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Published · transcript-backed

Cenk Uygur: belief

30 Aug 2024 Lex Fridman Podcast #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism

“I think generally speaking, they’re usually the worst of us, especially in this corporatist structure.”

— Cenk Uygur

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Cenk Uygur
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
belief
Recorded
30 Aug 2024
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…But then there’s more checking the elevator twice a year. That’s a more sort of specific watching, micromanaging. So Lex, here’s the deal. There’s no way around the laws are made by politicians. 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. 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%.” 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. 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 is 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. We predict things ahead of time. People are like, “Wow, how did you know 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 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’ve 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. It is a pendulum. 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. By the way, I was listening to Joe Biden from when he was like 30 years old, the speeches, he was eloquent as hell. It’s fun to listen to actually. And he has a speech he gives or just maybe a conversation in Congress, I’m not sure where, where he talks about how corrupt the whole system is, and he’s really honest and fun. And that Joe Biden was great, by the way, that guy. I mean, age sucks. People get older. But he was talking quite honestly about having to suck up to all these rich people and that he couldn’t really suck up to the really rich people. They said, “Come back to us 10 years later when you’re more integrated into the system.” But he was really honest about it, and he’s saying, “That’s how it is. That’s what we have to do. And that really sucks that that’s what we have to do.”…

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