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Getting Presidential
511 Plays4 months ago
M is back and so is their voice, so we can both talk about the only thing there is to talk about at the moment: the latest US election plot twists to come flying at the world. Which includes us, since we are in the world, no matter what you may have heard.
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Transcript
Professor Denteth's Trump Rally Experience
00:00:00
Speaker
And we cross live to a New Zealander who was at the event. Professor Denteth, I believe you were in the crowd at the moment the incident happened. Ah, yes, yes, yes I was. So, what did you say? Actually, not much. I took quite a lot of American beer and had to, well, you know. As a lifelong teetotaler I don't, so you had to... Drain the gizzard, take care of the hose, release the valve, break the seal. You know. No. I had to take a piss. Oh, so you were expelling urine presumably into some kind of trough at the time of the shooting? Yes. And what was it like representing New Zealand on the world stage for such an event? Well, I was just there, really. As I said, I wasn't part of the event. I didn't actually do anything. I was just along for the ride. So why were you there? I'd rather not say it's... No, no, no, no. We can just say I was there.
00:00:56
Speaker
at a rally for former US President Donald J. Trump? Well, I was in the area. And you just happened to be wearing a Trump for President shirt? Well, they were given away at the door. It seemed rude not to wear one. And the long case on your back? ah ah Ah, that's actually a case for my architectural drawing. Why are you carrying architectural drawings to a political rally? Oh, I'm a big fan of architecture. I love to architect. People are always saying that am loves to architect and loves to be architected.
00:01:32
Speaker
Which presumably explains the monocular. Actually, that's a range find. Yes, yes, it does. So in short, you saw nothing and you were attending the rally to inspect the architecture. Yes, that's precisely it. In no way, shape or form, we'll say there's to do anything else other than admire a big building. One of the best buildings, a building many people say is the biggest and the best. So overall, what was your impression of it all? I missed. I mean, i mean i mean i mean it was it ah it was all right. It was all right. Well, thank you for your time. We cross now to a New Zealander who was mistakenly called by the DNC to see what they felt about Biden stepping down from the presidential race.
00:02:16
Speaker
The podcast's guide to the conspiracy featuring Josh Addison and Em Dentist.
Introduction and Movie Discussion with Hosts
00:02:28
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcast's guide to the conspiracy in Auckland, New Zealand. I am Josh Addison and in Zhuhai, China. Adventure doesn't come any bigger. It's all the reflexes. It's Associate Professor Em R. X. Dentist. Where's the beef, Josh? Where's the beef? that's That's also a tagline, but a different kind. It is. It is. I watched Big Trouble in Little China the other day with the boy. Didn't quite do it, I think. A 14-year-old watching action comedy martial art fantasy horror drama films from the 1980s didn't quite gel, but still.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, I do actually wonder about big big about i say big little trouble in china big trouble in little China. And then I think you actually have to be of the right age to realize that Jack Burton isn't actually the main character because everything makes it look like he's the main character. But you have to be of a certain age to realise, actually, he's the bumbling sight. He thinks he's the main character, but yes, he is not. Which is the joke of the film. He thinks that he's the most important thing in the film. And actually, the film, the the event of the film would go a lot more swimmingly if Jack Burton wasn't getting in the way. Anyway, so, so you're you're back. I'm back. We're both back. We're we're either a week early or a week late, just hanging on. Right.
00:03:54
Speaker
depending on whether you count filler episodes or not. um So I mean, there's probably, I alluded to this in the last filler episode, there's probably only one thing we can actually talk about this week.
Workshop on Conspiracy Theories at University of Kent
00:04:06
Speaker
But before we do that, of course, you have to give your report on what you got up to in London slash book arrest. So out with it. Well, so I mean, i didn't do eat i wish actually I did do things in London, but they're actually not salient to this podcast because the workshop was in Canterbury at the University of Kent, which is one of those things where it turns out I thought I was going to Kent, but actually the University of Kent is in Canterbury. So you end up in one of those things where I was making jokes aboutt about Kentish letters. Admittedly, it's in the region of Kent, but the actual city that the University of Kent campus is located at
00:04:42
Speaker
is Canterbury, where the cathedral is located. And yes, so we had an interesting two days of workshopping, mostly with social psychologists, although there were some other people there. So as the interview episode that I produced during that time showed, there are at least two other philosophers there. Turned out there were five people from Australasia there, ah one of whom I never even met, so I met four of the Australasians and missed out on a fifth. And it was interesting, and I'm using that term in its kind of quasi-academic sense, in that as listeners to this podcast will be aware of, I've been quite critical of work in psychology, in part because
00:05:34
Speaker
I feel that psychologists often talk about conspiracy theories without actually explaining what they think conspiracy theories are. So they end up measuring belief in these things called conspiracy theories, but don't do much work to tell us what they're measuring, which I think is a problem for any discipline. When you talk about the consequences of belief, but you don't talk about what those beliefs actually are. I came out of the workshop with a better understanding of what's going on in psychology and a better understanding of what they think they are talking about. I also came away from the workshop with a greater appreciation that there's probably a generational divide between the younger and the older psychologists
00:06:25
Speaker
and that I got the impression that the younger psychologists, people who are probably half my age, if not less, are much more aware of the definitional challenges being presented to psychologists by people outside of psychology and are also much more interested and actually trying to resolve that issue. So I think there's hope for the future, which now makes me think I'm about to start quoting a Paul McCartney song based upon the game Destiny, but well, these things sometimes happen.
