WBD497 Audio Transcription
The Anarchist Lens with Michael Malice
Release date: Wednesday 4th May
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Michael Malice. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
Michael Malice is an anarchist, author, and podcaster. In this interview, we discuss declining versus flourishing US cities, transitioning away from the state, Ukraine and Putin, conspiracies to cancel, challenges to free speech, and the enfeeblement of the media and education system.
“There are certainly genuinely evil people who do not hesitate to sacrifice entire nations to further and maintain their hold on power, and that to have some kind of civil discussion about this is so missing the mark, it’s not even funny.”
— Michael Malice
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: How are you doing, man?
Michael Malice: I'm doing well.
Peter McCormack: Good to see you again.
Michael Malice: Did you get a new tattoo since we last spoke?
Peter McCormack: That might be new.
Michael Malice: What's that?
Peter McCormack: Are you into hardcore metal?
Michael Malice: God, no!
Peter McCormack: It's a band called The Ghost Inside. I got this done in a gang zone in El Salvador.
Michael Malice: Did they acknowledge that you got the tattoo?
Peter McCormack: The band?
Michael Malice: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Well, I know them.
Michael Malice: Oh, then that means a lot, that's nice, I like that.
Peter McCormack: So, what happened was, I used to have this other podcast where we wanted to do non-Bitcoin things, and I was into this band called The Ghost Inside. Just a quick story, it's a hardcore metal band, most of them never get that successful; they did, they blew up on their 4th album, it went to number 30 in the Billboard, which is massive --
Michael Malice: That's a big deal, yes.
Peter McCormack: -- for a band that screams. They start touring the new album, actually here. They'd left Lubbock, Texas, and in the middle of the night, their tour bus hit an 18-wheeler head on --
Michael Malice: Oh my God.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, the driver of the bus died, the driver of the lorry died, the drummer lost his leg, singer was in a coma; it was terrible. So, the assumption is they're done as a band. Then about a year later, year and a half later, there's a video of the drummer just hitting a drum.
Michael Malice: That's phenomenal.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, it basically takes them four years for the band to get back together, and they announce this show in Los Angeles and I was like, "Fuck it, I'm going. I don't know why, I need to be at this". So I basically arranged my travel so I was there. So, I went to the concert, and then about six months afterwards, I was like, "I think I want to tell the story", so reached out to the band, I was like, "Can I tell the story?" they said yes, so we made a four-part podcast and I became quite good friends with the bassist. And now, if they're playing anywhere, I go and see them. So, I saw them in Boston and I hung out with them.
I went to El Salvador to make a documentary and I went into one of the gang zones with armed guards, and I hadn't thought of the tattoo I was going to get, and I was like, "I've got this space here" and I was like, "Do you know what, I'll get that".
Michael Malice: That's a wonderful story.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so that's the last one --
Michael Malice: Because that also means you don't have to like the band to like the story of resilience.
Peter McCormack: It's an incredible story. I mean, they play about four concerts a year now. It's hard, the drummer has one leg.
Michael Malice: So, it wasn't a full reunion!
Peter McCormack: His dad -- it's actually a fascinating story. His dad created this thing called -- his dad felt so bad that he went into this garage and he basically made this thing called "the hammer", because he plays the double bass drum. That meant, with this stump, that he could play the drums. But there's a lot of pressure on them playing concerts, it's hard work.
Michael Malice: Of course, yeah, especially with that speed.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but they've got two coming up. They're playing Brixton Academy in the UK. Oh, we need to check that date on our travel. They're playing Brixton Academy in London, which is the best venue in London, and then they're playing Donnington Monsters of Rock, which will be cool.
Michael Malice: That's great, I love hearing that.
Peter McCormack: How are you doing? Are you settled here?
Michael Malice: I am, yes, very much so.
Peter McCormack: Missing New York?
Michael Malice: Not for one second. But I'm rooting for COVID!
Peter McCormack: I had to cancel a trip there. I'd booked to take my daughter there for her birthday, and I was taking her to see Billie Eilish at Madison Square Garden. Couldn't go, because you had to be vaccinated. And even if I wanted her to be, she was 11 when we were going, so we had to cancel the whole trip.
Michael Malice: Was she disappointed? I hope you made it up to her.
Peter McCormack: I mean, yeah, of course I made it up to her. She was devastated though. I mean, can you imagine at 11 going to New York to watch Billie Eilish?
Michael Malice: Well, I mean I was 11 in New York, and it was a beautiful, magical place and now it's like a zombie. You know the premise of a zombie is this animated corpse of something that once was a living thing, and that is what New York has become. It's just very hard, it was very hard as a lifelong New Yorker to watch that happen.
Peter McCormack: Do you think it will come back?
Michael Malice: Not for at least 15 years, because none of the mechanisms are in place to reverse this shit. Also, lots of people who would have been there to have righted the ship have left, including myself, my whole crew.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. A lot of my friends moved to Miami.
Michael Malice: Yeah, it's Miami and Austin.
Peter McCormack: There was hope with Eric Adams, right?
Michael Malice: No. I mean, for five minutes. There was hope he wasn't going to be as bad as de Blasio, but that I think lasted literally five minutes.
Peter McCormack: So, we were there, I think it was the trip after the one where I saw you last, and the thing that blew my mind is, I have no issue with drugs, but the open drug-selling in Times Square. I was like, "How has this happened?"
Michael Malice: That's not as bad as the open crime in Times Square. There were people getting killed in daylight, robbed. That takes me back to the 1990s, and the worst aspect of the 1990s.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but what was it like in the 1990s, because the first time I went to New York was 2002. I went after 9/11. That's correct; was it 2001, 9/11?
Michael Malice: Correct, yeah.
Peter McCormack: So, I went in 2002.
Michael Malice: You don't remember what year 9/11 was?
Peter McCormack: Well, I was trying to remember.
Michael Malice: How old are we?! Are we both the President?! I just shat my pants!
Peter McCormack: I got it right!
Michael Malice: You did, you did get it right, but you were unsure!
Peter McCormack: I just had to double-check. But when I was there, I was told --
Michael Malice: And it was 11 September, not August; you got the month right and the date!
Peter McCormack: I know, 9/11, I remember, man.
Michael Malice: A very tragic day, a lot of Muslims died that day.
Peter McCormack: They did. A lot of Americans died that day. I was told it was really bad in the 1990s, but I've got no perception of what it was like.
Michael Malice: I'll tell you what it was like, I remember it very vividly. You couldn't have, and this was before MP3s, you couldn't have your Walkman on the subway with the headphones, or your wallet, because there would be groups of teenagers who would go from the train, car to car, and if they saw your wallet bulging or your Walkman, they'd rob you. And it was like, on the street, this happened to me, let's suppose three years ago, and I went, "I haven't experienced this since the 1990s".
