Ep29 -- Electile Dysfunction

 Before diving in today, I just have to address the legal verdict that came down against Google yesterday.  A federal judge found that Google is a quote monopolist. I love the use of that word because it stresses their behavior as a monopoly, not just their claim that they're the most used search engine because they're the best. They may be the best, but they also pay billions of dollars to hardware manufacturers to ensure that Google was the default search app on their devices.  For everyone who was around in the nineties, this is pretty much the same thing Microsoft was found guilty of. And while I try to talk about ways we can ungaslight ourselves, nothing is quite as effective as the Department of Justice reminding us, particularly when it comes to big tech these days, that we should indeed believe our own eyes.  

Okay, back to the show.  

Full disclosure and probably no big surprise, but I'm not a Trump fan. But in a weird way, I'm a little bit jealous of the truest of his true believers. And that's because they have a presidential candidate who says and does exactly what they want him to.  I think Reagan supporters probably felt the same way.  I've never experienced that feeling.  I've had varying degrees of enthusiasm for the candidates I voted for, and I've agreed with a lot of their positions, but they've always been so careful not to offend anyone that every position usually sits somewhere between opening with your compromise position and preemptive surrender.  Sure, I like it when there's enthusiasm for the candidate I'm supporting, but it's just not something that I've experienced personally.  I'd rather, they win instead of the other guy, but I'm not expecting much. And yet when there's enthusiasm on the side I support I always hold out a little bit of hope that this time will be different. Knowing full well, I'll probably be disappointed.  So this week, even though I will definitely vote for Kamala Harris, I want to talk a little bit about what I'd like to hear this time around that could get me genuinely excited about her potential presidency.  

Stay tuned.  

I'm Craig Boreth, and this is The Great Ungaslighting, a podcast about the ways we've been conned into accepting a human-made culture that's out of sync with our human nature and how we can fight back and put the kind back into humankind.  

But first, a word about a sponsor.  

This week's episode of The Great Ungaslighting is not brought to you by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, although I could have selected any number of crypto ventures and investors this week as the biggest money interests in the crypto world appear to be "raging in favor of the machine," as Molly white put it in a recent issue of her Citation Needed newsletter, by massively funding the Fairshake super PAC and lining up behind Donald Trump's presidential campaign.  Just a quick aside, last week I mentioned the era that we're in and have been for over 40 years. This neoliberal era of market supremacy, small government, and predatory capitalism, and what could possibly bump us into a new, more humane community-focused era.  

The 2008 financial collapse didn't do it. George Floyd's murder didn't do it. COVID didn't do it. It might just be that the naked greed and adolescent narcissism of the crypto lobby might do it. I mean, they brought us the NFT, which miraculously showed us that there is actually a limit to the stupid crap Americans will buy.  And this from a people who will line up for days to buy a McRib.  And now 15 years after Bitcoin was first created with the promise to solve serious pressing financial problems, they're attempting to buy the very government, that the product that made them obscenely wealthy was supposed to circumvent.  

It could just be that watching billionaires, like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen defend their decisions to support Trump by saying things like, "It doesn't have anything to do with the big issues that people care about,"  might start to make it abundantly clear that these guys are sociopath's and we really need to radically limit their power over the government.  But, regardless of whether or not their obscene behavior jolts us out of our current era of massive privatization and staggering inequality, it's abundantly clear that they have no interest in following what few rules are still in place to limit their influence. And that brings us back to Coinbase, which appears to have committed the mother of all campaign finance violations with an illegal contribution that is 25 times larger than the previous holder of that ignominious honor.  You see Coinbase made a $25 million contribution to the aforementioned Fairshake super PAC in April of this year.  Now thanks to five Supreme Court justices who decided that somehow the original text of the First Amendment equates money with speech, fabulously wealthy individuals and corporations can use however much money they want to support the candidate that will most likely further their own interests.  The problem for Coinbase, at least for the time being is that there are actually a few limits to when and how they can do that. For example, current or prospective federal government contractors are prohibited from contributing to super PACs such as Fairshake.  Someday that might seem like a quaint and outdated regulation, but it's currently enforceable. And it turns out that in July of 2024, Coinbase was awarded a contract by the US Marshall Service to help them manage and dispose of cryptocurrency that they seize in their law enforcement operations.  Okay, so where's the problem, you may be thinking? After all, Coinbase made the donation in April but didn't get the contract until July.  The problem is the statute very clearly states that the period of prohibition begins when the government sends out a request for proposals, which in this case happened in March of 2024.  By the way Coinbase, also gave a half-million-dollar contribution to the congressional leadership fund, the committee supporting house Republicans after the RFP went out. 

So actually their total violation is 25 and a half million dollars.  Not surprisingly Coinbase denies that they've committed any campaign finance violations by arguing with a straight face that they are not actually a government contractor because they are being paid out of the assets forfeiture fund, which as the name suggests gets its funding from seized assets, rather than being paid by funds appropriated by Congress.  You may be thinking well, that sounds ridiculous. 

