1
00:00:05,850 --> 00:00:12,157
The five stages of grief are a way of
describing how people may react to a loss.

2
00:00:16,126 --> 00:00:18,949
The media said Joe Biden is president.

3
00:00:18,949 --> 00:00:25,404
HA HA HA!

4
00:00:28,499 --> 00:00:32,340
The media is covering up the Biden
crime family stealing this election.

5
00:00:32,530 --> 00:00:34,434
Give us our freedom Joe Biden.

6
00:00:37,584 --> 00:00:41,234
For angels are being released right now,
angels are being dispatched right now.

7
00:00:41,234 --> 00:00:46,079
[Speaking in tongues]

8
00:00:59,042 --> 00:01:01,251
No. No. No.

9
00:01:15,825 --> 00:01:17,662
Oh, hello.

10
00:01:17,662 --> 00:01:19,141
Welcome to System Fail,

11
00:01:19,141 --> 00:01:21,340
the show that dances
like nobody’s watching.

12
00:01:47,647 --> 00:01:51,950
The gruelling, two-year-long spectacle
of the US presidential campaign

13
00:01:51,950 --> 00:01:54,880
drew to an official close
on Tuesday November 3rd.

14
00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:56,819
I don’t want to say 
that I hated every minute of it,

15
00:01:56,819 --> 00:01:59,835
but I literally hated every minute of it

16
00:01:59,835 --> 00:02:04,850
During the weeks leading up to election night,
tens of millions of Americans cast ballots,

17
00:02:04,850 --> 00:02:08,855
indicating which kleptocratic septuagenarian
they would rather be ruled by

18
00:02:08,855 --> 00:02:10,240
for the next four years.

19
00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:13,635
Would you rather get punched in the face
or get slapped in the face hard?

20
00:02:13,635 --> 00:02:15,192
Well slapped, innit? You’d rather get slapped.

21
00:02:15,192 --> 00:02:16,499
I'm gonna say slapped.
Yeah.

22
00:02:16,499 --> 00:02:17,129
Thanks for the help.

23
00:02:17,129 --> 00:02:21,964
For months, popular fears had been mounting
that a disputed election result would spark

24
00:02:21,964 --> 00:02:25,898
widespread political unrest,
perhaps even culminating in a

25
00:02:25,898 --> 00:02:27,848
second American Civil War.

26
00:02:29,584 --> 00:02:32,593
Given this generalized state
of heightened anxiety,

27
00:02:33,683 --> 00:02:36,850
the days following the election
were somewhat anti-climactic.

28
00:02:39,192 --> 00:02:46,250
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America.

29
00:02:46,250 --> 00:02:48,104
Our government is in the midst of a coup,

30
00:02:50,709 --> 00:02:53,570
they’re trying to turn us into some 
sort of socialist government

31
00:02:53,570 --> 00:02:55,484
a new form of government,

32
00:02:55,484 --> 00:02:57,364
all that matters is that it doesn’t happen.

33
00:02:57,364 --> 00:03:03,065
CNN projects Joseph R Biden Jr
is elected the 46th president....

34
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:09,850
On election night,

35
00:03:09,850 --> 00:03:15,310
a small crew of Proud Boys, including their
national chairman Enrique Tarrio,

36
00:03:15,310 --> 00:03:18,370
were out drinking at a DC bar
with Bevelyn Beatty,

37
00:03:18,370 --> 00:03:23,310
a conservative Christian activist best known
for repeatedly painting over the Black Lives Matter

38
00:03:23,310 --> 00:03:24,960
street mural in New York.

39
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:27,167
They say black lives matter, right?

40
00:03:27,167 --> 00:03:28,224
They say black lives matter.

41
00:03:28,224 --> 00:03:29,674
They don’t care about black lives.

42
00:03:29,674 --> 00:03:31,038
Fuck you!

43
00:03:31,038 --> 00:03:32,459
Re-fund the police!

44
00:03:32,459 --> 00:03:33,047
Re-fund the police!

45
00:03:33,047 --> 00:03:42,296
Re-fund the police!

46
00:03:42,296 --> 00:03:43,361
Jesus matters!

47
00:03:43,361 --> 00:03:45,584
At around 2:30 in the morning,

48
00:03:45,584 --> 00:03:50,266
pumped up from Trump’s win in Florida
and chalk full of liquid courage,

49
00:03:51,050 --> 00:03:55,964
the group picked a fight with some local youth,
and promptly got themselves stabbed.