You'd be walking, someone will sidle up to you, and they'll start telling you a story with their hand in their pocket, and it will be a story about how they're broke and how they just need $20; but it's not really a story, it's a threat, you know what I mean. So it's like, "You're giving me this money", but then they have the plausible deniability that it's a charitable thing you're doing voluntarily. So, that was something that they did.
Also, just this vibe about when people are acting in ways completely beyond the pale that no one seems to care. I was laughed at on Twitter a bit, because last summer I moved to Austin in August 2021. Before that, I was in the subway, and twice within one week, I saw people smoking in the subway, which I hadn't seen in decades. People were like, "Just deal with it, you're such a crybaby". I go, "Well, first of all, why am I dealing with anything?" Number one, why do I have to deal with the slightest, little thing? Two is, I remember because one day it's smoking cigarettes, the next day it's people getting the crap kicked out of them.
I mean, the way that slope is slippery, it's just overnight, and that's happened since. You have shelves bare, people shoving people into the tracks, tirades, just --
Peter McCormack: Pissing on the train.
Michael Malice: Pissing on the train. Even that, I can wrap my head around in terms of, okay that's gross, but it's not scary.
Peter McCormack: Right, okay.
Michael Malice: But what started happening was people would just start blasting their music on the subway, and no one seemed to mind. What that tells you is, if they're not going to enforce this very basic type of behaviour, at what point do people step in. Another thing, you'll have these busy subway stations, like Union Square or Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and you'll have one staircase for everyone to get into the station, and people just sit on the staircase, which is like two people wide, and just sit there. What I used to do is, if I had a shopping bag, I'd walk by and accidentally hit them in the head!
But the point is, when you have rush hour and people just sit there blocking and nothing would be done about this, and all these little cues in of themselves are not a big deal, but they're all indicative of, all right, no one is interested in managing this. And I say this, of course, as an anarchist.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, how have you taken to Texas, because even in New York's prime, it's still a very different place from Texas?
Michael Malice: Yeah, so people laugh and they say, "Oh, you moved to the San Francisco of Texas", which might be true. Austin might be San Francisco by Texas standards, but it's not San Francisco by San Francisco standards, by any means. I am here because, again, all my friends moved here, I absolutely love it. There are certain things that I am missing about not living in a big city, but the thing that's the most important, in my opinion, about Austin as opposed to New York is the trajectory.
So, I think many of us can remember, when you're young and you're starting to make it, even though you may have $500 in your bank account, it's still going in the right direction and it's exciting; as opposed to, let's say, if someone had been making it and now they're going down, and now they only have $500 in their bank account. Those are very different phenomena, right. So, Austin is very much a place where things are happening, there's an excitement in the air, there's a camaraderie with people that you meet; whereas with New York, there was this pervasive sense of anxiety and tension, which I don't miss for a second, which I didn't realise to what extent had been there.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so we travel a lot with this. We've obviously done New York, a place I used to love; we did LA. LA has its issues, but it's fine, because it's quite spread out, so you can just go and be on your own. We went to San Francisco after that. Our rental had its window smashed right outside a restaurant. Do you remember, we made a joke of it?
Danny Knowles: What was the joke?
Peter McCormack: So, before we went in the restaurant I said, "We'll probably come out and the window will be smashed". Came out and it was smashed. I mean, San Francisco's un-fucking-believable. We've been here for a month, and it's definitely my favourite; it's a great place.
Michael Malice: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: What do you miss though about New York?
Michael Malice: I miss -- all the little establishments that gave New York its character were destroyed by the COVID lockdowns. So, that little boutique, that little restaurant, that little ice cream shop, that little music store, they're all gone. If you walk in Park Slope, which was a very fancy neighbourhood in Brooklyn, you'd see stores that had been there since the 1970s, family-owned, they're all gone. So, there are some people that might tell you that New York would be better with more Targets; I'm not one of them.
Peter McCormack: My daughter would agree!
Michael Malice: She'd want more Target?
Peter McCormack: She likes Target.
Michael Malice: There's enough of them. And the thing is, she wouldn't know what to like, because she didn't know those places were there until she went to New York; that's what made it special. So, that is something that I miss, but I missed it while I was there. I miss the fact that there were scenes of people doing exciting things and you would meet cool people that had -- you would not meet anyone the last couple of years. And now, if I'm a young person who's an innovator in any capacity, why on earth would I move to New York? All the decks would be stacked against me and there'd be very little upside.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's why I think you've had a large group of people who've moved here, moved to Miami, you get the benefit of a more open society and lower tax.
Michael Malice: Right, and lower rent.
Peter McCormack: Lower rent? I guess so, yeah.
Michael Malice: I have a townhouse here.
Peter McCormack: I've never compared the two, we're just travelling. Well, we'll find out when we book New York, I guess. We wouldn't get this property. So anyway, listen --
Michael Malice: No, you listen!
Peter McCormack: You listen! When I last met you, obviously the world was a crazy place, lots of weird shit going on, and it seems to get crazier. I mean, what was it, six months ago? Yeah, it seems to get crazier. By the way, I notice your increase in trolling on Twitter.
Michael Malice: It has increased? What do you mean?
Peter McCormack: I think your velocity.
Michael Malice: Oh, yeah, not the volume.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I've noticed that happening. You, as an anarchist, how do you look at this all, because with this podcast, we look at all ideas of politics. We look at democracy, we look at anarchism, we talk to libertarians. Are you just laughing and just seeing the fall of the state? How are you looking at everything that's happening in the world, because it's getting weird?
Michael Malice: I don't think the state is falling, but I think what I'm very excited about is the increasing exponential rate of people's faith in these depraved institutions that have, for so long, controlled and governed society. I mean, let's look at the state. To have a governing coalition to send us into another war, at this point seems almost impossible. It would have to take a 9/11-type event, God forbid, and even then I don't know if there would be enough room for it to happen.
So you basically had, with President Trump, let's suppose for some reason we needed to go to some country where things are really, really bad; you would have half the country just on its face saying, "Under no circumstances". And now, with President Biden and Ukraine, even among Democrats, there is not this heavy appetite for boots on the ground; among Republicans, it's a complete non-starter. I think that's a very healthy thing, that it's going to take a lot to get us to get into our imperialist phase, which I'm very gladdened by.
The fact that corporate journalists are now repudiated to their face on the streets, you watch all these newscasts, and now they can't edit around because everyone has their own camera. Before the interview even goes out on their network, it's live instantly on Twitter or on Instagram Stories; that is something I'm very excited about, I think it's very healthy.
The fact that the number of home-schooling kids has increased at an exponential rate; the fact that school choice, state by state, is increasing at an exponential rate, getting children out of government schools, which are literal prisons for kids. These are all metrics that I'm very excited about. And something where I think I disagree with many other people, I think the mask of authority has dropped, so you are seeing an increase of the heavy hand of authoritarianism, in Denmark and places like this; you see old people getting beaten by police on horseback until they're bloody, etc.
