Episode 65 – Afterberner: The Progressive Path Forward with Jamarl Thomas

Macro N Cheese – Episode 65 
Afterberner: The Progressive Path Forward with Jamarl Thomas 
April 18, 2020 

 

Jamarl Thomas [intro/music] (00:00:04): 

Keep in mind, Democrats for the last 40, 50 years have screamed some image of FDR, you know. We care about this. We care about that. We care about this. We care about that. Really, in reality, they’re just, you know, a modicum difference from Republican party.  

He was willing to cut social security, Bill Clinton, if it wasn’t for that blowjob with Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton would have privatized social security. The deal had already been made with Newt Gingrich. It sucked up all the political air when he had to deal with the issue of Monica Lewinsky. That is the only thing that saved Social Security. 

Geoff Ginter [intro/music] (00:01:23): 

[Music] Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine. 

Steve Grumbine (00:01:34): 

All right. And this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. Today, I have a friend and folks, I want to lay the groundwork for this. We are a small network of progressive alternative media activists, friends, you name it. We have quarreled with each other. We have thought differently. We have fought this fight from start to finish, always fighting, really in the end for the same exact goals, this progressive movement. And I was able to watch my guest who has one of my favorite shows on YouTube, if you get a chance by all means, check it out.  

It’s called the Progressive Soapbox. His name is Jamarl Thomas. And let me tell you, first of all, Jamarl used to be on our show with Joe Firestone and others on our team. And we’ve been at different events together. We were at the convergence conference in Washington, D.C. He was one of the featured speakers there, just a really exciting guy, and I live vicariously through him on Instagram.  

He travels all around the world, and it’s just an amazing thing to see. He’s always smiling. He’s always happy. But in reality, he has got some of the most intense takes on the political process. And I learn so much from him.  

I’d like to consider myself very widely focused, but in reality, I’m only largely focused on the economic side of this movement, but Jamarl is all over the place. This guy has got to take on everything and he understands so much and he sees the tie-ins.  

And so part of my process here is to rebuild the framework, rebuild the connections throughout this movement that are being shattered, as Sanders has conceded, and he has endorsed Joe Biden. From part of my healing process, and for, in my opinion, part of this movement’s process is bringing about some connections back with some of these alternative media friends that have been out there, largely slugging it out, doing it on their own and taking hits hard, when they say something someone doesn’t agree with it.  

Oh no! I’ve got to worry about people unsubscribing, blah, blah, blah. Well, Jamarl is just a great guy. And so I reached out to him last night after hearing his really poignant take — Sanders endorsement of Joe Biden. And I just said to myself, this guy, I got to have him on, and he graciously accepted immediately. And so with that Jamarl, welcome to Macro N Cheese, my friend.

Thomas (00:03:57): 

What’s going on, man, you doing all right? 

Grumbine (00:03:59): 

I’m doing good, man. This COVID-19 thing has got my family, a little rattled. Both of my kids have kind of been through it. And it’s a little terrifying at times. 

Thomas (00:04:08): 

I can imagine. 

Grumbine (00:04:09): 

This is our new reality, man. And it seems like everything we fought for has come to a head right here. Everything we fought for, for Medicare, for a progressive agenda in general can be encapsulated in COVID-19.  

And here we are sitting here without a boat, without an oar, without any kind of waves to take us this way or that, we are stuck in the middle of nowhere. And it looks like we only have each other to bring ourselves out of this, man. 

Thomas (00:04:35): 

Believe it or not. I’m a little bit more optimistic than that now. 

Grumbine (00:04:39): 

Oh. 

Thomas (00:04:40): 

I know that sounds weird. Considering, you know, we’re hunkered down, there’s cabin fever. Everybody’s stuck in their houses and everything else, and everybody else. And Sanders has just conceded. So fair enough. I understand, there’s a lot of stuff going on.  

Let me say this. If you want to get your economic agenda accomplished, which I know you do, cause I’ve been on your show. You’ve been on my show and we’ve had the conversation about it. I’ve had what, a four-hour conversation with Firestone one day.[Laughter] So we’ve had the conversation.  

The catch is, the issue is politics. Believe it or not, because in order for you to get what you want, you got to get elected. And once you get elected, and if you attend to the needs of the population, they would allow you to do whatever you want. Now, what I mean by that is in order to get elected, though, you must understand the situation that’s presented to you, and what your opponent is willing to do in order to win.  

Look in the UK for the moment. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn was running against the Tory Party. Back in 2017, it was reported that Jeremy Corbyn, effectively the Blairites, which effectively the Clintonites in the United States were working behind the scenes in order to put a knife in him. And there were comments, a report just came up and saying god, I can’t believe Corbyn did this well, I need therapy.  

I want to burn Corbyn and whoever was supporting him should be shot. This is the stuff they were saying about somebody on their own team, on their own team. Now let’s move to the United States for the moment. Why do you believe it will be different? The Democratic Party chose Joe Biden. Now they didn’t like Joe Biden, didn’t love Joe Biden, they had all these other people who were running in the race.  

And if you notice Obama never endorsed Joe Biden until today. Meaning if they were happy with Joe Biden, they would have already did all that. But that’s not what happened. You had all of these people who were fractured, flighting the floodgates in the standpoint of the Democratic Party. And what you ended up with was Joe Biden sucking up the Black vote, and the Democratic Party and Obama working behind the scenes to get all of them to collapse in regards to support for Biden.  

Now, let’s be very clear. Do not for one iota, take blame off Sanders, because Sanders ran this race like a pillow fight. And when you look behind the scenes, in regards to what he was talking about, when he was preventing his people from, knew he was preventing opposition research from doing their jobs, meaning his communication people coming out.  

He was preventing them from putting out opposition research on his opponent. So hey, Joe Biden’s lied about civil rights. Why isn’t that in the media. Sanders, didn’t allow his people to bring it up. Hey, Joe Biden is lying about dealing with Mandela. Saying Mandela said, Hey Joe, thanks for, you know, being arrested for me, never happened.  

Sanders would never let that be put out in regards of opposition research. The only time Sanders really attacked is when Joe Biden put out a hit video on him, and you think of all the items of rape allegation and nobody brings it up. Why? Because Sanders didn’t allow his opposition research to do it. He’s running a pillow fight.  

So, in a sense, we’re all in this pain and anguish. We have a political revolution. We have climate at stake, the world’s at stake. Yes, Sanders, the world is at stake. 500,000 people are losing their health insurance every year going bankrupt. Yes. Sanders. That is a massive amount of pain. All of these people living on the streets in all of these various States across the United States, richest country on the planet.  

Yes, Sanders, I agree with you, that’s a lot of pain. The medical bills, not being able to pay, Medicare for All. Agreed college debt. Over trade. Agreed. Those are big issues. Those are issues that dig into individuals and make their life miserable and make their life difficult. And we’re wondering why all of this pain and anguish, people committing suicide and using and abusing drugs. That’s why, all of this pain, Sanders crystallizes it.  

And then he runs a race where despite the fact that it’s been 40, 50, 60 years for an FDR, despite the fact all of the pain and anguish that he put up, despite the fact, all of the existential challenges that we have to face in this race, Joe Biden was his buddy. And so, all of that stuff mattered less. That’s astonishing. 

That’s political malpractice on a level that is breathtaking, but nevertheless, the party did coalesce. The interesting part here is they coalesced around Biden knowing he is mentally ill, knowing that he does not have the physical stamina or the stature, knowing he is a wisp of a man.  

Why? Because Joe Biden could suck up the Black vote, which was enough to beat Sanders. Whether or not he could beat Trump was secondary to the process, which means that the Democratic Party full well understood that look, this guy, all things being equal is probably going to lose to Trump. That matters less than beating somebody who’s in our own party. And to put this in perspective and to make this more, you know, appropriate to get across how significant this is. 

When they ask how many of you are willing to go to a brokered convention in order to stop Sanders, and rip this away from Sanders. Every last person on that stage said yes, including Warren, which means they were willing to lose, because I tell you this, if you rip that away from Sanders, after he gets the number of delegates, the Democratic Party is going to lose.  

