YouSaid · the spoken record

Cenk Uygur

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2024-08-30
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2024-08-30
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  1. “It's that the ads themselves actually, they work. Work pretty well, but that's not the main reason you spend money on ads. You spend the money on ads to get friendly coverage from the content, from the free media that you're getting from that same outlet. And so since every newspaper and every new television station and network knows that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are their top clients, they're going to get billions of dollars from them. They never really criticize the Republican and Democratic Party. On the other hand, if you're an outsider, they'll rip your face off.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “That's why Media never took mainstream media never talks about the number one factor in politics, which is money. Like we all know, I mean, now we, as we talked about earlier, we see it with our own eyes open auction any country, any company, anybody that has money. The politicians will now literally say, I am now working for this guy, as Trump says, because he gave me a strong endorsement, which means a lot of money, right? And the press never covers it, almost never, right? So you're telling me you're doing an article on the infrastructure build or build back better, et cetera. And you're not going to mention the enormous amount of money that every lobbyist spent on that bill. That's absurd. That's absurd. That's 98% of the ballgame. And the reason they hide the ball is because they don't want you to know this whole thing is based on the money that they are receiving. And by the way, one more thing about that, Lex.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So, where does all that money in politics go? So, for example, in 2022, it's just a midterm election, no presidential should be lower spending, a ridiculous $17 billion are spent on the election cycle. Where does the $17 billion go? Almost all of it goes into corporate media, mainstream media, television, newspapers, radio. They're buying ads like nuts. So we have a reporter at TYT, David Schuster. He used to work at MSNBC, Fox News, et cetera. And David once did a piece about money and politics at a local NBC news station. And his editor or GM spiked the story. And David goes into his office and asks him, why? The story is true. It's a huge part of politics if we're going to report on this issue. We got to tell you what's actually happening. So he says, David, come here. He puts his armor.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Fast forward to now, or not now, but about a decade ago, five years ago in that ballpark. Now there's only six giant core media corporations left. And it's an oligopoly, right? And they're all multi-billion dollar corporations. They all want tax cuts. Half of them are also, especially about 20 years ago during the Iraq war, half of them are defense contractors. So they're just using the news as marketing to start wars like the Iraq War. And then GE, which owned MSNBC, makes a tremendous amount of money, so much more money from war than it does for media that media is a good marketing spend for these corporations. That's part of it that they themselves want the same exact thing as the rest of corporations do for corporate rule, lower tax cuts, deregulation so they can merge, et cetera. But the second part of it is arguably”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, first of all, they're giant corporations, so they're all multi-billion dollar corporations. In the old days, we had incredible number of media outlets. So you go to San Francisco, there'd be at least two papers, and there'd be a paper boy, and I'm going all the way back, paper boy on each corner, and they're competing with one another. Literally, they'd be catty corner, right? And one guy's going, oh, I hear all this details. They're trying to get an audience. They're trying to get people interested. So they're populist, they're interesting, they're muckrakers, they're challenging the government.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Until about a month ago. So, for example, in the primaries, both in 2020 and 2024, if you said the senator from I guarantee you almost no one in the audience has heard of it. If you heard of it, good job, you know politics really well. But the reason you didn't hear of it is because the mainstream media wouldn't say that's outrageous of Joe Biden to be such a corporate stooge. They'd say, that's outrageous of you to point out something that's true and something we reported on earlier, okay? And so they protected him at all costs. Now, finally You get to this version of Joe Biden, he can't talk I don't know that there's anybody in the country who instinctually dislikes Bernie more than Barack Obama.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “About the fact that it's begun, they don't like corruption. So early Biden, because he's reading the room, is very anti-corruption. And the first bill he proposes is to get money out of politics. But as Biden goes on for his epic 200-year career in Washington, he starts to get not more conservative, more corporate because he's just taking more and more money. By the middle of his career, he has a nickname, the senator from MBNA. MBNA was a credit card company based in Delaware. The reason he had that nickname is because there isn't anything Joe Biden wouldn't have done for credit card companies and corporations based in Delaware, which are almost all corporations. So he became the most corporate senator in the country and hence the most beloved by corporate media. And corporate media is protected in his entire career.