's not the way.
That's not the way. Three men with a and see
think you know, but that was Yeah, we're kind of
like sermonizing. Man, I'm just like I said, I'm just
just really tired today. I don't even if you sound Wayne,
but it's.
Speaker 1: All, it's all good. I led the discussion. And you know,
one of the things you were when you talk about
like local more local kind of and regional politics. Usually
when you get more rural like around here, really the
only thing that people talk about when it comes to
the whole discussions about national politics or how it's going
to affect us is like, how how is it going
to interrupt our lives? How's it going to screw us up?
It's not like, oh, we want this done for us,
you know, we we need we need them to come
do this for us. No, it's like, how how is
this going to infringe upon us?
Speaker 2: What's something too? Yeah? No, And that's when I when
I was on in Baltimore, when I started out to
Harper's Theory on the weekends, that's like the way the
culture was, like I made friends with like the local
police and stuff like it. Verty much, you know, a
different way of life and I didn't make friends with
like the coppers because like I want to, I want
to hang out with flat boids because that way they
like they were used to seeing me and like my
lady friend and rather buddy, and they they you know,
they just it was just it's you know, politics of
a of a certain of its own of it of
its own type. You know. That's also why like I'm
I'm gonna start, you know, spending the winter months in Lynchburg,
because that's exactly yeah, that's exactly the kind of culture
I want to I want to cultivate. And I mean
it's I I like the South anyway because it's awesome,
but you know, that's that's the future. And like one
of the reasons when I write Amtrak is it's not
just because I'm I don't like flying and I feel
like Jacques who still's cat when I'm in a plane
and find out like it like terrorizes me. But but
if you like when you write the answer, that you
realize how much there still remains like vast amounts of
like this wide open space in America. And like even
with like even telecom and the electric I been truly
pick with is you know, like in America unlike in Europe.
I'm like in Japan, unlike in you know, Argentina. You know,
you the regime is like somewhat just like limited by
physical distance, by what it can do to you. I
mean obviously, unless you're doing crazy things or you know,
like like like like whipping up massive like pounds of
fentanyl or metama fetamine and like you know, like sticking
up like millions of dollars and ill gotten gains or something.
I mean, yeah, there's there are limits, and there's certainly
there's certainly acts no missions that will like cause the
regime to like go all out and come after you.
But I mean feeling those sorts of things, you know,
you can, you can, within reason, do what you want,
and it's basically like not gonna be worth it to
the state to like try and fuck with you, you know,
and like people, that's something they take for granted. I
don't think people realize how vast this country is, and
they do like intellectually, not really and they don't realize
that there's you know, like stress or one of the
few things I think Gregor stress Or said that was intelligent.
Despite a sympathy for arguably a sympathy for communism and
despite as uh kind of autocratic paradigm. You know, you
talk about like Europe of a thousand Flags and it
was like all about like kind of distributed to socialism,
and you know, there is I do unders stand the
appeal to that they're they're wrong. I think in there
in the way they can sceptualize economics, but that that's
not real far from what I'm trying to accomplish in
like ethical terms, you know, although it shakes out differently.
But yeah, no, that that's why these are exciting times, man,
because these objectives are being a reached. In twenty twenty
five is when I am gonna make you know, I'm
gonna I'm gonna snowbird down at Lynchberg. And that's that's
not just exciting because I like it down there and
our friends are there, but that's kind of gonna that's
kind of gonna be like my base of operations for
some of this stuff, you know, and like if you
build it like they will come, you know, like in
the in the like in the movie where Kevin Costner's
like playing baseball and the ghost to Shoeless Joe, I
can't remember what it's called but yeah, you know, yeah, yeah,
which which seems like kind of I as some people
think that's like a hokey movie, but like I like
baseball a lot, you know, and uh that that's actually
like a really good movie.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a wholesome. It's a wholesome story that
we don't really hear a lot about anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, and baseball is chill man, like it's and
like to me, the pigskin game is king. But I
especially when I'm i'll say, having a whole lot of
anxiety and stuff like right, uh, when I got back online,
like the twenty twenty baseball season, I I actually became
like a Red Sox fan too, Like the Red Sox
had an interesting lineup that year. But like watching baseball
like chills you out, at least I always thought, though
I mean, maybe not so much. You gotta wager around,
but I don't bet on sportsbook. But no, yeah, this
this was great, man, forgive me if it was those
two tangential. I'm kind of conversational, but I, like I said,
I my energy levels aren't quite recovered yet. All I
feel good. And last night was kind of a late
night going to New year's.
Speaker 1: All right, man, do some quick plugs. We'll get what
is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of on hiatus from the pod because
we just wrapped up season two. I'm I'm gonna aim
to February first at the latest. It's probably gonna be
like the last week in January that like the season
three open earl drop. But in the interim, I'm recording
other stuff with other people's including you know, with the
stuff we're doing. But so oh so, my substack remains active.
It's real Thomas seven seven seven. That's substack dot com.
Other than that, hit up my website. That's like the
one stop location from my content. It's number seven h
seven seven seven dot com And you can find my
social media links and stuff there, like I'm on x,
I'm on an Instagram, I'm launching I launched a new
t gram channel. There's not gonna be like a discussion
aspect because I just get bumpbarded with like ops and
like gros, like porn, bullshit and other shit I don't
want to be available to. But I'm gonna start. I'm
gonna try, and I'm gonna I'm gonna start like uploading
some more like video content and a lot of that's
gonna find its way to the t gram channel, so
be where it's at. Yeah, that's all I got for Nomen.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, till the next one.