This moment feels like the 1930s

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Quan from BJJ Mental Models. I've got the goat on the line here. I've got Stefan Kesting from Grapple Arts. How's it going, buddy? Speaker 2: It's it's going okay. It's going okay, although, you know, we are doing this as a political podcast, there's so much to talk about. May I go on a rant? I've got a rant that's brewing up inside me as I was driving around today. I I was thinking about something. It was driving me insane. Speaker 1: Do we need to build up to the rant or is it a standalone rant that we can just launch into? Speaker 2: It's a standalone rant. It's a standalone. It starts with astrophysics. So, there's this thing called the Fermi Paradox, which says basically, if our galaxy has hundreds of thousands of stars in them, and there are hundreds of thousands of galaxies, then where is everybody? Where are all the intelligent civilizations? Where are the radio messages? Where where are the signs of civilization elsewhere? And there are many different answers. There's the Dark Forest hypothesis, there's the hypothesis that simple life is easy to develop, but complex life requires a whole bunch of factors. But one of the answers to the Fermi Paradox is that when life becomes sufficiently advanced, it wipes itself out, or it tends to wipe itself out. Either, you know, nuclear war or biological, some biological agent gets released, or chemical warfare, or runaway climate change, that once you have life that's intelligent enough to really have a big impact, it has a big impact. Eventually, some mistake gets made and it wipes itself out. So I'm looking now at Denmark and Germany and the UK, and Estonia, and Latvia, sending troops to Greenland in response to Trump's posturing. And I'm thinking about how when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, he got away with it, and he thought, oh, nobody's going to stop me. And when he took Czechoslovakia, he got away with it. He said, oh, nobody's going to stop me. And he invaded Poland, it was World War III. And then I take a look at the timing of invading Venezuela, basically right around when their deadline to when the administration's deadline to release the Epstein files, the unredacted files, in its entirety, expired. And this giant distraction of we're going to invade Venezuela, and now we're going to invade Greenland, came along. And wouldn't that be a shitty solution to the Fermi Paradox, that the reason we don't see advanced civilizations is because pedophiles trying to cover up their tracks are willing to essentially risk and eventually start World War III, because anything is better than them actually seeing the justice they deserve. So how's that for a cheery thought? Speaker 1: I I was actually thinking something similar the other day myself. Um, because yeah, it is a wild time to be alive. And you know, look, there's there are people out in the world, 8 billion people. There are people waking up from comas all the time, right? And there's probably someone who's been in a coma for 10 years who just woke up. And imagine trying to explain to them what they missed. Right? You know, oh, you so you want to know why we're disbanding NATO and we're going to war with the United States. Okay, we can explain that. Um, are you a fan of The Apprentice? Because that's kind of where this whole starts. That's like where the butterfly's wings flapped and it set off a series of of events that led to this happening. That's insane when you think about it. Um, I I don't even know what to say. I mean, you know, you and I, it hasn't been that long since we got on a call to chat and it feels like the an entire lifetime of late breaking news has happened just in the last few weeks. I mean, I could I could list off the events, but probably everyone knows. I don't even know where to start. I mean, do we start with talking about this weird top, I don't even know if you can call it toppling in Venezuela? Do we talk about going to war with NATO over Greenland? I I mean, God, we could talk about the Epstein files. That's always in the background. Do we talk about Renee Good? I I don't even know where to start, right? It even by Trump administration standards, the first few weeks of 2026 have been absolutely insane. And I think you're absolutely right. I think that's the point, right? I think that if there's one thing that Trump is exceptionally good at, it is making himself the center of attention at all times and making sure that people are always talking about him. And and and it just really feels like again, you you know, you brought this up, how much of this is just a giant distraction to prevent people from focusing on the Epstein files. I can't say that for sure, but it seems like a pretty plausible explanation. And even if that's not true, the amount of stuff that has happened in the just in the past 17 days, I mean, impeachment isn't even the right word for what would have happened to any other president by now. I mean, this is a just a level of criminality that is not not just unthinkable for any US president, but even by Trump's own standards, unthinkable. If you told me in 2018 that Donald Trump was going to get reelected president and he was going to do all of this, I'm not sure I would have even believed it then, but it is just constant new levels of depravity with this guy. And it really feels like a lot of this is just because he's got this petulant need to be the center of attention at all times. And you know, no matter no matter how awful he you think he's going to get, he finds one way to get just a bit lower so that everyone will keep talking about him and he'll own the the news cycles, whether it be basically shaking someone down for a Nobel Peace Prize that he didn't even win himself, or the I mean, the latest news today is now he he wants to tariff NATO countries because they won't let him seize Greenland. Where do we start talking about this, Stefan? And what can we even say other than just screaming into the void at this point? Speaker 2: No. Well, I I think certainly a couple of things are evident. Number one, this is basically reality TV show, right? Every real every episode of a reality TV show ends on a cliffhanger. Because you need a reason to tune back in. And that is what brought Trump to the forefront. That's what made him not only a celebrity, but an expert. He's a businessman. Never mind that if he'd taken his dad's fortune and invested it in a index fund that he would be richer than he was at the beginning of his presidency. Since then, there's been incalculable grift and uh, Trump phones and Trump sneakers and Trump watches and Trump coin and uh, you know, people buying. Speaker 1: Did you hear about what um, did you hear about the Venezuela oil funds? Speaker 2: No, what are the Venezuela oil funds? Speaker 1: Okay, I don't have the I don't have this up in front of me, but after seizing Venezuela, well, not even really seizing it, after deposing Maduro, um, you know, they Trump has claimed that Venezuelan oil is now basically the property of America. And apparently, um, they've been taking a bunch of funds for that that they they have acquired and they're sending them into some sort of like offshore account. I I can't I'm not even sure exactly where. But I mean, think about that happening. Think about if it came out that Barack Obama overthrew, I don't know, Egypt, and had basically plundered them for assets and had taken like a half billion dollars of their money and put it into a private account that is like outside of the control of the rest of government. Unbelievable that this is happening. But the Speaker 2: Was that the money that he's going to administer and supposedly give some to Venezuela and give Speaker 1: Yes. And as as Elizabeth Warren said, there is no precedent or justification for a president basically taking these kinds of funds and putting them into an account that they can only control. It is an unbelievable thing. And but at this point, the corruption is so normalized that it's not even surprising. I mean, it's barely worth talking about because if if Trump did something that wasn't corrupt, that would be newsworthy. The fact that he's doing this stuff is just what we expect at this point. And the what he has what he has allowed us to normalize is really the scary thing. Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading recently, I think it was an article in The Atlantic about the central basically the head banker in Germany when Hitler came to power, and basically Hitler wanted to borrow or create unlimited amounts of money to fund his war efforts. Speaker 1: We didn't talk about Jerome Powell. Are we going are we talking about the Fed as well? Speaker 2: Yeah, that is where we're going. Speaker 1: Continue your thought then. Speaker 2: And the uh, eventually the guy was forced out and they got a new guy in who basically said, I will do whatever I need to do to fund whatever the needs of the nation are. And uh, you know, and then we're off to the races. Now we're off to uh, World War II. So yeah, the Jerome Powell thing is interesting as well, because it's kind of like it's one of the last checks and balances. Like in terms of effective checks and balances on this guy's power, what's left? The Supreme Court? Nope. Congress? Nope. The Senate? Nope. The media? Not really, other than a few comedians and maybe uh, South Park. Uh, you've got, you know, CBS basically reporting, you know, basically you've got a media not a conglomeration, an amalgamation and a centralization of media power and now social media power as well. So what checks and balances are there left? Despite him being at an all-time popularity low, who's really in a position to stop this? And I don't know. I I still have friends going, oh, just wait till the midterms. They're going to get slaughtered. What do you think? What's your prediction for the midterms? I've got a couple bets riding on it right now. Speaker 1: I I mean, I I think there's a few things. I I think that people are way too optimistic about the midterms fixing things. I now again, I am not like a political scholar here or anything, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but you did ask for it. Um, I think elections will happen. I you know, even in authoritarian countries, in like a modern competitive autocracy, like Russia, um, you know, they still have elections. Yeah, they still have elections. So I think the elections will happen. Um, we know that they are going to try to rat fuck this as bad as they can to tip the favor towards the Republicans. They've been doing that for decades now. But that said, the the level of unpopularity here is so heavy that it's so high that I think that it might even be possible to overcome that. I mean, just taking a look at the elections that have happened recently, it is possible that even with maximum gerrymandering and fuckery that the Democrats still sweep this. I would not be surprised. But my my point, my concern though is what then, right? Like, do we really think that if the Democrats take the house with a minority and the Senate stays in the hands of the Republicans that anything is going to come out of it? What kind of checks and balances is that really going to do? I mean, yeah, you might be able to put impeachment on the floor and have it killed in the Senate, but that's it, right? I mean, I I I don't think that that is enough by far. And even if by some absolute roll of the dice, like the impossible happened, and the Democrats managed to do the unthinkable and take a majority in the House and the Senate, even if they were able to manage to squeak impeachment through and get that done, I I'm not convinced that this government would actually respect it. I think it would come down to them basically saying, fuck you, make me, right? And what then? Do we really think that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and these people are going to have the the balls and the the guts and the temerity to actually fix this if Trump goes that far into the direction of illegal behavior? I don't know. I I think right now the only hope is the American people. That is the only chance of something like this. They have to I can't remember who I was listening to. Um, but they someone had a great point about this and they basically said that you what has to happen now is all of these senators and Republicans and enablers behind Trump need to be more afraid of the people than they are of the president. Because they've clearly demonstrated that they have no bounding morals. There is no ethical line that they will not cross in order to support their dear leader. So the only thing is they have to be more afraid of losing their power, of consequences from the people than they are of the president. Because that's how fascism works, right? I mean, these people are fucking incompetent. This is easily the most incompetent administration in the history of America. It is unbelievable how evil and incompetent they are. But the thing about fascists is they usually are incompetent. Um, their power doesn't come from competency. Their power comes from fear, of creating a culture where where their power where their their victory and their power seems inevitable. But if you strip away the people who support Trump, he's just this angry racist old man. That's all he is. He has no power, he has no competence, except for the fact that we for the fact that we all live in this collective delusion and we believe that he does. That's really all it would take and then they could have this guy gone tomorrow. But at this point in time, everyone is rallying around him and enabling him. I think the only hope is with the American people at this point. Anyway, sorry, go on. Speaker 2: I think that used to be true in the way that things worked, but the bottom line is, he's now got a couple of private militias. He has his own SS. He has a personal militia that's essentially loyal only to him. $100,000 a year, $50,000 sign up bonus, a gun, a cool uniform, and you can do all the shit that you dreamed about when you're a proud boy, and now you can do it and get paid and essentially have immunity. There there ICE is now getting more funding than the FBI. It's so, let's just say that the election happens. There's so many ways that you can use a private I mean, let's say your scenario happens. Let's say that 10 people flip. What happens to those people, right? They're they are going to get firebombed. They know that they're going to get doxxed. It doesn't matter if they're Republican. Uh, they're going to get doxxed, they're going to get firebombed, they're going to get shot. They're going to have the crazy 30% die hard maga people hunting them for the rest of their life. They're probably from a red state, so there's probably more than 30%. They're going to get investigated. ICE is going to come and arrest them for something. Uh, oh, you had a Mexican uh, guy cut your grass five years ago. Therefore, you're a domestic terrorist. Right? It it But that's even assuming that there's it gets as far as the voices of sanity having a majority. Like, yeah, the the states run the elections. I get that. But the the playbook has already been written, right? There was, guess what? There's massive election fraud and we need to seize all the ballots from California. And we're going to send in the 82nd Airborne and ICE to seize all the ballots. And we're going to do the false elector scheme for 12 different states. And we're going to, you know, every way that they tried to throw the election in 2020, they can now do it with the help of a giant paramilitary force, with anyone who showed any resistance, uh, you know, I don't know, the the the old school Republicans, the the the John Carries, say, uh, the um, the Cheneys, they're gone. They're gone because they've been Speaker 1: John Kerry a Democrat? I think you mean John McCain. Speaker 2: John McCain. Sorry. Uh, John McCain, Liz Cheney, those people who showed some spine and showed some resistance, they've they're gone. So, I I don't see that, you know, we ever get They've already tried to overthrow an election, including with paramilitary force. They were just called the Proud Boys and they were disorganized at that point. They've been organized now into ICE. I don't see what the answer is. I mean, maybe a massive economic collapse. Maybe uh, if all these economic shenanigans come home to roost or countries start dumping US bonds and the value of the US dollar goes to zero, or not to zero, but goes down to 10% of what it was, that could trigger enough discontent at home. Maybe, but I mean, to go with the German example, life was pretty tough in Germany for a long time before the general populace, uh, and and Hitler was never deposed. Yeah, there were assassination attempts that never worked. And in the end, it was he who ended up offing himself when another country was invading. But there was a lot of suffering and starvation, uh, in Germany for years at on the home front during the war. And he had all the levers of power. Oh, you're bitching about dear leader? Well, you're clearly a terrorist and you're going to go for a free ride to the camps. Speaker 1: I am really worried about the direction that this is going to take because like you said, it's um, it it is quite clear that the Trump administration knows how unpopular they are and so they are trying to seize as much power and control as they can before the law catches up to