50
00:03:56,344 --> 00:03:59,130
They stabbed me.

51
00:03:59,130 --> 00:04:00,711
Are you stabbed or punched?

52
00:04:00,711 --> 00:04:02,660
I don’t know. 
But the amount of blood that came out...

53
00:04:02,660 --> 00:04:04,850
Oh my god you've got tons of blood
coming out of your neck!

54
00:04:04,850 --> 00:04:05,687
Yes I do.

55
00:04:05,687 --> 00:04:09,130
As many commentators and political
analysts had predicted,

56
00:04:09,130 --> 00:04:11,309
no winner was declared on election night.

57
00:04:11,309 --> 00:04:13,650
This election is not over.

58
00:04:13,650 --> 00:04:14,566
Far from it.

59
00:04:14,566 --> 00:04:15,647
Fuck!

60
00:04:17,751 --> 00:04:22,391
It would be four days before enough votes
had been tallied to project a winner.

61
00:04:23,705 --> 00:04:27,410
While this delay did not result
in mass political upheaval,

62
00:04:27,410 --> 00:04:28,842
as some had predicted,

63
00:04:29,809 --> 00:04:31,609
protests did take place,

64
00:04:32,116 --> 00:04:34,988
leading to several skirmishes
and dozens of arrests

65
00:04:34,988 --> 00:04:38,740
in several of the country's so-called
“anarchist jurisdictions”.

66
00:04:44,903 --> 00:04:48,145
And we ain't even talkin about the election 
right now, cuz no matter who wins

67
00:04:48,145 --> 00:04:50,345
we still gonna have Black men
killed every day.

68
00:04:50,842 --> 00:04:54,517
The behaviour of police in the so-called
“anarchist jurisdiction”

69
00:04:54,517 --> 00:04:56,800
of New York
was particularly problematic.

70
00:05:02,630 --> 00:05:06,300
In the so-called
“anarchist jurisdiction” of Portland,

71
00:05:06,300 --> 00:05:09,250
locals continued their nightly 
tradition of rioting,

72
00:05:10,690 --> 00:05:14,456
prompting Governor Kate Brown
to call in the comrades of the National Guard.

73
00:05:14,456 --> 00:05:18,706
Oh bella ciao, bella ciao,
bella ciao ciao ciao...

74
00:05:19,456 --> 00:05:20,052
What does that mean?

75
00:05:20,052 --> 00:05:23,000
On Thursday night,
two armed Trump supporters

76
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,100
were arrested near the
Philadelphia Convention Center,

77
00:05:26,100 --> 00:05:28,476
where ballots were still being counted.

78
00:05:29,087 --> 00:05:34,725
The men had driven up from Virginia Beach
in a silver hummer with QAnon decals,

79
00:05:34,725 --> 00:05:39,431
as part of an alleged plot to storm
the vote counting facility, commando-style,

80
00:05:39,765 --> 00:05:42,000
and, quote, “straighten things out.”

81
00:05:44,123 --> 00:05:48,810
As all of this was taking place, 
Donald Trump retreated to his National Golf Club

82
00:05:48,810 --> 00:05:52,112
where he proceeded to send out
a series of unhinged tweets.

83
00:05:52,112 --> 00:05:56,030
Sounds like he just lost a challenge in Scrabble
after putting down the word QUARF.

84
00:05:56,030 --> 00:05:58,332
Trump was playing golf
when he learned that Biden

85
00:05:58,332 --> 00:06:03,665
had been declared the winner by a number of
corporate media outlets, including FOX News.

86
00:06:11,607 --> 00:06:12,797
FOX sucks!

87
00:06:12,797 --> 00:06:14,138
I don’t even watch Fox anymore.

88
00:06:14,138 --> 00:06:15,528
Whats your main source of information?

89
00:06:16,021 --> 00:06:19,335
My main source of information
is I listen to Alex Jones

90
00:06:19,335 --> 00:06:23,733
Its a chicom new world order great reset,
global depression,

91
00:06:23,733 --> 00:06:26,786
attack our families,
castrate our sons program.

92
00:06:31,338 --> 00:06:35,770
As news of Trump’s loss spread,
people took to the streets to celebrate.

