Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - February 21, 2025


A masterclass in destroying the internet's worst men (with Kat Abu) ｜ Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

189.21

Word count

6,687

Sentence count

123

Harmful content

Toxicity

28

sentences flagged

Hate speech

17

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 should there even be a joe rogan of the left no i used to when i worked at media matters i'd be
00:00:04.400 asked all the time how why do we not have a fox news for the left and i'm like why would you want
00:00:08.080 that that requires lying i mean joe rogan the reason he works is because he just sits there
00:00:13.280 and believes whatever the most recent person that was talking to him whatever they've just said
00:00:18.240 that's immediately his entire world view he has the object permanence of a baby
00:00:23.040 I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person's least favorite journalist.
00:00:30.080 Welcome to Bubble Pop, a weekly show where we break down the biggest headlines so you
00:00:35.240 don't have to doomscroll.
00:00:36.800 Then we'll dig deeper into something juicy that you should know about.
00:00:40.080 Today we've got Kat Abu on the show.
00:00:42.200 She watches conservatives for work but makes fun of them for pleasure and for the enjoyment
00:00:46.840 of her hundreds of thousands of followers on socials.
00:00:49.880 Kat and I will be talking about the dangerous rise of right-wing grifter media.
00:00:54.320 She's an American who has gone toe-to-toe with the worst of the worst,
00:00:57.640 so Kat knows a thing or two about how to handle these dweebs.
00:01:01.100 Elon Musk is effectively in charge of how America spends all of its money,
00:01:04.720 and he's decided things like school and social security are nanny state handouts,
00:01:09.200 unlike the billions in taxpayer dollars we've given him to create various exploding vehicles.
00:01:14.100 But first, the news.
00:01:15.820 Trump took a blowtorch to the international rules-based order this week,
00:01:21.680 slurping Putin's spa, uh, Nick, and seemingly throwing Ukraine to the wolves.
00:01:27.300 A German election is right around the corner,
00:01:29.440 the latest test of Elon Musk's push for global political influence.
00:01:33.600 Pierre Polyev is simping for right-wing media again
00:01:35.900 as he tries to tear down trust in journalists that actually hold him to account. 0.95
00:01:40.220 There are a group of terrifyingly brain-rotted Canadian simps 0.94
00:01:43.860 who actually want to live in the 51st state.
00:01:46.600 And finally, the full extent of Trump's ability to be truly autocratic
00:01:50.460 is getting much closer to being tested
00:01:52.700 as key cases wind their way to the Supreme Court.
00:01:55.900 Are you ready?
00:01:56.960 I hope so, because we're digging in either way.
00:02:01.680 U.S. President Donald Trump is lighting existing alliances 0.55
00:02:05.040 and international dynamics on fire with an embrace of Russia
00:02:08.720 and attacks on both Ukraine and Europe.
00:02:10.840 This is a very big deal for all of us
00:02:13.360 because he's basically changing the core dynamics of the international community.
00:02:17.840 So you really should care about this.
00:02:20.120 It started with a 90-minute phone call Trump had with Putin,
00:02:23.000 which shocked other leaders who had been using this strategy
00:02:25.700 of icing Putin out over his war on Ukraine.
00:02:28.920 Then the White House set up a meeting between top U.S. and Russian officials
00:02:32.720 in Saudi Arabia this week.
00:02:34.380 Meeting that, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,
00:02:37.740 according to reporting from Bloomberg, wanted Ukraine to be a part of,
00:02:41.620 but quote both the americans and the russians had insisted that they wanted to meet without
00:02:47.540 the ukrainians very cool stuff meanwhile as zelinski correctly accused trump of being
00:02:54.340 in a disinformation bubble trump has been proving him right even going so far as to blame the war
00:03:00.660 which started when russia invaded ukraine in february 2022 on ukraine yeah he actually did
00:03:06.980 that so take a listen but today i heard oh well we weren't invited well you've been there for
00:03:11.060 three years you should have ended it three years you should have never started it you could have
00:03:15.060 made a deal i could have made a deal for ukraine though i guess for a guy like trump blaming the
00:03:20.500 victim is nothing new meanwhile jd vance made sure that europe got the message that if they
00:03:25.140 had a nightmare scenario in mind for the trump administration's impact on the world it was
00:03:29.860 probably exactly right he basically told them he's less worried about russia or china than he
00:03:35.220 is about the actions of europeans themselves which he called quote the threat from within
00:03:40.580 The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China,
00:03:46.280 it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat
00:03:53.280 of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States
00:03:59.320 of America. Europe's values are actually going to be put to the test in a major way on Sunday.
