Stare into the abyss of the United States' descent into Authoritarianism with a truly funny comedian from Green Bay, WI and a very serious PHD in Global Fascism Studies from Cal-Berkeley.
•Nick Mortensen & Dr. Craig Johnson•Season 2•Episode 22
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Netanyahu came to New York, and Nick's number held at six. That's where this week's Autocratic Despair begins: with the Prime Minister of Israel on the floor of the United Nations, dozens of delegations walking out before he opened his mouth, and a comedy podcast from Green Bay, Wisconsin trying to figure out how worried to be about a man who called the people leaving the room moral cowards and then told the ones who stayed that their leaders thank him privately.
Dr. Craig Johnson, UC Berkeley lecturer and PhD in Global Fascism Studies, opens at a six as well. He went camping. He is personally more relaxed. The world, he notes, has not let up. His driver this week is a story most Americans missed: Saudi Arabia and the part of the European Union that handles fossil fuel imports from the Arabian Peninsula, and what happens to gas prices when a kingdom decides it has leverage. Nick, a former comedian and manufacturing professional, admits energy markets are not the show's area of expertise, then asks the only question that matters to a guy with three kids and a crossover vehicle: how much further can it go? Craig's answer involves earthquakes, poisoned rivers, and the phrase "not quite enough."
Then Netanyahu. Nick's driver walks through the week as the audience proxy who reads the news and can't quite believe it. Donald Trump spoke at the UN too, just not the same day, because he had Xi Jinping and his wife at the White House and, as everyone is saying, nobody has ever been tougher on China. Craig adds the detail that Trump apparently floated selling Xi American weapons. Craig's read: what, you like Vietnam surplus? They already have those.
For listeners unfamiliar with the man, Nick does the three lines: Prime Minister of Israel, longest-serving one they've ever had, not well regarded at home. Under indictment for corruption in Israel. Facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court abroad. Election in a few weeks. And newly not well regarded in New York, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged to arrest him if he set foot in the city, called him a war criminal, and declared him not welcome. Nick's honest assessment: Mamdani probably lacked the jurisdiction, so it's close to nothing, but it isn't nothing. Netanyahu's response was to cut a promo. A video aimed at the mayor by name. Shame on you, Mr. Mamdani. Then he did it again from the UN podium, working in Mamdani's friendship with streamer Hasan Piker for good measure. Craig notes Netanyahu's party has been running ads in Israel with Mamdani edited in next to prominent figures, which tells you something about who the campaign is actually for. Craig also observes the strangest thing happening on the American right this year: it's splitting on Israel, and neither the right wing of the party nor the center is going to be pleased with any of this ahead of the midterms.
The speech itself gets the full treatment. The walkout. The moral cowards line. The claim that attacking Iran was one of the easiest decisions he's ever made. West Bank settler violence dismissed as the work of juvenile delinquents, which prompts Craig to do a real explainer, for new listeners, on what the settler movement is, where it came from, and why it's been part of Israeli political culture since the aftermath of 1967. Craig on the diplomatic corner Israel has backed itself into is one of the best stretches of the episode: not a lecture, an explanation of how a country ends up with its prime minister yelling at an empty room. You'll have to hear it.
Then the mic drop. Netanyahu closed by declaring that Israel didn't commit genocide, Israel prevented genocide, and that the finding against him is the greatest lie of the century. Nick's reaction is the emotional center of the episode, played straight and then not: that's a real load off his mind, because this whole thing is a sticky wicket, he hasn't been watching it closely because every time he looks it doesn't look good, the United States is definitely complicit in the sense that we supplied the weapons, and he doesn't want to be seen as antisemitic, of which there's plenty going around without him. So he'll defer to the expert, and Netanyahu says it isn't one. Craig's summary: up is down, war is peace. The show does not resolve the question this week. It names the discomfort of a person of ordinary decency trying to look at something and finding he'd rather not. That's the autocratic despair the title is about, and it's why the number stays at six instead of moving.
And then, because this is a show about fascism that is somehow genuinely fun, Nick tells Craig about the pants.