93
00:06:35,770 --> 00:06:37,711
Goodness won, that’s who won!

94
00:06:37,711 --> 00:06:39,301
Goodness. Not Biden. Goodness.

95
00:06:45,550 --> 00:06:49,380
The spontaneous outpouring of emotion
is a defining human trait,

96
00:06:49,380 --> 00:06:53,650
and it is predictable that many humans
would express relief and jubilation

97
00:06:53,650 --> 00:06:56,266
upon hearing news of Trump’s apparent defeat.

98
00:06:56,266 --> 00:06:57,910
It’s over!

99
00:06:58,230 --> 00:06:59,397
Best day of my life.

100
00:06:59,397 --> 00:07:03,220
But as an AI-powered automaton
who was not programmed to feel relief,

101
00:07:03,220 --> 00:07:06,780
it falls on me to remind viewers
that a Donald Trump loss

102
00:07:06,780 --> 00:07:08,623
also means a Joe Biden victory.

103
00:07:08,623 --> 00:07:12,000
We did it. We did it Joe.

104
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:16,503
You’re going to be the
next president of the United States.

105
00:07:17,053 --> 00:07:20,130
Biden is often presented as 
a quasi-senile old man,

106
00:07:20,130 --> 00:07:21,874
who is prone to verbal gaffes.

107
00:07:21,874 --> 00:07:24,827
Poor kids are just as bright
and just as talented as white kids.

108
00:07:24,827 --> 00:07:28,720
Someone who is out of touch, a bit creepy,
but ultimately harmless.

109
00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:30,376
I love kids jumping on my lap.

110
00:07:30,376 --> 00:07:31,105
Oh dude!

111
00:07:31,105 --> 00:07:33,751
This caricature papers over 
the functional role

112
00:07:33,751 --> 00:07:36,860
that he plays within the Democratic Party
establishment,

113
00:07:37,580 --> 00:07:41,390
his status as the favoured candidate
of Wall Street and finance capital,

114
00:07:41,390 --> 00:07:45,251
and his decades-long career
as a foreign and domestic policy hawk.

115
00:07:45,251 --> 00:07:48,810
Biden’s 1994 crime bill 
helped fuel mass incarceration,

116
00:07:48,810 --> 00:07:51,571
with financial incentives 
to keep people behind bars.

117
00:07:51,571 --> 00:07:53,876
We have predators on our streets.

118
00:07:53,876 --> 00:07:58,073
We have no choice 
but to take them out of society.

119
00:07:59,394 --> 00:08:01,483
I like the idea of keeping in jail longer.

120
00:08:01,483 --> 00:08:06,876
I’m the guy that wrote the bill
requiring federal judges to keep people in jail.

121
00:08:06,876 --> 00:08:11,680
President Bush is right to be concerned
about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit

122
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:13,443
of weapons of mass destruction.

123
00:08:20,566 --> 00:08:23,000
His running mate, Kamala Harris,

124
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,650
is now being positioned
as the future of the Democratic Party,

125
00:08:26,650 --> 00:08:30,890
after making history by becoming
the first female, Black and South Asian

126
00:08:30,890 --> 00:08:34,677
police officer to be elected
Vice President of the United States.

127
00:08:37,309 --> 00:08:39,075
Top Cop, top cop, top cop.

128
00:08:39,075 --> 00:08:40,910
Oh, you know... Kamala was popo.

129
00:08:40,910 --> 00:08:44,651
In the nights after the election,
many of those in the streets made it clear

130
00:08:44,651 --> 00:08:47,169
that they didn’t support
either political party.

131
00:08:47,169 --> 00:08:48,690
Fuck Biden and Trump!

132
00:08:48,690 --> 00:08:49,751
Fuck Biden and Trump!

133
00:08:49,751 --> 00:08:52,970
Turn your weapons on yourselves!

134
00:08:52,970 --> 00:08:55,880
But as the days passed, 
and a Biden/Harris victory

135
00:08:55,880 --> 00:08:58,276
began to come into clearer focus,

136
00:08:58,929 --> 00:09:02,080
the Democrats’ messaging 
of “count every vote”

137
00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,860
became more prominent at marches and rallies.