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah, we can come back to that. Yes, I did. And which makes it Tuesday for me, which I get a lot of criticism for everything. And by the way, Democratic Party, you're welcome But Bine's a really interesting example. I'm really glad you brought it up. So the video on TikTok was just showing then by now. And you're right, Biden was so dynamic when you see how dynamic he was, we did like side by side, right? And then you see him now going barely. Anyways, right, you're like, oh, that's not the same guy. I get it, right? So that got like 5 million views because it resonates. They're like, yeah, yeah, of course, right? But when he first started to the point you were making, Lex, in fact, I know because I talked to him about this, his very first bill was anti-corruption. Why? Because at that point, everything changes in 1976, 78. The Supreme Court decisions that basically legalized bribery. But remember, Biden is ancient, so he's coming into politics at a time when money has not yet drowned politics. And in fact, the American population is super pissed.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Yeah, I started about a year ago because I was positive that Biden had a 0% chance of winning. And it turned out, by the way, two days before he dropped out, his inside advisors inside the White House said, yeah, near 0% chance of winning. So we were right all along.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “It's a pendulum. You know, you don't want it to swing too wildly, but you do need a little bit of oscillation in that pendulum to get to the right balance.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Get big money out of politics. Everything else is near impossible as long as we are drowned in money and whoever has more money wins. And by the way, when it comes to legislation, again, that's true about 98% of the time. Like we predict things ahead of time. People are like, wow, how did you know that that bill wasn't going to pass or was going to pass? It's the easiest thing in the world. And we literally teach our audience on the young Turks, watch, you'll be able to see for yourself. And now our members comment in. They do these predictions. They're almost always right, right? Because it's so simple. Follow the money. So if you get big money out of politics, and I could explain how to do that in a sec, then you're at a place where you got your best shot at honest representatives that are going to try their best to get to the right answer. Are they going to get to the right answer out of the gate? Usually not. So they pass a law. There's something wrong with the law. They then fix that part.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “It's the people that are saying these are the rules of the land and you have to abide by them. So how do you get to the best possible answer, which is related to an earlier question you asked, Lex, which is the number one thing you have to do.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So, Lex, here's the deal there's no way around the laws are made by politicians. Okay, so, and so you can't give up then and go, oh, it's a bunch of schmucks. I think most politicians are just servants for the donor class. The media makes it sound like they're the best of us. Oh, they deserve a lot of honor and respect and they kiss their ass, et cetera. I think generally speaking, they're usually the worst of us, especially in this corporatist structure, right? Because they're the guys who their number one talent is, yes, sir, no, sir. What would you like me to do with your donor money, sir? Absolutely. I'll serve you completely, or 98%, right? So in this structure, the politicians are the worst of us. But at some point, you need somebody elected to be your representative to do Democratic capitalism so that you have capitalism, but it's checked by the government on behalf of the people.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And they inspected the elevator six times a year. That was over regulation. And I said to my dad, so should they not inspect it at all? I'm a young kid growing up. And he said, no, no, no. You got to inspect it at least twice a year. I said, why? He said, because in Turkey, sometimes they don't inspect it, and then the elevator falls. Okay. So bounds of reason, correct regulation to protect the markets, and to protect the American people.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “If somebody comes up to you and says, How big a pipe do you want? Is no answer for that. It depends on the job, doesn't it? Right, what are we doing? What are we building? I'm going to tell you the size of the pipe depending on the project. So when people say, are you in favor of regulation or against it? That's an absurd question. Of course, you need regulation. It just means laws, right? So don't kill your neighbor is a regulation, right? So my idea is a simple one and one we're going to keep on.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “If you don't have those cops, the bad guy's going to take over. They're going to set the rules, rig the rules in their favor. So that's why you need regulation. And so the Republicans on purpose made regulation a dirty word. They're like, overall regulation is bad. And then sometimes on the left, people fall for the trap of all regulation is good. A guy I like has a great analogy on this. Matt Stoller, he's one of the original, I would argue, progressives. And there's about four of us. I'm sure there's more, but that have stayed true to the original meaning of progressivism and populism, me, Matt Stoller, David Serota, Ryan Grimm. Okay. And it used to be in that original blogger group, there was guys like Glenn Greenwald and other interesting cats, right? But they went in different directions. So Matt has a great line. He says.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, so in the book, I call it Democratic Capitalism as opposed to Bernie's Democratic Socialism, right? We can get into that distinction in a minute. But so as Adam Smith said and anyone who studies capitalism knows, you need the government to protect the market as well as the people. Because so like, why do we have cops? Because if we don't have cops, somebody's going to go, well, I like Lexus' equipment. Why don't I just go into his house and take it? Right. So you need the cops to protect you. And that's the government. So people say, oh, I hate big government. Do you? It depends, right? If your house is getting robbed, all of a sudden you like the government. But you also need comps on Wall Street because if you allow insider trading, the powerful are going to rob you blind and the little guy's going to get screwed. So that's this easy example.