But the point is, that authoritarianism has always been there, and now it's just being more honest. When authoritarianism has to show its hand, that alienates a big part of the middle, because I don't have to have any political view one way or another. If I see a priest getting handcuffed for having a prayer service, with the vast majority of people, Republican, Democrat, whatever they are, arguing like, "All right, I don't know what's going on here", but we went way off the rails.
Peter McCormack: So, one of the things when talking to people like yourself about this, or any of the other guests -- I had Scott Horton on recently, he was great; I've always tried, and I think it might be a mistake, I've always tried to ask them, or asked them to discuss an idea of the function in society they want. And I always get to the point where I think, "Well, we're so far from that".
Michael Malice: How are we so far from it?
Peter McCormack: Well, so if we had complete collapse of the state, we had not state, how would society function? But actually, what I'm taking from what you're saying now is, in some ways the transition away from institutions is a more productive area of discussion, rather than talking about the big red button and what would happen, how would things function.
Michael Malice: Well, I can tell it to you very easily. If the fiat money, the Fed collapsed, in the short term there'd be a massive problem; that's not even a question. At the same time, if this transitioned everyone to Bitcoin and other digital currencies, you would surely agree this would be a wonderful thing, right?
Peter McCormack: Just Bitcoin!
Michael Malice: Sure! I'll sell my Ether immediately. The point being that there are other much healthier alternatives that are already in place, that are much more friendly towards the population, much less susceptible to control by malevolent, depraved people, and that's what makes me excited.
Peter McCormack: I mean, I agree with you. But what I'm thinking is, in terms of transition, I don't see a complete collapse of the state immediately.
Michael Malice: I agree with you.
Peter McCormack: So, if we don't have a complete collapse of the state, we have an evolution of the state, I don't know what it becomes. But is it more of an anarchist's -- are you more interested in ideas that push people towards anarchist ideas, rather than a complete anarchist state; do you see what I'm asking?
Michael Malice: It's like the Catholic Church, right. So, centuries ago, the Pope had armies, he had torturers and he was engaged in a lot of things. Now he's got Vatican City, which is a micronation, he's got his Royal Guard, he's got his popemobile, he issues his proclamations. The Pope is not really someone that you or I are concerned with. He says a lot of things you like, he says a lot of things I like, he says a lot of things I don't like, he says a lot of things you don't like as well; the point being, he's not in a position to impose his world view onto populations, right, other than through persuasion, and so on and so forth.
If the state got to a point where you have people who really believe in Washington and Washington saying, "You should do this and that", whereas we all had control over our money, that's not anarchism, but I'm fine with that. It's like, "Oh, so President McCormack said today, we've got to do this, this and this. Oh, cool, that's nice". That's just the public. You issue this proclamation, you have your point of view, I'll take it under advisement, but I'm going to do what I want, live peacefully and treat people well.
That is, I think, a much more realistic, medium-term goal, I don't think it's very unrealistic at all, rather than a collapse of the state basically, a transition away from the state being a state, per se, and just being this organisation that you can choose to pay attention to or not.
Peter McCormack: So, it sounds like to me then, since we last spoke, you've gone a bit more down the Bitcoin rabbit hole?
Michael Malice: Well, I mean if you look at Bitcoin Magazine, I did an interview with them in, what, 2014? So, I've been down this rabbit hole for a long time.
Peter McCormack: But when we spoke last time, it wasn't a central argument like you have now. Maybe we didn't get into it in that way.
Michael Malice: Well, I'm just preaching a little bit to the choir. It's also that I just tend to avoid sometimes talking about Bitcoin, given bitcoiners.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, okay, let's talk about that though.
Michael Malice: Sure.
Peter McCormack: What's your issue with bitcoiners?
Michael Malice: They all -- so, they seem -- no, it's not what's my issue with bitcoiners, it's either you're not talking about Bitcoin enough, or you're talking about Bitcoin too late, or you shouldn't be talking about other digital currencies; and no matter what you do, you're not doing it right.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, you shouldn't be talking about other digital currencies, I agree with that point.
Michael Malice: Okay, sure.
Peter McCormack: No, I'm okay with that. I mean, a large point of the crypto ecosystem, which has benefitted people internationally, has been digital dollars, and a lot of bitcoiners understand that; but you have to understand, if you have that, you have Ethereum or Solana, the technologies that people transfer those on. I think that's a position that's evolving, but I think a lot of people want you to talk about Bitcoin more. I know bitcoiners do, because they see you as somebody who has a wider reach than maybe they have into other communities. So, I think that's one of the things they kind of hope.
Michael Malice: I'm happy to do that, I just need to hear your tweets about it; I don't mean you, Peter!
Peter McCormack: Well, I've stopped tweeting, it was doing me --
Michael Malice: Have you?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I quite about a week ago.
Michael Malice: Oh, what made you decide to do that?
Peter McCormack: It was turning me into a prick, and I just got fed up with it. I don't think much is achieved on -- either I'm going to troll and fight and argue, or I'm just not going to be on it, because the middle ground of trying to do like what we're doing here, just have a conversation, you just can't do it, and I don't like that.
Michael Malice: Well, I agree. This is funny, because a lot of times people will be like, "Break down anarchism for me". I'm like, "This is Twitter. You can't break down the Bill of Rights in 280-character chunks, it makes no sense. This is completely not a medium that is conducive to that".
Peter McCormack: So, have you found, obviously you're probably one of the most prominent anarchists, people know you as; have you seen an uptick in book sales, or interest in your --
Michael Malice: Well, The Anarchist Handbook, which came out in May, hit number three on Amazon, so it was the biggest non-fiction book for almost a day. So, that was a major, major thing that took me completely by surprise. I thought I'd just put this book out, which was a compilation of essays by anarchists of the past, because it needed to be out there and I thought, "Okay, it will put a pause while I'm writing my next book, The White Pill". And the reaction has been just completely overwhelming, to the point where I did Jordan Peterson's podcast that week and I didn't even mention it, because it wasn't ready and I didn't think it was going to be a big deal.
So, having that sort of response, and also not going through a publisher and publishing it myself, all of this was extremely gratifying and validating, and it makes me feel good, to be honest, to take the names of some people who had been forgotten, or don't get the accolades that I think they deserve; and in my small way, to bring them back to public prominence.
Peter McCormack: Well, who are the most prominent people you talked about in there, and particular ideas?
Michael Malice: Probably people like Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Murray Rothbard, David Friedman are in there. Josiah Warren, Voltairine De Cleyre, Bakunin. So, those are kind of the big names.
Peter McCormack: And, why do you think there has been this growth in interest then? Do you think the shield has been, or the veil has been lifted on all the bullshit?