00:07:02
Speaker
And I do think there are pathways forward. I will say I gave a talk chastising psychologists for not being very precise about their definitions, and most of the audience were nodding away agreeing with me on all of my major points. So even though I went there to cause trouble, I think maybe I went there to heal a divide. That sounds very pretentious. But then again, that's my job. It's a very pretentious job. So what was the actual topic of discussion? The social consequences of belief in conspiracy theories? So my paper was basically going
00:07:44
Speaker
If we're worried about the social consequences of belief in conspiracy theories, we probably should be worried about the consequences of not defining conspiracy theories precisely. But by and large, most of the papers that were there were looking at what do we do ah about belief in conspiracy theories, particularly in what appears to be our current polarised age which of course is going to fit in quite nicely to the discussion of the main topic of this week's episode and there was a kind of
00:08:18
Speaker
undercurrent of psychologists also criticising work in psychology. So on the day that I gave my presentation, Robbie Sutton gave a presentation, basically critiquing the idea of there even being a useful concept such as a conspiracy mentality. So it was also a fairly good place to be if you wanted to see what the debates in psychology around their own work look like. And will anything come out of it? Will there be ah papers or ah special editions of of of journals or something? So it was very much a workshop of papers in progress. So the average length of a presentation at the workshop was about five minutes in length. So I got one of the longest slots, 15 minutes. 15 minutes is a very short amount of time for a philosopher.
00:09:12
Speaker
to introduce an issue and then unpack it. So even though I wrote a 5,000 word paper, I basically took the three main points out of the paper that I wanted to present and gave a very cut down presentation. So at some point in the next month, I'm going to go back to that paper, tidy it up, and then submit it elsewhere. Whether there's going to be any special issues coming out of it, I don't know, it wasn't that kind of workshop. It was people presenting work they're doing as either ongoing projects, PhD work and the like. I don't think there's any plan to do a special issue per se from the workshop itself, but it was a chance for people to see what the current landscape looks like.
00:09:58
Speaker
Right. So it's it's basically just giving you all something something extra to think about then. just just that And also, I mean, ah often workshops like these function more like a networking system where you meet people, find common ground and also introduce one another to issues or papers you think they should be reading or looking at. So, I mean, I had some great productive discussions at the pub afterwards, which is the meat and bones of workshops. It's not really the presentations, it's the friends you make drinking after the event. Excellent. Indeed, one of one of the attendees called me the Karen Douglas of the philosophy of conspiracy theories, which from a psychological perspective is very praiseworthy.
Travel Experiences and Health Updates
00:10:48
Speaker
So and then Bucharest was just recreational or did you have anything to do here? It was a purely recreational event. I went there to basically catch up with friends and wander around the old city. I got to meet up with one of our patreons, Philip, And we had a grand old time in Lipskarni drinking, talking about the podcast and talking about conspiracy theories in general. But by and large, it was just a holiday, just not a holiday in Cambodia.
00:11:19
Speaker
Right, well, there we go. You've discharged your duties, I would say, to to fill us in on what you've been up to one away. And being sick, obviously, that was the other one. Yes, and i and it's one of those things where people, when they travel these days, do tend to get sick. It might be the case of there's a rampant COVID all around the place, or the fact that actually there's is respiratory illnesses everywhere these days. So I don't appear to have had COVID, but I had something which was fairly close to it. I spent basically a week on the couch drinking a lot of water and feeling sorry for myself.