00:04:04.260 And Elon Musk will see his efforts to not only dominate American politics,
00:04:08.520 but to influence them globally put to the test as well.
00:04:12.100 Because on Sunday, Germans will go to the polls
00:04:14.920 and choose how they want to remake their government
00:04:17.400 in a race that has seen Elon Musk throw his weight
00:04:20.280 behind a party called the AfD,
00:04:22.760 a far-right extreme party that used to be on the fringes
00:04:26.160 of Germany's political system,
00:04:27.940 but is now, incredibly, polling second
00:04:30.460 behind the country's center-right party.
00:04:32.820 The AfD is a virulently Islamophobic party
00:04:35.680 who pledge, if elected, to, quote, ban the burqa and the Muslim call to prayer and put all imams
00:04:41.580 through a state vetting procedure. And to give you a sense of their vibe, the party's former 0.71
00:04:47.880 parliamentary leader has said Germany has, quote, the right to be proud of the achievements of the
00:04:53.540 German soldiers in two world wars. Yes, he said two, which includes, you know, the big one. Musk
00:05:01.300 has been relentlessly posting supportive messages of the party he hosted its leader in a twitter
00:05:05.900 space that he pinned to his profile for his millions of followers to see at the time and
00:05:10.220 he spoke at the party's campaign launch late last month where he told the gathering of germans they
00:05:14.720 should move beyond quote past guilt meanwhile tens of thousands of germans recently took to
00:05:20.020 the street in berlin to protest the rising support for the country's growing far right
00:05:24.660 so these efforts from musk and the pushback from the german people will be put to the test on
00:05:30.380 sunday and what the people in germany decide could have huge consequences for trump's ability to
00:05:35.900 reshape the international dynamics of our world and which countries are willing to help him do it
00:05:41.660 speaking of reshaping dynamics conservative leader pierre polyev made a promise this week to pour
00:05:47.180 toxic sludge into our information ecosystem he said he not only wants to defund cbc while
00:05:53.820 potentially extending media subsidies to right-wing media sites because you know these
00:05:59.100 these grifters will scream about media subsidies 0.71
00:06:01.360 until they benefit from them,
00:06:02.700 at which point I guess we'll see
00:06:04.100 if their values go out the window.
00:06:06.200 But Poliev also signaled he'd like to open up
00:06:09.320 the parliamentary press gallery
00:06:10.780 to what he referred to as, quote, independent media,
00:06:14.160 which I don't think means independent media like me,
00:06:18.500 because he doesn't answer my emails anymore,
00:06:20.700 but he keeps giving his limited questions
00:06:22.700 at press conferences to so-called media outlets
00:06:25.160 like True North and Rebel News,
00:06:27.220 who asked him hard-hitting questions like,
00:06:29.820 what do you think of the booing at hockey games?
00:06:32.280 So, yeah.
00:06:33.380 On Thursday, he also repeatedly ignored a journalist
00:06:36.020 who kept asking him why he won't take questions from all media.
00:06:40.400 Take a listen.
00:06:41.380 Thank you.
00:06:41.880 We will now take questions from the floor, starting with True North.
00:06:44.460 Why aren't you sending questions from all media?
00:06:46.760 Hello, Mr. Poglia.
00:06:47.920 Noah Jarvis, True North.
00:06:48.820 Thank you.
00:06:49.360 Next question.
00:06:49.940 Why are you sending questions from all media here today?
00:06:51.880 Hey, this is Shubi from my media.
00:06:54.120 Thank you.
00:06:54.580 Next question.
00:06:55.160 Question.
00:06:55.540 Question.
00:06:57.220 Why don't you do that?
00:06:58.520 Why don't everyone ask a question?
00:06:59.920 Go ahead, sir.
00:07:00.600 You have it here.
00:07:01.100 You're up there.
00:07:01.520 Good morning, Mr. Paul Yeff.
00:07:06.920 David Menzies with Rebel News.
00:07:08.480 Thank you.
00:07:08.800 This will be the final question from Oxygen TV.
00:07:12.260 Good morning.
00:07:13.320 But I think I know why he gives so many of his limited questions to extremely friendly outlets.
00:07:19.240 He's scared.
00:07:20.500 So he's constantly training his audience to dismiss certain media out of hand
00:07:24.560 and dismiss the facts that these tougher reporters bring to the table.