He was at the Home Depot on Saturday returning a toilet seat for the second time in six weeks. What he found there, and how close he came, is a story about brand loyalty, pocket architecture, the elite fraternity of men who know a specific Timberland work pant, the correct number of backup pairs to keep in a package at the ready, and the moment a 48-year-old father of three understands what he has become. There is a detour through Japanese selvedge denim and the ethics of not washing it. Craig reveals that he has had the same Tyvek wallet with a picture of the band "Devo" on it for 20 years. If you want to know what pants Milwaukee Tool is selling now, whether they're electric, and whether he bought them, listen.
The episode closes on a milestone. It's episode 22, but it's the twentieth Nick and Craig have done together. Craig says it took him a couple of episodes to understand what they could do, that the comedic cooperation keeps getting better, and that the balance between entertainment, education, and politics has found its shape. Nick tells the audience the premise they've never actually explained: he and Craig didn't know each other. Nick was a listener to Craig's other show, 15 Minutes of Fascism, and could hear a man getting depressed in the funniest possible way throughout 2024. He reached out. This is the result. A commedia for the specific tragedy of watching your country drift toward authoritarianism, hosted by a Midwestern dad and a scholar who has, against all odds, hung in there while the dad does things. They're taking listener questions for the twenty-fifth. Send a link to your group chat. They won't let you down.
Autocratic Despair is a comedy podcast about surviving American authoritarianism. Nick Mortensen is a comedian and father of three from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Dr. Craig Johnson holds a PhD in global fascism, lectures at UC Berkeley, and wrote How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism.
SPEAKER_03
I was returning a faulty toilet seat and I came home with pants. That's a horrowing story, Nick.
SPEAKER_00
I never saw it that way.
SPEAKER_02
This is Autocratic Despair, the podcast. I'm Nick Mortensen, a comedian and father of three from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Each week on the Autocratic Despair Podcast, I stare into the abyss with my friend, Dr. Craig Johnson, PhD in global fascism, lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of 2025's most important book, How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism. Dr. Craig, on a scale of 1 to 10, where would you rate your autocratic despair this week?
SPEAKER_03
I am still around a 6 out of 10. I went camping last weekend and so I'm personally a little bit more relaxed, but the world has not let up. I am a little bit relieved to see that even the popular zeitgeist of the Republicans is catching up to the fact that Donald Trump has started a war with a country that controls access to basically the entire fossil fuel supply on the planet because of their geographic position. This at the same time that for the last four years there's been a war going on in one of the world's major breadbaskets, Ukraine, that's just not a good time to start a war that will massively increase fuel prices when food prices are already expensive. It's just dumb. We were talking about conspiracies last week. Donald Trump has done more than many Democratic presidents to push renewable energy by making fossil fuel so fucking expensive.
SPEAKER_02
I guess so. I think there's a lot of people that still haven't drawn the conclusion that these more expensive gas prices are from the war in Iran. I think those are two separate pieces of information for a lot of people. Yeah. They both suck, but it's not Trump's fault that gas prices are higher.
SPEAKER_03
There's a lot of people that don't understand those two things. Which is why I love those I did this stickers with Trump pointing at the number or some shit. When those stickers went up for Biden, it's like, well, largely no, and mostly that's just state taxes or whatever. But regular gasoline is $850 in the Central Valley of California, and that's just because it's expensive. I get mad about that stuff. Because it went on like 60 cents in a day.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, what the fuck, man? Is this gonna keep going up? Yeah. This is the end, right? That's what I keep saying. Like, this has gotta be the end of it. Because it backs down for a couple days, and it's still 30 cents more, but it's not 60 cents anymore. So you're like, eh, that's all right, I guess.
SPEAKER_03
Last week, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia told the part of the European Union that handles the import of fossil fuels from the Arabian Peninsula. It's like a joint commission inside the EU. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said in a month there will be nothing. There won't be any anymore.
SPEAKER_02
Oh, we don't get all our gas from there, right? We got a lot of gas here. We got the capacity to pump it up, right? We can do that.