00:11:58
Speaker
And because of the amount of traveling I did, I don't know whether I caught it in Romania or whether I caught it in London or whether I caught on one of the many flights I took between Romania and the UK and then the UK coming back to here. But I got ill, and Josh, I did not enjoy it. I did not enjoy it at all. No, yeah. i mean that's so That sounds like, somehow, despite being on the other side of the planet, we appear to have contracted the same thing just a few weeks apart. I was down for about a week, but returning negative COVID tests the entire time. And much like last time I got COVID, I've still got this pesky cough, like two or three weeks later. I just can't shake the damn thing.
00:12:40
Speaker
You know, Josh, I blame the parents. They're responsible for this state of affairs. so it Makes sense to me. But no, enough of that. Enough of that. Shall we play a chime and then talk about some current events?
Podcast Dynamics and Praise
00:12:55
Speaker
Indeed.
00:13:02
Speaker
Because of course, yes, I said this in the little filler episode last time, but and I think As you Josh, Josh, Josh, I have, I have, I have a complaint about the two episodes you did whilst I was away. Your episode on Opal File and your episode on Poggers. And I'm, I'm complaining about the quality of the episodes because they were so good that it makes me wonder, am I even necessary for this podcast? Your coverage of the Opal File was exemplary. And you took a topic, which is the origins of the word Poggers, which I thought was going to have
00:13:36
Speaker
absolutely nothing to do with conspiracy theories. And you turned it around the last five minutes and made it work. And frankly, I am alarmed at how well those solo episodes went. And frankly, it makes me wonder, am I even necessary for these recordings? Could I just walk away and you do this episode without me? And it would be perfect. What is my role in this podcast, Josh? What is my role? I don't know, a filling time, probably. I sure as hell couldn't do episodes like that every week. i need The poggers one was was ah ah was was serendipity. It was just me happening to see a thing that interested me and then happening to find out, oh, actually, there was there were there were there was a conspiracy angle so I can justify talking about something I find interesting for 20 minutes or so. But the rest of it, yes. I mean, I don't... Don't feel I could carry a podcast entirely upon my rounded shoulders. Well, I mean, as as long as long as you believe that, you'll feel comfortable for the time being. But if your ego ever inflates to the point where you think you can go, go it alone. We'll be entering dangerous waters.
00:14:46
Speaker
If I ever feel I can go it alone, I'll just- For me. oh'll just Yeah, exactly. I'll just have you silently assassinated and claim you're off traveling. That'll be that. That's true. I mean, i mean and there it would you you could you could make that work. it um Off doing some conferencing. Oh, well, you know, now they're off in the hinterlands of Tibet doing some research. Oh, i I believe they're taking a trip to Mars to teach at Mars University under Vice Rictor Elon Musk. and And they're back and, ah, wouldn't you know, it caught another respiratory disease. Can't speak a word. Oh, well, yes, but no. So but anyway, that was that that that was going to be my attempt at a segue into the obvious only thing we can talk about at the moment, something we had had had illness, not waylaid
Trump Shooting Attempt and Political Implications
00:15:35
Speaker
us and what have you. We would have definitely been talking about last week, which of course was somebody taking a shot at Donald Trump. It's some it's a little bit old news already.
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, actually, not just old news, it doesn't seem to have done anything to polling. And people are going, this might be the consequence of America, or the US at least, being a nation where gun violence is so regular and normal now, that actually something which you think should actually have a polling effect actually won't because they're just used to people being shot all the time. Yeah, I don't know. I heard people who were commenting on the the Republican National Convention said, yeah, it was weird how how how big of a deal it wasn't. Also, Republicans can't really, and I use the word advisedly here, weaponize the shooting of Donald Trump because they've been the ones that have been staunchly against
00:16:39
Speaker
any kind of gun control reform. So it would be very odd for them to suddenly come out going, well, this is a very bad thing. There was someone with a gun at one of their rallies and he took a pot shot at our presidential candidate. And we don't advise doing anything about this whatsoever because holding a gun is your God given right. Even unborn babies should be allowed to have guns. Yeah, I mean there was a bit of talk, he there was talk of his if it having changed him a bit and him taking a different tone and he mentioned, I didn't see his speech, but I heard people talking about his speech and he claimed that he'd sort of would have humbled him a little bit, how coming that close to death and that but pulling on through and all of that.
00:17:25
Speaker
but But anyway, enough political commentary, of course, because the instant it happened, I would say, conspiracy theories started to spread. And it was interesting to see um false flag. Wow, would you call it false flag? Conspiracy theories saying it was staged anyway, coming straight away ah from the political left for once. Now this is interesting because a lot of people ended up going, it's prima facie implausible to even suspect it as being a false flag. And I know in retrospect now that we know more about the event. So we know who took the shot. We know something about their motivations, which we'll get into.