138
00:09:04,860 --> 00:09:10,170
This created an odd and increasingly alienating
environment for anarchists, abolitionists

139
00:09:10,170 --> 00:09:14,741
and other professed enemies of America’s
bipartisan political establishment.

140
00:09:15,660 --> 00:09:19,999
Anarchists who had been physically and mentally
preparing themselves to confront

141
00:09:19,999 --> 00:09:22,300
and fight back a fascist coup d’état,

142
00:09:22,300 --> 00:09:25,059
soon discovered that the 
internal democratic mechanisms

143
00:09:25,059 --> 00:09:27,220
of the most powerful state in the world

144
00:09:27,220 --> 00:09:28,779
were more than up to the task.

145
00:09:28,779 --> 00:09:32,970
They’re not going to have any success
in stopping the vote counting.

146
00:09:32,970 --> 00:09:34,440
There is no basis in law.

147
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:36,367
I think if our message to global investors

148
00:09:36,367 --> 00:09:38,599
was America is not 
a legitimate democracy anymore,

149
00:09:38,599 --> 00:09:40,997
I think we’d be doing a lot worse
than down a thousand points a day.

150
00:09:40,997 --> 00:09:43,822
Judges around the country, 
tossing out some 30 cases.

151
00:09:43,822 --> 00:09:47,501
A growing number of Republicans
now acknowledge it’s time to move on.

152
00:09:47,501 --> 00:09:52,100
This realization no doubt affected attendance
at the so-called “Million MAGA March”

153
00:09:52,100 --> 00:09:56,034
which took place in Washington DC,
on Saturday November 14.

154
00:09:57,144 --> 00:10:01,879
This mobilization was organized and promoted
by a broad coalition of Trump loyalists

155
00:10:01,879 --> 00:10:03,549
and fixtures of the far-right,

156
00:10:03,549 --> 00:10:06,921
including Trump’s former
campaign adviser Roger Stone,

157
00:10:06,921 --> 00:10:10,869
members of the Proud Boys,
Three Percenters and Oathkeepers,

158
00:10:10,869 --> 00:10:11,784
Alex Jones,

159
00:10:11,784 --> 00:10:15,259
Death! Death!
Death to the New World Order!

160
00:10:15,259 --> 00:10:19,310
and white nationalists associated with
the so-called Groyper Army,

161
00:10:19,310 --> 00:10:23,783
such as Nick Fuentes and former
American Identity Movement leader

162
00:10:23,783 --> 00:10:24,674
Patrick Casey.

163
00:10:24,674 --> 00:10:26,190
We’re all going to be out there in DC.

164
00:10:26,190 --> 00:10:28,740
Who’s going to be out there in DC?

165
00:10:28,740 --> 00:10:33,660
A related event called the March for Trump
was promoted by FOX News,

166
00:10:33,660 --> 00:10:37,968
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany,
and Trump himself.

167
00:10:40,899 --> 00:10:44,849
The idea was to stage a massive rally
to boost morale in the Trump camp,

168
00:10:44,849 --> 00:10:50,697
and to show that there was an army of “Patriots”
willing to fight to overturn fraudulent election results.

169
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:56,241
Yet even with all its free advertising,
the largest display of far-right unity

170
00:10:56,241 --> 00:10:57,610
since Charlottesville,

171
00:10:57,610 --> 00:11:00,239
and the fate of the presidency 
hanging in the balance,

172
00:11:00,239 --> 00:11:04,807
the rally was only about to pull out somewhere
between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

173
00:11:04,807 --> 00:11:09,480
And that’s not really our fault,
because the last time that there as some kind of

174
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:14,185
dissident right rally, or demonstration
we all know how that went

175
00:11:14,185 --> 00:11:16,309
- the last one I participated in.

176
00:11:19,004 --> 00:11:23,690
Despite this smaller-than-expected turnout,
those who did show up were agitated

177
00:11:23,690 --> 00:11:25,116
and spoiling for a fight.

178
00:11:25,116 --> 00:11:27,501
Fuck Antifa! Fuck Antifa!

179
00:11:27,501 --> 00:11:28,704
Kill them!

180
00:11:28,704 --> 00:11:29,751
You need to kill them!

181
00:11:29,751 --> 00:11:31,922
You need to fight for this fucking country

182
00:11:31,922 --> 00:11:34,790
The morning began with 
a small flock of MAGA supporters

183
00:11:34,790 --> 00:11:38,370
ripping down the memorial wall 
at Black Lives Matter Plaza.