Michael Malice: I think there's a growth of interest in anarchism, in part due to my work, of course, and other people. But I think when people become red pilled, and by which I mean they are understanding that what is being presented to them as a working, or even ideal system, does not at all comport to reality, they start looking for alternatives. And I think people who are intellectually curious are now at a point where it's like, "This is something that 20 years ago was regarded as a joke. Nowadays, it might still be regarded as a joke, but there are enough people who I like who take this seriously; let me find out what it's about, at the very least as a thought experiment".
So, I think that kind of mainstreaming of a radical school of thought is also testament to the internet, because the internet allows, instead of having four networks and your choice is going to be chocolate or vanilla, or maybe that crazy network that has strawberry, now you can have any flavour you want.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so what's The White Pill?
Michael Malice: The White Pill's my next book.
Peter McCormack: Can you tell us anything?
Michael Malice: Sure. It's one of the things I get a lot on social media is how you're optimistic, because I'm obviously not some Pollyanna, "People are nice, everyone's great, we're all going to get along" type, and I think it's important that if you are going to be optimistic about the future, it has to be based on data, it has to be based on what makes you optimistic. So, it's the story of the rise of the Soviet Union and its peaceful dissolution.
Peter McCormack: Okay, I don't know enough about the rise of the Soviet Union.
Michael Malice: And that's by design. So, we are intentionally not taught entire, huge swaths of history, because it would make certain people who are around today look very, very bad.
Peter McCormack: Are you part-Russian?
Michael Malice: I was born in Ukraine.
Peter McCormack: Oh, you were born in Ukraine?
Michael Malice: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I've been to Kyiv.
Michael Malice: Oh, cool.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I went to Kyiv, when did England play Sweden there? I went to a football game. Euro 2002, or something? Yeah, I went out there. I ate horse as well; it was a weird taste. But yeah, I went out for the football. It was brilliant, beautiful city. I loved it.
Michael Malice: I haven't been back since I left when I was an infant. Do you know Chris Williamson; he's a British podcaster, he does Modern Wisdom?
Peter McCormack: No, we'll check him.
Michael Malice: Anyway, I was supposed to go with him to Moscow, or St Petersburg and Lviv, where I'm from. Then COVID hit for my birthday, then COVID hit again. And now, my town where I'm born is being bombed, so I don't know if it's ever going to happen.
Peter McCormack: So, what do we now know about the rise of the Soviet Union; what are we not taught?
Michael Malice: I don't think we're taught any of it, are we? I mean, you were raised in Britain obviously, so it's different for you, but here in the States, they just talk about, "We had to deal with Stalin during World War II and then the Cold War happened". I think that's the extent of it. And people are taught communism is bad, but they're not taught what it meant and how wonderful it was when the Berlin Wall -- why is it such a great thing that the Berlin Wall fell; what was that Berlin Wall? We're not taught about this.
We're taught about other great historical atrocities, slavery, the holocaust, but when it comes to this, which was half the world for decades under the thumb of the state in the most depraved ways imaginable, it's just not a subject for discussion, and I'm going to put a stop to that.
Peter McCormack: Okay, I mean obviously I'll read it when it comes out. But do you think there's a purpose to tell people about it?
Michael Malice: Of course, what do you mean?
Peter McCormack: Well, no, but I mean what is it they don't want us to hear?
Michael Malice: I think they don't want to hear how much blood they had on their hands, because much of what was happening over there was being advocated for by westerners, and we were being told, "You don't understand what's going on, how great it is, it's all anti-Russian propaganda". Every step of the concentration camps, the show trials, the Holodomor where Ukrainians were starved in the millions, was not only swept under rug sometimes, but it was actually advocated for and glorified by western intellectuals.
Peter McCormack: Why were the westerners advocating for this?
Michael Malice: Because they believed that this was the future and this was scientific, and we're backwards with our 19th century liberalism, and this is the way to scientifically and have experts run a society. And that's why they're going to win and we're going to lose.
Peter McCormack: Okay, well --
Michael Malice: Harold Laski, who was Head of the British Labour Party in the 1940s, I believe, was just blatantly talking about how we need to have a workers' revolution. But you're not even taught about this, right? No, of course not.
Peter McCormack: No, of course not. To be honest, I can't even remember much of what I was taught about at school!
Michael Malice: You'd remember, it's not that you forgot.
Peter McCormack: Keynesian Economics, World War II, Henry VIII. What else did we get, Danny?
Michael Malice: But there's never this thing about World War II about how we had to make a deal with the Devil to fight Hitler. It's like, Hitler's really bad, all that's true. But when it comes to Stalin, he did some bad things. It's kind of out of the side of the mouth, let's move on. What do we call that? TiVo, right; you might want to fast-forward through this part. They don't really get into it.
Peter McCormack: The only bit I think I was ever taught was about the break-up of Germany after the war. Was it originally split into four?
Michael Malice: Yeah, so Britain, France, the US and Russia each had a quarter.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's the only bit that we were taught, and I did see more about it, I think, when I was watching that, was it World War II in Colour; I think there's a bit more of it there. But no, I have no understanding of it. I am really fucking sad what's happening there right now. I mean, it's obviously bullshit. Do you consider yourself a Ukrainian then, or do you say an American Ukrainian?
Michael Malice: I mean, I don't know what I consider myself at this point. We spoke Russian at home, and if you were Jewish from that area, you identify more on some level with Russia than with Ukraine. I am very disturbed to see what's going on there. I am also disturbed to see the sabre-rattling in the West as well, but I don't really know what to make of it, and I think far too many people are of the belief that they are far too informed on the subject.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Obviously, when it first happened, I think most people come to some kind of opinion on it, and there are a broad set of opinions. I think the thing I've really struggled with it, Michael, is that people are having to take a position of, "Russia's bad" or, "This is NATO's fault" or, "Why have we been funding Nazis in Eastern Ukraine?" and they tend to stick to that one train, and I've not seen many people who've collected it all up and said, "This is all fucking bullshit".
Michael Malice: Yeah. My dad just got out of Ukraine, he was doing business there, and he was sitting next to this kid on the train who was crying that they were going to kill his father, and it really got to him. So, I raised $5,000 for Chef José Andrés, I forget his organisation. Basically they feed refugees. I was like, "All right, this is something that's unambiguous. If you're giving food to hungry people, then that is something I can support and get behind". I was just very confused and I remain confused, as to how Putin thought this was going to play out.
Now, people who are unintelligent will just handwave away and say, "He's stupid [or] he's crazy". Well, crazy is just a word that is just covering up your ignorance because, okay fine, he's crazy, what does his craziness entail? After the Falklands with your girl, the Iron Lady, the principle was established that internationally, you don't allow a country to invade and then get to keep some of it. Her whole point with Argentina and the Falklands is, "We can have diplomacy 365 days a year, but as soon as you start using force, diplomacy's off the table. You can't allow aggressors to get an inch of another country by that means; you're validating them".