SPEAKER_03
We do have a lot of capacity to pump it up here by causing earthquakes and poisoning our rivers and streams and not making quite enough. You know, this is the sort of thing where it's like, yeah, we probably could if we spun it up for two years prior to this meltdown. It's like those tweets I remember, you know, when Trump initially announced his tariffs and people were like, yeah, fuck all these imports and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they saw how much more expensive, because it's online people, they saw how much more expensive video game consoles would be. And you got all these tweets from people being like, well, but like, how fast could they make the Switch 2 in Ohio? And it's like, man, in like five years, I guess.
SPEAKER_02
I remember that. I'm sure you've heard that old saw that if you want to have revolution in France, all you have to do is bump up the price of bread by 10 cents. Yeah. And it'll happen. That's just true, though. I'm really curious as to how high gas prices bread riots are real. But here, you're right, it's fuel. How much further can it go? It's not our area of expertise. No. It really is a curiosity. Well, so if you're upset with that, where's your autocratic despair? I'm holding fast at a six. Netanyahu made it to New York to speak on the floor of the UN last week. Yeah, it's UN speeches time. Everybody coming into town. Balls of that guy to show his face in the United States.
SPEAKER_03
That motherfucker, where does he get the nerve to do that? Yeah, and I mean, like, he was in potential legal trouble. I mean, the government of New York was talking seriously about like, well, what if we arrested him based upon charges of genocide and crimes against humanity?
SPEAKER_02
The nerve on that guy to rub our faces in all the power he holds with our government, especially when all the white supremacist militias have been asserting this exact thing for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_03
This is the weirdest thing about what's going on in the right wing in the United States is that it seems like it's really splitting along lines of anti-Semitism. There's just a right wing that is pro-Israel and a right wing that is anti-Israel, not because they hate genocide or because they are pro-Palestinian, but because they're anti-Semitic.
SPEAKER_02
We're not doing a great job of distinguishing that line. No. Those lines are getting blurred on a daily basis, and it's getting a little frightening out there. Trump spoke at the UN last week, too, just not on the same day as Netanyahu. He may be dumb, but he's not dumb enough to get photographed with Benjamin Netanyahu just ahead of the midterms.
SPEAKER_03
No.
SPEAKER_02
That's not going to make anybody happy right about now.
SPEAKER_03
No. No, neither the right wing of the party nor the center of the party is going to be pleased with that right now.
SPEAKER_02
It wasn't that Trump didn't want to see BB. Trump just double booked himself last Wednesday. Them's the breaks when you're the president of the hottest country in the world, baby. Trump and Milani pretended to be a couple to host Ji Jinping and his wife at the White House for a couple days. And they wanted to put their full focus on the Jinping, which is nice because as you well know, as everybody is saying, nobody has been tougher on China than Trump. Everyone says that. I just said it.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, yeah, yeah. On that note, last week, a story came out that Trump apparently floated to Xi like, hey, do you want to buy some American weapons? He wasn't gonna give them the good stuff, Dr. Craig. Well, you know, like Vietnam surplus?
SPEAKER_04
Sure.
SPEAKER_03
They already have that. They already have those things because we were fighting the People's Liberation Army in Vietnam. That was a weird one.