00:18:09
Speaker
very shortly. We know something about the security lapse that led to the person being cited, being cited, citing the president taking the shot and then being shot afterwards. But in the very moment it occurred, I don't think it's implausible to at least suspect this could have been a tactic by the Trump campaign to drum up support for their candidates, because we are talking about the campaign
00:18:40
Speaker
which is the sequel to the campaign that tried to steal the presidency, and is a campaign which has an agenda, a project, if you will, a project 2025, which actually aims to reshape America into what looks like a autocratic or authoritarian state. And I think in the moment it occurred, it was at least plausible to suspect is the stagecraft. Well, yeah, I mean, because Donald Trump is such a showman and certainly has ah has a fairly um loose regard for for facts and the truth. So i could buy a i I could buy a that's the sort of thing he might try sort of argument and yet the logistics of it, um like
00:19:30
Speaker
they they were they were ah Immediately, there were suggestions that had had much like a wwe WWE wrestler had actually sort of gone down, whipped out a hidden razor blade and cut his own ear for for the blood. But then once it became known fairly quickly that an innocent person had actually been shot and killed in the shooting, then it's like, okay, well, they're not going to <unk>re not going to have a person firing real bullets at him. and and then fake an injury after that. So the idea that, the yeah, like like you say, the more we knew about it, the the less um plausible these sorts of conspiracy theories became. And yeah, I can understand some that being someone's knee jerk first reaction, but I don't see how you could keep up something like that for very long at all.
00:20:21
Speaker
Although we'll be talking about variations of this theme in the bonus episode, because it turns out there are certain people out there, your Alex Joneses and your Roger Stone, who believe some kind of story, which ends up being possibly not a false flag story, but definitely a deep state conspiracy theory to assassinate the president. One where everything you think you knew about the event is wrong. Yeah, so more on that later. But as well as the the sort of the false flaggy stuff, you got a bit of a bit of sort of sort of Lee hop conspiracy theories, the idea that um perhaps this wasn't something that had been put together ah by Trump or by Trump's enemies, but that
00:21:09
Speaker
It had been allowed to happen by ah secret service and police, perhaps not doing as good a job as they should have. But again, that fairly quickly seems to have given way, essentially, conspiracy versus cock up. It kind of looks like cocks up all the way down. Yes. And this is this is where it turns out to actually understand the role of the Secret Service in guarding the president and former presidents. And the fact they have to share powers with local authorities makes telling any story about the stand down seem to stand the alleged stand down look more like a cock up than an actual conspiracy conspiracy. So yes, President Trump
00:21:56
Speaker
has a secret service detail whose job is to prevent people assassinating or taking action against the president and former presidents. When people like Trump hold a rally they have to make security arrangements with both the local authorities in the in the area. They have to make arrangements with whatever security details are attached to the kind of locations they use, as well as their own work, which means there has to be a certain amount of negotiation and also devolving of powers. So new police officers, you can patrol this bit over here, the security services who look after this particular...
00:22:41
Speaker
building you give us operational permission to x y or z and we're aware there are certain things you do do and don't want us to do and then there's the actual placement of the secret service themselves it does seem that maybe the secret service weren't covering all the angles they might have done So it seems that they the snipers attached to protecting President Trump were located in the buildings, and it turns out the sniper that actually took a shot at Trump was on top of one of the buildings the service were in.
00:23:16
Speaker
But at the same time, all of those areas were being controlled and looked at by the local police. And we actually know that a police officer sighted the shooter on top of the of the building before the shooter took the shot and was then shot. But the police officer was unable to do anything because clambering up onto the roof of the building meant they weren't able to hold a weapon and the shooter was able to point a weapon at the police officer.
