Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
GOP War Hawks, Corporatists Revolt Against JD Vance; Demanding Low-Wage Workers Be Fired for Online Postings
Video Transcript
July 19, 2024
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Good evening. It's Wednesday, July 17. 

Tonight, JD Vance, the 39-year-old first-term Republican senator from Ohio and the Republican vice-presidential nominee, will take the stage at the Republican National Convention to deliver what will certainly be his most watched and most important speech in his short political career. The symbolism is obvious: by choosing the first-ever radical candidate to appear on a major party national ticket, Trump is clearly signaling where he thinks the future of his MAGA movement lies, and in whose hands he envisions its continuation. 

However, not everyone in his party is happy with Trump's choice, to put it very mildly. Two separate wings of the Republican Party – the neocons and war hawks from the Bush-Cheney era, as well as the Reaganite believers in corporatist economic policies – are making their opposition to Vance and, indeed, their anger over his selection, very clear. It has long been obvious that, unlike the Democratic Party – which is almost entirely homogenized, unified in lockstep – the Trump era has ushered in a vibrant and sometimes bitter and, I think, healthy intra-party dispute in the Republican Party over the direction of what is called “the conservative movement,” what updates its needs from the past, as well as both the domestic and especially foreign policy that party ought to be pursuing. The negative reaction to Vance, among some of the worst and most destructive factions in the country are highly illustrative of what the Republican Party had been, why Donald Trump succeeded so successfully in 2016 by running against it and where some people – such as JD Vance and obviously Donald Trump – are trying to take the party in the future. 

Then, since October 7, we have been continuously documenting here on the show the excitement and enthusiasm on much of the pro-Israel right for so many of the values, the tactics and the weapons they long came to despise. As the sole providence of the “woke” left. In the name of protecting Israel, they have caused the censorship, firing, legal restrictions and other punishments imposed on American citizens who are simply harsh critics of Israel and the U.S.’s financing of its wars and/or supporters of the Palestinian cause. Countless people since October 7, in media, government, business and academia, have lost their jobs or otherwise been punished for the crime of expressing opposition to Israel and to the acts of that foreign government. But now, quite predictably, those tactics on the part of that sector of the right are starting to expand into other areas of other issues and starting to find quite a dark expression. Anybody who – in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt on Donald Trump – publicly lamented that the bullet missed him, in other words, people who were wishing violent death to Donald Trump or saying it was deserved and it would be good for the country, are obviously expressing a despicable and twisted sentiment that goes without saying. And to the extent those doing that are people who wield some sort of significant influence or power in this country, demands for them to be held accountable for such statements will obviously be reasonable. That's what it means to wield public power and influence. 

That is not what's happening. Just as has been true of the efforts by the pro-Israel right to punish ordinary people, people with no power or influence for their speech since October 7, the campaign to punish people for expressing such demented thoughts about Trump is being aimed at those who wield no power. People who are hourly-wage workers for giant retailers, low-wage cashiers at places like Home Depot and the like. And so, I think it provokes the question, is it ever just or noble to target the least powerful and economically advantaged people in our society for the crime of simply saying something that was ill-advised, untoward, or even reprehensible after they get home from a 12-hour shift at a miserable job and they post something like that to twenty or so of their friends on Facebook? Should their lives be destroyed over that, their job taken away, rendered unemployable, their reputations permanently marred? That is what some on the right are actually doing and, although we certainly agree that the opinions they're targeting are, as we said, quite repugnant, we really want to examine both the wisdom and ethics of aiming those weapons at ordinary citizens who have zero power influence of any kind – in fact, the least amount of influence of power in our country. 

Finally, the independent roving reporter Michael Tracy continues to rove around the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he is manically conducting more and more interviews of influential Republican politicians and others who are present at the Convention. For our program tonight, we have his interviews with people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Reps Andy Barr and Brian Mast, as well as Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. 

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now. 