00:07:28.920 Like Polyeb also recently granted an extremely rare one-on-one interview to the wife of a
00:07:35.240 Shopify executive, while simultaneously calling the Canadian parliamentary press gallery a
00:07:40.480 quote, small cabal of government approved mouthpieces. 1.00
00:07:44.200 Damn, sick burn. 1.00
00:07:46.540 It would be sicker if you weren't literally talking to your own approved media when you 1.00
00:07:50.440 said it though.
00:07:51.440 We need to remember that attacks on the media
00:07:53.440 from government are dangerous,
00:07:55.540 and you don't have to look very far
00:07:57.240 to find the proof of that.
00:07:58.380 When we look to the south of us,
00:07:59.580 we see that Trump is seriously tightening his grip on media,
00:08:03.120 threatening them with a lack of access
00:08:04.940 if they don't bend to his will.
00:08:06.620 He has banned Associated Press reporters
00:08:09.060 from the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely
00:08:12.460 because they won't call the Gulf of Mexico
00:08:14.580 the Gulf of America,
00:08:15.780 seeing as they're an international news agency
00:08:17.960 and other countries don't recognize that name.
00:08:20.100 very free speech of you guys the toxic sludge that currently exists in canadians information diets
00:08:25.860 has already apparently rotted some brains beyond repair because this week i found out there's a
00:08:32.180 tiny group of canadians who have decided that they actually do want to be the 51st state
00:08:37.700 yeah really i dug into it and learned that these people have a facebook group with more than 12
00:08:43.140 000 members they've also got an atrocious website that looks like it was designed by a sixth grader
00:08:49.140 but i noticed that when you go to donate on the website it says your money would be going to the
00:08:53.700 alberta usa foundation which based on social media posts linked to social accounts and some media
00:09:00.260 coverage seems to have been founded by a guy named peter downing an alberta separatist who
00:09:05.380 was the former leader of wexit canada which is now known as the maverick party so in news that
00:09:11.380 probably surprises literally no one it seems like alberta separatists still want to separate
00:09:16.340 and now they're leading this particularly brain-worby push. As a tiny group of Canadians
00:09:21.220 ignore the vast majority who are booing US anthems and buying Canadian in favor of fighting to be
00:09:27.060 cucked by the Trump administration, we're also about to discover just how cucked the United 0.97
00:09:31.780 States Supreme Court is and, by extension, how f***ed US democracy is. Trump's administration 0.98
00:09:37.940 just asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a lower court battle that's happening right now
00:09:42.340 over the fact that Trump fired Hampton Dellinger, the head of the office of an independent federal
00:09:47.100 agency that provides a, quote, secure channel for federal employees to blow the whistle by
00:09:51.860 disclosing wrongdoing, which is, you know, a slightly important job to keep free from political
00:09:56.940 influence. Anyways, Trump fired Dellinger, so Dellinger sued, saying you can't do that,
00:10:02.440 and a federal judge agreed with Dellinger, reinstated him, and now Trump is asking the
00:10:07.320 Supreme Court to weigh in. What they decide will be another major test of Trump's ability to get
00:10:11.660 away with overextending his powers, in this case, firing public officials. But that's not all.
00:10:17.820 Another key case is also headed for a major Supreme Court showdown, the one over birthright
00:10:23.420 citizenship. See, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution grants American citizenship to anyone
00:10:29.580 born on US soil. But Trump wants to add an asterisk to that, denying that citizenship to
00:10:35.420 kids born to parents whose mothers aren't legally in the country and whose fathers aren't citizens
00:10:40.140 or permanent residence. A U.S. Court of Appeals just denied the Justice Department's request to
00:10:44.620 immediately reinstate that executive order, and that has basically teed it up for a Supreme Court
00:10:50.540 challenge. The result of that will, again, show us just how easily and how severely Trump can get
00:10:56.020 away with remaking the country in his image. But you know, according to Trump's social media on
00:11:00.780 Saturday, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law. So I'm sure that won't
00:11:05.680 radicalize anyone, and no one will interpret that as a blank check to do whatever they want in
00:11:09.820 support of Trump, right? Trump also, for the record, just seemed to call himself a king.
00:11:19.020 Those are the big headlines from this week. After the break, we've got Kat Abu on the show. She's
00:11:23.380 an American internet icon who terrifies the worst men you can imagine and cuts down right-wing
00:11:28.040 grifter media types like it's an art form. And today, we're her students. We'll be right back.