00:23:47
Speaker
so The way that the security was being controlled and dispersed meant that it turned out there was an opportunity for someone to look at the president and then take a shot at the president. And it does seem like an operational cock up rather than they allowed it to happen. Yeah, it certainly sounds like sort of the overlap or or rather the lack of overlap between secret service and police played some sort of a role in in this, the shooter being able to get access to that building. It sounds like sort of the secret service thought the police had that bit covered and the police thought the secret service had had that bit covered, but neither of them actually did. So yeah, it just seems to be just, just, yeah, operational failure. um And again,
00:24:35
Speaker
nothing particularly sinister or conspiratorial. So perhaps then end ah we should move on to the shooter, about whom very little was known straight away. And um the more we know, I guess the the less damning it seems, certainly from a sort of conspiratorial, ideological motivation sort of sense. So yes, Republicans are saying this was an Antifa or Democratic operative who headed out for the president, but as far as we can tell, this was someone who simply wanted to assassinate a political candidate, and it turns out that Trump was the one closest to his home.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, initially, they were sort of, you know, looking for political affiliations and found that he was a registered Republican, I think, but had donated to Biden's PAC in a previous election, or he had donated to a Democrat campaign in the past. I mean, the thing is, being a registered member of a party doesn't give you any reliable indication as to how that person actually is politically affiliated because you might be a Democrat-leaning person.
00:25:55
Speaker
who lives in a state where you want to prevent Republicans from choosing good candidates for office, so you become a registered Republican to vote in those primaries to cast votes to stop particular candidates from ever coming to power. So being a registered member of a party isn't a very good indication of your political affiliation. I mean, in some states you can be a registered member of both parties. In some states I believe you can be a registered member of only one party. And thus you have to end up going, do I register for the party I want to be in power to select their candidate? Or do I register for the party I don't want to be in power in order to pervert them choosing candidates that might win elections? Now, in this case, it does seem from talking to people who knew the guy that he did, he did express conservative viewpoints. But he certainly, like there was there was no sort of a manifesto left behind or anything. He hadn't expressed any um extreme political views. And yeah, from what we can gather, he was just
00:27:01
Speaker
but seems to have been suffering from some sort of depression. And it sounds like wanted to wanted to go out doing something of historical importance or historical notoriety, I guess. And yeah, like you say, he he had apparently been looking, tracking the movements of Trump and Biden and certain other prominent politicians. And it just so happened that Trump was the one who had a rally near his hometown. So Trump's the one he went for. So, yeah, it's it's been it's been fairly confounding for people looking for some sort of a ah sinister conspiratorial, big bigger bigger motive to the guy. Of course, as we'll talk about later, that that assumes you believe what you've been told. Well, yes, yes. And that's the bonus episode. um Now, what was the business about a bomb? A bomb was involved, wasn't it?
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, so there seem to be bombs in the backpack and authorities are astounded that someone could build a bomb without there being any search history on their computer with the how do you build a bomb prompt, which I don't know about you, but I've heard of these things called libraries and libraries have these things called books inside of them. And you can look at a book and there can be no record of you looking at that book because you can look at that book In the actual library, you don't have to take the book out of the library. You can go look at a chemical textbook and find how elementary explosive things are made. And from that, build a bomb. So it kind of astells me that people go, oh, it's very, very unusual.
00:28:45
Speaker
how How could this person get access to a bomb without ever looking up how to build a bomb on the internet? And I don't know about you, Josh. I don't know whether you've ever considered engaging in a political assassination or building a bomb to engage in a terrorist event. But if I was going to do that, the last thing I would ever do is search for that information online, because that's a huge red flag. I would go to a library. I would look at an actual physical book. Yes, and in fact it may surprise you to learn that if one person knows something and another person wants to know the thing that the first person knows, it's possible for the first person to use verbal communication of a kind to transfer their knowledge to another person.
00:29:32
Speaker
Sorry, i are you saying that people can transfer information from one person to another using sound waves? Yes, and just just brace yourself now. You and I have been doing that for the past 10 years on this podcast.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yep, yep, we've been orally disseminating all manner of information. Now, for any authorities that might be listening to this podcast at no point have Josh and I ever discussed how to build a bomb no or how to plot a political assassination. But technically, it is the kind of information we could be sharing with each other at any time. And so could anyone else. And the thing is, I mean, if you're if you've ever been a child with a chemistry set,
00:30:28
Speaker
Those chemistry set instructions, they tell you an awful lot of things that maybe in retrospect, authorities wouldn't want children to know. Never owned a conspiracy set, never owned a chemistry set. Are they actually, are they still a thing anymore? I know you used to be able to get like back in the 50s or whatever, you could get things with an actual bit of radium in it or something, or be be be be you enriching your own plutonium, but I don't know if I had one as a child, and I by and large never read the instructions. I did some mixed together to see it yeah to see what what happened. I mean, I'm assuming you can still buy chemistry sets online, although I imagine
00:31:12
Speaker
given the rise of helicopter parenting, you probably get less in the way of dangerous chemicals. I remember the chemistry set I had as a child had hydrochloric acid. And I don't think you're probably giving children hydrochloric acid in a chemistry set these days. You would hope not. But anyway. No, so it's actually quite astounding to think I had hydrochloric acid as a child. But anyway, so so that was one thing. Someone took a shot at Trump, and and now we're what, less than two weeks after the event?