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “No, it is. It's 98%. I'll go on mainstream media and they'll be like, oh, I see what you're saying. I can see how that influences politicians about 10%. I'm like, no, no, it's 98%. And even a lot of good people think it's 50-50. They have principles and they have money. No, they have money and this smidge of principles. That's why I wanted to clarify 98 too.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “He doesn't want TikTok banished, of course, right? So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars. Trump turns around the next day and goes, we love TikTok. TikTok's a good company, right?”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Let's look at tech. In the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in politics or almost any money in politics. So what happens? They're getting hammered. They get pulled into congressional hearings and Facebook's got fake news. And oh my God, all these trouble from Facebook. Then Facebook does the logical thing. Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches. Okay. So then they hire a whole bunch of Republican consultants. They go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats. And then all of a sudden, we're no longer talking about Facebook at all and Facebook are angels. And now we've turned our attention to who? Facebook's top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works. Okay. And by the way, then Donald Trump goes, oh, TikToks, big dangerous company working with China. Okay. And then Jeff Yaz comes in on this cycle, part owner of TikTok.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So they passed the law, saying that you have to sell through dealerships, but Tesla doesn't sell through dealerships. And it was intended to bully, intimidate, and push out Tesla out of the market. They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country. Does that make any sense in a democracy? Of course not. Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium? You could sell it any way you like. That's the most anti-free market thing possible. Why? It was just total utter corruption. But it's not, but it's perfectly legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery. So then what happened in that case? So then Elon came in and gave campaign contributions and reversed it. So now we're in a battle where it's an open auction, right? Different companies are buying different politicians and then they're pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, et cetera.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Wait, you could just buy the American government so APAC is going to spend about $100 million in this cycle, and then they're getting $26 billion back. So every country in the world is soon going to realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, give them a tremendous amount of money, and just buy the U.S. government, right? So for corporations, they've already realized that on a massive scale, right? So, for example, in the two industries you gave, automotive. So in New Jersey about a decade ago or so, one of the most powerful lobbies is car dealerships. So at the national level, you got pharma and you've got defense contractors, et cetera. At the local level, guys who have huge power, number one is utilities. Number two is real estate. And then car dealerships are hilariously among the top, right? Because it's local businesses that are, you know, financing the politicians at the local level.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense. Not, oh, I don't like this industry. I don't like this company. Or, hey, this company is not doing that much lobbying at this point. They will later when they realize what's going on. So, for example, in my opinion, APAC has totally bought almost all of Congress. And so now other countries are going to wake up and go,”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Water. I'm charging $100. And the government has to say, Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Of course, sir. We'll pay $100. That's why compared to communism, because I can't imagine anything more dynamic. You, the consumer, have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That's insanity, let alone the patents, let alone the fact that the American people pay for the research, and then they make billions of dollars off of it, and we get nothing but robbed by them. So it's about lobby power, oil companies have huge lobby power, defense contractors have huge lobby power. It's not that they're more evil. It's just that they have figured out the game better and they have basically taken the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and snuff out all competition.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Interests and different needs in those stages of growth, and we want to facilitate small business growth because that's great for the economy, that's great for markets, freedom, et cetera. But the bigger corporations, even there, there's a third distinction. It isn't that there's certain industries that are worse. There's just that there are industries that are better at lobbying. So anyone who like right now, number one donor in Washington, a lot of people make a mistake. They think it's APAC or they think it's the oil companies or the banks. No, it's Big Pharma. Okay. And who has the most power in this country? Big pharma. So we can't even negotiate the drug prices. I mean, look, guys, think about it this way. That's like saying, okay, here's a bottle of water. And normally in the free market, that would cost about a dollar, right? And for Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, no, I'm not charging a dollar for that.