00:11:32.900 right-wing media and horrible dudes of podcasts seem to be more powerful than ever i mean when
00:11:44.240 trump won the election people like joe rogan and theo vaughn got a special shout out on stage as
00:11:49.720 he celebrated his victory canada seems poised to follow in these footsteps i mean first off
00:11:55.000 according to podcast charts we listen to a lot of the same dudes and our homegrown right-wing
00:12:00.700 outlets have been getting an unsettling amount of access to conservative leader pierre polyad
00:12:05.820 as mainstream or more progressive media voices are attacked and shut out this has got people asking
00:12:12.460 where is the joe rogan of the left and how do we drown out the voices of these dudes who won't
00:12:17.820 shut up well today on the show we're going to explore these questions with the da vinci of
00:12:23.340 destroying right-wing men's egos the mozart of taking podcast bros to task she's an internet 0.75
00:12:29.500 icon a twitch streamer and has reported for media matters mother jones and zateo cat abu
00:12:35.200 welcome to bubble pop oh my god thank you for having me i'm actually blushing in my office
00:12:40.000 good good we aim to please here we aim to flatter so well thank you for having me on i'm very excited
00:12:47.240 to be on the podcast that's number six on canada's spotify podcast charts thank you so much yeah we're
00:12:54.340 super stoked it's a really good start and you know before long we'll dethrone joe rogan in canada
00:13:00.180 that's that's hot right okay so i want to start with a tough question for you because i'm gonna
00:13:05.380 maybe need you to not compliment them but be nice to these men for like a second i'll try
00:13:13.300 what are these guys getting right i think honestly i think that there's just like this huge demand
00:13:19.780 for men to feel like they have a community and i think they find it in right-wing media especially
00:13:25.380 like these podcasts where it feels like you're talking to a bud and like you're hanging out in
00:13:29.300 joe rogan's basement like i think that is a huge part of this i mean it was the same thing like
00:13:34.740 every right-wing movement you know um not to immediately pull out the nazi comparisons but like
00:13:41.140 hitler youth was like a big part of bringing young men into a very overtly fascist movement men seek
00:13:48.180 community and the modern capitalist western world actively tries to keep them away from it it's kind
00:13:55.940 of in the same way i think that wrestling is men's version of camp drag is gay but wrestling is very
00:14:04.900 manly but also camp but like wrestling is fun to watch it's goofy it's like watching drag race like
00:14:10.020 it's camp and uh so i i just genuinely think that that is a big part of it there's also you know
00:14:15.620 once you're in this sphere like we know you know how easy it is for people to get radicalized on
00:14:19.860 the internet once you're in there you're like oh it feels like i'm talking to my buddy or like wow
00:14:24.420 they have a lot of interesting points and like i just want to talk to someone i just want to have
00:14:28.420 a friend and then it's like oh now i you know think the 14 words are you know implanted in my
00:14:35.140 brain yeah exactly and you know and that's the thing right like these guys seem to be having
00:14:40.260 a real impact on us politics and institutions and you know one thing that they say is that when
00:14:46.500 america sneezes canada catches a cold so like i'd really appreciate it if you guys could start
00:14:50.740 covering your mouth when you cough me too yeah um but can you walk us through like why we should
00:14:57.220 care that these guys are being listened to like why shouldn't we dismiss them here in canada or
00:15:02.340 in the us so i think a lot of you know i used to uh cover fox news which is the biggest cable news
00:15:09.060 channel in the us um i think y'all have it up in canada too they certainly have a lot of canadian
00:15:14.260 guests to talk about how justin trudeau is making everyone trans up there or something yeah that's
00:15:19.700 exactly what he's doing is that what's happening that's so cool um tucker carlson was the top
00:15:26.100 rated cable news host when he was there he kind of took this entire uh world by storm when he came
00:15:31.700 on very suddenly after bill o'reilly's firing and bill o'reilly it's 8 p.m time slot basically gives
00:15:36.820 you millions of people, millions of eyes every single night. And that had its own influence
00:15:42.740 because the Republican Party in the US essentially used Fox as a way to push their agenda. And then
00:15:49.060 eventually it became Fox was using the GOP as a way to push their agenda. So these two things
00:15:54.200 were very interlaced. And I think that influence can't be overstated. And like, that's scary to
00:16:00.020 have this influence in government. But I think this podcast sphere, obviously, it's bleeding
00:16:04.200 more as you said like with the inauguration day and stuff like that it's bleeding more into that
00:16:08.700 overtly political space of having you know like legislative repercussions but it also bleeds into
00:16:15.800 the people you know and love your brothers your dads your uncles your nephews i guess i don't
00:16:23.400 think we've given enough attention to the nephews of the world yeah it's really sad they're overlooked
00:16:27.640 it's really sad my favorite chiron on fox ever was um concerned uncle of four and then he was
00:16:33.340 talking about like woke school board meetings oh my god it was amazing yeah um and so it's just
00:16:40.980 this influence i think the scariest part is how it affects the people day to day not just the