00:31:48
Speaker
And it's yeah it's almost kind of not a thing anymore. like there were the There were the diehards at the RNC wearing little bandages on their ears in support, but tom ah just yeah you would expect it to be something... like like i mean Immediately people were like, oh God, Trump just won the election. Oh no, yeah assassination attempts always give a huge bump in popularity, which apparently isn't true. If you look at the various times people have taken shots at politicians, sometimes it helps them, sometimes it doesn't. but And and yeah me I'd say look Abraham Lincoln didn't did not get a boost in in the polls after the assassination attempt on him. No, no, that may have been because it was successful, but who can say? But, you know, it's it's been almost, on over and has definitely been overshadowed, of course, by the next big ah political political upheaval, the the next big plot twist, ah which was Biden finally stepping down, having said he definitely wasn't going going to for quite some time.
00:32:50
Speaker
Now, I've been of the opinion actually since the first time Biden ran as a presidential candidate that he was too old to be president, which is because I don't really think people in their late 70s or 80s should be holding political office. I know America has this kind of qualification you must be 35 years or older to be president which seems to date from the founder's belief that with age comes wisdom at which point I would like to ask sorry what was your evidence for that particular claim that it seems like a stupid thing to believe although other people have plausibly said it was a way of getting around a very awkward issue
00:33:34
Speaker
in the society at the time which was young men engaging in jewels because their honour had been besmirched and apparently by about the age of 35 people kind of stopped having jewels because their honour had been besmirched so what he didn't want was a presidential candidate who might get shot by someone because he looked at a woman the wrong way because in those days presidents were always men. In fact historically in America, presidents have always been men, although that might be about to change. But I also think there should be an upper age limit to being president. In fact i I have a new theory as to the perfect age range for a president of the United States of America, which is between the ages of 13 and 16.
Humorous Takes on U.S. Presidential Age
00:34:19
Speaker
They are the people who probably have the most interest in ensuring
00:34:24
Speaker
the future of their country is going to be good. So I think the perfect age for a president of the United States of America is three years within the ages of 13 and 16. The early 10 to mid 10 is the perfect person to lead America into the future. After that, you get to basically no longer have a political career and focus on your hobbies.
00:34:55
Speaker
The film or the book? ah Never read the book. Only seen the film. Because the book's upper age is 21. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they upped the age a bit for the movie, didn't they? So they could have better actors. Yeah, so that's Susanna, I can't remember her last name, so Michael York and Susanna, last name currently not on... Not Susanna. ...play the the main roles. It's not Susanna, it's someone else, but you saying that has erased it from my memory. Jennifer, no. You're looking at... It's a terrible thing, we're not connected to say the... Yeah, the the entire repository of the type of human knowledge.
00:35:36
Speaker
Logan's Ron, Phil, Michael, Jenny Agnewson. Why did they call this his attic? I don't know. You knocked the name Jenny out of my brain. similar Anyway, anyway, anyway. Logan's Ron was a film tangentially related to what we're talking about, but but not really. um So of course, so now, so much has happened so fast. I've actually lost track. The announcement that Biden was stepping down came after the RNC. Is that right? No, was it was just before the RNC thing. I had assumed that they would have timed it to come just after so that the Republicans would do a whole bunch of speeches attacking Joe Biden and they'd pull the rug out from him and say, haha, he's not your opponent now. I don't know. But anyway, it was it was certainly, certainly very closely timed, which your direction it was in.
00:36:27
Speaker
And even if it had been slightly before, it probably wouldn't have given them enough time to change much of their messaging. but But no, so that was the thing. Biden's out. Kamala Harris is in. And there's a bit of conspiracy. Now, actually, the one thing um I heard, and this was a friend of the show Hayden messaged me the other day to say that he had opened up Twitter and the The um For You tab, the tab to which no one should ever go, even if if if you even have to go on Twitter in the first place, was full of people insisting that Biden is just about to die, that Biden is near death. And that's why he had to step down. And I i don't believe there's any evidence for that other than the fact that he is an old man.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yes. And I mean, I mean, that's why I think having an 82 year old running for president's a very bad idea. I mean, in part because as we know, Biden recently got covered and the morbidity rate for 80 year olds getting co COVID isn't great. Great. don't know you don't You don't want to be 82 and guessing COVID. You don't also want to be president of the United States of America, one of the most stress-inducing jobs there is.