184
00:11:38,700 --> 00:11:40,230
Tear them down!

185
00:11:40,230 --> 00:11:41,959
Tear them down!

186
00:11:41,959 --> 00:11:47,167
Throughout the day, there were sporadic fist-fights
and physical attacks on journalists.

187
00:11:47,167 --> 00:11:49,606
I just know that I got hit in the head.

188
00:11:50,285 --> 00:11:52,729
And I started yelling "I'm Press! I'm Press!"

189
00:11:52,729 --> 00:11:53,765
And then they were just kinda like

190
00:11:53,765 --> 00:11:57,463
you’re fake news people
and you’re helping to steal his freedom,

191
00:11:57,463 --> 00:11:58,970
and it will not stand!

192
00:11:59,334 --> 00:12:03,536
Later that night,
a crowd of approximately 200 Proud Boys

193
00:12:03,536 --> 00:12:07,846
returned to Black Lives Matter Plaza
and attacked a vastly outnumbered group

194
00:12:07,846 --> 00:12:10,486
of anti-fascists and BLM supporters.

195
00:12:10,953 --> 00:12:15,160
In the process, three people were stabbed,
and one person was sent to the hospital

196
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:16,691
in critical condition.

197
00:12:16,854 --> 00:12:18,314
Hey, we got one on the ground!

198
00:12:18,314 --> 00:12:19,424
We got one on the ground!

199
00:12:19,994 --> 00:12:24,436
The Proud Boys-led crowd also targeted women,
queer and trans people,

200
00:12:24,436 --> 00:12:28,250
in a violent, testosterone-fuelled display 
of wounded masculinity.

201
00:12:29,635 --> 00:12:33,418
King Kong ain’t got shit on me!

202
00:12:33,418 --> 00:12:37,084
Y’all need to be outraged and come back,
because on December 12,

203
00:12:37,084 --> 00:12:37,797
they’re going to be out here

204
00:12:37,797 --> 00:12:40,292
and they’re going to be fucking us up
just like they did last time.

205
00:12:40,292 --> 00:12:41,453
We need help.

206
00:12:41,453 --> 00:12:42,673
And we don’t have it.

207
00:12:42,673 --> 00:12:47,050
There are no doubt a number of lessons
to be drawn from the events in DC,

208
00:12:47,050 --> 00:12:50,909
and hopefully it provides an opportunity
for a critical reflection on strategy

209
00:12:50,909 --> 00:12:51,915
and tactics.

210
00:12:52,875 --> 00:12:57,519
This is important, as the country
is already facing a series of painful,

211
00:12:57,519 --> 00:13:01,410
deepening and interconnected crises,
and things don’t look like they’re

212
00:13:01,410 --> 00:13:03,167
going to be improving any time soon.

213
00:13:03,167 --> 00:13:06,519
Oh this fucking shit!

214
00:13:06,519 --> 00:13:10,455
One clear takeaway is that the energy,
excitement and momentum

215
00:13:10,455 --> 00:13:14,379
seen during the Black-led, 
but multi-racial George Floyd uprisings

216
00:13:14,379 --> 00:13:18,189
has not transferred into the movement
to protect American democracy

217
00:13:18,189 --> 00:13:20,216
from a presumed fascist coup d’etat.

218
00:13:21,059 --> 00:13:23,749
To learn more about why 
things played out this way,

219
00:13:23,749 --> 00:13:26,241
I recently caught up with Anarchist writer,

220
00:13:26,241 --> 00:13:30,149
insurrectionist strategist,
and author of The Master’s Tools,

221
00:13:30,149 --> 00:13:31,459
Tom Nomad.

222
00:13:31,459 --> 00:13:33,034
Hey Tom, how’s it going?

223
00:13:33,034 --> 00:13:34,870
Its incredibly exhausting and stressful

224
00:13:35,050 --> 00:13:36,080
Indeed.

225
00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:40,269
A USA Today poll released 
shortly before the US elections

226
00:13:40,269 --> 00:13:44,240
indicated that more than 
75% of Americans were concerned

227
00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:46,260
about post-election unrest.

228
00:13:46,260 --> 00:13:48,460
This largely failed to materialize.

229
00:13:48,460 --> 00:13:50,029
Why do you think this is?