What difference does it make how they're being paid? They've been contracted by the federal government, that makes them a federal government contractor. Well, you'd be right. And you might take some solace that the courts and the justice department have considered AFF payments to be appropriations for decades. Plus the Supreme Court just last year rejected pretty much the same argument that Coinbase is making.  Of course on the other hand, it has just come out that Clarence Thomas has taken still more undisclosed private flights, so it's possible that in the past year his views on the subject have evolved.  We'll see.  

And we're back.  

I can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment when every losing democratic nominee for president in my adult lifetime blew it and was guaranteed to lose. With Mike Dukakis, it was easy. The moment he agreed to that ridiculous photo op in the tank.  For Al Gore, I would say it was the moment he selected Joe Lieberman as his running mate.  For John Kerry, well as a Massachusetts resident who knew him all too well, I knew from the start he didn't have a chance. But it was confirmed at a moment that most people probably missed. He was at a press conference and a reporter asked how could he be proposing aggressive environmental regulations while driving a gas-guzzling polluting SUV.  And his response was the verbal equivalent of Dukakis in the tank. He said, and I'm not making this up, "Well, technically the SUV is registered in my wife's name."  No point in even going to the polls after that.  With Hillary Clinton. She made so many unforced errors in that campaign it's hard to pick just one, but I'd say appearing with and praising Henry Kissinger was a particularly terrible idea.  Now if Joe Biden didn't bow out, we'd all know the moment that would have sealed his fate.  

As for Kamala Harris, she's got a ton of momentum and a tremendous amount of positive energy. She's got my vote, but so far I haven't heard anything that would generate in me anywhere near the enthusiasm that Trump's supporters have for him.  And she's had a few opportunities. Like I mentioned last week, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman contributed $7 million to a super PAC supporting Harris and not so subtly suggested that she should fire FTC chair, Lena Khan if she wins the white house.  I'd get really excited about a candidate that would tell Hoffman she doesn't want or need his money and she's definitely not firing Khan.  So far, crickets.  Actually just yesterday, there was a business leaders for Harris Zoom call that Hoffman spoke at.  When asked about it, Harris spokesperson Lauren Hitt said the Zoom is "not an official campaign event."  Come on, that's basically "the SUV is registered in my wife's name."  And while this quote from a campaign staffer, won't sink the Harris campaign. It represents a missed opportunity.  

BREAK

Now I'm not a campaign manager. I have no experience running campaigns at any level, but I do have a podcast. And as the sole researcher writer, producer, and host of The Great Ungaslighting, which reaches a worldwide audience firmly in the tens of listeners, I must take this opportunity to share my completely unsolicited advice that I believe will help ensure a Harris victory in November and generate a lot of enthusiasm from people like me.  First of all, I would say, I think picking Tim Walz was a good choice. I think he's the kind of VP that Hillary Clinton should have chosen.  He checks a lot of important boxes, a Midwest white guy who also has total Bernie support. And yet he doesn't feel like a tactical choice as did some of the other VP candidates, and a lot of the VP candidates selected in the past by losing campaigns.  And I think that's refreshing to a lot of people.  But okay, back to my campaign tactic.  One thing Democrats seem incapable of doing is creating big, simple-to-explain policy proposals that people can immediately understand and get excited about.  You may think "build the wall" is a terrible idea, and it is, but it's a brilliant campaign proposal.  So while I don't have a three-word proposal that I think can make a big splash and really brand Kamala Harris as the candidate of the working class that can actually make a difference.  I do happen to have a four-word one. And here it is. Universal. Free. Vocational. Education.  You know exactly what it is, you know exactly why it's important, and you know specifically how it would help people.  

And it helps anchor what the campaign is about. Right now, Harris doesn't have to worry about that too much. Since she still riding the momentum of Biden's dropping out.  But I think all these losing democratic campaigns failed to ever define what their campaigns were really about, besides opposition to the other side, such that when they get attacked by the other side, they had no way to take back control of the narrative.  The closest any of them came was Hillary Clinton, which was "it's her turn," which was a terrible thing to make your campaign about.  Harris has a chance to define herself as a new Democrat. Support vocational education. Fight for student loan forgiveness for anyone who has already paid back the amount of their principal.  Limit mortgage interest deductions to primary residences only. Be willing to take some risks and propose big initiatives that will piss off some people, but excite a whole lot more.  It feels like Coinbase and other big crypto lobbyists have lobbed a nice softball right over the heart of the plate.  If Harris takes a swing and hits that one out of the park, I'll be cheering along with everyone else.  

Well, that's it for this week. If you liked this podcast, please share it with anyone you think might also enjoy it. And until next week, be kind to yourself, cut each other some slack, and use your f$%#ing turn signal.