00:37:45
Speaker
and be 82 and also have COVID at the same time because on the plus side you probably have the best health care in the world but on the minus side you still have COVID and you're 82. Yeah but no there's been no certainly no um indications or announcement of anything like that you just finally finally conceded that yes maybe an 82 year old is not the best um and and i yeah I don't know there's there's so much politics around the whole thing Well so here's the question, is this an example of a conspiracy?
Biden's Age and Conspiracy Theories
00:38:20
Speaker
So was there a political coup?
00:38:24
Speaker
designed to push Biden out. So was there a set of people working behind the scenes in secret, trying to persuade Biden to step down, which then, because that wasn't working, then led to people on the doing it in public. So we've been privately been asking Biden step down, you're too old, you need to be replaced. he's not listening to us so maybe we should now move to making this a kind of public effort because these kind of political coups normally start behind closed doors you don't usually start with a open letter saying x must go normally you start with a private conversation going well josh i mean you've been a co-host on the podcast this guides the conspiracy for quite some time now but you are getting older and i do wonder about your
00:39:18
Speaker
your mental acuity going forward for the next year or so of the podcast. So I would i' recommend, you know, you should seriously consider stepping back your operations in this podcast. And only if you don't listen to my wife's words would I start talking in the podcast, well, Josh, you're getting quite old now. And frankly, I'm a bit worried about the, although this is completely contradicted by everything I said at the beginning of the episode, I'm a bit worried about the quality of your contributions recently. Yes, well, yes, it's like the the the there have been people campaigning to get Biden to step down for quite a long time, even before, like, simply due to opposition to a stance on Palestine, I think people have been saying he needs to go yeah for quite an aisle. And then that sort of became the end. There was the the horrible debate performance, which I think really galvanized a lot of this. But yeah, I don't know the the numerous deaths, numerous, numerous deaths.
00:40:17
Speaker
And there are the various arguments back and forth. The interesting one, though, I've seen, you know, some people saying, how how can the Democrats possibly start up a whole new campaign with a whole new candidate with only three and a half months to go to the election, to which people who live very everywhere else in the world say, yeah, that's that that's the normal amount of time for an election campaign. You guys you guys have your elections run for five years or something. And that's not what France had two elections in a month recently, didn't they? How much time? I mean, the glorious French Republic really likes to exercise its democratic rights, often by guillotining heads. I mean, although they haven't done that for a while now, but yes, they they like to exercise. believe great rights I mean, the UK. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Rishi Sunak called his election in a month. How much how much time did they get? It was
00:41:07
Speaker
And i mean we I mean, our system back in Aotearoa New Zealand, we now know approximately when the ni next election is going to be. But the actual campaigning period is enshrined in law to only be a set amount of time. So even though we approximately know when the election date is. They actually can't start campaigning until about six weeks out from that date. Most nations are able to run an election with three or four months notice. Why America feels it can't do it, I don't know. But yes, and so between that and apparently the record-breaking amounts of donations that the now Harris campaign... 96 million in one day, I think it was US million. So, I mean, it looks... It certainly does not seem outside the bounds of possibility, but of course some... But back to the conspiratorial angle, I mean...
00:42:07
Speaker
Oh yes, because there's there's a question, was Kamala Harris actually who the people who were pushing Biden to step down or step aside wanted? Because there was, I think, a quite plausible conspiracy theory going around before Biden actually stepped down that actually what people wanted was someone who was Trump-lite. So this is the famous Aaron Sorkin open letter that was in Variety saying the cleveth thing the Democrats should do would be to appoint someone like Mitt Romney as the candidate to run against Trump. And you do get the impression there were certain, let's call them billionaires,
00:42:55
Speaker
or rich political elites because it seemed that they were the ones who were driving the pressure on Biden by saying we're not going to donate to your campaign so you need to step aside if you want our money to go to the DNC going forward to the various PACs that will be in position to give you money to campaign for the next three to four months. It seemed that the kind of person that the billionaires wanted was someone to the right of Joe Biden. And it seems from the evidence we've got, many of those billionaires are not happy with what happened next because they got what they wanted on one hand. They got Biden stepping down.