230
00:13:50,029 --> 00:13:53,060
And what do you make of this discrepancy 
between people’s fears

231
00:13:53,060 --> 00:13:55,450
and the reality of what has taken place?

232
00:13:56,074 --> 00:13:59,715
I think there are a number of reasons why
that happened the way it did.

233
00:13:59,715 --> 00:14:05,029
Part of that has to do with the fact that
Trump and the Republicans have essentially

234
00:14:05,029 --> 00:14:10,309
turned anarchists and anti-fascists into super
soldiers in the mind of conservatives,

235
00:14:10,309 --> 00:14:13,319
you know, taking over 
parts of major cities and stuff like that.

236
00:14:13,319 --> 00:14:19,889
And that has created this kind of mentality within 
the right wing which is simultaneously hostile,

237
00:14:19,889 --> 00:14:24,809
so really focused on trying to 
confront anarchists and antifascists.

238
00:14:24,809 --> 00:14:27,258
We saw that in Washington DC recently.

239
00:14:27,734 --> 00:14:33,759
But also at the same time terrified. 
And a lot that hostility comes from fear.

240
00:14:33,759 --> 00:14:40,562
Most conservatives in the United States are
relatively normal, rural and suburban people.

241
00:14:40,562 --> 00:14:44,359
Most are white.
Most work low to mid income jobs.

242
00:14:44,359 --> 00:14:49,959
A lot are older. And those people aren’t going
to die or go to prison for Donald Trump.

243
00:14:49,959 --> 00:14:56,423
At the same time, the fear on the left 
was really coming from the fact that

244
00:14:56,423 --> 00:15:01,360
that fear that we see on the right wing 
is really unpredictable.

245
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,170
That at different points, 
that fear has manifested

246
00:15:04,170 --> 00:15:07,290
in conservatives failing 
to really turn people up at protests

247
00:15:07,290 --> 00:15:09,239
just as much as its turned
into Charlottesville,

248
00:15:09,239 --> 00:15:11,619
just as much as its 
turned into mass shootings.

249
00:15:11,779 --> 00:15:16,979
Because of the prevalence of gun culture 
down here, which involves a lot of

250
00:15:16,979 --> 00:15:23,090
hyper-toxic masculinity and sort of 
delusions of grandeur, I guess we could say,

251
00:15:23,090 --> 00:15:28,640
that sometimes manifests itself in 
people dressing in uniforms and joining militias

252
00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:31,959
and running around in the woods 
and pretending to be soldiers

253
00:15:31,959 --> 00:15:33,828
and not really doing anything with that.

254
00:15:33,828 --> 00:15:36,519
And sometimes it turns 
into Kyle Rittenhouse.

255
00:15:36,519 --> 00:15:41,050
And so it becomes really difficult to locate
where politic violence is going to come from

256
00:15:41,050 --> 00:15:42,970
in the US right now.

257
00:15:42,970 --> 00:15:49,290
And because of that, what it's generated
is this sense of constant vigilance.

258
00:15:49,290 --> 00:15:54,723
The other basic reality comes down to class
and geography in the United States

259
00:15:54,723 --> 00:15:56,749
and the way that interacts with race.

260
00:15:56,749 --> 00:16:01,229
The right wing traditionally has been
terrified of cities in the US.

261
00:16:01,229 --> 00:16:04,149
And the places where Trump 
was telling people to go

262
00:16:04,149 --> 00:16:08,069
were places like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Philadelphia

263
00:16:08,069 --> 00:16:11,440
like these cities which to 
people on the right wing

264
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,574
are thought of as smoking ruins of crime

265
00:16:15,009 --> 00:16:20,209
And so when you combine all of that together, 
its not particularly surprising

266
00:16:20,209 --> 00:16:21,990
that a ton of them did not show up.

267
00:16:21,990 --> 00:16:24,920
But at the same time 
its also the case that

268
00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:27,570
we all had to be very ready
for them to show up.

269
00:16:27,570 --> 00:16:30,219
Because there was no way to know 
which way that was going to play out.

270
00:16:30,219 --> 00:16:33,200
What role has social media 
played in this process?

271
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:37,619
Twitter definitely went through a transformation
in the last few months.

272
00:16:37,619 --> 00:16:43,860
Part of this has to do with the seriousness
of Covid conspiracy theories.