SPEAKER_02
Netanyahu, for those unfamiliar, is the Prime Minister of Israel, longest serving one they've ever had, not well regarded at home. He's under indictment for corruption in Israel. He's facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. He's got an election in a couple weeks that he's hoping to win. And he is all of a sudden not well regarded in the United States either. People are pretty sure that he conned Trump into starting the Iran war. Because that's what Trump said. Yeah, Trump said no foreign wars when he ran for president, but that's because he thought the military was so intimidating that whoever he was going to go after would surrender immediately rather than fight back. Which I kind of thought too. As far as Netanyahu goes, the mayor of New York, Zorhan Mamdani, pledged to have Netanyahu arrested, as you said, over the International Criminal Court Warrant. If Netanyahu ever set foot inside of New York City, he probably lacked the jurisdiction to do that as the mayor of New York. Little matter. He was willing to say that he would do it if he could. Not many politicians out there are willing to do that. Mamdani also called Netanyahu a war criminal and declared that Netanyahu was not welcome in New York City. Although I have it on good authority, there's no legal heft to that. All they can really do is give him a real Bronx cheer, flip off the motorcade. Hey, what's a matter of you? Wait in line for hot dogs, become increasingly distracted by the latest Jalen Brunson news. Hot gas on OG and Anubi. Those are two members of the Knicks. Basketball names. My knowledge of New York City is pretty limited. So you're gonna have to excuse me. Whatever. The mayor of New York declared Netanyahu not welcome. It's close to nothing, but it isn't nothing. I mean he did what he could, which was next to nothing. Hey. But that's something. Is that anything? I'd like to think we'd all have war criminals arrested for war crimes if there was a warrant out for their arrest and we had legal jurisdiction to do so. Oh yeah. I don't know how much credit I can give Mom Dani for saying that. It's still notable that he said it on the record instead of shying away from the topic. Yeah. It didn't happen, of course. Netanyahu never got close to being arrested. He knew that. And Netanyahu was kind of being a dick about it to Mom Dani. In fact, Netanyahu got on the stick and cut a promo on Mamdani, published a video to Twitter talking directly to Mom Dani, calling Mom Dani out by name, saying, quote, Shame on you, Mr. Mom Dani. Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people. I was doing a baby Netanyahu impression. I'm gonna pull out of him. That's good. Shame on you for inciting riots against New York Jews. I'm coming to the UN. I'm gonna tell the truth about our heroic soldiers, and I'm going to tell the truth about you.
SPEAKER_03
Netanyahu and his party have been putting out ads in which Mamdani appears edited as if he were standing next to prominent leaders in the Muslim world, presenting him as a Muslim leader, as opposed to an essentially secular American politician who happens to practice Islam.
SPEAKER_02
Mamdani was living in Netanyahu's head, rent controlled, all week, I dare say.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Netanyahu even took some time in his speech to the UN to talk shit about Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, claimed that Mamdani was making Jewish residents feel unsafe in New York. Netanyahu was going hard in the paint on Mamdani during that speech. Got on his case for being bros with Hassan Piker. Whatever.
SPEAKER_03
That is deeply embarrassing. A person who is still an extremely niche political commentator.
SPEAKER_02
It's beneath Netanyahu to even know who Hassan Piker is at all, much less publicly acknowledge his existence. That he would talk about this? It's just reaching. Levels, Bibi. There's levels. That's embarrassing. Netanyahu got loose with it, saying, quote, Mr. Mandana, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me. You can't silence the truth. Bibi Netanyahu had quite a few things to say, and some of those things had been building up for quite some time. And Netanyahu was bound and determined to get those things off of his chest in front of the UN. So it was probably pretty upsetting for Netanyahu when delegates from dozens of countries cleared out in a pointed symbolic rebuke of Netanyahu just as he was about to give his speech in front of the UN. Puts Netanyahu in some fine company, though. Erdogan, Qaddafi, Yasser, Arafat, all the big dogs have been walked out on in protest in front of the UN. Yeah, I guess some to be proud of. So they walked out. He wasn't gonna let him know that it got to him, even though he's clearly susceptible to a psych out as Zoran Mamdani had spent the week proving beyond any doubt. And Netanyahu took a second to gather himself and came out swinging. Netanyahu went full unapologetic dickhead, opening his speech by saying, quote, if there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now, which is suboptimal when you've got an election coming up.
SPEAKER_03
No, no, no. That's showing weakness immediately.
