This premiere episode is about
the most exciting gender reveal
party in politics.
We have a VP candidate.
May the Maya Rudolph
renaissance begin!
Welcome, fellow Lizard people,
to The Liberal Conspiracy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now, this is The Internet, and
sometimes people of all types
don't understand
jokes or context.
And it makes me
a little nervous.
For example, I just
edited myself to say this:
"Thai people make me nervous."
To be clear, this is
Joke Show, talking
about "Real News" and hot
"goss," not that hot Gos.
And for the record, I am a
big fan of the people from--
--Thailand.
I'm Josh Burstein,
a campaign hack.
And this is a show where
I say absurd things
with a straight face, and
harsh truths about the end
of democracy, with positivity.
Today, we'll break
down the significance
of VP Kamala Harris with
activists and historians.
And you'll meet the worst
person on the internet.
It's really worth
hanging around for.
Trust me, this guy is awful.
It's amazing.
Our main focus--
the vice presidency,
a position historically
not all that consequential.
They have name ID
and not much else--
the backup catcher of
the Executive Branch.
They do get to
swing both ways...
the only position in the
Executive and Legislative
Branch.
That means they get to play
tiebreaker in the Senate
if they vote 50/50.
But mostly, they do the garbage
photo ops and risky policy
rollouts that POTUS
doesn't have time for.
Obama and Biden's
special relationship
was one of collaboration
and mutual respect.
That is not requisite.
The romantic graphic novel for
Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale
did not sell as well.
The VP pick brings
in a lot of fanfare
but really doesn't
amount to much
of a bump in the election,
outside of a few points
in their home state.
It certainly made my
life hell for a day
when Paul Ryan was
selected in 2012,
and I had to spend all
night in Green Bay,
trying to craft the perfect
negative ad with the right dash
of Midwest nice.
Wisconsin knows
Paul Ryan as someone
to really be careful with.
Dey shure do.
Maybe this pick is different.
Kamala Harris, beyond generating
must-see TV with Mike Pence
this October, offers our first
Black, AAPI female president,
ready to lead on Day One.
It's like, I've been
looking for this clip
where a guy rips the
e-brake on a Corvette
as it races off a cliff, and it
stops just as the back wheels
teeter off the edge.
Then he steps out
all cool and throws
on some aviators, and this dope
ethnically diverse prosecutor
that loves to cook steps in the
driver's seat and pulls away.
Yeah, I've been
looking for that clip.
I couldn't find it.
But you get it.
Get on that, Shutterstock.
[GRUNTS] Just, um, just give
me some quiet normal days.
I don't even want to know we
have a Washington DC some days.
I want Twitter to
be cat videos again.
And not like this cat video.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Sweet Christmas,
this guy might even
ruin cat videos for humanity.
Quick history lesson: our
first few presidents, the VP
was originally a
consolation prize,
with a guy like Aaron Burr
backing up Thomas Jefferson,
America's original hipster.
You may have gotten to know
Burr as the progressive hero
in the musical Hamilton.
He's the one who cared
about immigration rights.
Hamilton delivered slaves to
his dad-in-law in New York.
Burr championed criminal
justice reform, women's rights.
Lin-Manuel is a
national treasure,
but Alexander Hamilton
is the Steve Mnuchin
of colonial America.
[OMINOUS SOUND] Am I canceled?
There's a lot of
vice presidents who
have done some weird things.
Here's some of the hits
from our correspondent
Esteban Gast in a segment
called "Yes, That's Real."
Before we begin the segment,
let me acknowledge two things.
Yes, my name is Esteban.
Sometimes when I tell people
my name, they're like, oh,
are we using high school
Spanish class names?
Call me Shakira.
Number two thing we have to
acknowledge is the mustache.
I don't like it, either.
I'm also uncomfortable.
The first vice present we're
looking at is Thomas Marshall.
He was Woodrow Wilson's
vice president,
and he famously hated the job.
He one time told a bodyguard
that his job was useless
because, quote, "Nobody ever
shoots a vice president."
The next vice president we're
looking at is Spiro Agnew.
Spiro was super into
bribery, especially early
in his political career.
And then also in the middle
of his political career.
And then also at the end
of his political career.
Nixon says, you have to resign.
And Spiro says, OK.
A little bit after that,
Nixon also resigns.