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Power that they are going to exercise to get to those results. And if you think free markets as there is no government, you read it wrong. Go back and reread Adam Smith. He says you must protect against monopoly power. If you do not protect against monopoly power, you will have no free markets. And he is absolutely right. Second distinction is between small business and big business. That's why Republicans will always be like, oh, we're doing this for small business. That's why we got the biggest oil companies in the world, $30 billion in subsidies. What happened to small business, right? So I run a small business. And so if people were to say like, hey, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than five employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, et cetera. There's some logic in that because businesses have different stages of growth and they have different”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “They're not all guilty. So let's make a bunch of distinctions here. So, first of all, are they quote unquote guilty? No, they're doing something that is logical and natural, right? So if you're a company, do you want to pay higher taxes or lower taxes? Of course, you want to pay lower taxes, right? Do you want to have higher employee costs or lower employee costs? Of course, you want lower employee costs, right? But the government needs to understand that and protect us from that.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Turks back in 2002. So we've been around for 22 years, longest running daily show on the internet ever. And so we were pre-Iraq war. And the Iraq War starts. And Dick Cheney starts handing out no-bid contracts. I'm like, what part of capitalism is a no bid contract? You can't negotiate drug prices. The most anti-free market thing I have ever heard. It's almost like communism for corporations. They get everything. And you get nothing, right? So it's preposterous. It's awful and it kills the free markets and it's killing this country. And it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Are getting the same tax rate as people making eighty four thousand dollars a year. It's unbelievably unfair, and that's corporism taking over and starting to rig the rules. I'm going to pay less taxes. You're going to pay more taxes. So again, I can give you dozens of those examples. And mergers so that they get to oligopoly power, that's how your rigorous system, lowering the corporate tax rates, making sure that there is no real minimum wage, making sure there's no universal healthcare. We all get become indentured servants of corporations. They take away power from the average guy, give it to the most powerful people in the world. But the most important distinction likes is that corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power. Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. And I remember, you know, we started a young.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Oftentimes can't explain it that well, and then mainstream media goes, Oh, you sound conspiratorial rigged. Yeah, I wonder how. Yeah, super easy to explain it. Here's one of dozens of examples, carried interest loophole. So that is for hedge funds, private equity, the top people on Wall Street. That's part of their income. They get $2 and $20, right? So 2% is a flat fee no matter what happens to the fund. And 20% of the profits of the fund goes back to the people who invested it. It's not their money. It's not their investment. What they're getting is actually just income and should be taxed at the highest rate. But because of this loophole, it's taxed at a much lower rate at around 20%. So do you know at what income level you go above 20% if you're a regular Joe? It's at 84,000 dollars a year. So these billionaires.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “But if you love corporations and corporate tax cuts and everything in favor of corporations, you're magically called a moderate when you actually, according to the polling, have super extreme positions that the American people hate. And by the way, that's part of the reason for the rise of Trump and come back to that, okay? But the second shell game is. Taking out capitalism, putting in corporatism, but still calling it capitalism. So what is corporatism? It is when corporations slowly take over the system and create monopoly and oligopoly power. So that snuffs out equality of opportunity. So how do they do that? When people say the system is rigged”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “That is exactly it, Lex. You got it exactly right, in my opinion. Okay, so that's why communism never works and can never work. So it's an idea of like we're all going to work as hard as we possibly can and take only what we need. Where? When? When has that ever happened in the history of humanity, right? We're just not built that way. So, okay, we can get into that debate with my friends on the left, et cetera. Now, corporatism is just as extreme and just as dangerous, and that is basically what we have in America now. What we have in America now, and this is another giant trick that the Matrix played on everybody, that they did a shell game, and all of a sudden, extreme corporatists like Mansion and almost every Republican in the Senate are moderates. Oh my God, Mitch McConnell all of a sudden is a moderate, et cetera. As long as you're not a populist, populists are never moderate.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Okay, so communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always evolves into dictatorship because it is not built for human nature. We're never going to act like that. It's not in our DNA. You could try to wish it into existence than they have. And it never works. And it's because once you have almost no rules in terms of, oh, we're all equal, even though communism eventually winds up having an enormous amount of rules, right? It creates a power vacuum when you say, hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line. One guy usually gets up because that's human nature and goes, I don't think so. I think if you're going to leave a power vacuum, I'm going to take that power vacuum.