00:16:46.900 lunatics in power or insecure men in power or whatever it may be but how it can like warp the
00:16:53.660 minds of people that like you know that you grew up with that you know are rational loving people
00:16:58.760 but if you're living in an echo chamber all you'll hear is echoes yeah and i think that's
00:17:02.680 something that I run into a lot is I feel like with the approach that you and I take towards
00:17:08.920 these guys I think a lot of people think maybe we don't have empathy but like honestly the people
00:17:13.560 who are impacted by the top voices in these spheres are people that we care about and are
00:17:19.020 people who like others love you know and it's actually like out of caring for those people and
00:17:24.540 the people who they turn around and hurt that I think we kind of do what we do but you know I
00:17:29.320 i wanted to ask you in light of that like responding to these guys do you feel like
00:17:33.720 the mainstream media ecosystem and like the highest profile politicians have figured out
00:17:38.920 how to counter this like right-wing grifter sphere with the way that they communicate
00:17:44.120 oh i think we got really close last summer like when we had this kamala harris change candidate
00:17:49.640 vibe and we were calling all of them weird and we were like that's some real freak that you're
00:17:54.440 really concerned about children's people like you won't stop talking about children's people
00:17:58.600 is why are you so focused on this um and then they decided to abandon that because they don't
00:18:05.240 like winning i think just like taking that step away is the best way like individual one-on-one
00:18:12.520 like one of my favorite things is when someone says a really racist or sexist joke i'll just be
00:18:16.360 like i don't get it can you explain it to me and then all of a sudden that person is really
00:18:21.000 embarrassed and like wait no but what's the punch line like i don't understand the punch line can
00:18:26.140 you explain it waking up from that we're all immersed in this evil cesspool all the time and
00:18:32.420 just kind of stepping away from that for a second and pretending we're not can really help distance
00:18:37.380 you and your loved ones or whoever you're talking to from uh hell the hell we live in and like okay
00:18:44.540 do you feel like we even have um someone who's equivalent though on you know the progressive
00:18:50.680 side of things to the joe rogans and the theo vons like should there even be a joe rogan of
00:18:57.520 the left no i used to when i worked at media matters i'd be asked all the time how do why
00:19:01.200 do we not have a fox news for the left and i'm like why would you want that that requires lying
00:19:05.240 i mean joe rogan the reason he works is because he just sits there and believes whatever the most
00:19:10.320 recent person that was talking to him whatever they just said that's immediately his entire
00:19:15.960 worldview he has the object permanence of a baby and as for people like tucker carlson like they
00:19:21.720 rely on lies and the information that i want to communicate doesn't um and that's like the real
00:19:29.560 big difference there and it's easier when things are so confusing and messy and complicated to just
00:19:36.520 be like okay i'll believe this lie this is so much simpler it's so much simpler to believe that 0.88
00:19:41.160 But Jews sent space lasers to change the weather than to understand and really comprehend that 0.92
00:19:48.360 we have ruined our climate as much as we possibly can to this point through greed. 1.00
00:19:55.060 And so it's just, it's so much easier.
00:19:57.220 But I don't want to do that.
00:19:58.040 That's lame.
00:19:58.660 100%.
00:19:59.060 And, you know, and I think you're really effective at communicating and combating that.
00:20:03.860 And that's sort of the overall question that I think people really mean to ask when they
00:20:07.700 ask about their not being or they're needing a Joe Rogan on the left. 0.99
00:20:10.840 it's more like how do we deal with these liars and grifters and counteract their messaging in
00:20:16.780 an effective way and you know as i mentioned you really are an artist at that i mean so are you
00:20:23.200 oh my god thank you you know i learned from the greats so um uh so like what have you found
00:20:30.980 works for you in dealing with these guys i mean honestly and i'm sure you get this too rachel
00:20:36.540 there is like being a conventionally attractive woman does help a lot because it just instantly
00:20:43.360 triggers them like not in terms of success or making people listen but like they're so instantly
00:20:49.760 threatened by that that you're kind of starting with them on their back foot i mean i think about
00:20:56.560 mike davis who is just he's a guy on twitter for anyone who doesn't know and uh very in with all
00:21:03.960 these you know project 2025 guys like very deep in that sphere he was on the short list originally
00:21:09.640 to be the attorney general of the united states and uh one time he tried to get me fired and when
00:21:16.260 elon musk bought twitter to get me banned from the site because i tweeted that no billionaire could
00:21:22.620 get laid on a 40k a year salary when you make them feel insecure they either get violent or they get
00:21:29.140 really, really upset. And I think the meltdowns are how I handle it. And I'm just glad it hasn't
00:21:35.620 gotten violent. Yeah, you break their brains. Yeah, you don't do. I hope they don't break you 0.98
00:21:40.020 in turn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Aggression violence. Woo, amazing. It's cool being a woman.