Sanders supporters who may back Joe Biden now will not have backed him then. They understood that. They were perfectly okay with that. Again, the number one priority was beating Sanders. Unless people understand that, you are not going to understand 2020. When they picked Biden, it was understood all of his defects.  

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. And to make matters worse. And to show how weak, pathetic and cowardly the left has been over the last 30, 40 years. Unsubscribed to him if you need to. But all of it’s true. Everything I’m saying is flat back true. The Democratic Party went beyond attacking Sanders because it couldn’t lay a glove on him, because he’s authentic.  

What did they do? They attacked his supporters. They called them racist, sexist, bigoted. They attacked you in the same way they would attack Trump supporters. Why? Because they understood at the end of the process, you will be so terrified of Trump. You will be so weak ineffective.  

And fact is for the last 50 years, you’ve always fallen in line. So they expect the exact same thing this year. Like, that’s astonishing, and I don’t think people fully understand that. They were willing, again, this needs to be understood.  

The levels that they were willing to go in order to stop you and your supporters be in the United States or the UK. They were perfectly willing to lose, meaning, for Boris Johnson with all of that employment stuff, in that attacks on health services and everything else. They didn’t care. Same thing, Democratic Party. They didn’t care.  

Now the question for the left is if the Democratic Party is willing to go to those lengths to stop you; and you’re always cowardly saying, Oh God, they’re going to cut Medicare. They’re going to cut Social Security. Grandma’s going to get thrown off the roof. Yes. All of that’s true. And this sounds heartless, but it is an acceptable loss. If your objective is to get policy accomplished.  

That sounds heartless, that sounds brutal, but the fact that your opponent is willing to do exactly that, and you are not, means they were willing to go to lengths in order to maintain power, within the context of the Democratic Party, that you are not. Meaning you are always going to be stuck in a position of being cowed, never getting your political objectives accomplished.  

My suggestion is that all of us, I don’t care if you are a Democratic Socialist, I don’t care if you’re Socialist-elect. I don’t care if you elect me. I don’t even care if you’re just the Democrat or even a Republican that believes certain things. Pick four or five policy objectives and say, we are done. We’re not backing. We’re not supporting.  

You will lose. And when they turn around and they point to you and say, you’re responsible for making us lose. You say, “Yes, yes, we are responsible for making you lose. And we’ll make you lose over, and over again until your party collapses into nothingness.” My issues will be your issues. I want Medicare For All. I want the elimination of student debt. I want X and Y. And until you do that, you will not get our support. If you get 20 million people doing that en masse.  

And again, the party stuff, doesn’t matter. You’re talking about just specific policy. Do you agree with this policy yay or nay, and you, because you’re not dealing with party in this case, a lot of the people who would have been turned off by party would not necessarily be turned off by the notion of yeah, I think we should have Medicare For All. Yeah. I think we should have a Green New Deal. Yeah. I think we should get rid of student debt. That’s not a party issue, that’s a policy issue.  

And until lefties, all of them, en mass, backup these youth groups, and fully deal with that, internalize the level of hatred that they have for you, the levels that they’re willing to go and you as a lefty stop the cowardice and being willing to deal with your philosophical, if not cosmic, responsibility of being the conscience of this nation, which means there are doors you need to go through that you don’t necessarily want to go through that you’ve been playing around with for the last 50 years.  

Stop backing a party that in no way has your interests at heart, period. And until the left come together again, I don’t care what your political affiliation is. For the most part, all of you are just talking about the exact same thing. I went to one of the rallies or one of the meetings, 20 groups, all of them different.  

And yet all of them want the exact same thing. Just various differences, just various nuances, and the way they act, that gets you nowhere. It just doesn’t. What I am saying gets you somewhere. “A”, you need a certain degree of credibility that you’ve never necessarily had. And you need leverage, leverage and credibility, go hand in hand.  

If the Democratic Party doesn’t believe you’re willing to use that leverage of saying, “I will make you lose over and over and over again.” Then they are going to test that. Now the catch becomes you need to have that level of credibility. That is a door you have to go through. There are no magical doors in us. You’ve allowed this to go too far in it.  

Well, we have allowed this to go too far for the last 50 years of just supporting whatever random . . . Bill Clinton cuts welfare. We still back them. Bill Clinton passes NAFTA. Bill Clinton kills the Telecommunication Act. Bill Clinton expands the prison population. You still back him. Same thing with Obama. 95% of the income to the top 1%, you back him.  

Not closing Guantanamo, you back him. Having homeowners go bless, you back him. WHY? Who was willing to cut social security? Bill Clinton. If it wasn’t for that blowjob with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton would have privatized Social Security; the deal had already been made with Newt Gingrich. It sucked up all the political air when he had to deal with the issue of Monica Lewinsky. That is the only thing that saved Social Security. 

Grumbine (00:14:28): 

So, we were saved by a blowjob. 

Thomas (00:14:30): 

Well it’s true. I mean, it was more than that. Bill Clinton was acting like that’s all there was, but you know, the funny part, you know, the presidential portrait of Bill Clinton, that stain is in the dress in the background. The painter, the artist put the stain in the presidential portrait because he thought it was such a significant factor in regards to Bill Clinton’s administration. Isn’t that sad? 

Grumbine (00:14:52): 

That is sad. 

Thomas (00:14:52): 

That’s so sad. [Laughter] 

Grumbine (00:14:59): 

What you’re addressing. And I want to make sure I got this because I just was on the air the other night. And I said, can movements and parties exist? 

Thomas (00:15:05): 

Yes! 

Grumbine (00:15:06): 

Co-exist? 

Thomas (00:15:06): 

They can. 

Grumbine (00:15:07): 

Where my position stands on this. And it sounds like what we just said, ironically, is exactly the same thing. Only different. What I said was that if a movement is tied to a party only, that party will then control it because its job is to control the message 

Thomas (00:15:24): 

And you will die. That movement will die. Yeah. 

Grumbine (00:15:27): 

But you and I both have said in different ways, but it is exactly the same message in the end, is that it takes a movement; it doesn’t matter what political affiliation you are. We have a platform, we’ve been fighting for this exact platform now for six years, let’s say for sure, let’s say since Occupy even. Go back that far and we know what we want.  

The problem is we don’t have the same strength of conviction that the right does, or the center-right does, or whoever these people, these oligarchs and plutocrats do, or these establishment folks in general, these corporate people, they have more conviction to fight for their bullshit than we do. 

Thomas (00:16:06): 

Well, it’s worse than that, Steve. I mean, think about it from the standpoint of the average American. Most people don’t have 500 dollars in a bank. The overwhelming majority of the people work paycheck to paycheck, and lefties tend to just be more empathetic. I always ask the question why is weakness endemic to the left.  

And I hit my head on that yesterday when I was like, whoa, are you okay with Trump getting rid of social security and Medicare? And it becomes this thing of like, Oh God. I don’t like that, right there. That’s it. If you are rich or if you’re a Democrat, these issues don’t entirely affect you. I mean, if you’re Nancy Pelosi with a hundred million dollars in a bank, does Trump winning bother you?  

It may bother you politically, but does it really materially hurt you? Like, so, a Republican winning doesn’t materially hurt some of the establishment of Democrats. They just don’t like Trump in office. So, but Sanders takes the party for a generation, which is the issue, right? I mean basically, if Sanders wins it, what’s the brain trust of the Democratic Party now?  

It’s to some degree Sanders. And who’s Sanders going to pick as a vice president? Somebody similar to him. And if Sanders is successful that means for the last 50 years, Democrats have been lying and the person who’s mad at Sanders, who’s just reorganized what it means to be a Democrat. 

 Like that is the third way Democrats that have power over the party for the last 50 years, Sanders is entirely unacceptable. And I think that’s what it boils down to. When you say conviction, conviction is right, but it’s also this notion that they are not necessarily as hurt by going to those lengths. Whereas… 

Grumbine (00:17:31): 

Ya 

Thomas (00:17:31): 

we and our population is. 

Grumbine (00:17:34): 

Yep, you know, there was a guy named Ignaz Semmelweis who many, many moons ago discovered that, wash your hands with Clorox or bleach or chlorine or whatever, that you will kill the germs. 