them in the hopes that it'll be too late by the time people actually get around to rising up and doing something about this. I mean, short of a a full economic gridlock or or strike or collapse, I don't know what is going to take here. The the Fed situation is an interesting one because this this might be something that that tips a lot of people in a different direction. Uh, simply because, look, it, you know, does does Mark Zuckerberg and do Elon Musk really care if Donald Trump tramples on the rights of individual Americans? I'm going to guess probably, honestly, sadly, they don't. But when you start fucking with the dollar and inflation, you run the risk of basically turning the entire American economy into a joke. And even if these guys try to shuffle their assets around to the rest of the world, you know, to other countries and currencies, they they run the risk of losing the one thing that they really care about here, which is their wealth, right? If Trump kills the economy. And starting to fuck with an independent Fed is one of the first signs of like a country turning into just an economic joke. That's the scary thing. I mean, I know that Americans have lived their entire lives from this position of power and they think it's impossible that it could happen here, that it could happen to them. But they're not the first people who have lived through this and who have believed that. It would not be the first empire to fall in this manner. And if the dollar collapses, and there's a lot of reasons to believe it that, you know, I mean, just, hey, as a Canadian, who does a lot of foreign exchange, right? I mean, it has been interesting to see the the dollar just collapse in value and desirability just over the past year. If they start messing with the Fed, I mean, especially given that the BRICS countries are trying to put together like an alternative currency, um, it this could be a big deal. I look, you and I are Canadian, right? Huge news in the last 24, 48 hours that Canada is really, you know, putting aside a lot of old grievances with China and deepening our relationship with them. And I think a lot of Canadians probably don't feel great about that because it for Americans and others who don't know, you know, Canada does have a strained relationship with China over the past 10 or so years and beyond that, it's doesn't, you know, we don't want to get into bed with an authoritarian government that has meddled in our elections before. But all of the criticisms that we would normally level at China, we can now level those at the US as well, sometimes more so. I mean, China for all for all of the bad that you can say about them, they have not threatened to invade Canada in any way, um, or to annex us, right? So, at the end of the day, I don't know what we're expected to do up here. And I know that Americans feel like they're invincible and Canada and these other countries are small and insignificant. Look, if you add up the power of the NATO allies and the collective dollar value of those, it's on par with America. And then if you factor in that a lot of American foreign debt is held by NATO countries and other countries, if everyone just decides we don't want to we don't want to deal with these people anymore and we start dropping that, then that that is going to, I think, burst this imaginary bubble of superiority that a lot of people in America believe in right now. And I think they're in for a rude awakening if they don't do something fast. Speaker 2: It's a little bit outside my area of expertise, but I do wonder, let's say, magically, tomorrow, every country in the world dumped its dumped 90% of its American debt, right? They sell off all the bonds and they basically implode the value of the US dollar and they create massive runaway inflation in the states. How long does the US remain a viable military entity after that? I got to imagine it's a it's years. And a wounded elephant is still pretty dangerous. I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with a wounded elephant. Or essentially, somebody who is a sociopathic narcissist to a level we've never seen, would be willing to start Speaker 1: I thought it was unthinkable. Not not to never seen. I I thought it was unthinkable that a person like this could become president, right? I mean, I I've never even met a person who has is just so I I don't even know the word to describe him. I mean, Donald Trump is like a he's like one of these Speaker 2: Sociopathic narcissist is a good start. Speaker 1: Yeah, but he but even by those standards, he's something else. I mean, shaking down someone for their Nobel Peace Prize? Like, Speaker 2: And probably giving nothing in return. I'm going to send him my tiger bomb 1980 or 1995 uh, gold medal and see maybe I can save Canada. I'm going to I'm going to unilaterally save Canada by sending him my uh, tiger bomb invitational. It was a super regional little uh, jiu-jitsu tournament I competed in one of the first I ever did. I still have the medal somewhere. I'll send that. I'll see if it does any good. Speaker 1: Just tell him it's the Canada Peace Prize and you'll be all oh, did you hear the new thing that just just came out? He's trying to uh, he's trying to create this peace coalition with like Mark Carney and Tony Blair for some reason. And the thing he just announced today is he wants all of the people who are a part of this coalition to pay him a billion dollars. Because, you know, that's the price of peace apparently. Speaker 2: Sorry, what? I heard about the coalition. I didn't hear about the shakedown. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's new. That uh, that is late breaking news. So I I guess Canada is going to be expected to pay a billion dollars for the privilege of being on his uh, peace council. Speaker 2: I did have a conservative recently throw that into my face that, well, Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, is in China right now, making deals. What's he doing there? Well, what are you going to do if you're in the position of say, the Mexican president, the uh, the I don't know, the President of Greenland? No, it's the Prime Minister of Greenland. I think. Or the Prime Minister of Canada. Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not totally sure of their their structure. Speaker 2: The leader of Greenland. How's that? Yeah. You're and you're dealing with somebody who's absolutely insane and changing their demands and doesn't stick to deals after they make them anyway. Uh, you're going to smile and nod and you're going to meanwhile be scampering for every corner trying to make every trade deal you can. I have major fucking reservations about Canada climbing into bed with China. But from a question of national survival, of course they're going to do that. I have major reservations about drilling drill baby drill here in Canada for oil and gas. But from a question of national survival, I think we have to do that. It goes against everything that I used to think was the priority. Uh, you know, I I think global warming and runaway climate change is an existential threat for everybody. But realistically, what is Canada going to do? We're going to drill baby drill and sell China as much of our oil and gas as we possibly can. Speaker 1: Well, look, here here's a question for you, right? If we really care about global warming, if we believe that climate change is the existential threat of our time, which up until about a year ago, I would have said is the case. Now, I I think there's a greater existential threat. But if you believe Speaker 2: A more immediate, a more immediate existential threat. Speaker 1: If if you believe that climate change is an existential threat that we must deal with, who is a better partner to fix that problem with right now? The United States or China? It's China, right? They are leading in EV, they're leading in green energy. They have actually done an amazing job of curbing and and and turning the dial back on a lot of the massive pollution problems they had. The United States is at war with fucking windmills. Like it it is unbelievable. And it's crazy because the price of green energy has fallen through the floor. I there are amazing things being done with green energy right now. Even despite the fact that Trump is aggressively trying to kill it, in the US, it's still a massively growing and exciting area of development because it's finally gotten to the point where it's so cheap that like why not do it? Um, there is a very real path now to solving climate change if we can get people on the same page. But what I think has become very clear is we just cannot rely on Americans to get on the same page about this. So, as much as I hate to say it, I mean, the leader on one of the leaders on this is China and I don't feel good about this kind of partnership with them, but I I mean, again, they're not threatening to invade us. So that's something. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and I I guess a lot of Americans, based on my Facebook comments, as an aside, have you noticed how Facebook has basically become uh, a Twitter recently in terms of just being overrun by absolute right-wing trolls? Uh, Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I can talk about this. So on um, I I never really used the BJJ Mental Models Facebook page that much. There's a lot of followers there, but I just I found that we get way more engagement on other platforms like Instagram and Reddit. So that's mostly where I hang. Um, but we do have a Facebook page. I just don't use it much. So the algorithm, I guess there is presumably mostly tuned to what it would show a standard person that they think is interested in jiu-jitsu. I haven't done a lot of filtering. So every time I go on there, it's just like the most abominable right-wing shit. Like it's all just MMA trans hate stuff. Jake Shields wants to challenge a trans person to a death match. Colby Covington is so thankful for ICE. It's like, why the fuck would anyone think I of all people would want to see this stuff? This really makes me feel bad for young boys and men right now because this is their default viewing experience when they go onto Facebook. This shit is just straight up propagandic at this point. I mean, there there's been talking in in some of the more refined countries about banning meta platforms. Um, Canada, I think recently was rumored to be interested in that, but shot it down. I disagree. I am all for it. If they were to tell me that we were going to take a hard line stance and ban X and meta products from Canada, even though my business is super dependent on meta advertising, I would support that decision in a heartbeat. These platforms are vile and dangerous. Speaker 2: It's not a principle until it costs you money. Now, that being said, let's just play a mental game. Uh, Canada bans X. Canada bans Twitter and Grok. Do you think that there would be massive retaliation from the US administration? For sure. 100%. Speaker 1: What could they do? What could they do that they haven't already done short of an on boots on the ground invasion? Speaker 2: 1 million percent tariffs, uh, saber rattling, uh, massively increasing the amount of funding that they give to uh, separatist groups, separatist groups within Canada. I think the saber rattling, uh, threatening, I mean, they've already played with um, saying that our borders should be changed, right? That Southern Ontario, uh, productivity belt. You can call it the Rurland, maybe. Uh, um, Speaker 1: Should we talk about the funding of the separatist groups? Because I'm guessing a lot of Americans don't know about that and that's important. Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, please do. I I can speak. So, the Texas of Canada is a place called Alberta. It's a province. It's oil rich, it's reasonably rural, and culturally it's it's it's cowboys and uh, cattle raising and uh, you've got guys who work in oil and gas driving around in pickup trucks wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots because country. And there's a strong or a very vocal separatist movement. We want to separate from Canada and basically, it's not said directly, we want to join the United States. Uh, there's a lot of evidence that the ton of funding for this is coming from the states. So, uh, so yeah, it's it's an attempt to disrupt Canadian unity. As as you would as you would do if you wanted your neighbors to be fighting amongst themselves, so you can do whatever you want. Speaker 1: Isn't this the same thing that America accused Russia of doing in the 2016 election, which is basically deliberately trying to meddle with a foreign election? Speaker 2: Well, the depends who you ask in the states, right? I mean, they the Republican Speaker 1: Well, is it not a foreign power throwing money to into an initiative to try to alter an election? Speaker 2: There's a ton of evidence that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections. Yeah. Speaker 1: But but America is doing the same thing to Canada right now. Speaker 2: Yeah. And to be fair, they've meddled in tons of elections all over the world. They have. You know, South America, they they've they've uh, they have done this for a long time. But this is this is a new one, like really actively encouraging an entire province of Canada to break away. That that's a new one. I don't think the Americans were that involved during the Quebec, there's another province called Quebec, it's the French speaking part of Canada that wanted to break away and has had various attempts to break away. I don't know how much funding the Americans were giving to those movements. I don't think very much, at least there was no evidence ever presented uh, to that end. Speaker 1: I think probably they see their the Republicans at least and the people who support that movement see themselves as being more ideologically aligned with uh, the Albertans, I would guess, than with Quebec. And frankly, considering who these people are, there's probably a degree of racism involved as well. So maybe that's why Alberta is so attractive to them. That and the I mean, we don't need to get into Canadian politics, but the person currently running Alberta is just a total nuisance loser. Um, and so maybe I mean, she's always down at Mar-a-Lago, so maybe that's part of the uh, the appeal as well. Speaker 2: Yeah, she went down and did the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and she says she's not an anti-vaxxer, but basically it's anti-vax policies and she says she's not a separatist, but basically they're separatist policies and she says it's not, you know, she's not Maha, but it's basically Maha and Maga policies. It's it's Speaker 1: Oh, oh, speaking of which, don't know if you saw this, you're going to love this. Did you see that the other day uh, RFK Jr. did an interview with I believe it was Stephen Miller's wife. And okay, first of all, why anyone cares what Stephen Miller's wife has to say, I don't know. Why she has a podcast that anyone would listen to, why you'd put her on the media, I have no idea. But he said something to the effect of like, a good mother doesn't listen to the experts when it comes to their children's health. Did you hear that? Fuck that guy. Speaker 2: I had not heard that. I had not heard that. Speaker 1: That's what he said. He said like, you know, a good mother would not I I can't I'm not going to do an impression of his voice, although I I think I can actually do it. But um, RFK Jr. said something to the effect of, you know, a good mother would not listen to what the experts say when it comes to their children's health. I guess the inclination being that um, her her intuition is more valuable than, you know, decades and decades and decades and billions of dollars of research and evidence. I mean, Speaker 2: Her intuition shaped by decade of massive amounts of disinformation and misinformation. Because, you know, you can shape people's intuition uh, very easily by I mean, it's like the people's, you know, who believed my favorite example of culture shaping what you know to be true is if you take a look at the the reports of people who are abducted by aliens. In the 1950s, the aliens that abducted them all looked like creature from the Black Lagoon, right? And then after the movie ET came out, all of a sudden when people got abducted by aliens and rectally probed by aliens, because that's really what aliens do after traveling across the untold depths of space, they really like probing human rectums. They all looked like ET because that was the big breakthrough movie. That that basically that was the alien movie when all these people were in high school and now they're convinced that, you know, or or the studies showing that people who have past life regressions, who they were in a past life is mostly related to the types of movies they've been watching recently. So yeah, that a mother's intuition as to what to do with her child is shaped by the environment of information and disinformation that she's immersed in. It it's interesting that Stephen Miller's wife was really one of the first through one of the first salvos in this recent uh, United States needs Greenland because we need it. Uh, when she posted that uh, image of Greenland with us covered in the stars and stripes, uh, on her Twitter, I think it was. And so she's being used as an arm of the government. But here here's the thing. Here's a lens to look at current politics. There's Trump saying