00:21:45.640 I love being a woman. It's so fun. That's the benefit of living in a skyscraper now. Like,
00:21:49.980 I live in a skyscraper. It's so hard to get to my apartment. And so, like, I feel really safe.
00:21:55.060 it's awesome grappling hooks to get you in light of that there's this new um personality on tick
00:22:01.060 tock that i've been seeing a lot lately her name's suzanne lambert and she's been like
00:22:05.140 making fun of republican women's makeup for example and yeah you know and so we've kind
00:22:09.940 of seen this debate come out about that like for lack of a better word mean girl approach
00:22:15.940 there's a lot of criticism that when dealing with these types like oh when they go low we should go
00:22:20.580 high you know what do you think and i feel like i maybe already know the answer to that but like how
00:22:25.220 do you respond to that oh my god no we're so beyond going high like we are so i mean michelle obama
00:22:31.700 the person who said that quote is so beyond going high uh like her speech at the dnc it was so clear
00:22:37.780 i think that there is something to be said like i don't like when people just constantly talk about
00:22:41.460 how like ugly or fat trump is i don't care there are a lot worse things about him but also i have 0.98
00:22:47.540 no problem clouding on these people like if you have no style if you get no bitches if you can't 0.99
00:22:54.740 post that is a you problem it's not because of your race or your gender your sexuality it's 0.98
00:23:00.500 because you as an individual are lame and i think they deserve to know that because there is nothing 0.93
00:23:06.420 conservatives want more than to be part of the culture to be cool and they just never will be 0.85
00:23:13.220 it's just not gonna happen they're cool in their bubbles but it's the same reason that they always
00:23:18.180 complain like they can't they don't have celebrities they'll be like these celebrities
00:23:21.620 are so woke or whatever and it's like you would kill you would kill your vice president to get 0.98
00:23:27.800 taylor swift to just post about you once in a positive light you would kill him on national 0.97
00:23:33.400 television so no this is not they're not too you're not too cool for them they are too cool
00:23:39.360 for you and they're very upset about that that's how we got the patriot awards on fox news i i
00:23:44.300 actually don't know that show and i think oh every year they have the patriot awards which are their
00:23:49.760 versions of the oscars and uh for example one year they had they have like usually about five awards
00:23:57.580 one year it was patriot of the year most valuable patriot the back the blue award and the 2022
00:24:03.160 patriotic badass award which went to the host and our new defense secretary pete hexeth oh
00:24:08.580 um yeah yeah it's a really cool show definitely very high standards meritocracy in action
00:24:16.660 meritocracy in action two years in a row hannity did the exact same impression of
00:24:21.540 bill clinton and mark levin he just did the same bit and thought no one would notice but
00:24:25.700 guess what rachel guess what i noticed yeah
00:24:29.700 well and that's that's kind of the the takeaway that i've had in dealing with these types too
00:24:48.580 is i feel like it comes down to in a lot of ways a power struggle right like it's um who
00:24:54.460 what these guys are responding to is not necessarily the the facts or alternative
00:25:01.140 facts or whatever like lies being said but they found a community and they feel as though they
00:25:07.840 are following a powerful person and i think that in some ways attacking those people as losers and
00:25:14.040 weird hits at that like core principle of what they're attracted to which is the power like do
00:25:19.780 you think that's a fair analysis yeah you hit the nail on the head exactly it's that's why they need 1.00
00:25:25.100 weapons that's why they're constantly blustering that's why the asshole you know at work has a 0.97
00:25:31.400 gigantic pickup trap despite never hauling anything in his life and we don't need to do like the small 1.00
00:25:36.820 penis you know comparisons it's just like a feeling of inadequacy makes you compensate by 0.82
00:25:42.460 being violent by hating others by lashing out they like when you know you have triggered libs 0.99
00:25:47.580 get really angry and talk about how awful this is and yeah all this shit is awful but i always say 1.00
00:25:53.120 you know fascism it's scary it's evil um it's terrifying it's also so stupid everything is so 1.00
00:26:00.620 stupid and you have to remember that yeah i think that that's maybe one of the things that's so 1.00
00:26:06.400 frustrating is it's all so stupid and they're winning like that that i think for now for now 1.00
00:26:12.560 exactly and that's actually what i wanted to ask you like how do you hold on to hope and like keep 0.98
00:26:17.680 the strength to like fight because i think a lot of people listening are probably feeling