We saw this with Kuwait as well where, whatever think about the Kuwait War, at least on the surface the principle is, if you're crossing a sovereign territory, the international community's going to put a stop to this. So, Putin surely knew, there's no way the guy, who was a major figure in the KGB, who knows, who's a Machiavellian knew, "If I cross this, there's going to be some repercussions". It's impossible to me that he thought he's going to take Kyiv, and then NATO and the UN are going to be like, "Good show, old chap, it's yours now". That's not a thing. So, I am baffled as to how he thought this was going to end up.
Peter McCormack: My friend, Balaji --
Michael Malice: Oh, I know Balaji.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, he sent me a couple of videos, and it was an example of advertising for the US Army versus the Russian Army, so I don't know if you've seen these; but the US Army was about some girl with two mothers --
Michael Malice: Seriously?
Peter McCormack: Have you not seen this?
Michael Malice: I thought that was like Daily Wire --
Peter McCormack: No, this is real. Danny, find that advert for the -- we've stolen your friend, Rogan's idea, and now we have a tool, daddy!
Michael Malice: Yeah, pull it up!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so there's these two adverts, you've got to see them side-by-side. One is for the US Army and it's about a girl with two mothers, have you got it?
Danny Knowles: No.
Peter McCormack: And then, he sent me the one for the Russian Army, side-by-side, and the Russian Army was a bunch of shaved-headed guys doing press-ups in the snow with guns, and he compared the two.
Danny Knowles: I've no idea if this is it.
Peter McCormack: Is it a cartoon?
Danny Knowles: Yeah, this is it.
[Advert plays]
Michael Malice: 24 likes only!
[Advert continues]
Peter McCormack: I mean, you get the picture, right?
Michael Malice: Yeah! I can't -- wait, is this real?!
Peter McCormack: This is real! Balaji sent me this. Keep it going, Danny.
[Advert continues]
Michael Malice: Okay, I'm confused. Who are they targeting? Like, children of two mums? How many people in America have two mums?
Peter McCormack: I don't know. Maybe they're targeting recruitment in California?!
[Advert continues]
Michael Malice: Wait a minute, no, no, this is actually smart. Can you pause it?
Danny Knowles: Yeah.
Michael Malice: I'll tell you why this is smart.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Michael Malice: I'll tell you why this is smart, it just clicked; because, when something is on its face so dumb, often it's actually brilliant and you're just not hearing the language.
Peter McCormack: What am I missing?
Michael Malice: This is what I was missing. When I was in college, they tried to have ROTC, which I forget what that stands for, basically it's army recruitment, on campus. This was a hugely controversial issue and in many universities, for decades, you had army recruitment on campuses. They were kicked off campuses, especially the Ivy Leagues. This is destigmatising the military for woke people, this is making then not think of the military as an out group, but as basically, "The military is you, just as it is the people from red states". So, it's doing a brilliant job of sanctifying the military in the eyes of the worst people in the country!
Peter McCormack: But does it not then turn off other people, who maybe would have joined the army?
Michael Malice: But those other people probably wouldn't have seen those commercials.
Peter McCormack: That's true, yeah.
Michael Malice: We're not at the point in America, and especially around the world, where everyone's watching the same channels. When we were kids, you had three networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, so you'd have the Super Bowl, you'd have the finale of M*A*S*H* or Seinfeld. These would be events where you'd literally have 50% of the nation watching it. That's never going to happen on anything. So, they can basically talk to one group and the other groups are going to be completely oblivious. And the only way you'd find out about this is if a Balaji sends it to you.
Peter McCormack: Find the Russian one now, because it's good to watch them side-by-side. Just do Russian Army recruitment, and you'll know it, because it's got some shaved-headed looking… And the thing is, when you see them side-by-side you think, "If these two groups go to war, I'm kind of scared of the hardened Russians with their guns, press-ups in the snow".
Michael Malice: Yeah, but at the end of the day, the Russians are being slaughtered now and we're not.
Peter McCormack: Well, this is the point. Is this a clever myth that's been sold, that this is a really well-organised, well-equipped Russian -- here we go, look at this!
[Advert plays]
Michael Malice: Wait, can you rewind this? I speak Russian, I want to hear what -- it sounds like, "Your life has no meaning". Hold on.
[Advert continues, Michael translates]
Michael Malice: "This is the first day of your life. What happened yesterday doesn't mean anything. What you were before doesn't bother anyone, what matters if what you'll be today. What do you know about yourself? You'll know the limits of yourself. The biggest enemy is who you were yesterday". Do you know what this is an ad for?
Peter McCormack: Is it not the army?
Michael Malice: No, it's an ad for CrossFit.
Peter McCormack: What?
Michael Malice: We have CrossFit ads like this, it's the same, exact shit, "Your biggest enemy is who you were yesterday. Today, you're giving yourself meaning". It's the same thing.
Peter McCormack: But my expectation is, this is what the Russian Army was like, and then the way we've seen it played out --
Michael Malice: That's the propaganda that's what it's like. But it's also the propaganda that I think people who listen to, like Matt Walsh, think if you go to the army, everyone's going to be a drag queen. It's nonsensical, that's not the case at all. I would be terrified and any of us would be terrified facing the US Army.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, of course.
Michael Malice: It's not of course, because I think a lot of conservatives are generally of the belief that everyone in the military is wearing lipstick and transgender.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but they're not. I mean, I'm perfectly aware when the US Army invades a nation, they're pretty quick and decisive. Maybe peacekeeping isn't their biggest quality. But I was just surprised at the invasion when I heard it happen. I was like, "Holy shit, this is going to be quick and this is going to be bad for Ukraine", and they've kind of got their arses kicked.
Michael Malice: Well, because I think at the same time it seems like, and again, we're in Plato's Cave here, with limited data and a lot of the data out there is intentionally misinformation, you want to show your hand; that I don't think Putin sold it well to his military. And, I have a friend, he's from the Czech Republic, and his parents are involved in the international zoo community, and he was just telling me how they went to a zoo, I forget what city in Ukraine, and they killed two of the zoo employees and they shot at the orangutan and two chimps.
So, this is the sort of thing where it's just senseless, that sort of violence. But it's very hard, in my view, to sell any kind of military on, "We're just going to go out and kill people for no reason". That's not a good motivator.
Peter McCormack: But you'll understand it more than I do. In Russia, there's obviously been a negative reaction from the people there. The great cancelling of Russia is super-weird as well, but can any of this become a threat to him?
Michael Malice: To who?
Peter McCormack: To Putin.