and doing outrageous things. And can you believe what he said today? Can you believe what he said this morning? Can you believe what he did this afternoon? Can you believe that video of him flying a jet plane, dumping human shit all over protesters? Can you believe, you know, whatever the the most insane thing is recently. And we're all focused on Trump. Meanwhile, in the background, Stephen Miller is implement is speed running the Heritage Foundation's plan for remaking the United States into a fascist theocracy along the lines of Project 2025. So while Trump is the clown jumping up and down and making weird facial signs and, you know, pretending to be a trans weightlifter and and posting one more outrageous AI video than the last, Project 2025 clicks a little bit further ahead. Oh, we're going to limit access to contraception. Oh, we're going to clip the power of unions again. We're going to move uh, we're going to create a uh, a private militia that's that gets massive amounts of funding and access to, you know, military grade weapons to capture supposedly capture the illegal immigrants. Uh, which then I mean, ICE will get repurposed. The the I don't know, the the SS and the SS, they started out, so the SS the SS started out as Hitler's personal bodyguard. And a few years later, they're running massive divisions of the not the German Wehrmacht, but they were in Russia, they were SS divisions. fighting along Wehrmacht divisions. That metastasized so quickly from a bodyguard to, you know, running the camps, controlling thought policing Germans, fighting Russians on massive scales with fanatical troops. Uh, I I think there's a lens through which Stephen Miller is the real villain here. Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I I think I think the big three are Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and J.D. Vance. I mean, Trump is basically just being used by those guys right now because of his cult-like influence over his followers. They're trying to do as much damage as they can and execute as much of their agenda as they can, presumably before he kicks the bucket, right? I mean, that's he's basically just there because of his ability to rally the maga base and also to act as a bit of a heat shield. But you're right, the the real power I think behind this is probably those guys. And they fuck the I just I just hope that one day there is like a Nuremberg style trial and these people are held accountable because the what's being done right now is is just horrifying. And I, you know, I hate to even have conversations like this because I know we're falling right into the playbook here, right? What what they want is to create this massive noise storm so that we all have to react and spend our time talking about, can you believe this crazy thing they did? And I I don't feel good about the fact that we're playing right into their hand here, but I think this also does need to be talked about because in our community, especially the martial arts community, nobody is talking about this. And if one random jujitero or MMA fighter listens to this and it makes them aware of what's going on because it's outside of their regular bubble, then I think it's worthwhile and I think we had to do it. But it still feels bad because I I feel like we're just doing what they want. We're creating more noise and amplification for this horrific shit that they're doing. And from a strategy standpoint, I don't like that. But I am also cognizant of the fact that no one in our community is talking about that. And even when people do speak up, there's this massive pressure to keep politics out of the martial arts, bro. Someone's got to talk about this stuff, right? Like this is this is existential shit. When when you and I and the rest were talking about doing this podcast, you know, we wanted to talk specifically about things that impacted the martial arts community because that's what we know about. I don't want to talk about American immigration policy or or invading Venezuela, but it's getting to the point where these disastrous decisions are becoming so earth-shatteringly bad that they are the most important thing happening in the martial arts community right now. Like all of this tariff policy and NATO collapse stuff, this is going to have way more impact on the jiu-jitsu and MMA communities than anything happening at CJA or ADCC, right? Because this kind of stuff is what prevents like international travel. It prevents America from being able to send their athletes in and out of other countries. It prevents other people from wanting to deal with America, right? Um, this is the most important series of events happening in our sport right now, even though it has nothing to do with the sport. And so what frustrates me that we have to talk about this stuff, but it's way more important than anything directly related to the martial arts. Speaker 2: Yeah, people might accuse me of um, Trump Derangement Syndrome or speaking hyperbolically when I'm talking about World War III. But honestly, when you've got European troops sending uh, trigger forces, like uh, you know, to to basically trigger a NATO defense to Greenland. One little error, one late night rage deployment, that it it actually could trigger World War III. And you know, even if it doesn't, it's going to be pretty tough to run your jiu-jitsu school when there's a a uh, a depression that makes the Great Depression look like a bad afternoon, right? It it's if this turns into a full-blown no holds barred trade war complete with dumping of US bonds, which is the nuclear option before you actually go to war. There's not going to be anybody going to your jiu-jitsu school because bread is going to be $100 a loaf. It's going to look like pre-World War II Germany, uh, after between World War I and World War II, when you'd show up with a shopping cart full of money to buy a loaf of bread, and if you went in the afternoon, you'd need two shopping carts of money. The and even if they the foreign powers don't dump the bonds. I mean, Trump has increased the size of the US debt by 30% in five years of being in charge. He's increased the US debt by 30%. To which is trillions of dollars. So yeah, I Trump's a great businessman. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's basically Speaker 1: He's doing the exact same thing with America that he did with his businesses, which is he's basically burning through tons and tons of money. Speaker 2: Pump and dump. Speaker 1: Yeah, tons and tons of money in the hopes of pumping and dumping and creating a greater scam, almost like a Ponzi scheme where then he can leap frog onto that, right? It's the exact same thing he did with his businesses. All of his businesses failed and he's running America like that. I mean, I I am really concerned about the future of that country. Did you know that in the first year of Trump's second term, American foreclosure rates went up by over 20%? Like, fuck, this is this is bad news. I mean, I know that right now if you look just at GDP and the stock market, it's easy to convince yourself that things are great, but that is not the reality on the ground. This AI bubble, a handful of of companies, less than a dozen, are basically responsible for floating the entire American economy right now. And I don't see any good path that these AI companies get to the point where they can make enough money to justify their spend because it's unbelievable how much they're spending. I mean, this is economically really, really, really scary stuff. Speaker 2: Yeah. I've talked had a number of conversations last couple of weeks with American friends whose health care premiums for their family have doubled and tripled. They've gone from spending $1,000 a month to $2,500 a month. So, yeah, if if just in case, you know, do you think that they're going to be spending money on jiu-jitsu classes? Now that they're spending two and a half, they're spending 30 grand a year on health insurance. Do you think there's going to be much left over for jiu-jitsu classes for little Jimmy? I'm going to say no. So it'll be interesting to see what the bankruptcy rates are in the next six months. I mean, health health related issues were already the biggest driver of personal bankruptcies in the United States. I think we're going to see a tsunami of personal bankruptcies. Um, I've never been so happy to be a, you know, Canadian in the socialist hellscape of socialized medicine where I might have to wait a few hours for a non-life saving uh, medical procedure, but get, you know, um, but having something, oh, I don't know, a kidney transplant means that I'm not in generational debt. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just to give Americans some perspective, I talk to people in the states all the time and they I just asked to, you know, compare dollar to dollar what are things cost down there. I mean, the health care numbers in America are insane, right? Even before this, people were paying over $1,000 a month a lot of the time and that's going to double for many people or go up higher just for their health care. I pay zero. I know that an ambulance ride in the states is what, like four or five figures, it's not cheap. Last time I had to take an ambulance, it cost me 80 bucks. And I was flabbergasted that I even got charged. I assumed I was going to get it for free. Um, I got into see the best shoulder surgeon in the province. Cost me nothing, right? $0. Um, my electricity bill, every I don't know about yours, my electricity bill every month is only like 50 bucks. During during a season like winter where I got to spend a lot to make where it's because it's colder, maybe 60 or 70. I got friends in the states who are paying like $700, $800 a month in electricity. If this is a socialist hellscape that I live in, then I'm happy living in a socialist hellscape compared to the alternative. Speaker 2: You and I have a mutual friend and I don't want to go into details, who survived cancer and is now paying 10 grand a month in uh, health premiums. 10 grand a month. That's $120 grand a year. So, you know, at at that at that price, um, you know, you might have survived, but man, you you you better have lucked out on your uh, on your Bitcoin investments because because that I mean, that's a million dollars over eight years in health care insurance. Speaker 1: Well, Stefan, I I again, I I'm cognizant of the fact that we're we're screaming into the void and that is kind of the that's kind of what they want us to be doing, right? If we're all here talking on the internet, we're not doing something in the real world about it. Although I could argue that, you know, at least having some degree of reach in a community that is generally not receptive to these kinds of messages, at least we are doing something I think is productive. But for people who actually are fed up about this, and I know this is really happening. I mean, I got a lot of friends in the states, many of whom are on the conservative side, who have kind of privately told me like, I think this might be it. Like I think I might this I might have to be ready to fight my own government. And that's a crazy thing to think about. I think this has kind of escaped like the resistance libs containment. I mean, even the New York Times just put out an article the other day called the resistance libs were right. And basically the the tenant was and I mean, the New York Times is center right. It is not some woke left-wing progressive rag. Even they in this opinion piece basically said like, yep, okay, you guys are right, he's a fascist. We we, you know, we concede this now. What can the average person do about this in the face of all of these terrible things that are happening? What is the the most productive thing that a regular citizen can do to increase the odds of saving the American experiment? Speaker 2: Well, uh, if you live in a red state or you have a red representative, blow up their email, blow up their voicemail, blow up their physical mail, and start putting pressure on them to to do the right thing and not simply to roll over and to stand up politically against the orange rapist. I think that's number one. But that actually takes time. It's so much easier to post on social media than it is to write a physical letter saying, dear Senator XYZ, you know, what the fuck are you doing? Uh, that's one thing. Speaker 1: Physical letter too, not not email. Um, physical letter and phone calls, phone calls especially, make a big difference. I know everyone is loath to do that because we're all a bunch of, you know, terminally online dorks now, but emails, phone calls, and in-person visits make a huge, huge difference when you're trying to influence a politician. Speaker 2: 100%. Uh, it'll be really interesting to see where the Minneapolis, perhaps Minnesota general strike goes. I don't believe there's been a general strike in something like 80 years. Speaker 1: There needs to be. Speaker 2: But that is one way to get the message across. Of course, that might bring in the 82nd Airborne, but um, you know, that's I think a risk worth taking. It's really interesting to watch uh, the beginnings of the alignment of veterans groups and groups like the Black Panthers. Right? Where two two groups you couldn't imagine being more different, beginning to work together, beginning to talk together, beginning to, you know, exercise their right to open carry. You know, like uh, I know that this was going on in the 60s, you had Black Panther groups, you know, doing open carry and then all of a sudden a whole bunch of laws were passed to stop that. Speaker 1: Funny that, funny that, huh? As as soon as the black people start exercising their second amendment rights, now suddenly we got to put laws in place to restrict that. What a strange coincidence. Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I'm sure they'll be targeted for random uh, citizen checks, citizenship checks. But you start seeing some really interesting coalitions. I'm beginning to see some fractures from some formerly die hard far right Trump supporters who are now beginning to have second thoughts. Maybe it's it's coming closer to home or maybe it's just so egregious. Um, have you seen any of that? Speaker 1: Yes, definitely. I mean, it it is funny because whenever you criticize Trump, you will always be called some woke libtard, blue-haired activist loser or something. But if you actually look at a lot of the people leading the fight right now, these are people who 15 years ago would have called themselves Republicans, right? I mean, you know, a lot of the woke liberal rags like The Bulwark, these these people were all conservatives. Adam Kinzinger, conservative, right? Um, the a lot of these people have moved out of that party now, and it's easy for Maga to dismiss them as being left-wing, but like these are not left-wing people. These are people, these are conservatives with conscience and they've already departed that party because they saw where this was going. I think there is I I think we need to get past this whole left versus right, Democrat versus Republican distinction because I don't think it applies anymore. We don't have we don't have that anymore. Like the the ways that we grouped ourselves politically just 10 years ago are no longer applicable. You are basically at this point in time pro-democracy or you're not. It's one or the other. You're you're pro-racism, pro-fascism or you're not. And that means we got to roll our sleeves and buckle up and partner with people that normally we would argue with and consider to be an opposing force. But for the benefit of getting through the night here, we've got to be willing to talk to and work with those people. And that means we might have to build some weird unlikely coalitions. Um, right? Because look, you know, I would love to go back to the days where we could argue about trans athletes in sports. I would love to go back to that simpler time, as fucked up as that sounds. That means that we're probably going to have to partner with some people that we've that have some beliefs that we would generally consider to be pretty disagreeable. But for the purpose of of saving our collective system that we all benefit from, we've got to deal with that priority first. And I think you bring up a great point of like veterans, Black Panthers partnering together. Kamala Harris, Dick Cheney partnering together. These are signs that the old distinctions are falling apart. And I think that you know, I think when we look at the the American system, I mean, yes, obviously the Republicans are the root cause of this, but whatever comes of this, if we do survive this and come out the other side, um, we have to hold the Democrats just as accountable because yes, it was the Republicans who who did this, but the Democrats had the job of being the check and balance and holding them in, you know, holding America strong and they failed to do that disastrously. It could have just as easily been the Democrats who went down this road and the Republicans would have then need needed to hold them accountable. It turned out to be the other way around, but the check and balance there, the opposing party failed. And I think America's really got to reckon with that. That like, yes, we obviously we need to hold the the Republican accountable, but we also must hold the Democrats accountable for failing to do their job of being the check and balance and preventing this. Speaker 2: Well, really, what