SPEAKER_02
You never want to call attention to the people that are walking from the room in a moral protest as your opener. You want people to assume that there's a breakout session that they gotta get to. Yeah. Otherwise, people might feel an obligation to join in. Probably actually. The people that stayed were in for a real treat, though. When right off the bat he reached a Trump level of bald-faced bullshit when he said that the leaders of all of the countries whose delegates just walked out of his speech, quote, thank us privately for taking out Iran's nukes, unquote. Certain lies are not made to seem plausible. Some of them are just about exerting raw power, right, Craig? Oh yeah. That Netanyahu almost certainly has, but it isn't trending in a good direction for him. BB knew it might be the last time he'd be addressing the UN as Israel's prime minister, so he let it hit a crescendo. He dismissed the West Bank settler violence as the work of juvenile delinquents. Couple like kids that got carried away and did some vigilante murdering. Is it bad? Yes. Are they addressing it? No. They know they can kill Palestinians without consequences. Yeah. But Netanyahu did call them juvenile delinquents in front of the UN. That probably hurt their feelings at least a little.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, for listeners who are unfamiliar with this, the settler movement in Israel, it's something that's been part of Israeli culture since the aftermath of World War II. This is a movement in which primarily relatively conservative people in Israel, often members of particularly conservative forms of Jewish practice, go in and engage in partisan warfare. They're like attack, kill people, take over their homes. This has been going on for quite some time in Israel. Netanyahu's political movement is allied with a lot of these groups and has been for decades.
SPEAKER_02
From there it was just diss track after distrac for Netanyahu. He said that attacking Iran was, quote, one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make. And then he circled back to Mandani again, called him out for being anti-Semitic, said, shame on you again. No word on whether Netanyahu rubbed his two fingers together as if to place a hex of shame on Mandani. Now's probably not the time for an Israeli leader to be putting hexes of shame on anyone. Only going to fuel speculation about witchcraft. Probably ash. Mandani said afterwards that Netanyahu's speech was sanitizing the genocide of Palestinians. The man knows how to keep focus when he computed kids. Netanyahu's mic drop moment was his conclusion of his speech, where he defended Israel's military actions in Gaza as defensive in nature. Said, quote, and here's the simple truth: Israel didn't commit genocide. It prevented genocide. And that the International Criminal Court finding he is currently committing genocide was, quote, the greatest lie of the century, unquote. My Israel didn't commit genocide t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my Israel didn't commit genocide t-shirt.
SPEAKER_03
Oh no.
SPEAKER_02
Oh no. Dr. Craig, a 76-year-old head of government on trial four weeks from the election, behind in the polls, arrest warrant out, decides to hop on a plane to pick a fight with the UN, Europe, the mayor of the city he's standing in, stands in front of the UN, immediately walks 80% of his audience and calls a genocide finding a lie. That's some idymin banana republic, Kim Pod dictator bullshit, is it not?
SPEAKER_03
Very much so. This is indicative of the weird spot that Israel has gotten itself into diplomatically. We're not going to get into the wild, weird story of the foundation of the state of Israel. It's a really strange thing. In the 21st century, Israel has ended up in a place where they are increasingly ostracized by most of the global community, with the exception of the United States and a couple of the United States' other allies. Even those are increasingly turning their backs on Israel because of the clear genocidal activity that the Israeli government has been engaging in regarding Palestinians and especially Palestinians in Gaza. You were talking about the International Criminal Court indicting Netanyahu. That's a big fucking deal. The International Criminal Court is an organization that is actually separate from the United Nations. It's related to the UN, but it's not exactly part of it. It's headquartered in the Netherlands, because the Netherlands used to do this kind of shit in Europe when all this was just handled inside of Europe. Like Napoleon Eric, that kind of thing. Historically, the International Criminal Court has mostly dealt with dictators, and most of those have been African. However, recently they have stretched their muscles a little bit and they indicted and have put on trial the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, who, as far as I recall, is the first person who is not an African or from North Africa, like a Middle Eastern person, who has actually been gotten by the International Criminal Court.
SPEAKER_02
Take that pole pot, you motherfucker.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I think he just uh, you know, stayed home. Killed everybody with glasses. They couldn't read the arrest warrant.
SPEAKER_02
Do you have any idea what we're looking at in terms of Israel in the next couple months? Is Netanyahu going to get re-elected?