Thomas (00:17:46): 

[Laughter] Right? 

Grumbine (00:17:47): 

And all of a sudden, the women in the hospital that he was working in, after they started doing this, cause he couldn’t stand the smell of the cadavers that they were working at. The women stopped dying during childbirth. The babies stopped dying and the doctors hated him for this because they’re like, you know what? That means what you’re telling us is by cleaning your hands, you stop the stuff that means, we are killing all these people in the hospital … 

Thomas (00:18:08): 

Yeah 

Grumbine (00:18:08): 

…by extension you’ve just exposed us for assholes. Well, that’s what Bernie Sanders platform did. And that’s what a Bernie Sanders administration would have done. 

Thomas (00:18:17): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:18:17): 

And that’s what our movement would have done. And at all costs, they had to show that Bernie couldn’t do it because if they didn’t, it would have shown their entire bullshit was a lie. 

Thomas (00:18:28): 

Yes it would have, I agree. 

Grumbine (00:18:28): 

Right? Exactly. To the fault. 

Thomas (00:18:33): 

He shows them what they are. I mean, keep in mind, Democrats for the last 40 50 years have screamed, some image of FDR, you know. We care about this, we care about that, we care about this, we care about that. Really, in reality, they’re just, you know, a modicum difference from the Republican party. Look, I don’t ascribe to this notion that there are two parties in the United States, ascribe to the notion that there has been a con for the most part, just one.  

They agree philosophically in regards to the economy. They agree on issues of economics. They agree on issues of war. There is modicum of difference in regards to the way they deal with identities, and even maybe a difference, slightly, in the way they deal with like taxes and stuff. But these aren’t two different parties. If Sanders is standing there, he shows them for what they are just by standing there. 

I mean, basically, let’s be very clear on what took place in 2020. Sanders, I want healthcare for everybody. I want to ensure that we get rid of college debt, because, fact is, those kids going to college are benefiting your society, and as such your society should benefit the kids who were born here. Meaning, you want to incentivize them going to college, not create a hindrance to that. We need to pay people a decent wage.  

Like these are policies that were all popular. And so, it’s like, the Democratic Party entirely lined up against those policies. Like that’s astonishing. I mean, you have a situation where Sanders literally wins the ideological argument. If they ask people, Hey, who do you believe better on climate? Sanders. Who do you believe better on and about, Sanders. Who do you believe better on economics, Sanders.  

And yet they choose Biden because Sanders was never making the argument about electability. Meaning, Sanders never dealt with his main issue. He had two, he had three, but two main ones — the African American community and the elderly vote. And it’s not even the entirety of the African American community. It’s the older African American community.  

But it just so happened that they vote in higher numbers than the younger group. If you were to win this, you have to deal with that. Like, that’s not something you can ignore. You can’t just go out and give a good speech and believe that that’s going to change. You had to make that point clear early on. Hillary Clinton loss. John Kerry loss. Al Gore loss. And you believe that Joe Biden is going to win?  

Joe Biden’s the same creature as Clinton, as Kerry and as Gore. And I am similar to Obama at being the radical in this race. Yes, I am the radical in this race, but I am the least risky prospect to go up against Trump. Every time he gets on stage, says it. Every time he gets on a debate stage, says it. If Jane wakes him up at two in the morning, he’s repeating because he’s stuck in an issue, right? You have a situation where Joe Biden is considered to be more electable.  

Well African-Americans, what’s the African American book? Who keeps the monsters at bay. As an African American, I can tell you that. Growing up it didn’t matter who the Democrat was. You just walk in, Democrat, walk out. And basically it, why? Because Republicans, you know, African Americans, almost in our DNA, we understand going back for 40, 50, 60 years that the monsters are in the other party.  

So, from that standpoint Sanders, has to deal with that. You have 90% of African Americans that vote Democrat with any random Democrat and Bernie Sanders is not a typical Democrat. And there’s another thing, Steve, in this — deadened expectations, like by having the Democratic Party be so weak, and feckless, in regards to dealing with the real material concerns of the population.  

Over time, as people die out and as people are born, well, they’re born into a societal context. From their societal context the world looks normal, but only because that’s what they grew up in. If you’re looking back at history and everything else, there is no normality in this process. Normality is relative. There’s no absolute in the sense of normality.  

Meaning that this society that these people grew up in for the most part move further, further to the right, but they never necessarily notice the move, because they weren’t alive during the point where it was different. And so now, you have a situation, where from their standpoint, Democrats don’t do big things.  

You know, Kennedy’s standing here screaming, “I am going to the moon.” Democrats don’t do that. There is no moon shot. And put it more apropos, we’re in the middle of a crisis, pandemic, this would be the time for the Democrats to do their moonshot, if they actually had something that they believed in. But they’re using the pandemic as an excuse. Do you hear that taking place, Steve? 

Grumbine (00:22:28): 

Oh, absolutely not. You know, I talked to Glen Ford the other day. 

Thomas (00:22:32): 

Oh, Glenn Ford. I love that guy. I love Glenn. 

Grumbine (00:22:36): 

An hour of what it meant to be an African American and why Bernie Sanders couldn’t get the black vote. 

Thomas (00:22:45): 

And what did he say? What was his reasoning? 

Grumbine (00:22:45): 

Was very close to what you just said. The only difference was he said, African-Americans are the most liberal group of people you will ever find. What happens is, they are very aware of who the fascists are. They’re very aware of who the white supremacist party is at any given time . . . 

Thomas (00:23:02): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:23:02): 

…whether it be the Republicans today or whether it be the Democrats tomorrow, they are always aware of who the white supremacist party is. 

Thomas (00:23:10): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:23:10): 

So, what they do is they look to see who the white people are lining up behind. And when they see the white people, the Democrats lining up behind so-and-so, they will line up behind them, and rather take the beating from them, because the hand that picks the cotton picks the president. And he said, if you look at it this way, he goes, it’s very sad, but it’s very true that they are terrified.  

They have been raised to be terrified. They have lived through things. They know that the white supremacist party will always be there to harm them. So, they will always vote for who has a chance to win. 

Thomas (00:23:50): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:23:50): 

But that electability thing is real. 

Thomas (00:23:54): 

Yes, it is. 

Grumbine (00:23:54): 

In that moment that I felt so depressed and sad, because I had never had that kind of access to that kind of information. 

Thomas (00:24:02): 

Are you serious? You didn’t know that. I think maybe because I’m African American, I just kind of assume everyone knows that. And maybe that’s not the case. Honestly, the black vote literally boils down to who keeps the monsters at bay.  

Because from our standpoint, the Republican party is going to hurt us in multiple ways — in cutting services from the standpoint of government, whether you’re talking about Medicare and social security, those are things that many of us rely on, or whether you’re talking about just people that hate us, because of the history of the Republican party. And so, for the younger generation, slightly different on this because they didn’t grow up in this.  

And so, they’re less inclined to necessarily immediately go that way. Meaning they’re okay with Sanders because to them, the economy has screwed them over. You have an older generation that is doing relatively okay. But from the standpoint of having all of the college debt or a dead-end job, yeah. They want something different. The older generation is already established, but that’s the catch. 

Grumbine (00:24:54): 

The big takeaway though was this. On one hand, it’s better to suffer in surety than to dream and lose. 

Thomas (00:25:06): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:25:06): 

And the idea of security, security even in beatings, because beatings are less severe here than they are there. And it started getting to the point where it was like, every single step through this process. It’s very obvious why Blacks vote Democrat because Democrats at least put forward the veneer of supporting the African American needs. 

Thomas (00:25:32): 

Right. Identity. Good. Identity, like that’s the catch. And that must be understood. When Democrats put up Obama, their thought is he’s Black, period. 

Grumbine (00:25:43): 

Yep. 

Thomas (00:25:43): 

As if, him being Black is somehow going to stop him from getting 95% of the wealth to the top 1%. These are issues of class. These are not issues of identity. And the Democratic Party tends to use identity as a dodge to ignore issues of economics. They do it all the time. So they would say, Hey, look at this Black person, Hey, look at this Asian person.  