Michael Malice: Of course. I mean, someone could do something personally. He's not Stalin, right, so in every country, there are people behind the scenes -- look what happened to Teresa May. She was UK Prime Minister and she was trying to get Brexit through and she bungled the snap election and there was the 1992 or 1993, whatever it was called, Committee sat her down and said, "It's all right, Teresa, it's time to go", and they forced her to resign.
It's very clear that if there was enough of a will in the Cabinet, they could have 25th-amended Trump, and any one of us could easily imagine Biden, during the primaries, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, got a phone call, they said, "Biden's a candidate you're endorsing tomorrow". They said, "Yes, sir [or] yes, ma'am", to whoever it was. We can easily imagine Biden being forced out of office by powerful forces within the government or the Democratic Party. Obviously, Putin is not entirely analogous to America or Britain, but to say that he's there with complete unilateral control, I think is nonsensical.
Peter McCormack: So, do you think there's a chance this does -- there's a chance that Russia moves on from Putin?
Michael Malice: I think that might be something that would -- I was trying to think, "How does this end?"
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Michael Malice: So, it's not going to end with, he conquers Ukraine and everyone's like, "All right, you have Ukraine, you're going to have sanctions", that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen that NATO or the UN invades Russia and deposes Putin, that's also not an option. So, a realistic possibility is, all right, they don't have to have any consequences, but he has to personally take the fall and step down. That is something I think we can imagine. This is some conclusion that I think people would be happy with and they can move on with their lives.
Peter McCormack: He can leave with part of his money.
Michael Malice: Yeah, "We're not going to arrest you, but you're stepping down, you're going to be the fall guy, made a mistake". They're going to put some other corrupt autocrat in power, the system's not going to change, but someone gets to be the fall guy.
Peter McCormack: And, is there any part of Putin that's been good for Russia? I was watching a documentary, do you know Adam Curtis?
Michael Malice: No.
Peter McCormack: So, it was an Adam Curtis documentary, it was about money around the world, and it talked about after Yeltsin, they tried to implement more of a free market economy, and it really emboldened the oligarchs, but was devastating for most people. And when Putin came in, he brought more order and he said, "People want to be able to feed their family and put their lights on. They care about that more than they care about freedom of speech". Is there some truth to that?
Michael Malice: It's entirely true. I use this quote every day, it seems like, and the lockdowns demonstrated this. HL Mencken, who was a great curmudgeonly writer of the early 20th century said, "The average man does want to be free, he simply wants to be safe", and you can see this all over the world, even in the West, especially in places like Canada, Australia and even in the States, where supposedly we have our gun culture, but people are certainly more than happy to take it from the government in the name of safety. So, that's absolutely 100% the case.
Peter McCormack: Would you say that was a net benefit for Russia?
Michael Malice: What was?
Peter McCormack: That there was this --
Michael Malice: Oh, I don't know if it was a net benefit, I don't have enough information about that.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, okay. What do you make of the whole trucker thing? I think I know!
Michael Malice: I mean, as we speak, they're probably being tortured right now and no one cares about it.
Peter McCormack: You think so?
Michael Malice: Probably. I mean, what they did to 6 January people, they put them in solitary, which is basically a form of torture.
Peter McCormack: That, for me, was one of the biggest things of the last year, where I've felt a threat to myself, as a British person, considering a western liberal democracy can descend itself into a position of closing down bank accounts just because you supported a cause.
Michael Malice: Right. I thought all my crypto friends were, I don't know about excited, but were -- one of the very clear unintended consequences of this is that a lot of people across all political persuasions are realising the power of the banks, how willing the banks are to use this power, and the dangers of fiat as opposed to a private currency.
Peter McCormack: Which is why we push Bitcoin, and a lot of us have been starting to move to talking about the threats of the CBDCs. Have you spent much time looking at those?
Michael Malice: No, what's a CBDC?
Peter McCormack: Central bank digital currency.
Michael Malice: Oh, I mean that's a complete Orwellian nightmare, I mean that goes without saying.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, there's a lot of people in the Bitcoin space who are now starting to, at the same time while they promote Bitcoin, trying to raise people to the idea of the threats of CBDCs, because they are, as you said, an Orwellian nightmare, but they seem to be something that is arriving. And the strange thing about it is, I talk about my normie friends; when I go back to the UK, which I'm doing today, I've got a group of friends, we hang out, we never talk about Bitcoin because they're, "Shut the fuck up, Pete!" They don't care, they've got zero interest.
Michael Malice: People don't understand, who follow either of us, or anyone else on the internet, that they think that all I'm doing is either trolling all my friends, or talking anarchism, and that I've got many friends whose politics I don't even know, and they can't wrap their heads around this.
Peter McCormack: Well, I've tried to explain, tried to talk through CBDCs, what they mean and what they are, and I get a, "Well, they don't sound so bad"!
Michael Malice: It's like, "Oh, Peter, that's just a conspiracy theory"!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that is another issue. That's a really interesting point that you should say that, because trying to walk a delicate line of understanding different opinions of other people, I feel a draw towards the ideas that are considered conspiracies. Part of me, you might even have advice on this rather than comment, but part of me feels like I should push back on that, because I don't want all these people to consider me as a nutter, but therefore not listen to the other things I talk about.
Michael Malice: You and I have different goals, I think. You are trying to reach a broader audience and democratise certain ideas; I'm trying to alienate people who think in those terms and get sleeper cells going. So, we have very different approaches. You laugh, but I'm deadly serious.
Peter McCormack: No, I laugh because it sounds interesting, I want to understand that more as a strategy. When you say "sleeper cells", are you on about you're trying to create pockets of people who understand your ideas?
Michael Malice: Not necessarily my ideas, but the point is they're highly radicalised, very emotionally invested and very much see things as an us versus them, and recognise, as you do, that for many of these issues it's not like a difference of opinion about, "Okay, should we spend more on food stamps or more on education?" These are arguments we have all day long. But there are some genuinely evil people, who do not hesitate to sacrifice entire nations to further maintain their hold on power. And that, to have some kind of civil discussion about this is so missing the mark, it's not even funny.
Peter McCormack: Well, I worry more about, if we're too far, the cancelling effects of that, and I can give you two great examples from the UK at the moment. Maajid, you'll be aware of. He was on a -- he had a really good show on a prominent radio station and he started to discuss challenging ideas, got labelled a conspiracy theorist, some of his colleagues started to attack him and he lost his radio show. At the same time, he was bringing to the table really interesting topics that should be discussed. Then, even more recently --
Michael Malice: That's what I'm saying; his colleagues are the Devil. So, the idea that this is a difference of opinion, that is a conspiracy. If you have a group of individuals who are independently working behind the scenes to suppress and silence voices they don't like, that is a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a conspiracy, in this case, fact and a conspiracy history.
Peter McCormack: Why do you think they do it? Do you think they honestly hold their beliefs and they see him as a nutter; or, do they see him as something else? Why does this happen though?