SPEAKER_03
It's a super big question. Who's he going up against? Is it any better? So Israel has been ruled by a right-wing coalition that Netanyahu is astonishingly not at the far right of. Netanyahu's coalition is comprised of his relatively center-right party and a number of much more openly anti-Palestinian racist political parties, some of which are run by particularly conservative or orthodox forms of Jewish practice, some of which just like talk about killing Palestinians, just like talk about like we should build gallows and execute people en masse. They just like talk about that stuff openly. Against that, we have a situation that's sort of like the coalition that went up against Orban. Everybody is up against them. This has happened before, and Netanyahu's coalition has won the last times that this has happened, that the whole opposition basically has united against him, but we don't know. We don't know what's gonna happen. Netanyahu really needs to win this election, like you noted earlier. He's not just under indictment in the International Criminal Court, he's under indictment in Israel itself. The government of Israel has said you have committed crimes. If and when you lose your immunity from prosecution by virtue of being a member of parliament, you're gonna go on trial, maybe go to jail. It's a situation a lot like Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro knew he was gonna go to jail if he wasn't still the president. He had to pull out all the stops, stage a coup. I don't think that Netanyahu's gonna do that. He might have hoped to flee to the United States, but Trump is also turning his back on him. He already has enough albatrosses hanging around his neck come November. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02
I almost bought a pair of pants at the Home Depot on Saturday. How fucking close I got. You want to hear the story? Should we start there? Honestly, yes. I wrote it all out twice. I wrote it in a pad of legal paper, and then I never looked at it again and did the story in Google Docs. And I think I hit most of the same beats. I'm gonna need you to say fairly early. I didn't know they sold pants at Home Depot.
SPEAKER_03
I will say this. I mean, that's that I was I was very close to saying that, and then my brain quickly jumped to like, under what circumstances would I need to do that? Only bad, I can imagine. Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_02
I'm getting old, Dr. Craig. I don't feel old, but there are signs. I've been borrowing my wife's magnifying glasses to read my iPad. I've been mulling over getting on that neutrophil to thicken my hair up top. I'm trying to get my 12-year-old daughter to stop wearing shorts that clearly show lower ass. I'm having a midlife crisis, I think, where I've tricked myself into using a long dormant skill to try to dumb down a PhD in global fascism so we can reach actual fathers that should be talking to their sons about fascism. I almost bought a pair of pants at the Home Depot this weekend. I didn't I didn't know that they sold pants at Home Depot. They do and they don't, Dr. Craig. They don't in the sense that they never have before. They do in the sense that they do now, as of Saturday. Milwaukee tool branded pants. Oh no. Milwaukee, the tool company has been working their way up to this for years. They started with heated gloves and jackets that are compatible with their same battery system for their cordless tools. I'm a DeWalt guy myself, so I never had the chance to use them. Nick, did you buy electric pants? Did not, did not. As I was working my way through the Home Depot this week and I was there returning a toilet seat for the second time in six weeks. Okay, I got questions, but I'm gonna hold off. I spotted these Milwaukee work pants. They had a pocket situation that I could get down with. I've been rocking either a pair of khaki or dark gray Timberland Pro Tempe work pants for a decade now. Breathable, lightweight fabric with a little stretch so you can squat without having to hike them up first. Snap closure at the top, which is solid. The snaps are a nice touch. Haven't had a pair of pants with a snap closure since second grade when my fingers weren't strong enough to do a pants button in an emergency situation. This is bad. And I found that out the hard way. In my opinion, the best pocket situation happening right now is on the Timberland Pro Tempe work pants. Double layer pocket on your right leg to put your smartphone. Top pocket has two sections on the leg: one for your carpenter's pencil, one for anything else you want. Left side's got another carpenter pocket. You could put a utility knife inside. I don't. I let it hold my minimal ridge wallet that holds an air tag. Impossible to lose, but also impossible to sit on, so you can't put it in your back pocket. And after a decade of exclusively wearing nudie jeans, regular Alf cut, Japanese dry salvage denim, the kind of jeans you wear for six months before you wash, $300 a pair in 2010's prices. Worth every penny. Once you wash them for the first time, they pay for themselves in comfort. You know how most jeans you wear for a day or two, they get a little saggy until you wash them and dry them again? That doesn't happen with Japanese salvage denim.