Look at this trans person missing a leg. Look how progressive we are. And it’s like, yeah, dude. But you know, just because Obama is Black, he still gave 95% of the wealth to the top 1%. I mean income gains. And he still allowed Black homeowners to go bust. And when he went to Flint, Michigan, he basically, you know, and this kind of weird, humiliating way, downplayed the people drinking lead and all of this other stuff in their water.  

So it’s like, yeah, you’re focusing on identity, but you’re focusing on identity in the wrong way. If you’re focusing on identity in the context of, alright, look, the African American community needs to be made whole. Well, that’s one conversation. If you focus on economics by definition, you’re focusing on identity. Like I hope you understand what I mean. 

If Sanders is arguing, look, we need to have Medicare For All, and you ask the question, well, who’s that going to benefit the most? It’s going to benefit the people at the bottom end of the income scale. It helps African Americans just my definition of the policy, even though it’s a policy for everybody. Same thing with getting rid of student debt. Well, who does that hurt most? Or who does it help most? It helps the people at the bottom end of the income scale that can’t afford to pay it back.  

Like these policies are directly going after issues of identity, but it’s doing so through economics. Whereas the Democratic Party does issues of identity and ignores the issues of economics. It’s such a weird backwards way of doing politics, but they do it because they understand something very basic. If we’re pushing for identity, black, white, gay, straight, trans, and we’re saying we’re okay with it, then what does it mean for the other party?  

And if the other party is in opposition to the fact that we’re talking about identity, who are you going to choose? Are you going to choose the people who hate your identity? Are you going to choose people who are okay with your identity? 

Grumbine (00:27:37): 

Right. 

Thomas (00:27:37): 

So we don’t even talk about economics. So Republicans aren’t gonna do it. Democrats aren’t gonna do it. The media is not going to do it. All of those guys are millionaires and all of them are paid by billionaires. So from the context of mainstream media, from the context of political space, economics doesn’t come up. It’s such a weird thing. Think back for the moment, if it wasn’t for Sanders, would this conversation have ever been taking place? 

Grumbine (00:27:57): 

Absolutely not. 

Thomas (00:27:58): 

Exactly… 

Grumbine (00:28:00): 

Not even kinda.We wouldn’t even be chit chatting about it. It wouldn’t even scratch the surface. 

Thomas (00:28:03): 

Nope. And lefties would still be believing, Oh, our policy is unpopular. Oh, nobody wants increases on taxes. It was nonsense. The fact of the matter is, regardless of what Democratic Party was saying, you could run a campaign based on public funding if you were attending to the needs of that public and they believe you as an authentic character.  

You also can run with lefty, progressive policy and those policies be popular. It’s untrue where if mainstream media is making the argument that Sanders lost because those things aren’t popular. No. Sanders lost because he was a weak candidate. Let’s be very plain right now.  

Tell me if Sanders would’ve came up, when he was sitting with Joe Biden in a hostage video, and he said, look, Joe Biden has my support, Joe Biden has my… I’m sorry to be so derisive, I have a lot of stuff to work through this year. Joe Biden has support, but those youth groups, those 40 youth groups that are saying, they’re not going to endorse him.  

I can’t say they’re wrong. I don’t blame them for saying that they want Medicare For All. They want to get rid of the student debt and they’re not willing to support Joe Biden without doing it. However, like I said, in the beginning, Joe Biden has my back, Joe Biden would have a stroke. The mainstream media would flip out.  

But guess what? What would Joe Biden do if Joe Biden really wants to get elected? What does Joe Biden do? Does he acquiesce to demands Medicare For All the policy he was going to veto? Or does he take the loss? This is what I mean, when I say hardcore politics and ruthless politics and these aren’t politics that Sanders is accustomed to, these are issues of weakness. Believe it or not. And I know some people may be shocked by this.  

If you want to beat Trump, what I just said was the way to do it. It’s counter intuitive but it’s infinitely true. Because how does Sanders bring lefties over? How? He’s empty-handed. He’s already given over his support. He’s given over his leverage. How does Sanders bring lefties over? He’s talking about a task force. You know, those task force, it’s just politics.  

Look, any situation, you need to be able to save face. We were talking about the Cuban missile crisis and Kennedy and Khrushchev was making a deal in regards to, Hey, we need to find a way to get out of this situation, because we don’t want to end the world. Khrushchev sends a letter to Kennedy. Kennedy looks at the letter and they analyze it and they say, okay, this person is freaking out. Another letter is sent by the hardliners.  

Khrushchev was going to be pushed out. Kennedy takes the first letter, ignores the second and goes out and pretends and just goes with this notion that, all right, well, we’re trying to find some kind of reconciliation with this. Now the reality of it is both sides needed to save face. Meaning, Khrushchev has no leverage to back away from this, because of the hardliners, if he can’t show something for what just took place.  

So, what does Sanders have to show for it? Thinking of this as international politics for the same thing, the same thing in local or domestic. What does Sanders have to show? Sanders has come back, I have a task force. Why does he say that? Because he realizes he can’t come empty handed and get Joe Biden votes. The task force is worthless. It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just politics. If Sanders would’ve said I want Medicare For All, or you don’t get my support, that’s where the war changes. Until that nothing changes. 

Intermission (00:31:13): 

You are listening to Macro N Cheese, a podcast brought to you by Real Progressive’s, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching the masses about MMT or modern monetary theory. Please help our efforts and become a monthly donor at PayPal or Patreon, like and follow our pages on Facebook and YouTube and follow us on Periscope, Twitter and Instagram. 

Grumbine (00:32:02): 

You know what, it hurts to say this, you’re conflicted. I remember back in 2015, letting that salty, spicy feeling of saying never Hillary. And it’s really tough. I’m just being honest. It’s really tough to punch Sanders when he’s given us so much in terms of elevating these issues. If you look at him as a message candidate, if you just look at him like that, it’s easier to take him and say, thanks. If you look at him as a revolutionary character, you say, what the fuck are you doing, dude? 

Thomas (00:32:37): 

But Steve, I’m taken by his own words. 

Grumbine (00:32:43): 

No, I am with you. 

Thomas (00:32:43): 

He wants a revolution. I’m getting behind and powdering his gun …. craving for revolution. 

Grumbine (00:32:47): 

Ryan Grim. When I talked to him the other day and we both talked about him offline. Ryan’s a really neat guy, he’s a smart guy. 

Thomas (00:32:53): 

He’s very bright, very bright 

Grumbine (00:32:55): 

Homeboy was all over Elizabeth Warren. 

Thomas (00:32:59): 

Yes he was. 

Grumbine (00:32:59): 

Inside of our chat though, he took off his Elizabeth Warren hat and he took very much a, almost just the facts, Jack kind of approach. 

Thomas (00:33:09): 

Yeah. 

Grumbine (00:33:09): 

And in that discussion, the best thing that I ever heard him say, was Bernie Sanders ran a conflicted campaign. You see that on one hand, he’s trying to sell you that he is the revolutionary. On the other hand, he’s over there, he has never said a cross word about Chuck Schumer. He’s never said a cross word about Joe Biden. They’re his friend.  

He’s talked about a nebulous democratic establishment, but he never ever called out the people that were actively fighting against Medicare For All, who were actively fighting against student debt elimination, who were actively fighting against a Green New Deal. He talked about this nebulous status of this establishment. And when you’re looking for somebody to call a spade, a spade Sanders pulled his punches. 

Thomas (00:33:56): 

Yes he did. 

Grumbine (00:33:57): 

In that moment that people started pulling away from him. Now for me, what I saw in Bernie and I still see in parts of Bernie are that for the first time in my 51 years, it’s safe to talk about Socialism. 

Thomas (00:34:15): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:34:15): 

In fact, we’ve stopped calling social spending Socialism. We start realizing that it’s just simply taking care of the people. It was the way it used to be. It was Make America Great Again maybe for real. It was the way FDR did. And you know, it was very non-inclusive, very non inter-sectional back in the day, so I don’t want to get romantic here. But the truth is, is that there was a time when we understood this stuff.  