00:26:22.240 really frustrated by like the headlines they see every day and like elon musk's 20 year olds being
00:26:26.660 able to ruin people's lives and take away their health insurance and like the snap of their
00:26:30.180 fingers so yeah how do you how do you keep going i mean i also say this fascism is antithetical to
00:26:37.120 the human condition you know i think about like the book 1984 so orwellian um but i think about
00:26:43.660 the book 1984 and it has you these nations that are just oh there's no escape there's no way to
00:26:48.920 escape the authoritarianism that truly just it can't happen forever as scary as that thought is
00:26:56.760 that can't be our reality because human beings just won't let it even if it takes a lot of lives
00:27:02.080 even if it takes god forbid bloodshed like the human nature just doesn't want to be ordered
00:27:09.020 around for eternity eventually they go too far and what we have to do in the meantime is just
00:27:15.080 try to make sure the fewest amount of people get hurt try to push through and help our own
00:27:21.560 communities and gain power in the meantime this isn't forever but it's gonna feel like it i mean
00:27:28.060 i feel like we've lived a year in this administration it's been one month so that's
00:27:33.200 cool yeah you know obviously like we're in another well i am in another country uh for now
00:27:40.460 being in the u.s you guys are obviously like kind of further down this slide than we are here in
00:27:46.820 canada but we're seeing a lot of like similarities and patterns that we're copying and we kind of
00:27:51.860 tend to do really similar things to you but we're just a few steps behind do you have any advice
00:27:55.800 for Canadians right now for like what you things you wish you had done like before this or things
00:28:01.480 you're glad you did yeah I mean I have no regrets on me because I personally am perfect but I do
00:28:07.600 wish our liberal quote-unquote liberal party was far more aggressive and progressive make sure you
00:28:14.800 get your passport I do have to say like here in America you know we go hard on a lot of things
00:28:19.600 like when we do something we're really doing it so this is this is far more accelerationist than
00:28:24.940 i expected and i was i mean i did a one hour video just talking about white christian nationalism
00:28:29.920 and like what to expect and even i have been like jesus they're going so fast so um just watch what
00:28:37.220 we're doing and try not to do that maybe 100 percent hopefully whatever america's doing do
00:28:43.100 the opposite but whatever cat is doing do the same do the same you guys get it yeah um in case we do
00:28:49.460 end up at war cat do you think you could kill me do you think you could take me in a fight oh my
00:28:54.100 god no i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be drafted i have narcolepsy oh my god congratulations 0.98
00:28:58.580 thank you yeah i have anxiety i don't think you should get narcolepsy it makes you miserable 0.92
00:29:04.740 and you fall asleep constantly sounds brutal could you kill me i mean kat let's be honest 0.88
00:29:12.360 just pure size difference i am pure size difference but if we're doing guns i'm a good 0.80
00:29:17.180 shot i'm a really good yeah i don't know grew up in texas yeah so as long as you just got to stay
00:29:23.120 out of arm's reach so yeah no but definitely you could stomp on me yeah 100 like i did actually
00:29:29.860 seriously want to ask you like how are normal americans responding to this 51st state stuff i
00:29:34.980 mean it is crazy are you guys even thinking about it because there's so much going on there there's
00:29:40.360 so much going on like i was uh calling my editor mother jones today and i was just like we were
00:29:45.400 talking about yon musk and all these other things and i was like oh my god and then there's the jd
00:29:49.300 advance nazi german stuff like the afd stuff and he was like i can't even think about that like
00:29:55.000 there are there are only so many thoughts in a day but as far as the canada stuff here in chicago i
00:29:59.840 feel like anytime i've talked to someone it's just been oh for sake like every time it comes up just
00:30:05.220 like oh jesus christ um but i mean i you know i would welcome you into my horrible terrible country
00:30:13.540 it's not horrible we have really wonderful people here but it's uh and uh democracy and such blah
00:30:21.620 blah blah but like this is you know horrible terrible things are happening and we are going
00:30:27.260 to try our best to stop them at least i am totally and i'm right there with you and i think a lot of
00:30:32.460 my listeners are too you got this rachel single-handedly save canada oh 100 i am big enough
00:30:38.600 i think i can do it you know in case you guys don't know who are listening i am six feet tall so
00:30:42.680 you know got a lot of muscle to uh fight for canada yeah y'all should know i have like the
00:30:47.380 biggest crush on rachel it's insane yeah as you said cat it's like it's a little weird but it's