SPEAKER_03
There's no polyester. I know my friends who are big denim demons. Anyway, they talk about this shit. They've been trying to get me to buy it for years. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02
You could wear a pair of these pants every single day for a year and never wash them. Zero seg. The creases, once you wash them, locked in. Your pants just look awesome. They feel awesome. It makes the whole trip worth it. You can get away with six months before you wash them for the first time, but that's what you do the first time that you buy a pair of these pants. The next time you buy a pair of this pants, six months was good, but what about eight months? What about ten months?
SPEAKER_03
Are these people living in a universe where they don't drink and or spill coffee on their pants?
SPEAKER_02
No. I guess I only have black jeans in there. That's how tight the denim loom is. They can just scrape that stuff off. There's no stretching. In 2014, I came to grips with the idea that I was always gonna have to have a smartphone on me. And the nudie jeans regular out cut afforded me no pockets for a smartphone. So I had to start looking. I still got four pairs of those jeans in various states of wear. Never worn six months, two years, and a pair I wore for almost five years that I had to send out to repair on more than one occasion because I had ripped the crotch fully out. But once I discovered the Timberland Pro Tempi pant, those regular Alce were relegated to the secondary position in my pants hierarchy, which means they get worn. Never. Oh my god. I've always got at least two pairs of these Timberland Pro Tempe pants and two more pairs in a package at the ready in case something happens to one of my pairs.
SPEAKER_03
That is the indication of a middle-aged person. My version of this is that I found a wallet that I liked when I was 12, and then when I was 30, bought six of them because the company was going out of business. Hell yeah, man. So that's the way to do it. It's the only way I know how at this point. What if they stop making my Devo the Band themed Tyvek wallet? What am I supposed to do? One time a barista gave me a compliment on this wallet. How can I go through life without experiencing that again? You gotta have a couple extra. Oh yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02
You're in your late 30s and you're rocking a Tyvek wallet that has Devo on it. That's your exclusive wallet? That's not just a wallet that you bring a couple cards out for the event.
SPEAKER_03
That's the only wallet that I have, yes. It's a wallet that that has Devo with an energy dome. It's my only wallet.
SPEAKER_02
I had a Michael Jackson Velcro wallet well into my 20s. Is this what happened to me if I didn't have kids? Oh yeah. Was I on this path?
SPEAKER_03
I've been keeping some of the old hipster ways alive. I do occasionally go and eat an entire meal at a restaurant with my right pant legs still rolled up in preparation for getting back on my bicycle.
SPEAKER_02
Did you get excited when Levi started making commuter pants where you could put your ULAC in the back? Do you know those pants? I do, and I was already doing that. I've always had two pairs of these Emberlyn Pro Tempe pants and two more in a package at the ready because after seven or eight months they start feeling a little stretchy, especially if you put them in the dryer on the regular. And these Milwaukee pants at Home Depot were very similar, with a slightly cooler pocket situation, Dr. Craig. We're talking vertical zipper on the right pant leg pocket. Cargo pant action on the side of your pants. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Large elastic gussets on the belt line for your squatting pleasure. Even attempt at a solution for that issue you have where the back of your pants gets all dirty and worn too fast if they just go a little too far down your shoe. Yeah. $89, which is a little steep. No changing room to try them on or anything at the Home Depot. So I'd have to bring them home, try them on with the tags on, and then decide whether I like them enough to keep them. Or they weren't for me, and I should take them back to the Home Depot. That pocket situation with the vertical zipper, Dr. Cricket, really captured my imagination. Could finally start having some trampoline situations. I've been avoiding them for exactly this reason, I think, subconsciously. So his Milwaukee work pants could be a real game changer for me, because I'm very particular about my pants. The people that wear these Timberland Pro Tempi pants is an elite fraternity of pants aficionados that know the delights of the Timberland Pro Tempe work pants. And whenever I see someone in the wild rocking them, I'll mention that he's a man that truly knows pants. We usually become fast friends. I like to ask what pants they were wearing before they discovered Timberland Pro Tempi pants, and whether they've ever found a better pant. Most of the time it's not awkward at all, but every now and then I'll run into a dude whose wife bought them or they got him as a gift for Christmas, and they have no idea they're wearing the pants that I spent most of my life looking for, whether I knew it or not. I had to rely on my priors in this one, because I used to be cool, and I'm still probably pretty cool for a dad, but I'm not cool enough to overcome father of three who buys his pants at the Home Depot.