And here we are in 2020, and we’re acting like the only way forward is the Ayn Rand bootstraps, you’re on your own, kick you out the door, go figure out this COVID virus on your own, kind of mindset. And here we are, as Progressives left without a leader, I hate to say without a leader, you know what I mean, without a focal figure in the race to carry this fight all the way to the end. 

Thomas (00:35:02): 

Without a leader is right. 

Grumbine (00:35:04): 

It’s very painful, but it does speak to something. And I want to get your take on that. And this is really why I wanted you on this show more than anything. 

Thomas (00:35:12): 

Wait, wait, can I make one interjection real quick? 

Grumbine (00:35:15): 

Yeah, please. 

Thomas (00:35:17): 

This country was never built on a notion of the poor or the workers. All of those things had to be fought for and taken. You think back to FDR for the moment. Why did FDR do the New Deal? FDR, when he got in office, he wasn’t this kind of progressive figure. They called him a traitor to his class. FDR did that because FDR was terrified. Think back when this took place, this is in the thirties. The Russian Revolution had taken place within FDR’s lifetime.  

Meaning FDR full well understood that countries could collapse into this notion of Communism and Socialism if the government wasn’t attending to the material needs of the population. FDR had just come up in the Great Depression, and he was terrified that they were going to topple the United States government and make it into a Socialist country.  

FDR, listening to unions, listening to workers, listening to the Socialist Movement, the Communist Movement that was in the United States at the time, FDR was like, yeah, screw that. We’re gonna do this. And he kept, or tried to lock Blacks out of it, just because of, you know, Dixiecrats, in that part. But FDR had this secondary thing where he wanted a Workers Bill of Rights.  

And, but, then he died, before he was able to do it. But the key point here is, it’s not that he did it because he loved it. He did it because he didn’t have a choice. That’s what people need to understand. Like, and that’s what people don’t fully grasp today. It wasn’t that FDR was like, okay, I’m just going to be a nice guy. No, they threatened him, that you do X or we are going to tear this down. And FDR did what he need to do. What did he say at the end? I saved capitalism. I saved capitalism. 

Grumbine (00:36:47): 

Great, the great compromise. 

Thomas (00:36:50): 

That’s right. 

Grumbine (00:36:50): 

So yes, a hundred percent agreed there. So Bob Hocket, friend of mine and former campaign policy advisor for both Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, spoke very eloquently to me about the fact that people still don’t understand Sanders was the compromise. 

Thomas (00:37:08): 

Yes, he was, Oh man. Yes, he was. They thought the guy was radical. I deal with my show all the time. And my position on Sanders was, love the guy. But there were a lot of people on my show where they thought Sanders just didn’t go far enough. And it’s like, like you said, Sanders was the compromise. What is coming behind him, will not be the compromise. 

Grumbine (00:37:26): 

No, exactly. So, back to the key point that I wanted to bring up, and that is, that we are leaderless right now. And this “not me, us” movement is, if nothing else, one of the single greatest gifts that the left has ever received. And if we don’t fuck it up, we might just be able to take it and unite within ourselves to make what we thought was going to happen, on our own, and push this forward as a united front.  

And I like the idea of you saying, let’s take these six items and say, “fuck you, we’re not making a move.” You will never win another election again until you fight for these six, until our issue becomes your issue. 

Thomas (00:38:09): 

That’s right. 

Grumbine (00:38:09): 

…for election. I love that, man. 

Thomas (00:38:11): 

What else is there? 

Grumbine (00:38:13): 

I don’t know. That’s the thing, I’m tired of middling around. 

Thomas (00:38:16): 

Yeah. There is nothing else. Because, I guess my reasoning on this, a near certainty, and I don’t necessarily like being near certainty because there’s always, you know, Tim moves out, things get hazy, but I am at a loss for anything else. Ultimately in same way that FDR was being pressured, the left needs to be able to come together under this notion of these are the policy that we want.  

And the moment that you do that en masse, and stop being cowardly, stop putting on your gimp suits. Like it’s the politically abused spouse of the Democratic Party, right? And the political equivalent of an abused spouse, a battered wife. I mean like, God, man, it’s hard to put this in perspective, because I came to a realization when I was thinking about 2020, they went so far in 2020. That again, they didn’t attack the candidate. They attacked his supporters.  

And keep in mind, this is on the left. Like these are people who they assume will back them, regardless of what happens in the race. And they’re so fervent in that assumption, that even to the degree of attacking people who they are going to ultimately need to vote for them in order to win and in their minds, so what. They’re going to back us anyway.  

The moment that you’re at that level of disrespect and malignment, you have to ask yourself, what am I doing to incentivize this and how do I get out of this particular predicament? Well, the predicament is created by, you have nowhere else to go. And based on the cowardliness of that. That’s the door you gotta walk through. Meaning, the only way you get out of this predicament, over the last 50 years, this Chinese finger trap, is to walk through that door.  

There is no magical door out of this process. The Democratic Party will test you because they disbelieve you. Because over the last 50 years you have just sort of, acquiesced. If you get people en masse, you have power. If you do not, you don’t have leverage. And that’s the crux of this. That’s why I come up with this solution. Whether you have a leader or not, it’s almost secondary.  

What’s needed is, even if you’re not entirely the communicating. I mean, even if it’s just this kind of social media stuff or this kind of, out there stuff where there is a lot of people saying, yeah, I’m not doing that. And it becomes extremely clear that Biden will lose without that support. And when that becomes extremely clear, we can make the demands.  

This is what we want. You can say yay or nay. And all of us, Ralph Nader talk like, Oh God, you know, you guys, Ralph Nader lost the race. At the end of that process, if Joe Biden loses that race, you say, damn right he lost that race. That’s what you say. 

Grumbine (00:40:46): 

No more backing away from it. 

Thomas (00:40:46): 

Damn, right. Because our policy, our agenda, like, I guess my point is, there needs to be an analysis of the last 50 years — what you did right, what you did wrong. I agree with everything what you said about Sanders. God knows I do. And in that analysis, you ask yourself, did the country move further, further to the right to, regardless of your plan of just, “blue, no matter who?” 

 The answer’s yes. Did you get your policy agenda accomplished? The answer’s no. You’ve lumped in with the Democratic Party for 50 years, the country moved further to the right and you didn’t get your policy agenda accomplished. AND. They got theirs accomplished.  

Because regardless of who you’re terrified of, the moment that you put somebody in that office, they’re doing something in that office. They basically got you to absolve them of any level of accountability because over the years, you have been always willing to vote blue, no matter who. That needs to stop. And I’m making a point that, you failed over the last 50 years.  

The left needs a new strategy, and I suspect that, that new strategy starts with this. Everything. I have no other ideas. I can’t see anything else in regards to putting pressure on a political system outside of something like that. For example, what if Occupy Wall Street said: “these are our demands.” Like, all of those people, in all of those places across the United States said: “these are our demands. No, we’re not voting for you.”  

And instead of just kind of being this kind of disparate, you know, kumbaya, yeah, we just want to hang out in the park. We don’t want a leader. We don’t want to be. And it’s like, dude, things get done with leaders. Or things get done when those movements get organized, and you guys have just been out there playing around in the park.  

The Tea Party turned around into a political force and was able to put their pressure on the political system. Like, what I’m saying here may seem brutal and ruthless, but your opposition is the same way. [Laughter] I think, I’m at a loss for anything else. And if there is something else, look, I’m open to ideas. I don’t necessarily like this level of ruthless politics, this kind of lose, lose politics.  

But look, my capacity to make you lose is a virtue. And if that’s the only stick I have at my disposal, Lord knows I’m going to use that stick. That’s politics. That’s leverage. That’s what you use. Is there anything else that you could think of Steve that has any level of potential for success? 

Grumbine (00:42:52): 

Let’s talk about that for just a second. There’s three points I want to make. Number one, our enemy is outrageously organized… 

Thomas (00:43:00): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:43:00): 

…and is passionate. They don’t give two shits about your feelings, or their own feelings, quite frankly. They have a goal and their goal is what they’re going to go for. 

Thomas (00:43:08): 

And that is a strength, that is a rational, logical action if your objective is the keep and take power. So yes, I agree with you. Keep going. 

