June 6, 2022 - 4:37pm
Before the pandemic, evolutionary biologist and former Evergreen professor Bret Weinstein was lauded by both sides of the political divide for his insights into the crisis on American campuses. As a member of the so-called ‘intellectual dark web’, Weinstein was expanding his audience and being profiled by legacy media like the New York Times. Then the pandemic began and his heterodox perspective suddenly fell out of favour, even with many of his erstwhile allies.
Advocating for alternative treatments for Covid, questioning the efficacy of the global vaccine programme and challenging narratives of the pandemic came at a cost. Without warning, the Dark Horse podcast was demonetised on YouTube and Weinstein was forced to split from the views of his former friends and supporters.
So, how can we seek truth in such divided times? Freddie Sayers invited Bret into the UnHerd studio in London to try to understand what his views really are.
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SubscribeThe 1960s (in the iconic form) reached most people in the provinces in the 1970s.
Kamala Harris went from being one of the least admired Vice Presidents to the leading candidate for election in a matter of three weeks. Not bad for never receiving a primary vote. Since President Biden dropped out of the race following his disastrous debate performance where we could all see his frailties which have been hidden and denied by his staff and the mainstream media, it’s been Kamalamania here in the US.
Perhaps its because people who were anti-Trump and anti-Biden, now have a better choice. Or its DEI – how cool to have a Black woman President. Or its simply not Trump and Kamala can win where Joe could not. Kamala is part of the Administration. If people are unhappy with the direction of the country, why isn’t she being held accountable for her role in it?
We are facing a fiscal cliff in the early 2030s once our Social Security system will not longer be able to pay benefits are the levels promised. The Medicare system for pensioner healthcare could go broke later this decade. $35 trillion in debt and getting bigger all the time. These problems will make climate, race, gender, immigration, education and Palestine seem like small potatoes. Our young people are anxious, fearful, suicidal, lonely and depressed.
I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling that Kamala and her Administration will be able to address America’s decline.
Do you get a warm fuzzy feeling that Trump and his Administration will be able to address it?
At least Donald Trump will put in the effort to try. He’s not lost in a cloud of abstractions like Kamala Harris, the airheaded Barbie doll of politics.
He will put in the effort to fuel is galactic sized ego. Any benefit that accrues to anybody else will be entirely coincidental.
Superb article Mr. Cuenco, with many fresh insights. I just hope that when the profound cultural revolutions of the day settle in with a new unifying narrative, it won’t involve men insisting that they’re really women, and success or failure depending on which identity boxes one can check.
I hate to sound cynical, but politicians lie. The Republicans talk about helping workers is just talk, they will go the Steve Scalise route, and the Democrats will go the Clinton route because the only way they can win is to keep their fragile coalition together with the glue of identity politics.
In the end they will do what their biggest donors want which is to continue the neo-liberal economic policies that made them rich.
Art thou a Prophet?
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
In other words, we are in Neil Howe’s “Fourth Turning.”
A lone assassin managed to mount a rifle across from a former president and the target turned his head at just the right time to avoid a headshot.
Who believes that this 20-year-old who was moving about in plain sight before Trump went on stage acted alone? Unlike the FBI, the Secret Service does not yet have a reputation for being a politically corrupted agency but that may be coming.
At best, this was an almost inconceivable failure, a possibility that diminishes with each revelation of how standard procedures were ignored. That leads to the ‘at worst’ option, which after eight years of attacks, impeachments, and lawfare was the only one left to those determined to stop Trump.
It seems hard to believe the incompetency involved. But Ive learned to never underestimate the incompetent.
Almost all actions by government agencies are driven by incompetence. The few that aren’t are driven by cowardice.
We should not be encouraging more violence than already exists around these grand democratic spectacles.
But nor should we sponsoring pointless military violence in a country like the Ukraine where is it obvious (at least to a majority of the world) that the military course of action is failing badly and will always fail.
The two seem to feed off each other in terms of fostering a culture of nihilism around big-stage politics. It is certainly a major weakness in American culture at present.
How is it failing? The Russians are being attrited in as safe a manor as possible.
Any independently verified figures on that one?
Every story and picture that comes out of the battlefield.
What stories and pictures? Where,?
I’m glad you agree that the Russians are going to lose.
The world isn’t static. If we don’t push back now, it’ll just break out somewhere else until
eventually it’s right on our stoops.
The ‘endless war between Wall Street and Main Street’ continues. The difference now is that fifty years ago Wall Street had some interest in the welfare of ordinary Americans since they were its workforce. Not any more.
I’d be more inclined to describe it as the ‘Being There’ election.
But then every US election is a ‘Being There’ election.
Not a bad article at all, I rather liked it. A pretty good summation of the current situation. My compliments to the chef, by all means my compliments to the chef!