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We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
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We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
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Semafor Editor Ben Smith on Epstein Saga; How do MAGA Supporters Really Feel About Trump's Foreign Policy? Eddington Movie Review: Reflections on 2020
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The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Michael Tracey: Good evening, everybody. I'm Michael Tracey, and Glenn is somewhere. So, this is where I triumphantly storm in and anger parts of the audience who would prefer not to have to see my face, which I have to say, on some level, I sympathize with. 

Tonight, an interesting show. We'll be joined by Ben Smith, who is the editor-in-chief of Semafor and a longtime political observer, journalist, editor. And we will probably, I think, provide you with a slightly counterintuitive for different perspective anyway, on the meaning of the whole Epstein saga that continues to engulf American politics and media, seemingly. 

We'll also bring in somebody who works on this very show, and who you often don't see on camera, she stays behind the cameras but today, we're going to pry her out because Meagan O'Rourke, who I often do interviews with, and she's a producer on the show, I'm sure should be a fan favorite anyway. We're going to do actually a review of a new movie. This is a little out of left field based on typical System Update content, but there's a new movie that I happened to see last night, partly at the adamant urging of Meagan, called Eddington. And I think it's an incredible movie and an incredible window into a lot that's going on politically and culturally. So we're going to a movie review tonight. 

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Michael Tracey and Meagan O'Rourke

Okay, so we're going to go a little bit off the beaten path tonight because I know my mind has been largely occupied by this movie that I saw last night. And if it was just a well-crafted drama, or if there were just some sterling acting performances that were put in, I'm not sure that I would necessarily have been compelled to discuss it on System Update. 

However, there's like an interesting synergy going on in the universe where we have this Epstein story that keeps embroiling the American political and media worlds with some new developments on that score even just this afternoon and we have the opening of this movie which really gets to the beating heart in a very unparalleled way for like a cinematic experience of what drives the contemporary kind of like internet addled American political psyche. 

It's called “Eddington.” I guess we'll try to steer away from spoilers. We'll play the trailer for those who are not familiar. 

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World Finally Horrified by Israel's Atrocities in Gaza; Mass Starvation Expert Warns of Spiraling Crisis in Gaza; AOC Votes to Fund Israel's Iron Dome
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The atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza have become continuously more horrifying and more inhumane over the last 21 months. Even when one thinks that Israel could do nothing worse, they always seem to manage to do exactly that. That there is mass starvation and even mass famine in Gaza is beyond any reasonable dispute. The scenes from Gaza are really the stuff of horror films, of the greatest historical evils, of classic genocide and it's all paid for and armed by the U.S. and the West generally – in case you're wondering why you should care about this more than something else. 

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We’ll also note that not everyone is being passive or silent about these horrors in Gaza. Late last week, the Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill to cut off all American funding for Israel's Iron Dome, simply arguing that what she called a nuclear-armed Israel – something that everyone knows is true, but you're not allowed to say, and yet she said it on the House floor –  is more than capable of paying for its own defense. Why should American workers be forced to subsidize Israelis' defense? 

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Congress Again Dictates Curriculum & Faculty at Private Universities; How UnitedHealth Group Silences its Critics: With NYT Reporter David Enrich
System Update #488

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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The desire to micromanage universities does not extend to all issues but seemingly just to one, namely, what can and cannot be said about Israel and about Jewish individuals in particular. As they have done countless times over the past 18 months, the House yesterday held a hearing on antisemitism in America's universities, hauling three more college presidents before them to interrogate them on why they allow certain people to teach or certain opinions about Israel or American foreign policy to be expressed. This is all accompanied by a growing trend, a rapidly growing trend of forcing these universities to implement radically expanded "hate speech" codes with the purpose of outlawing what can and cannot be said about Israel. We'll report on the latest House hearing and how it is directly assaulting the free speech and academic freedom rights of Americans. 

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Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are two members of the House, both Republicans, who have often noted how often the House meets in order to discuss matters pertaining not to the lives of the American people, but to Israel or to combating criticism of Israel or to investigating the alleged epidemic of bigotry not against every minority group, but against only American Jews, notoriously, excluded from centers of power in the United States. It's like an obsession. They do it all the time. Every time I turn around, there's another hearing about antisemitism or about criticism of Israel being organized by the Republican-led House and Senate.

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