Grumbine (00:43:16): 

Number two, they are not given in any way to fractionary beliefs. They don’t care at the end of the day, whether they hate each other or not, they have one goal and one goal only, and that is to squash what we’re trying to do. 

Thomas (00:43:32): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:43:32): 

And so they will make deals with whatever devil is required to squash what we’re fighting. And then, I think the last point here, is that, a go-to move, the reflexive go-to move. And I’ve been guilty of flirting with this, and being part of it at different times, is this concept of a third party, and the issue with a third party in my mind, which we’ve already kind of said without saying, is that we don’t have enough strength and power without having a full blown movement across all of this. 

Thomas (00:44:06): 

Exactly. 

Grumbine (00:44:06): 

And the idea of trying to once again, build another party outside the duopoly in — not only do they have the — this is the part that kills me every time. Not only do the people that you’re trying to stop from doing this have all the control of the legislative power, and they have control of the judiciary, and they have control over the enforcement of that through law.  

They have enforcement at every level. They have the power controls within the parties. They have everything. So the people you need to change the laws are the ones that you’re trying to unseat, and they are not going to give that power up just because you don’t like it. 

Thomas (00:44:44): 

Steve, we gave it to them. We gave them that. All of that was given. All of that was given. Look, I don’t blame people. I don’t blame people because I would say they don’t know any better. Like I said, they were born and raised in a particular system. Value is not an absolute. It’s contextual, meaning just because I think something is valuable, doesn’t necessarily mean other people would think it’s valuable, and the universe doesn’t necessarily care. 

 So, the only thing you have is just relative points of view all over the place, in so far as those points of view lineup with reality, you get a certain level of truth and perspective, in regards to whether or not that perspective could be true or false. But I guess I’m saying from the standpoint of the population, that population is not taught this.  

Like what we’re saying, what we’re talking about they don’t learn it in school. They don’t learn it at their jobs. Their jobs basically tell them what to do. They go in. They produce whatever they need to produce. They go home. That’s their life. There’s nothing to tell them to entirely get engaged in the political process. There’s no education to get engaged in a political process.  

So how would they do that if they’re not taught that? I get angry at people, sometimes. Don’t misunderstand me, but I do accept for the moment, that unless they’re taught that, they’re not going to change it. Look, I agree with you. 

Grumbine (00:45:56): 

Want to get past that real quick. I want to hit one big thing. 

Thomas (00:45:58): 

Go for it. 

Grumbine (00:45:58): 

So both in the UK and the United States and Brazil, and really all around the world, but in particular, these three sites, propaganda has been so intense, media propaganda. And if you’ve read 1984, not to pull out one of those old tropes that you should really avoid, but 1984 really does play a role here. The news speak, if you will, that comes out of the media, that is just flagrantly misleading us in general. 

Thomas (00:46:26): 

Yes, it is. 

Grumbine (00:46:27): 

Literally every bit of this is right-wing reactionary type media publications. Look at the way Chris Matthews acted when Bernie Sanders won Nevada. 

Thomas (00:46:36): 

He’s terrified. 

Grumbine (00:46:37): 

It was awful. 

Thomas (00:46:38): 

Yeah. 

Grumbine (00:46:38): 

And Democrats are led largely by a faith in the belief of the mainstream media. They absolutely suckle it, like it’s mother’s milk. And when you look at this, look at what happened in the UK. Let’s be fair. Labour was just weak as hell. 

Thomas (00:46:56): 

Labour was horrible. That was like, Corbyn is going to lose. Corbyn is going to lose. And people were like, Oh dude, I mean the national health service thing is going to be a big deal. This election is about Brexit, and his position is ludicrous. For Corbyn to take a position, like, this is what mean, when I say cowed, you have people who hate his guts. 

 So, he’s taking a position on people who hate his guts. The public said, we want to leave. Now, if you have a democratic system, you have to leave. Unless you just blow off the democratic system. Labour’s response was ‘we’re going to go to Brussels. We’re going to get a deal. And after we get the deal, we’re going to bring it back to the population, they going to vote on it.’  

And the people who are going to make this deal are remainers, dude. So, are you leaving or staying? We’re going to go to Brussels and get a new deal. It’s like, DUDE. Boris said he is leaving. We need a choice. We’re a Liberal Party so they’re staying. The Liberal Party gets wiped out. 

Grumbine (00:47:49): 

Yep. 

Thomas (00:47:49): 

Because they are saying, Boris Johnson wins seats that the Conservative Party has never won. Even getting rid of Skinner. Skinner has been there for like seventy years. … Skinner is like a thousand years old. Even he lost the seat, all because of that weak, feckless, horrible position that Jeremy Corbyn took. This is what I mean when I say weakness being endemic to the left. It just seems to be, I think it’s compassion, and I don’t think compassion is a weakness, I think empathy is a strength.  

I think really what it boils down to is ideology and recognizing the situation to which you find yourself. Meaning, ideology is a bad representation for reality. And so, if you are running in a political race and you’re sticking with these basic ideals, then you’re wrong. You’re going to lose. It’s like saying I’m playing chess, but I’m not going to use my rooks. 

 The game space tells you to do X, and the game space compels you to do Y. Now you can ignore that at your own peril, but basically if you’re in a political contest where you’re in raw ideological combat, then every tool at your disposal is available.  

That doesn’t mean you change who you are. It just means that you conform yourself to the rules of the game space. The moment that you’ve finished that, and you win that, be that authentic, the force in your head that we expect you to be. But while you’re in a boxing match, I expect you to the throw jabs and punches. 

Grumbine (00:49:05): 

Yep, you know, it’s interesting because, we support Bill Mitchell from Australia, who has taken some pretty hard lumps for his stance on Brexit. Talk to a bunch of individuals who really were eloquent in explaining why Brexit was so important. 

Thomas (00:49:21): 

Well right, now just so I know Bill Mitchell . . . 

Grumbine (00:49:24): 

Bill Mitchell is an economist. He’s one of the MMT developers in Australia. 

Thomas (00:49:28): 

That’s why his name is familiar, okay. 

Grumbine (00:49:31): 

He and several others have taken a very hard line on the Brexit deal, because what it did was, it enabled the globalist neoliberal mindset, the zero-sum game, the absolute race to the bottom, that as an MMTer we understand that by having the structure of the Euro, what they’ve done is they’ve stripped away the national sovereignty… 

Thomas (00:49:52): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:49:52): 

…the ability to create currency… 

Thomas (00:49:55): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:49:55): 

…in these States, and they’ve left it to the Troika. And they’ve put these arbitrary fiscal responsibility rules out there that leave countries, that are in particular net importers in very vulnerable positions like Greece and others. And so Germany naturally being the great exporter is sitting up there laughing all the way to the bank, while the rest of the people that are on the Euro are largely in despair. 

Thomas (00:50:20): 

They’re struggling, but we know why they did that, right? They created an economic union, but the people in the brain trust of that wanted to create a political union, but they knew the populations will be against it. Meaning if you go and say, Hey, we’re going to merge all of these countries together, they would tell you, go fuck yourself. 

Grumbine (00:50:36): 

One of them means more to them than the other. Yes. 

Thomas (00:50:38): 

Exactly. However, if you create an economic union, people might be okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And then you say, all right, we’re going to put it in Europe. Okay, fair enough. But you know, when you’re creating the Euro that it’s not going to work. And in knowing that it’s not going to work you also know that there needs to be a political closening, meaning these states have to get closer and closer, and the rule set of the people who are controlling Euro has to be that much more powerful.  

Meaning, that power has to be given over in order to fix the issues that are associated with the Euro. So in doing so, in creating this political union and creating this Euro, they understood that there was going to have to be a closening of the nations, and a strengthening in regards to economic ties between these nations, if they were ever going to fix the issues with the Euro.  

They milked this entirely in order to create a political union. What they just don’t want to say they wanted a political union. But this thing about the Euro on the EU is, like you say, they control the purse strings, look at what they were willing to do to Greece. They were literally cutting off the currency to Greece. 

Grumbine (00:51:36): 

Destroying. 