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Difference I really believe in capitalism. I don't think that there's really a second choice. Where it gets super interesting is the distinction between capitalism and socialism, because that's not at all as clear as people think it is. And people often say socialism and communism as synonyms when they're not synonyms, right? And so I view it as There's basically four distinct areas. It's obviously a spectrum everything is a spectrum, right? On one end, you have communism on the left, and on the other end you have corporatism on the right, okay? And I would argue that capitalism is in the middle. And so communism, we know state owns all property. You're not allowed to have private property. So I will piss off a lot of people in this show. And so I'm asking for their patience. Please hear me out. And because don't worry, I'm going to piss off the other side too.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Republican and every corporate Democrat. They're all extremists in supporting what I call corporatism. So you have to get to a balance in order to get to the right answer.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “What mainstream media calls moderate is actually, in my opinion, extremist corporate ideology. So for example, they'll say Joe Manchin is a moderate. None of his positions are moderate other than potentially gun control in West Virginia. He's not for gun control. The people of West Virginia are not for gun control, generally speaking. And he uses that. And they usually have these shiny objects where they're like, you see this? I'm a moderate because of guns. Or I'm a moderate because I'm a Democrat from West Virginia. But wait, let's look at your positions. You're against paid family leave. That pulls at 84%. So you're a radical corporatist who say that women should be forced back into work the day after they have birth. You're against a higher minimum wage. You're against, you're for every corporate position and they all poll at 33% or less. So Joe Manchin is not at all immoderate. And this applies to almost every corporate.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Answers almost never black and white. And that gets into a really interesting nuance because mainstream media, in my opinion, is the matrix. And its job is to delude you into thinking corporate rule is great for you. And we should never change it. And the status quo is wonderful. So they have created a false middle.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “So, like, what we're probably going to talk about a lot today is balance. And so a lot of people think, oh, I'm on the right. I'm on the left. And that comes with a certain preset ideology. So the right is always correct. The left is always correct. So there's two problems with that. Number one, how could you possibly believe in a preset ideology if you're an independent thinker? It's literally by definition not possible. If you say, I lent my brain to an ideology that was created 80 years ago or eight years ago or 800 years ago, and I'm not going to change it, you're saying, I don't think for myself. I bought into a culture. And by the way, there's a lot of different forms of culture you could buy into. Religion, politics, sometimes racial, et cetera. So that's why you need actually balance. The second reason you need balance other than independent thought is because the answer is...”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Is still illegal in a lot of parts of the country now, a lot of right wingers and left wingers agree that it should be legal. But for my entire lifetime, black people have been arrested at about 3.7 times the rate of white people and the entire country has been fine with it. So is that justice? No. Black people smoke marijuana at the same rate. Black people get arrested about four times the rate. That is an injustice that an enormous percentage of the country was comfortable with. While progressives aren't comfortable with it, we want justice for all. So the equality of opportunities is an interesting one because the far left will say at least some portions of them will say equality of results, right? So progressives just want a fair chance. So free college education, but afterwards you don't get to have exact same results as either the wealthiest person or we're not all going to be equal.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Expand it, and they expanded it to propertied white men and then progressives have been, they're progressives because they expanded the circle of liberty. Then from then on, as we were perfecting the union, progressives always say expanded further, include women, include people without property, include all races, and at every turn, conservatives fight against it. So that doesn't mean if you're a conservative today, you don't want to include women or minorities, et cetera, but today you would say, for example, well, I don't want to expand the circle of liberty to, for example, undocumented immigrants. And maybe you're right about that, and we could have that discussion in terms of a specific philosophy. And I don't believe that undocumented immigrants should immediately be citizens or anything along those lines. But I do believe in expanding liberty overall. And the contours of that are what's interesting. And then you say justice for all. Everybody's for just, no, right now, marijuana possession.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “I'm center left on the left, right spectrum, but I'm all the way on that populist end of the second spectrum. So where does progressivism lie within that? Well, I would argue that it's exactly in those places. It's populist and it's on the left, but it is not far left. So far left is a different animal. And we could talk about that in a little bit. So expand the circle of liberty and justice for all and equality of opportunity. Now, people will say, well, that seems pretty broad and all-American, but is it? Think about it. So expand the circle of liberty. Everybody's in favor of that, right? No, absolutely not. Certainly the king of England was not in favor of expanding the circle of liberty. And the founding fathers said, we're going to.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yes. So, in order to do that, Lex, we got to talk about where we are in the political spectrum. And in fact, there's two different spectrums now. People often think of left, right? And that's true, that exists. But layered on top of that is now populist versus establishment.”

    2024-08-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source