are they going to do nowadays though? They have no political power. Uh, like perhaps you could make an argument that Biden should have put a whole bunch of pressure on Merrick Garland and or replaced Merrick Garland or Merrick Garland ran out the clock and Trump was able to stack a Supreme Court and basically pardon himself. Without actually pardoning himself, but getting uh, you know, Eileen Cannon managed to play out that run out the clock, delay, delay, delay, delay. Whoops. Uh, look, the uh, the case went away because Trump got reelected. So, arguably, appointing a much more aggressive um, version of Merrick Garland would have been one thing that they could have done. What can they do now? I don't know. I don't know what uh, if I was a Republican Congressman, I could make, you know, it's like the old joke about uh, British police when back when they before they were armed, when the Bobbies would patrol with their little night sticks, you know, stop, or I'll say stop again. Uh, it it's interesting. So, Rogan is kind of a weather vane in the in the fight sport community. And I blame Rogan and I've been very, very, very vocal about blaming him for a massive sea of disinformation and bullshit and anti-science and alt science uh, spreading. And I've he's obviously by pandering to Elon Musk and J.D. Vance and Trump and bringing them all onto his podcast and giving them a super easy ride. And then when you had somebody from the other side coming on and just arguing with those people, but then basically fulminating uh, the far right Republican guys, cupping the balls and swallowing the gravy. They he helped massively get Trump elected. RFK Jr. buying into all of RFK Jr. stuff. That being said, you're beginning to see Joe Rogan turn. And in terms of unlikely coalitions, like I I think I have to be grateful that now he's calling drawing comparisons between ICE and the Gestapo. Yeah, he's still doing that. Speaker 1: That that is a remarkable thing. That that is actually a remarkable thing. I mean, specifically using that word, the G word, like that that is a remarkable thing that he did. Um, I have been also like you, very critical of Rogan. Um, I think that many of the problems that we have now are directly caused by him and his movement and his fan base. But at the same time, I I mean, I've never met the man, but the impression that I get is he's more ignorant than evil. You know, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, I consider these to be fundamentally evil, irredeemable people. Joe Rogan is a useful idiot, right? He's like if you took some drunk guy at the bar, some dumbass who has a lot of opinions and not a lot of information, and you gave him a billion dollars and the world's most popular podcast, you'd create Joe Rogan. Speaker 2: And an incredible ability to speak because he does have the gift of the gab and he has to he has a stand-up comedian's ability to just run his mouth and say something that seems coherent, which is a gift. Yeah. Speaker 1: That that is true. But I think that you're right. Like we have to be open to a coalition with this guy. I mean, we've been we've talked about this on the podcast. If there is one thing that we can be very critical of progressives for, it is how quickly they will other and reject people who are not 100% ideologically aligned. And we don't have time for that now. Like if Rogan is willing to stand up to this regime, we have to be willing to accept him back in, right? People made mistakes. They made very bad mistakes. And maybe we don't completely forget that they did those, but we have to at least be able to forgive them enough to put those aside so we can work with these people. Because if we can't if we can't coexist with like the moderates and the center-right people who are rejecting Trump, then we can't win here. We have to have strength in numbers. That's the only way that something like this works. Speaker 2: Yeah, my friend Daniele Bolelli, who runs the History on Fire podcast, which is amazing. Uh, has talked about the resistance to the fascists in World War II, right? They were the partisans fighting Mussolini. And some of them were hardcore communists, and some of them were hardcore royalists, and some of them were hard left, and some of them were hard right, but they were all fighting Mussolini and the fascist together. Uh, so, you know, adversity does make for strange bedfellows. So, Speaker 1: I mean, people people don't talk about it much, but I mean, for all of the hates that um, America has for communist governments, they partnered with the Russians in World War II, right? When when Hitler attacked Russia, the allies took Russia in as part of the coalition. What would have happened if they said, no, fuck you, Russia, too late, we do not forgive you. I'm not sure the war would have gone in the same way, right? So sometimes you have to you have to park one feud to deal with a more important feud. And I think we're very much in that moment right now. I think it's all hands on deck. Like this I I think I worry that people in jiu-jitsu don't quite understand this enough because they do like to kind of keep their head in the sand and just believe that like, I'm just going to focus on the gym. Current events don't affect me. Like this is this is an existential existential moment for America. This is a moment in history. This is the kind of moment that they taught you about in in history books, right? And like what happens now is going to be the stuff that kids in other countries and maybe hopefully your own country read about 100 years from now. So how are you going to handle yourself and conduct yourself? Are you going to go along with this or ignore it because it's inconvenient or are you going to have the balls to speak up and do something about it? Speaker 2: It's I completely agree. It's a threat to American democracy. But beyond that, it's a threat to American and North American financial stability because there's a very easy mechanism that other countries could invoke and just destroy the US economy. And they have it hasn't been invoked so far. And then we are literally, you know, there's there's a strong, as I started out the beginning of this podcast by saying, just because Trump has managed to bomb, what's he bombed? Bombed Iran. And he's bombed, uh, he's bombed like seven different countries. And now he's managed to go into Venezuela and seize Maduro and install a some very some version of a puppet government. And now he's threatening Greenland. Sure. Greenland could be nothing. Maybe he takes it, or maybe it's fucking Poland in World War II. And then the word existential means existence, means potentially like imagine World War II if all the countries involved in World War II had had nuclear weapons. We wouldn't be getting to a 1945. It would have been over by 1940. It would have been over in, you know, I don't depends on the delivery systems, but uh, if if all the countries at the beginning of World War II had had ICBMs equipped with multiple re-entry uh, nuclear warheads, we would have been in the Stone Age by 1950. We'd be lucky to not be dead, but at the very least, the Stone Age. So existential means existence. And this might sound hyperbolistic, but that that's really where I think there's at least a significant chance. We're playing Russian roulette. And one of those chambers Speaker 1: Danish roulette, technically. Speaker 2: Yeah, we're playing Danish roulette where one of those chambers, one of those six chambers in your revolver is loaded with all the nuclear weapons in the world. Speaker 1: What would you want people to do right now, Stefan, to try to stand up to this? I mean, the most obvious thing like you said is real world physical action, calling your your senator, your congressman, writing letters, in-person protests, all of this makes a big difference. Anything else that you think the average martial artist here should be thinking about? Speaker 2: I think that's mostly it. I mean, it'd be nice if we could see uh, a martial arts for democracy movement showing up at uh, at protests. It'd be nice if we could get involved more with if if you're in the states with the various ICE Watch movements where you're, you know, making it harder for ICE to go door-to-door. Um, Speaker 1: Those people are amazing in in Minnesota. The um, the observers, like to to be to do that, to follow those people, blow whistles, um, to boo them, to shame them. That that makes a big you're seeing this in in Minnesota. It makes a big difference. Um, that that is an ultra powerful tool because I mean, if nothing else, it destroys the morale of these people, right? You can see it happening to these ICE agents. They are they are getting it here and they deserve to get it for what