Thomas (00:51:36): 

I mean, it’s astonishing. And these States now, France, for example, how do you deal with the yellow vest movement in France? Well, you got to give some back to them, right? It’s a concession. They came out. They said, this is what we want. And Macron is limited in what he can do because he needs to get permission in order to expand the amount of money that he could spend. It removes sovereignty entirely. 

Grumbine (00:51:59): 

Yes, and for those who listen to Macro N Cheese they know that we talk MMT all the time. 

Thomas (00:52:03): 

Yeah. 

Grumbine (00:52:03): 

But just this one issue in particular, the idea of the currency issuer and the currency user is never more important than in that particular Eurozone. You notice the UK kept the pound. 

Thomas (00:52:16): 

Yes. 

Grumbine (00:52:16): 

UK didn’t do that. And so the UK is sitting there playing games. This is what is so painful. They’re playing the fiscal responsibility games that the Euro has tried to put on them, while simultaneously having control of their currency. 

Thomas (00:52:31): 

Isn’t that weird? 

Grumbine (00:52:31): 

It’s even worse. It’s more of a screw job than ever. 

Thomas (00:52:34): 

But, you know, the Tories did that because they wanted to come up with some kind of justification to effectively attack the poor. When they were putting in those, what is it called? Universal credit. And you have people who are struggling, like it was done entirely in order to attack the poor, or they were attacking the NHS.  

You have people dying outside of the hospitals in ambulances because Tory party had cut and not just the Tories, the neoliberal, Tony Blair administration, all that other stuff was effectively privatizing the NHS, weakening the NHS. Like these creatures in the UK are just like in the United States.  

The only difference is they haven’t moved so far to the right. That I always called the UK a darker brother because they are like an iota different from us, and the political space is similar enough where if you were looking at it from America, you can understand what’s going on. 

Grumbine (00:53:22): 

Absolutely. 

Thomas (00:53:23): 

But I agree with you on this notion of sovereignty. Your currency is intrinsic to sovereignty, and the moment that you lose it . . . The EU could turn around and tell France, yeah, you can’t do that. Think about that? It’s a sovereign nation, [laughter], a sovereign nation. You can’t do that. 

Grumbine (00:53:39): 

Superimpose that exact paradigm on the US, and pretend that Texas is France, and that Michigan is Greece. 

Thomas (00:53:45): 

Right, [laughter], right, right. 

Grumbine (00:53:45): 

California is Germany. And when people from the California groups were out there saying, we’re going to do Medicare For All in our country. Right. In our little state… 

Thomas (00:53:54): 

And I’m like that’s insane. 

Grumbine (00:53:57): 

Well, California because of the unique nature of it being like one of the number one economies in the world. 

Thomas (00:54:04): 

Yeah. But they still accept dollars. They don’t have control of their currency. So it makes no sense for California to do it. 

Grumbine (00:54:09): 

They’re consumed with their own righteousness, thinking that they can pull this off. [Laughter] And here we are watching, as we speak, that without the power of the federal government right now to step in for the COVID-19 virus. Pavlina Tcherneva came out and was talking about, Hey, why don’t we for the next two to six months, nationalize payroll? What would happen if we nationalized payroll and everybody’s heads exploded? 

Thomas (00:54:35): 

Yeah. 

Grumbine (00:54:35): 

Look, if we can nationalize payroll, think about what else we could do. You guys have been starving us, thinking that somehow or another, we got to mine our way to pieces of paper and digits. When in reality, you could have been helping every single poor person in America. You could have been helping every human being in America.  

You could have made a rights-based society, and we could have fixed it all. Instead, they wanted to keep that lie under wraps because every single war we fought, every single resource war we fought, every single thing we’ve done has been a direct result of trying to create markets for capital. 

Thomas (00:55:07): 

Yep. 

Grumbine (00:55:07): 

And you see this around the world, and this is where this argument and where we go next with the movement. I think it really has to focus on a class-based, movement-based approach. 

Thomas (00:55:19): 

Thousand percent agree. 

Grumbine (00:55:19): 

We’re on the pathway to carving that out. So Jamarl, I want to let our audience know how to find you. First of all, thank you. This was phenomenal. I’ve got a bro crush on you. You are just an amazing guy. 

Thomas (00:55:32): 

Now I did enjoy this. I do want to ask you about the economics part though. So I don’t think we entirely disagree as much as I think you do. Look, cash isn’t real. It’s just not. And whatever a society, let me say it this way. There’s no point to existence. Not that we know of, I mean. Maybe there’s, you know, on some esoteric level or some non-corporeal level, we make decisions or, you know what we do when we come here. But all things being equal, I don’t know that as a fact [inaudible].  

What I do know is that there has been no guide to stamp down and say your society needs to be X or Y. And how you organize yourself. It doesn’t need to be X or Y. Basically, any organization, human beings can organize any way they want, providing the order is logical and attends to the needs of the population where that population can sustain itself.  

We have come up with this kind of weird way of cash, and something that’s not real, and we would say, yeah, it’s okay for people live on the streets. And you’re like, but wait, we’re the richest country on the planet. We can afford to pay for that. What are you talking about? And it’s like, Oh yeah, it’s okay for people to die of cancer because they can’t entirely get their drugs from healthcare. It’s like what?  

But, you just said, the COVID-19 thing, you decided to, let’s pay for everybody healthcare, but that guy can’t see no way to pay for it. Like, I guess to me, I come down on this stuff as, the money is not real. The Federal Reserve, on a whim, created trillions of dollars, like, snap their fingers, and they didn’t think twice about it.  

Why, because it’s not real. It’s not a real substance. And so it’s like, whatever this society or government, or whatever needs to come up with to ensure that the needs of the population are taken care of, I don’t care. Because none of it’s real. It’s all contrived. And so, if that’s MMT, if that’s looking at this stuff and just say, okay, everybody gets a certain amount of credits at the end of each month.  

And we just kind of do that month to month. I don’t care. Like, so I don’t think our disagreement is extreme like this, because to me, I look at it as, if you come up with a solution to pay for this stuff. I don’t care, fair enough. 

Grumbine (00:57:27): 

Dude, I love it. 

Thomas (00:57:27): 

That’s where I fall on it. Like, honestly, what I was talking with Firestone. Firestone was having a go at me in one of those interviews. But I was trying to make the point to him. Like, dude, cash is not a real thing. It is a contrived immaterial substance that you associate with a certain value and everything else, just because you were brought up in a society that, that’s how we were here. Everything that we look at, we have a price tag. Right? You see a car go by, God, that’s expensive.  

Even look at a rock. Yeah. That has no value. Well, but that’s not real. None of it [Laughter]. It’s so funny, the way like, this stuff gets so ensconced in our thinking. I guess all I’m saying is however our society figures out how to make sure everybody’s covered, because cash is not real, money is not real, material resources are real. 

Grumbine (00:58:10): 

Yes. 

Thomas (00:58:11): 

Then I don’t care. It’s like the resources are the thing that matters, right? The resources are the thing that gets manipulated into our needs. Our society is entirely opposite of that. Like if you were getting a medication, the thing for the medication is they’re making cash. The medication is secondary. But that’s everything in your society because everything in your society is based on how you or I maximize profit. I’m sorry, the @theProgSoapbox on Twitter. But also you can find me on Jamarl Thomas or the Progressive Soapbox on YouTube. 

Grumbine (00:58:38): 

Look, man, you are one of my favorites. And I really appreciate you coming on here. And you know what? We’ve had that conversation once before. I’d love to have it again, but in the present context of society as it were. So hopefully you and I can work together in the future. Because again, this is the building bridges tour.  

I really want to get us as alternative media and friends and working collaboratively and stopping not you and I in general, but I mean the whole movement, right? I want to get us out of these clicks. I want to get us into these groups where we’re building power. We’re building ability to make a demand. 

Thomas (00:59:18): 

That is doable. That is doable Steve. This is why I’m saying I’m slightly optimistic. If you were saying, I’m pushing MMT, for example, you’re gonna have people who say, yeah, I don’t know what that is, yeah, I’m comfortable with that, and you’re going to be stuck explaining. If you say, I want Medicare For All. Now, you may be thinking we’re going to get Medicare For All through MMT.  