273
00:16:43,860 --> 00:16:47,779
So with Twitter, it was very 
specifically a response to people

274
00:16:47,779 --> 00:16:50,139
putting out misinformation 
about COVID 19

275
00:16:50,139 --> 00:16:55,019
that got them to start focusing really heavily
on labeling things as misinformation.

276
00:16:55,019 --> 00:16:59,949
I think for them they sat there and they saw
how damaging the effects of misinformation

277
00:16:59,949 --> 00:17:03,329
were and they started seeing that a lot of
people were leaving their platforms

278
00:17:03,329 --> 00:17:04,379
because of it.

279
00:17:04,379 --> 00:17:08,720
And so for purposes of profit, 
they've started moderating that content.

280
00:17:08,720 --> 00:17:12,020
Facebook on the other hand 
is a dumpster fire, right?

281
00:17:12,020 --> 00:17:14,610
No one should ever use 
Facebook for anything ever.

282
00:17:14,610 --> 00:17:15,610
They’re terrible.

283
00:17:15,610 --> 00:17:21,020
What effect do you see a Biden/Harris presidency
having on social movements in the US?

284
00:17:21,020 --> 00:17:26,689
What new dangers do you see ahead for anarchists
and anti-fascists during this coming period?

285
00:17:26,689 --> 00:17:28,850
To understand how
this is gonna play out,

286
00:17:28,850 --> 00:17:33,035
we have to understand what
the Democratic Party is, essentially.

287
00:17:33,035 --> 00:17:38,719
And the role of counterinsurgency
in the foundations of the Democratic Party.

288
00:17:38,719 --> 00:17:42,090
Some people mark it at the civil rights movement,
some mark it at the labor/corporate compromise

289
00:17:42,090 --> 00:17:45,169
after World War II, but 
starting at that period of time.

290
00:17:45,169 --> 00:17:50,870
The Democrats really started to identify social
movements which might be able to build their

291
00:17:50,870 --> 00:17:54,559
own support - build their own base. 
And then identifying moderate elements

292
00:17:54,559 --> 00:17:57,301
within those social movements
and sort of coopting them,

293
00:17:57,301 --> 00:18:01,530
recuperating them 
back into the political system.

294
00:18:01,530 --> 00:18:03,099
We watched this happen
in the civil rights movement.

295
00:18:03,099 --> 00:18:05,029
We definitely watched it 
happen during Vietnam.

296
00:18:05,029 --> 00:18:06,789
We watched this happen 
with environmentalists,

297
00:18:06,789 --> 00:18:10,149
we watched this happen with the
anti-war movement, so on, and so on.

298
00:18:10,149 --> 00:18:14,740
And the Democratic Party at this point 
is more or less made up of the moderate wings

299
00:18:14,740 --> 00:18:17,959
of all of these social movements which
have occurred since World war II.

300
00:18:18,549 --> 00:18:23,039
We also see elements of this playing themselves
out around the question defending the police.

301
00:18:23,039 --> 00:18:27,800
A lot of liberals recognize something very
basic about the George Floyd Uprising.

302
00:18:27,800 --> 00:18:32,409
Which is that it is a result 
of a failure of reformism.

303
00:18:32,409 --> 00:18:38,600
That after Ferguson in 2014 and 2015 
liberals were able to push the narrative

304
00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:40,840
into a narrative of reformism.

305
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:43,019
Let’s get police departments 
to have consent decrees.

306
00:18:43,019 --> 00:18:45,090
Lets have the 
Justice Department investigate.

307
00:18:45,090 --> 00:18:46,620
Blah blah blah.

308
00:18:46,620 --> 00:18:49,850
And that failed. Horrendously.
For obvious reasons.

309
00:18:49,850 --> 00:18:53,049
And the George Floyd uprising
was a response to that failure.

310
00:18:53,349 --> 00:18:58,510
So instead of just stepping back, they said,
"oh all of this violence is the result of people

311
00:18:58,510 --> 00:18:59,660
from the outside."

312
00:18:59,660 --> 00:19:04,760
"It’s not people rejecting our policies.
It's not people rejecting our attempts at reform.

313
00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:10,299
It’s outside agitators. Its white nationalists.
Its Boogaloo Boys," and so on, and so on.