they've done. Um, and it really shows how powerful observing is, being an observer in a protest situation. So huge shout out to those people who are ICE watching and uh, you know, reporting them, helping people know where they are, blowing the whistle. That matters a lot. Speaker 2: Is there anything else that you think that um, we as martial artists should be doing? Speaker 1: There's a few things that I would suggest. I mean, one one thing that I I think is really important is mocking these people, right? They are they are fools. The whole the whole thing about fascism, fascism doesn't have truth on its side. Um, it doesn't have competence on its side. What it has on its side is power. And I think that's part of the reason why fascists do stuff like this, right? A lot of these things that Trump is doing, they don't really make sense. They don't benefit America. But they're they're very much like a will to power thing, right? He's doing these things because by exercising power, he can show that he has it. And when we allow him to create this this aura of invincible strength, that's what fascists need to survive. That's what fuels their engine. It's not competence, it's not even public support, it's not the truth. It's this belief in their invincibility and their power. And when we mock them and make them look foolish, that really weakens them because that's the one thing that they cannot stand. Um, I mean, take a look at Kimmel, right? One man, how much damage he has done to the Trump regime just by relentlessly mocking them. If you take a look at a lot of the networks that are, you know, the independent media networks that are rising up like Midas Touch, they are relentless with taking chunks out of the administration, not just reporting, but also making clear what fools, what losers these people are. We need to really do this. Like those videos, those highlight montage reels of ICE agents slipping on the ice and falling on their asses, chef's kiss, amazing, beautiful stuff. More like that. Um, so I'd say mock open mockery of these people matters. Being willing to use whatever tiny ass platform you have to stand up to these people and and expose them as the jokes they are. That matters a lot. I'd say the other thing, and I'm increasingly thinking this important is if someone lies, if someone spews out a a a mis a mistruth, you need to correct it and you need to do it right then. We cannot just be silent in the face of this disinformation. Look back at um where Trump was when he first started to enter in the political scene in 2008, 2009. You know, he'd say something ridiculous and he would just get excoriated for that and he would be a laughing stock. Look at him now. The problem is, all of the fact checkers got tired of fact checking him, but he didn't get tired of the lies. So he'll just sit there now in a room full of reporters and say 100 ridiculous things that we all know are false, but everyone is just so burned out about fact checking this guy that they won't point out that this is an obvious lie. I mean, the other day he said George W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act 28 times. No one stopped him and said, sir, that's bullshit. That's absolutely provably false. If you want to know what an impact this can make, watch that clip of Jerome Powell fact checking Trump in real time about his lies about this overspending on the on his budget. It's amazing to watch. And that's I mean, you can tell this really hurt Trump because look at how personal he took that against Jerome Powell. This is how you stand up to fascists. You expose their lies to their faces and you make you expose them for the fools that they are. You laugh at them and you mock them. Their power their power comes from the perception of power and strength, not in any basis in truth. So by making them look weak and by exposing the truth, we can weaken their movement. That's my thought. Speaker 2: Yeah, I I agree with all of that. I think I'd like to add one more thing and it might seem small, but I I think it's to vote with your dollars and vote with your feet. You're in the jiu-jitsu space and you're at a gym and you're the the owner of the gym is busy, you know, vocally and financially support and social media supporting a fascist regime, leave and tell them why you're leaving. Your friends may follow you or you may make new friends. Speaker 1: That that last step is super important. That that last step, tell them, because otherwise they don't know that there are consequences to their actions. Speaker 2: If there are if there's a company that's making instructionals that you like watching, jiu-jitsu instructionals, but that same company is platforming people like Josh Saunders, who's an out and out neo-Nazi, Jake Shields, who's an out and out neo-Nazi, Gordon Ryan, who's basically neo-Nazi adjacent, you know, cosplaying, being a brown shirt, marching around in Washington in a uniform on inauguration day. Stop supporting them. Like vote with your dollars and maybe consider telling them why. Because, you know, uh, it's a small action, but you are you are you have to punish bad behavior. Like since when do you get a child to change its behavior by giving it a cookie despite whatever the kid does. If the kid does something bad, you take something away. It's simple. Speaker 1: The failures of that we're seeing right now, all of these problems that we're experiencing, similar to World War II, like all of this was preventable and it wasn't prevented because people failed to hold the bad people accountable, right? Trump should have been held accountable in his first term. He should have been impeached. He wasn't. He should have been jailed after January 6th. He wasn't. And as you let people get away with things, it just provides more resistance because they've now normalized this behavior. So you can't, you know, to impeach Trump now for colluding with a foreign government, like we did in, you know, his first administration, that'd be laughable at this point because that's just regular behavior for him now. Um, he's moved the Overton window so far. And that's why it is so important to cut off this bad behavior right at the gates. It's the same thing with World War II, right? There was a chance to stop Hitler. He was jailed. They failed to do it. Um, in this case, we're seeing the exact same thing. Speaker 2: Four coup attempts. Yes. Very the parallels are shocking. Speaker 1: All right, brother. Um, I think we've I've had a pretty good rant here. I know we didn't we were skipping around uh, various topics, but I I think that's it was important that we have one of these episodes as well. Speaker 2: I agree, man. I think we'll try and refocus it next time for something a little bit more actionable. But um, you know, thanks for putting up with our uh, runaway anxiety, everyone. Speaker 1: Thanks, everyone. And yeah, I mean, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, drop them in the comments, let us let us know. I mean, we're just a bunch of angry jiu-jitsu dudes. So if anyone is more intelligent than us about how to take real action, I want to hear about it. I guess one other thing, you know, when if you are going to vote with your dollar, if the behavior was egregious enough, consider not just telling the business owner, consider posting publicly about it, right? I mean, part of the reason why ABC and Disney backed down so quickly over the Jimmy Kimmel thing is because they had so many cancellations to their digital services. Something like 7 million collectively in a matter of days. That's unbelievable. Um, and not just that, but many of these people, um, posted publicly. You know, they you know, you want if you want to really send a message, cancel something, take a screenshot of the cancellation email or whatever that you receive, blur out your personal info, post it publicly and tag the people that um, that you canceled from and let them know why you did it, right? That that is a message that's a double blow because not only are they losing the money, but now you are you are exposing that you've done this and you're setting a precedent that other people can follow. Um, so it is doubly harmful to these people if you do that publicly. So if if if the action is egregious enough, consider not just sending a DM to the person telling them why you canceled your service, but let everyone else know. So I guess that's my closing thought. But um, yeah, Stefan, thank you so much for this and as always to listeners, thank you so much. I mean, I I again, this episode is kind of just a random grab bag of current events. I don't know exactly how helpful it is, but I feel better getting this off my chest. So thank you to anyone who listened. Speaker 2: Take care, all. See ya.