Michael Malice: It's a whole range. So, for some of them, it's simply that they want to have control of the conversation and they want to be the one who is telling you what control that conversation is. So, if I have someone over there, if I'm basically presenting myself as the prosthelytizer, like it's my job to tell the people what to think and how to act, and I have someone over here saying something else, from my perspective he's almost a heckler, "I've got my job, I'm here to put out my propaganda, I'm here to tell people how to behave, this is how you govern a society voluntarily through everyone agreeing to listen to the BBC, and then you have this freak, whose name I can't even pronounce. No, no, get out".
So, all right-thinking people know that, sure there's differences of opinion, but they're going to be within a certain range, and he's out of that range, so he's upsetting the whole applecart. So that, I think, is a large part of the psychology. I think it would behoof people to study evolutionary psychology. There's this quote ascribed to Upton Sinclair, which I don't remember who actually said it, where I'm going to bungle it completely but, "It's amazing what people can be led to believe if their salary depends on them believing it".
I have a very vested interest and my status and my position is based on this kind of ideology and world view. Anyone who's a threat to that isn't just somebody I disagree with, that person's a threat to my livelihood and my position. So then, all sorts of things mentally as animals, that human beings are, start falling into place.
Also, you forget that they're all products of the universities who advocate the same kind of world view, so they come to the perspective, not logically, that all right-thinking people agree on certain things. So, if you don't agree on those certain things that we all agreed on in college, you're not a right-thinking person by definition, and it's certainly appropriate to marginalise you, if not completely omit you from public discourse.
Peter McCormack: It feels like here, in the US, those on the right, your conservatism or being a Republican, is more pejorative than it is in the UK. It does exist. If you're a conservative in the UK, you're considered maybe somebody who is selfish.
Michael Malice: A toff.
Peter McCormack: A toff, yeah.
Michael Malice: A tosser.
Peter McCormack: A tosser, a toff, you probably went to a certain school. Because traditionally, the Conservative Party had people who went to schools like Eton, but you're considered -- but it's less pejorative than here in the US. You will have people, famous actors and such, in the UK who will be conservatives. It feels like here, it's a career risk to some people.
Michael Malice: Yeah, and that's happened recently, because even if you look at the 1980s with Reagan, you had prominent celebrities endorsing him, and he was quite conservative, especially by historical standards. But now, it absolutely is -- they've kind of locked down certain swaths of media and entertainment, and to me, and there's two ways of looking at this: one is this shows things are getting worse and they're more in control of the mic; to me, it seems like a sign of desperation and losing control of the mic.
Let's suppose you are a dad in the house and you have kids running around, you don't care what they say. They can run around say whatever, "I'm the King of England, I'm cops and robbers", "Cool, you just whatever you want. There's no question this is my house. But if you are saying things that are threatening my position, then I've really got to lock things down". So, there's two ways of looking about whether this is a sign of their strength or a sign of their weakness.
I'm very much of the mindset that this is a sign of their weakness, especially because it is very deleterious to any creative endeavour, to have strict limits on what that creativity can entail. I was a business major and one of the things we talked about is, you have a brainstorming session, and 90% of the ideas are going to be just awful, just completely stupid. But I might say something that will spark something in you, and we're going to get to a good idea, a good solution.
If you have strictly delineated areas of discourse within creativity, that has very negative consequences in terms of outcomes and in terms of engagement, especially in a population that is excited to see some novelty. It has nothing to do with the ideology, especially with the internet age, you want something new or something fresh. If you're saying it's got to be in these ossified parentheses, that's really going to be a problem for me in terms of attracting a population, whether in terms of entertainment or in terms of politics.
Peter McCormack: We had that. I used to work in advertising before I did this, and whenever we would brainstorm ideas, the only word that was banned was "no". You could not say no, and we would get a collection of ideas --
Michael Malice: That's the N-word!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, you weren't allowed to say the N-word, you weren't allowed to say no. But that was banned, because even though an idea might be bad, something good might come out of the bad idea.
Michael Malice: Exactly, and I remember, this was like ten years ago, a friend of mine was part of doing improv in LA and they were both Quasimodo. They were pulling the bell at Notre Dame and he just opens with, "Boy, there sure were a lot of black people in church today", and they just cut it there, and it's like, "Relax!" This can go in a very bad direction, but this is humour, it's improv, it can go in a funny direction. And actually, since it's improv, it is the role of the other Quasimodo to steer it not in a malevolent direction, but in a humorous direction. But if you're having these entire subjects that are off limits in the realm of comedy, you're going to, in certain contexts, come off as humourless, which is a big problem, especially when you're trying to attract the young.
Peter McCormack: Well, comedy, don't they refer to that as the last bastion of free speech?
Michael Malice: Yeah, absolutely.
Peter McCormack: Now, that appears to be under attack in some ways.
Michael Malice: I mean, it's always been under attack. I mean, look at Lenny Bruce in the 1960s. When we were, maybe 20 years ago, having women talking about their periods on stand-up it was, "Oh my God, it's so shocking!". Now it's just yawns and we've all heard it before. So, there's always going to be elements, whatever the subject is, where comedy is shocking. It is under attack. I don't know if it's comedy under attack, per se, or certain comedians.
Peter McCormack: Well, it just feels like here in the US, speech in general is being challenged.
Michael Malice: But I think it's being challenged as opposed to silenced. So, again, with the rise of the internet, the rise of social media, anyone can put their video out there, put their tweets out there. Of course, some people are picked off one by one. But before that, you couldn't have entire subjects that you would ever discuss, you couldn't have entire world views to discuss. You had huge chunks of the population who could never get their point of view heard.
Now, although there's certainly problems of cancel culture, etc, it's gone massively in the right direction and I think concerns about the power of Big Tech, not their motivation, which is purely malevolent, but the power of Big Tech to silence schools of thought and ideas is much less than people, both on the right and the left, think it is.
Peter McCormack: All right, what about wife jokes?!
Michael Malice: What about them?
Peter McCormack: Should they be allowed on Oscar ceremonies? No, I'm only joking.
Michael Malice: White or wife?
Peter McCormack: Wife.
Michael Malice: Women aren't funny, so already you're having to step back, but yeah.
Peter McCormack: My daughter's pretty funny.
Michael Malice: Is she?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, she kills me.
Michael Malice: Okay, tell me one of her jokes.
Peter McCormack: I can't think of a specific joke, it's more the way she behaves, her full-on attitude.
Michael Malice: Okay, well kids are hilarious, kid logic is hilarious.
Peter McCormack: The way she swears at me and I tell her she can't swear!
Michael Malice: Oh, good Lord, okay!
Peter McCormack: I doubt you're coming to the Bitcoin Conference; are you coming to the Bitcoin Conference?
Michael Malice: No, I'm not going to the Bitcoin Conference.