00:30:52.240 okay you know it's we all have fans right so cat i uh that's pretty much everything that i wanted
00:31:01.800 to ask you and now that i've had you reveal to the audience how huge of a crush you have on me
00:31:06.520 and how attractive you find me i am sufficiently my ego has been stroked enough that we can kind
00:31:11.300 to wrap things up um but i did want to give you a chance um before i fully end the conversation
00:31:16.120 like is there anything since you're the wizard of defeating disinformation grifters like is there
00:31:21.140 anything that we didn't touch on in this conversation that you want to say it's totally
00:31:23.900 fine if there's not but um no but i would like to ask you a question yeah what's like something good
00:31:29.540 that's happened in you know the last week i think i asked you this when you were on my stream last
00:31:33.120 week but um i i like just asking people this question all the time that's a great question
00:31:37.700 oh my god you should be hosting this podcast oh i'd have to think you know what it snowed a ton
00:31:42.780 in canada and like eastern canada in the last week crazy amounts of snow oh yeah one of my
00:31:48.200 best friends sent me a picture from outside her window and it's like the entire door is
00:31:52.340 all piled up literally what i'm seeing behind my camera right now and but what's really great is
00:31:59.400 everywhere i walked around there were people helping each other there were people shoveling
00:32:03.520 themselves out of or shoveling each other's cars out and pushing each other's cars when they were
00:32:08.460 stuck. And like every time you heard wheels spinning in the snow, you saw everyone around
00:32:14.020 stop to make sure that person doesn't need help before they kept going. And there were even people
00:32:18.600 who turned the snow piles into a ski jump. So, you know, we saw people make the best out of a bad
00:32:25.080 situation in a very real way in the last week. And I think that just speaks to how resilient we all
00:32:31.500 are yeah how about you anything good happen to you um um you know it's tough asking an american
00:32:39.440 that question right now yeah and like especially when i've been working on scripts like i have a
00:32:43.820 whole script just being like this is why you should care about trans people existing um my
00:32:48.520 cat has been really cute this morning um i had allergies so bad that i had to i woke up at four
00:32:54.980 and couldn't get back to sleep and uh so we went out and hung out in the living room and um when
00:33:01.980 the sun rose she napped in a sunbeam oh it was lovely i honestly feel like this is the real way
00:33:08.340 that we survive everything that's going on right now is take those little moments and just hold
00:33:13.880 them close because they make a big difference right they just help you to remember what you're
00:33:20.120 fighting for and what actually matters in life so anyways on that super heavy note
00:33:25.180 kat abu thank you so much for coming on here and giving us a master class in taking down the worst
00:33:31.800 men on the internet and staying optimistic um i want to give you of course of course um i want
00:33:38.180 to give you the floor now to tell people where they can watch you in action where can people
00:33:42.540 find you uh you can find me on most platforms blue sky i'm kat m abu youtube i'm the same
00:33:49.560 tiktok i'm the same twitch i'm the same uh and then you can go on there to find my instagram
00:33:54.180 and other places um i have a really long last name i stream on twitch on thursdays at 2 30
00:34:01.960 central time i'm still getting used to time zones now i don't live on the east coast and uh you can
00:34:07.080 also sign up for my patreon if you want to support my work for one dollar a month you get a daily
00:34:10.880 picture of my cat and she's really cute her name is heater she is orange she has feline leukemia
00:34:16.320 virus and she's the love of my life that is a great deal folks so you better all subscribe
00:34:21.560 kat abu thank you so much for being on the show today it was an honor to have you here on bubble
00:34:27.260 pop thanks for having me rachel good luck with the rest of the pod thank you
00:34:31.740 thank you for listening to this episode of bubble pop i'm rachel gilmore your least favorite person's
00:34:40.180 least favorite journalist if you enjoyed this episode consider subscribing to bubble pop on
00:34:44.740 youtube patreon sub stack and wherever you like to listen you can also find me on tiktok instagram
00:34:50.780 twitch and blue sky i'd like to say a special thank you to hans vivian wenzel for making the
00:34:56.200 incredibly groovy music for bubble pop you can find more of his stuff on spotify under the artist
00:35:01.480 name hans lowercase h with an exclamation mark thanks again for spending this time with me doing
00:35:07.720 this is a dream and i couldn't do any of it without your support so i'll see you next time
00:35:14.740 I'll be happy..