You don’t have to even mention MMT. The Medicare For All thing in and of itself is a banner that you can rally around. Like, I guess in my head, these groups and these small differences, all of these lefties fighting at each other because it was like, you want this, that’s a dollar more. Now you’re, you know, it’s like, this is nonsense fights. All of you want the same thing. [Laughter]  

All of you want the same thing. It’s as like, just fall in line under the items that you want. Stop fucking around with all of these like ancillary items. You get it. Like I want Medicare For All. I want student loans. I want some very basic demands that the majority of the population agree with. And make that argument. Do your job. The population agrees with us. Do your job. This is no longer a race to the bottom. 

Grumbine (01:00:20): 

Yes. 

Thomas (01:00:20): 

Like think of what Amazon did for the moment. Amazon walked across the nation of the United States and in scantily clad dress. And it was showing leg to one state after the next and say, Hey, big guy, you want some of this stuff. Now, the States are throwing money at Amazon because they want Amazon to settle down, because they can get a few jobs.  

Now, Amazon overplays the number of jobs, because it wants to make them think that they’re better off than what they are. But nevertheless, a multibillion-dollar company, one of the most profitable companies in the world, Jeff Bezos what 80 trillion dollars, some $80 billion, some ridiculous amount of money.  

And this company pays no federal taxes and then goes into States, because States want the company to come to them and settle down. Those States are willing to give resources, tax dollars. They were lending them all of this money to Amazon. And you’re like, that’s a race to the bottom, right? These States are basically starved for revenue.  

And yet these States are perfectly willing to do this. As opposed to just coming together and saying, we’re not accepting that. Meaning, we’re not allowing that. Which means that Amazon, who will still settle in the United States in some other state, is not getting tax dollars, is not getting money from States that are already strapped for cash.  

But instead, because all of the States came together and said, this is not allowed, Amazon settles and pays its taxes. I’m saying the same thing is true for the Democratic Party. That as long as you have this kind of race to the bottom, you’re going to get any random Democrat without any level of accountability.  

Right now, right now, we are pointing to the Democratic Party and saying, God, you guys are feckless and weak, missing the point that you’ve never had accountability for the Democratic Party. Meaning yeah. They’re feckless and weak, because they never had to do anything for you to get in office.  

Like, I’m trying to make this connection to accountability versus action. And in any context, when there is no accountability, then for the most part, you get what you get, because you allow the person be whatever they are. 

 I’m saying in the same way that we lefties look at this notion of Amazon being able to get state money and everything else, we find that to be utterly atrocious. And we consider that the best option is to come together as States and say, “that is not allowed.” So Amazon is going to settle. They’re going to pay their taxes like everybody else.  

Well, I’m saying the same thing is true, from the standpoint of logic, in the Democratic Party. Lefties love unions. What is a union? A union is an organization of people in a business where they are the weaker party in that business. But they argue, bitch and moan, in order for better services and better pay and better resources and everything else.  

When the union doesn’t get what it wants, what does the union do, when at certain levels, where the union is like, okay, this is abominable. They strike. And striking they fully understand that the company itself could be damaged by this strike, but they do it anyway because they were trying to inflict damage on that company.  

Even though they are not getting paid, even though they are hurt by that process. Why? Because there’s certain levels of subsistence that you should not be willing to accept, just from the standpoint of respectability, and just from the standpoint of being a goddamn person and being in the dark. Honestly, God, to honest, if Democrats and lefties love union so much, why aren’t they willing to act the same way? 

 I don’t understand. You’re in a political process. Union has political process to some degree. You’re in a weaker party. OK, the the union is a weaker party in this. The union gets to a point and says, “I am done.” Lefties don’t. How weird is that? 

Grumbine (01:03:31): 

They’ll come back and tell you that their vote blue, no matter who is their union, and that’s where you’re crossing. And that’s when you become treated like a scab. And that’s when you’re spit on and picketed and everything else. And that my friend is what we’ve got to solve going forward. 

Thomas (01:03:46): 

Like I said, I’m looking forward to bringing you on my channel. The economics conversation, especially in the context of now is fascinating, especially in the context of that corporate giveaway. I think you will be having some really interesting things to say about that. Fascinated to hear your opinion on that one. Thank you for inviting me on, man. I really do appreciate it. 

Grumbine (01:04:02): 

And once I get my video game back up, we’ll have you on over here as well, man. And I want to end this on the really happy note. I really am happy that you came on here because I really want to heal this movement as much as I can — one person at a time.  

And for any parts of this movement that I have in any way, shape or form ever caused you any pain or grief or anything else, I want you to know that I am sorry, and that I really want to see us all bond and build this thing because we need the change. We’ve got to do it. We have a unique opportunity, being people with a platform to do something. And Jamarl, I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, man. I hope we can do some stuff in future. 

Thomas (01:04:41): 

Oh dude, I’m not against that at all. But I can say I have reached certainty on this. I’m not going to get everybody to agree with everything I believe in. It’s just not gonna happen. People are different. They have different experiences and everything else, but we found out with absolute black bat, God given certainty that there are tens of millions of people all across the United States that want a Green New Deal, that want Medicare For All, that want to get rid of the student debt, that want to have a wealth tax, and among those things, those right, left, independents, and all in between.  

Meaning it doesn’t matter. Those are policies. Just push those. Now, I’m not saying that like is this the easy thing? I’m just saying having a policy thing allows you to collaborate with people when you’re not rubbing rough ends. You already know in advance, this is what we’re pushing for. So anybody trying to introduce something new to that process, at this point, we have a rule set that we’re pushing for it.  

The only reason I say do that, that way, because you may get Republicans. You may get Democrats. You may get Independents, but you can get all sorts of people who say, yeah, I agree with those policies, who may not, or may hate the Democratic. I can’t stand the Democratic Party. Those very specific policies, yes, I would support. A 

nd using that as not just leverage, but as a club, of saying, you know, you’re going to lose. I’m going to make sure you lose. And when you turn around and blame me for it, I’m going to own it. And I’m going to celebrate the fact that you lost. Not that I love the fact that Trump won, but more so that I have issues that need to get accomplished.  

And I hate the fact that people are going bankrupt for healthcare. I hate the fact that people have a trillion dollars of debt on their backs. I hate the fact that people living on the streets and because I hate that, that is all of the incentive that I need. That is all the impetus and sense of urgency to make you lose.  

Because in order for me to get my policies accomplished, I need a party that respects me, and that at the very least can attend to my needs. And right now you’re not that. So I agree with you, Steve. I think we all do need to come together and I think we need to come together under a banner of: this is what we want and be very clear on those demands.  

I would even go further. I would love for there to be an understructure or substructure under the political process, where lefties can come together and argue and debate and figure out what they want. I don’t know how to make that work, but all things been equal, man, we’re on the same page on this. 

Grumbine (01:06:53): 

Oh, I tell you what, man, we are now a 501 c 3 on one side, and we have a 501 c 4 on the other, so I am hoping that these vehicles, which were brutal to create are something that we can leverage, and maybe do some of that and be a part of that mix, man. Anyway, look with that, man. I’m gonna let you go. Cause if not, I’ll talk to you for the rest of the night. Probably… [Laughter]. 

Thomas (01:07:18): 

View you a similar way . . . like I am always fascinated by your point of view on the economic stuff because I think it’s a point of view that, look, I like the point of view. Let me say it that way. Even if I don’t agree with everything, I don’t have to agree with everything.  

The point of view I think is correct. And I think just how do you think we were funding the military? I mean we’re $23 trillion in debt right, but the point has already been made just in the living situation. But I appreciate this interview, man. Thank you for bringing me on. I really do. 

Grumbine (01:07:45): 

You got it, man. So look with that it’s Steve Grumbine and Jamarl Thomas . . . Macro N Cheese. Have a great night everybody. We’re out. 

Ending Credits (01:07:58): 

Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy. Descriptive writing by Virginia Cotts and promotional artwork by Mindy Donham. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by our Real Progressive Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro N Cheese, please visit https://www.patreon.com/realprogressives.