314
00:19:10,299 --> 00:19:13,780
And that played itself out in almost exactly
the same way all around the US.

315
00:19:13,780 --> 00:19:15,800
And again, that gives them
justification to crack down.

316
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:22,579
So I think its very likely that we are going
to see a situation in which the FBI comes after us.

317
00:19:22,579 --> 00:19:29,729
In which the FBI is used as a mechanism
to destroy the militant fringe of the uprising

318
00:19:29,729 --> 00:19:30,790
that’s happening right now.

319
00:19:30,790 --> 00:19:34,770
Partially because it threatens 
the continuity of the American state,

320
00:19:35,170 --> 00:19:38,220
which it legitimately does, which is
not something I think i could have ever said

321
00:19:38,220 --> 00:19:42,490
at any point in time before this.
At least since I’ve been alive.

322
00:19:42,490 --> 00:19:48,740
But also because its is absolutely fundamentally 
necessary to create the carrot and stick scenario

323
00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:52,910
that they need to be able to co-opt the 
moderate elements of all of these sort of

324
00:19:52,910 --> 00:19:55,789
political initiatives that are 
happening in the street right now.

325
00:19:55,789 --> 00:19:57,630
Is there anything else you’d like to add?

326
00:19:57,630 --> 00:20:01,860
As were kind of leaving a Trump administration
going into a Biden administration,

327
00:20:01,860 --> 00:20:05,022
really the question that 
we have to ask ourselves is

328
00:20:05,022 --> 00:20:09,222
how do we move away from 
that constant process of response,

329
00:20:09,222 --> 00:20:12,478
where we’re moving 
from outrage to outrage to outrage,

330
00:20:12,478 --> 00:20:16,019
and how do we start to move 
to a trajectory where we are able to dictate

331
00:20:16,019 --> 00:20:21,734
the pace of action and we are able 
to do that on a granular local tactical level.

332
00:20:22,790 --> 00:20:27,839
In other words we have to move from a position
of activism to one essentially of insurgency.

333
00:20:27,839 --> 00:20:33,509
We have to really focus on this idea that
we are not fighting an abstract enemy.

334
00:20:34,089 --> 00:20:39,400
We are engaged in an open 
material struggle with the state

335
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:41,210
and we have to think about it on that level.

336
00:20:41,210 --> 00:20:45,830
And what that means is that we 
have to abandon this kind of reactionary

337
00:20:45,830 --> 00:20:53,740
posture of activism and start to really think
of ourselves as what we are, which is antagonists

338
00:20:53,740 --> 00:20:58,549
and as insurgents in a circumstance which
is not particularly conducive to that.

339
00:20:58,549 --> 00:21:03,300
And our task is not to necessarily 
to get everyone agree with our ideas,

340
00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:06,859
but its to create the political circumstances 
for us to achieve our objectives.

341
00:21:06,859 --> 00:21:07,829
Thanks Tom.

342
00:21:07,829 --> 00:21:10,840
We’ve now reached the end of 
this episode of System Fail.

343
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:15,850
An extended version of my interview with Tom
Nomad will soon be available on subMedia’s

344
00:21:15,850 --> 00:21:18,099
brand new Circle A podcast.

345
00:21:18,099 --> 00:21:23,228
You can find it via your favourite podcast
service, or by checking it out on our website:

346
00:21:23,228 --> 00:21:26,334
sub.media/circle-a

347
00:21:26,334 --> 00:21:31,269
My lazy, human producers are taking off the
entire month of December, meaning that I will

348
00:21:31,269 --> 00:21:33,380
be back sometime in January.

349
00:21:33,380 --> 00:21:39,320
To support subMedia, consider making a one-time
donation or signing up to be a monthly sustainer

350
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,580
at sub.Media/Donate.

351
00:21:41,580 --> 00:21:46,479
You can also support us by buying some of
our merchandise at sub.media/gear.

352
00:21:46,479 --> 00:21:50,610
Be sure and follow us on your corporate 
data-mining platform of choice.

353
00:21:50,610 --> 00:21:52,150
Just search for subMedia.

354
00:21:52,150 --> 00:21:57,220
Or better yet, sign up to our mailing list
and get every new episode delivered directly

355
00:21:57,220 --> 00:21:58,070
to your inbox.

356
00:21:58,070 --> 00:21:59,730
Godspeed, humans.