Peter McCormack: You should come along.
Michael Malice: I'll tell you why, off the air, why I can't go.
Peter McCormack: Okay, we'll talk about that. Okay, so let's start to loop this up. What's the goal here, because last time we spoke, you talked a lot about the evil nature of mainstream media, and I'm majority with you, but not entirely. I do think there's people who do good work in the mainstream media, there are people who want to be good journalists. I hope, for a lot of them, they end up realising they can make more money and have more freedom being independent, they have all the tools and technology out there. But what is the end goal here? Is media the best point to start with this?
Michael Malice: Start with…?
Peter McCormack: Moving society away from control and institutions, because trying to attack from within government seems very difficult, it's a big beast; but there's been a lot of success in the media side of things, independents, podcasts, writers. Is that one of the most effective places who people who care about this can work?
Michael Malice: Absolutely. I mean, if you see the handwringing at The New York Times, where they're trying to make Substack basically an outlet for white supremacy; when you have CNN ringing Brian Stelter being, "How is it that these random YouTube shows have a bigger audience than us? We're CNN". It's never actually said, "Oh, they can say what they want, but we have rigorous standards", etc. It's like, "You know you're doing segments on Trump's tweets and how many scoops of ice cream he had, and you have literal paedophiles on your staff that are getting arrested. You people are, if not the Devil, at least the Devil adjacent". So, their existential despair should be a source of great joy to all good people across the country.
The next and last leg, which I am most hopeful for and most excited about, is going to be a full-blown assault on the universities, because that's where the poisoning starts. And, as humourless and self-righteous and reprehensible corporate journalists are, they are far better in all those metrics than university professors, who are both probably the worst people and also the worst quality people, in terms of the elites in society, and they are not going to be positioned to defend themselves; because, if I am a journalist, I have an editor.
So, if I put that article, I'm going to have that confrontational, adversarial relationship with someone who's my boss, who's going to be looking over, and my colleagues. I'm going to be on Twitter, I'm going to be hearing it from both the masses, whether I'm a Republican or Democratic journalist, but also from my colleagues putting me on blast. Professors don't have that. The only people they're engaged with are college students who are, by and large, complete simpletons and who it is important for them to curry favour with you, because you have power over them, you have their grade. And if you have tenure, there's really nothing that can be done to you.
When the good guys come for the academics, not only is that going to be just a glorious, glorious victory, and it's imminent, it's also going to be the most lopsided victory.
Peter McCormack: How does that happen; how do you go after the universities? Is it the realisation that you don't need to go and get $100,000, $200,000 of debt to get a job?
Michael Malice: That's part of it. Just like with podcasting and Substack, and with my book, with my next book, or Dear Reader, the North Korean book, I did it through Amazon self-publishing programme. My page on Amazon looks the same as a book by Harper Collins. They're both going to have a page, I made sure it looks professional, because a lot of self-published books just on site, you know this is some crackpot in his basement. But in terms of quality, they're going to look identical on the page.
So, as you have someone who more and more companies who say, "Okay, maybe you have a degree from Columbia, but this person spent aged 17 to 21 building his own company, and now has some kind of T-shirt store online and has made six figures"; they are both going to be increasingly regarded as, if not equal, then this one's become more valuable, because many people would rather hire someone who's made it happen, than someone who's read books about how to make it happen. So, that is going to be one healthy way.
Another thing is, just like social media, specifically TikTok, has made so many parents, of all political persuasions, realise that many of those schoolteachers who are raising children are literal demons; they are going to see, "Wait a minute, these academics are not at all impressive people, and in fact are just really just the dregs and are marginally intelligent and should not be given any sort of accolades or respect".
Peter McCormack: I am blown away by what I've seen on that Libs of TikTok channel. I literally cannot understand it.
Michael Malice: Oh, yeah. All they had to do was keep their mouths shut, and they couldn't even do that, right?
Peter McCormack: It's a range of things. I mean, not even just the schooling, it's these regular videos of groups of people just going into shops and taking things; I can't understand that. But the volume of videos from people who are discussing, talking about sexuality with kids in classrooms. That doesn't happen with my kids, and it wouldn't.
Michael Malice: And livid that you would think that this is a problem.
Peter McCormack: Or livid that a 7-year-old misgendered them, or crying because… I can't understand that. My kids go to school to learn a range of things, history, geography, science, whatever. These issues that are happening here in the US aren't happening in the UK schools yet, not to say it won't happen, but I would be far more concerned with my kids in school here. It's fucking weird.
Michael Malice: I'm glad to hear that for your country, that's very good to hear. And weird is a word that has a lot of meanings. I think it's evil, what's being done to many of these kids. I think the people who are wreaking this havoc on children are just really reprehensible, despicable people, and I'm joyous at how much distress they are proclaiming, if not actually feeling, on social media; and also how angry they are, that instead of being treated with an iteration that they'll be glad to tell you they deserve, they're being treated with suspicion, if not outright contempt. And I'll just point people to the Norm Macdonald bit where he was talking about schoolteachers; it was absolutely glorious. So, Rest in Peace, Norm.
Peter McCormack: Okay, man. Danny, anything you want to ask Michael?
Danny Knowles: No, I think we're all good.
Peter McCormack: Michael, this is a rap, man.
Michael Malice: Oh, that was it?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, our shows are a lot shorter. Anything else you want to talk about?
Michael Malice: Oh, buy Bitcoin!
Peter McCormack: No, we don't do three-hour shows here, we don't have enough time.
Michael Malice: I didn't realise it was an hour and a half though.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Michael Malice: Oh, wow, that was fast. Okay, cool.
Peter McCormack: If people want to buy your books, where do they go?
Michael Malice: anarchisthandbook.com.
Peter McCormack: Well done, congratulations on self-publishing as well, I'm sure you get a lot more of the money.
Michael Malice: So for you, this is of use to the listeners; if I go through Valentine or Harper Collins, or whatever, I got $1 in royalties for every book I sell. If I self-publish, I get $8 in royalties for every book I sell. So, I would need to sell an eighth to get an equal amount of money through Valentine, just through self-publishing. But that also implies that Valentine, or Saint Martin's, or whatever would make it so I sell eight times as many books, which is nonsensical. I'm the one who's selling the books, and increasingly publishers will tell you they only give book deals to people who have an audience already. Well, if I have an audience, what the hell do I need you for?
Peter McCormack: So, we're going to get rid of the teachers, the professors, the publishers --
Michael Malice: The state, the police.
Peter McCormack: -- the state, the police. Anyone else?
Michael Malice: Oh, I've got a list, yeah!
Peter McCormack: Great to talk to you, man. Good luck with it all.
Michael Malice: Thank you so much, Peter.
Peter McCormack: Thank you for coming on.
Michael Malice: My pleasure.