Spiro Agnew says,
Nixon made me resign.
I did nothing wrong.
Then Nixon is like, oh,
well, I did nothing wrong.
And then Spiro was like,
you made me resign.
You made me bribe.
And they formed this
perfect marriage
of, um, ignorance and ego.
The last vice president
is George Bush,
Sr.'s, vice
president Dan Quayle.
The vice president at
the time went to a school
to talk about learning
and education.
That's pretty good.
Then he had a student write
"potato" on the board.
And the vice president--
this is a human adult--
said, potato's spelled wrong.
It needs an E at the end.
To his credit, Dan Quayle
does have a silent E
at the end of his name.
There's patterns.
There's patterns everywhere.
You know what's even worse?
No one says anything.
Dan Quayle got a
ton of flack for it.
People were like, he's
unfit to be in office.
People were super outraged.
People poked fun at him.
It's so wholesome, right?
A single spelling error
disqualified someone
from office.
You know who else knows
about vice presidents?
My friend, vice president,
scholar, and historian Dr.
Andrew Burstein.
Hello.
Hey, Esteban.
Looking good.
We got the live feed.
How are you, Andy?
Wait, you're calling my dad?
No, don't call--
You're always like,
that's my dad.
Don't go on a road
trip with my dad.
Don't go to Six
Flags with my dad.
Hi, Dad.
Professor Burstein, as
long as you're here,
would you like to tell us about
vice presidential contributions
throughout history?
Americans are
obsessed with focusing
on the "firstness" of things.
One of the most interesting
vice presidents we've had
was our dear friend
Martin Van Buren
as vice president,
Richard Mentor Johnson.
He was deeply in
love with a woman
named Julia Chin, who was a
woman he owned, and brought
their daughter to Washington
and introduced her
to polite society.
Richard Mentor
Johnson of Kentucky
angered a lot of the
proslavery crowd.
Particular reason you think
that Dick Mentor Johnson has not
been remembered in
the annals of history?
[CHUCKLES] Well, he didn't
have a political career
after the vice presidency.
And that's what happens to a
lot of the vice presidents.
They disappear.
FDR's second vice
president, Henry Wallace--
I mean, he was the Bernie
Sanders of the Roosevelt
administration.
And he was a little bit too
radical, too progressive.
We need more deals!
More newness!
[CHUCKLES] He wanted
a stronger stance
on racial equality
and gender equality,
way ahead of his time.
The vice presidency
for most of our history
has been assigned to men from
whom little was expected.
So it's a good thing,
what's been happening now.
And especially, you
know, just as Joe
was put in charge of getting the
auto industry back on its feet,
or back on its tires--
buy Goodyear-- I think Kamala
is going to be given big tasks
and is going to be a very
visible vice president.
I'm still pro Elizabeth Warren
for prime minister of America.
But Obiden Kenobi's
big selling point
is his ability to train the
next great rebel leader.
Jomala is going to be a dynamic
duo, but understandably not
the first choice for
many progressives.
So to discuss how
activists can get
pumped for moderate incremental
change, it's Blair Imani.
Blair, author, activist,
historian, general badass,
how do you feel about
Kamala coming on this ticket
and being fast tracked
to the next POTUS?
You know, I saw Angela Davis,
someone who I greatly admire,
a scholar, feminist
icon, and she's excited.
And I'm always like, well,
if Angela Davis is excited,
then I have permission
to also be excited.
But she was also
talking about an ability
to hold two truths at once.
As a prosecutor, Kamala
Harris made some policies
that, like most prosecutors
across the United States,
harmed communities of color,
Black folks in particular.
What I'm encouraged
by is that she
has evolved so much in
such a short period of time
and been so willing
to listen to people.
And I'll just speak to my
own interaction with her.
I think I had just
graduated high school.
I was at a family gumbo party.
And Kamala Harris
rolled through,
talked to me about my
goals and my ambitions.
And she just sat there
with me for like an hour.
I think if we have
somebody in the White House
who is willing to sit
down and talk to somebody
who has no accolades.
There's no cameras around.
That makes me feel
very encouraged.
You know, I've been in enough
rooms as the token Asian Jew.
And I know you speak out
a lot as a queer Muslim,
for box checking exercises of
diversity for diversity's sake.
So what does real
representation look
like in this sort of situation?
