Episode 198 with Will Chamberlain
As promised, we’ve got a spicy debate for you this week, and it’s wide-ranging, debating the presidential election through everything from Israel-Palestine to Trump’s plans for austerity and mass deportation. Will Chamberlain joins us for a conservative vs. progressives debate on the latest hot-button issues, below:
A major point of contention comes up between us and our guest around analysis of the conflict in Israel-Palestine, which Will makes clear he’s unwilling to perceive as a genocide. As we see it, events and tactics like the current starvation strategy Israel’s using in north Gaza make it clear that this event should be perceived as an ethnic cleansing. Will argues that not only does this framing not apply, but his own preferred candidate, Trump, wouldn’t allow for an event like this given that other allies in the region also wouldn’t allow for it. We have serious (but respectful!) disagreement with Will about what constitutes genocide, whether the violence in Palestine meets the criteria, and whether it is in fact antisemitic to suggest that it does.
In terms of austerity, Will doesn’t believe that Trump will be an austerity president, but he does personally believe that the excesses of our government, its inefficiency in using the money it commands, point to the argument that spending cuts are in order and that we need to tighten our belts. Krystal argues that Trump’s plan to fund the government with tariffs and get rid of income tax will result in austerity, regardless of his policy proposals otherwise, and Will’s perspective is that this latest proposal from Trump is just eleventh-hour food for thought, not a genuine plan. We can certainly agree with our guest that Trump’s rhetorical and political style tends toward the wild and unpredictable — but, as in the case with his latest wacky proposal to seriously undermine a major source of revenue for our government, it’s hard to tell reality from fiction, and to know when we should be concerned.