00:43:43
Speaker
but they don't seem to have got the candidate they wanted. And this was made evidence today where John Morgan, who's a billionaire backer of the DNC and attorney general in some particular state, ah who was one of the big Dona is saying I'm not giving money to Biden because he needs to step down, who is now furious that Biden has shafted him by then saying I'm going to give my endorsement to Kamala Harris instead, and is now saying I'm
Democratic Party's Endorsement of Harris
00:44:18
Speaker
definitely not giving money to the Harris campaign. So it does seem that
00:44:23
Speaker
the people who were pushing for Biden to step down didn't actually get what they wanted, which does make it seem as if maybe there was a conspiracy to bring Biden to his knees in order to appoint someone much to the right of the Biden-Harris ticket on the notion that they would get someone who was Trump-esque, but not as bad as Trump. Yeah, so I mean, who who knows really? i assume I assume in the coming years, there'll be all sorts of books published from people who were who were in the room when certain conversations took place and and were privy to all sorts of stuff. But um for now, all we know is that many people have been quite publicly saying Biden needs to go. ah Biden had for a while been saying,
00:45:11
Speaker
no, no, I'm going to stick it out. It's my it's my job. But then eventually he said, OK, fine, I will step down. and And there's not a lot more we can say with any sort of and and be at all definite about. Well, there there is one thing we can say, because there was a prediction that once Biden stepped down, the Democratic Party would basically fall into disarray as they had a large amount of infighting as to who would be the natural successor to Biden. And yet, as we've seen, the DMC has largely coalesced its support around Kamala Harris as being their nominee for President of the United States, or at least the candidate going up against Donald Trump in September of this year. And I suspect that suggests that as there was this pressure for Biden to step down,
00:46:05
Speaker
Biden's inside circle, or as people probably say, in a circle, was probably spending a lot of time canvassing various DNC delegates and chairs across all states go, well look, if I do step down, I'm going to say Kamala Harris should be my successor. And I'm relying on you to endorse that position. yeah So a conspiracy against the conspiracy. Yes. Well, I mean, and as we've talked about many times in the past, politics is ah is is a very conspiratorial activity. Lots of stuff happens behind corridors, especially in a and i sort of first-past-the-post two-party system like the States has. I know in New Zealand, people would complain when we moved to our MMP, mixed member proportional system, that ah generally
00:46:54
Speaker
results in coalition you know and in coalition governments, which means two parties have to make deals with one another and and grant concessions and what have you to get along. And people complained initially that at all this and all all these deals being done sort of subverts what they wanted. And yet other people pointed out that those deals were always being done. It's just that under our old system where you essentially only had two parties, those deals were happening between factions of one party, whereas now they're happening between parties. And so and initially in the earlier system,
00:47:30
Speaker
um Not only were these deals happening you had no idea of it at all and America which still does have a ah first-past-the-post sort of a system these these sorts of deals they've got to be going on all the time about everything and um You might not necessarily even know and that sort of behavior certainly by our definition at least is inherently conspiratorial that's So, i think that's I think that's about enough to say ah for now, for our first property episode with you back in the country and both of us well enough to speak at least. And when I say back in the country, I mean the country where you live now. We had to kind of cover it now because, I mean, we had two major events in the space of two weeks. God knows what major event might happen now and the next time we record. Yes, it was a bit of a but of a bit of a necessity. but
00:48:24
Speaker
I think that'll do for now next week. God, I don't even know what we'll do next week. Could be anything. I've got a plan. I've got a plan for next week, but I'll talk to you about that when we finish the record. Right. Well, good. That'll be a nice surprise, both for me and for you, the listeners. So you'll have to wait for another episode. a So this it's been a week since the last filler episode. Are we still on a two-weekly schedule, or how ah how are you placed now? Well, I think we can probably return back to a weekly schedule. OK. I think we can return back. We'll see how that goes. So in that case, maybe next week you'll get to find out what we have in store. But either way, whether it's a week from now or two weeks from now, it's not right now. Now is the end of the episode, which I will herald by saying goodbye.
00:49:11
Speaker
And I will herald by saying there is a bonus episode. We'll be talking about Alex Jones and Roger Stone on the assassination of Donald J. Trump. We'll be talking about what's been going on on Twitter slash X around the account of Kamala Harris. I've got a few thoughts on the ever unpopular J.D. Vance as Trump's vice presidential pick, and we've never really mentioned Project 2025, so maybe we'll have a little bit of a chat about that. But having said all of those things, I'm also going to reiterate what Josh said, which was goodbye. Peace. The podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy stars Josh Addison and myself. Associate Professor, M.R.X. Denton. Our show's cons... sorry, producers are Tom and Philip, plus another mysterious anonymous donor. You can contact Josh and myself at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com and please do consider joining our Patreon.
00:50:27
Speaker
And remember, keep watching the skis.