SPEAKER_03
That's a horrowing story, Nick. I was returning a faulty toilet seat and I came home with pants.
SPEAKER_00
I never saw it that way.
SPEAKER_02
In my mind, I'm just buying pants at an unorthodox retailer. When you map out the whole journey like that, it really crystallizes pants for me. You magnificent bastard.
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02
You've done it again. You showed me the bigger picture. Why did I ever think it was reasonable? The first vertical zipper and a carpenter pan pockets got me in such a tizzy. I'm considering throwing it all away with the Timberland Pro Tempe workband after a decade? After all we've built together. Unproven pants from a first-time pant purveyor and a first-time pant retailer with no try-on? I'm just killed that windmills out here.
SPEAKER_03
That is perhaps the most dad.
SPEAKER_01
This is our 20th show together, Dr. Craig.
SPEAKER_02
Whoa, that's exciting. Episode 22, but it's the 20th one that you and I have been in together. What do you think of it so far?
SPEAKER_01
What do you think we're doing here?
SPEAKER_03
I love it a lot, actually. I'm really enjoying it. It took me a second, like a couple episodes, to understand what we could do. It's just been feeling and getting better, in my opinion. I think our comedic cooperation has been getting better. I think that the balance between entertainment and education and politics has gotten better also. I think that our characters have become more defined in the show.
SPEAKER_02
I'm having a good time. The last couple have been particularly good. Yeah. Which is nice. There seem to be more and more people coming in every week. It could grow a little faster, people. If you want to do us a solid, point out that this is a pretty good podcast that you enjoy. Do your group chat. Send a link.
SPEAKER_03
You gotta steer into the abyss with friends. It's helpful. Otherwise, you'll get sad and you'll look away. We all know that we've done that. We won't let you down.
SPEAKER_02
We do, I think, have enough listeners right now that we can invite people to ask questions that we'll answer. Oh, that sounds great. I don't think we've told the audience the premise of what we're doing here. Maybe not. Dr. Craig and I did not know each other before we started doing this show. I was a loyal listener to his Fifteen Minutes of Fascism podcast. And I found that he was getting depressed in the most hilarious way throughout 2024 and two. I could really hear the turmoil in his voice as he sort of read this stuff off. I found it funny as a guy that appreciates comedy, uh, but I also was got sad about it. So I I reached out to him and we had some common interests, and we decided to do this. And the idea is Craig has a singular voice, PhD in this. There are other people that talk about this subject in a very authoritative way, a lot of letters behind their name, but there's nobody that's doing it any better than you are. And I wouldn't have known that had we not done the show together, because your other show is just sort of reading off what happens with a little light consternation mostly. You've done a great job of hanging in there and not getting too frustrated when I'm doing things. And I think that this is a good partnership. It's working out, and I'm a happier person for having gotten to know you.
SPEAKER_03
Me too. Honestly, me too. We use that little slogan sometimes, stare into the abyss with friends. It's actually true. Since 2014, I have been staring into this abyss on my phone, in my computer screen, through a book. It gets disturbing. You really need people to help you with this. You can do that through activism, you could do that through faith, you could do it through comedy. That's one of the things that we're trying to do with this show, not to make light of what's happening, but to make it possible to think about it and to make it part of your life and part of your world in the way that everything else is, to remind you that it is part of your everyday life.
SPEAKER_02
Stare into the abyss with friends, the Autocratic Despair Podcast with Nick Mortensen and Dr. Craig Johnson. And don't forget Dr. Craig's other podcast, 15 Minutes of Fascism, available wherever you get your podcast.