Not so much now, but I
found myself in spaces
where I was the token queer
Muslim in a space with zero
Muslims, where I was
in a Christian space
or an LGBT space.
And they're expecting me
to play this one narrative.
I'm not going to do a Drake
move and say, oh, yeah,
I started from the bottom.
Drake, you're middle
class, calm down.
It's moving beyond that,
not just saying, hey,
look, we have a Black
person, but, hey, look,
we have a diverse
administration.
We have a diverse cabinet.
We have diverse leadership.
We're not just going
to work on your behalf,
but we're going to work
with and for you in tandem.
Drake probably should own up
to his Degrassi origin story
a little bit more.
[LAUGHS]
You're a historian.
There are compounding problems.
It is very hard to try
and address any of them.
When has incremental change
as an approach worked?
I love sci-fi.
Bring it to Star
Trek really quick.
We look at Star Trek and
how revolutionary it is,
absolutely.
But people in that series are
still giving painful birth
through the birth
canal at a time
when they can, like, wave,
you know, a device over you
and cure you of
all your illnesses,
fix your broken
bones, teleport you.
OK, well, it's the limitations
of that patriarchal construct
and our own understandings
of the human physiology
that we're writing
sci-fi that limits what
the birth process can be like.
And that's what
really frustrates me
with incrementalism-- that it
doesn't look at the context.
We can say, oh, well,
redlining is done.
People can get equal loans.
But then we end up having
the coronavirus relief going
to a tiny fraction of
Black-owned businesses
and woman-owned businesses.
So it's overlaying
these truths and saying,
hey, we can say never
again all we want,
but unless we put
systems in place,
it's going to happen
again and again and again.
So if we do have the perfect
president, President Picard,
who says, "make it so,"
to bold structural change,
how do you make sure
that those that actually
need it the most in
terms of social justice
are actually reflected
in those policies?
So I think it is worthwhile
that we come together and birth
that new idea together because
it hasn't existed before.
We haven't had a United States
that worked for everybody.
We simply have not.
But it's about sewing
that patchwork together
into a quilt that
keeps everybody warm.
It's also really about listening
and working with humility.
Because if we have
a leader that feels
that they are so
arrogant that they
are going to save the
United States on their own,
we've already lost.
So Blair, you're not going
to knit America's Snuggie?
[LAUGHS] My mom will.
She's a great knitter.
So it's this constant ebb
and flow of this progress
and then backlash,
progress and then backlash.
Even if we do have a
Biden-Harris presidency, that
doesn't mean the work is done.
All right, well,
Blair, thanks so
much for coming and
being a co-conspirator
in this liberal conspiracy
that we've started.
The conspiracy is that
we're going to get free.
That's the whole thing.
Yeah, I'm in.
Gumbo, too.
Seriously--
[LAUGHS]
--tell me where and when.
Fabulous.
So maybe you're not as enthused
after a virtual convention
with this ticket.
But truly, the most motivating
factor is having a nemesis.
I recommend everyone find
their own personal nemesis.
Meet mine.
Back in 2016, I was
in the administration
and supposed to film an
interview with a real American
that sat next to First
Lady Michelle Obama
at the State of the Union.
And I get to their door, and
they won't open it for me.
They googled my name before
I arrived and found this man.
He is Bizarro Burstein.
It's too perfect.
Josh Bernstein, pictured here,
hosts a hate-filled indie web
show in the style of Alex Jones.
You could do worse
when picking a mentor.
You could emulate Jeffrey
Dahmer or Pol Pot.
Bernstein compares my old
teenage boss to Hitler.
Like, I can't write this shit.
So, the chief of
staff had to call
the woman I was set
to film and confirm
I was not this guy,
who looks like he's
turned to the Dark Side
after early hair loss.
Pro tip, Josh Bernstein,
invest in a second camera
and a switcher to
improve your live stream.
But you probably won't
because the main provider's
called "Black Magic."
Remember, folks, I say
outrage is a pleasure
we don't realize we enjoy.
I'm trolling a troll right
now, but the most helpful way
to create change is
counterprogramming like this
and actually
helping people vote,
and apparently using stamps.
That's the show.
We're going to make
this every week
until we get a new president.
And then, maybe more
if we feel like it,
and you offer us
external validation.
I need external validation.
Thanks for watching.
[DRUMROLL]
