Chapter 1: What inspired Matt Bernstein to become a political commentator?
Welcome to It's Open with Alana Glazer. That's me. That's me. That's me. Why am I so happy? Because I just finished talking to a young person who made me realize, you know what? The kids are all right. They may be indoctrinated to the manosphere and Club America, but honestly, our instincts are... To have human rights for each other.
Honestly, this young person is a political commentator and also a podcast creator and host called It's a Bit Fruity. You can check it out on YouTube. But damn, he gives me hope. I look to him for leadership to understand things the way old fogies sometimes need translation by younger people to understand shit. And I fucking love him. I'm so proud of him.
Chapter 2: How does Matt Bernstein view the impact of youth on political discourse?
Today's episode is with Matt Bernstein, also known as MattXIV on Instagram. So come on in. It's open. Maddox IV.
Maddox IV.
It's Matt Bernstein, but Maddox IV. I'm just learning where the handle comes from. Tell us.
It was like Roman numerals. Which like Roman is queer culture. Like moon phases. It was just a lot of like the hipster, the like 2010s hipster stuff. So when I made Instagram in 2012, that's when I like set up my account, I just called it Mad X IV because I was 14 years old.
14 years old. So you were born in 98?
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Chapter 3: What are the challenges of discussing sensitive political topics?
I was born in 98.
Because Matt, I am so, um, I am so moved by your work. And so, uh, it gives me hope that young people can, I know it's not easy, but it seems effortless to you to navigate the full scam bullshit that is mainstream discourse, indoctrination into, uh, white supremacist capitalism. And the way that you just pull apart the layers of wool laid before you, it gives me hope.
And you make it seem easy, which I know it's not in my own personal education. Although perhaps because you were 14 when you got on Instagram, perhaps there is an aspect to youth that makes it easier to figure it out.
I don't know if that's true because I think a lot of people my age, as in most generations at this point, feel like really overwhelmed and exhausted. I don't think I'm like particularly good or special in that way. I'm just obsessed with it. I also like I wasn't doing political discourse when I was 14. Like that's not what my Instagram was.
It was like artsy pictures of the beach, you know, with like with like the Instagram Nashville filter on it. But at this point, I am 27, and for basically my whole adult life, I have been just kind of obsessed with politics. And a lot of people ask, not to pat myself on the back or anything, because it's just an interest that comes naturally to me, but they'll be like,
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Chapter 4: How does Matt Bernstein define right-wing grifting?
How do you like keep doing it every day? How do you read the news all the time? How do you like stay on it without feeling exhausted? And it's just because like even when everything is terrible, like I'm still I don't know the news and like the world and the way that people treat each other.
It just feels like a big like puzzle that I'm always interested in, like seeing how everything fits together. It really is just so interesting to me. And even then I still get overwhelmed sometimes.
You are so timely with your responses to things. One thing that comes to mind is, oh my God, it was so embarrassing and such a true Shonda. The white Jewish woman who used to work with the Obamas, who wrote this book as a Jew.
Sarah Hurwitz.
Sarah Hurwitz, yeah. This woman, Sarah Hurwitz, was talking about why young Jews are so mad and defecting from... I wouldn't even say Judaism, actually. I would say defecting from... Zionism. From Zionism, that's right.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Matt share about empathy in political discussions?
And she was blaming the horrific images, and she used very reckless, dehumanizing language, objectifying Palestinians about... genocide occurring to them, upon them right now that we're still seeing in real time.
She said young people, young Jewish people have taken the wrong lessons from Holocaust education. She's saying the way that they are empathizing with Palestinians living under an Israeli genocide is evidence that they took the wrong lessons from Holocaust education. No,
What you should have learned was that you should solely have empathy for Jews facing persecution, not for anyone else, especially when the persecution they're facing is from Jews. And I just like what a bastardization of what I believe to learn from the Holocaust, which is that genocide is wrong when it happens to anyone.
That's right. And that we are all connected. And never again means never again for anyone and everyone. Never again a genocide against anybody is what it means to be Jewish.
Yeah.
Truly.
I kept saying like Sarah Hurwitz was on this book tour and it felt like every day there was a new video coming from like where she's speaking on a stage and saying just the most egregious, heartless, dehumanizing anti-Palestinian racism ever. And I said when I was making those videos about her, like, I hope she keeps speaking.
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Chapter 6: How does Matt Bernstein navigate social media's role in politics?
Unfortunately, her press tour did eventually end. But, like, she was such a useful individual because she was being very open about what the Zionist project actually is.
That's right.
And she didn't have, like, a lot of the great, I call them Hasbaristas, but, like, basically propagandists for Israel. Like, they are very good at... Wait, Hasbaristas?
What's Has?
So Hasbara is basically, I believe it's the Hebrew word for understanding. But Hasbara is generally known inside and outside of Israel as like the story that Israel tells the world about itself. Israelis will use this word as well.
Copy that word.
But it's sort of become a pejorative in anti-Zionist circles because Hezbollah is basically propaganda.
Copy that. Copy that. And actually, let me just walk the listeners and viewers back for a second. So what was blowing me away about this was in real time on her fucking press tour, which it was as though she was falling down a flight of stairs verbally every day.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of representation in political commentary?
And you were taking the puzzle pieces apart and then fitting them back together in real time daily in a way that like... I felt in my heart the same thing as you, but damn, Matt Bernstein, I was fully learning from you and following your lead in how to articulate those feelings in my heart that were all like in a cauldron. I couldn't pick them apart.
And I was so grateful because it was so, so hurtful. By the way, like...
hurtful as someone who you know just I desperately want to see Palestinians have dignity and their basic human rights met and then also for them to be left alone on their land to I don't even know what the word is their heel doesn't cover it but whatever I want to see a free and fair Palestine okay first and foremost because that's the crisis but I'm also like Sarah Hurwitz-Grill you're you're making Jews less safe yeah which this Zionist project is so to see someone you
be able to like call it out immediately. It was like a relief, um, you know, for like our Palestinian brothers and sisters to know that it's not, that's, this is not what we believe Hasbara as I'm now learning, as you say, but also to represent progressive human rights centered Jews in the appropriate way.
we really feel represented by you and thank you for it and the speed the speed is incredible Matt it's like it's I'm amazed after all this makeup I'm blushing I'm amazed I'm amazed and I'm so proud of you and so grateful
Thank you. That is way more praise than I am personally willing to accept, but I do appreciate it. I just feel like... I mean, first of all, I credit everything that I know about Palestinian life and Israeli oppression to...
the Palestinians that I learn from every day, Muhammad al-Kurd, Bisan, Plastia, Motaz, Omar al-Akkad, all of these people who have been documenting a genocide that they've been also living through, that their families have been living through. So, yeah, I mean, it's funny what you said about, like, Sarah Hurwitz is making Jews less safe, right?
And I get this comment all the time from Zionists saying that my being a Jewish person, criticizing Israel, criticizing Israeli apartheid, criticizing now this state upheld by constant violence that's now leading the entire world into war.
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Chapter 8: How can individuals engage in political activism effectively?
that that is making Jews less safe. And to me, it is people like Sarah Hurwitz who inextricably tie at every single opportunity all Jewish people to the state of Israel. And this insistence that it's anti-Semitic to critique every facet of how Israel is structured as a state, that is made... And the fact that in a lot of ways, members of the Republican Party have beat...
Democrats and the like liberals to the punch on being able to call this out as a human rights atrocity and They are now wielding. I mean we're getting into so much but like they are now wielding very real anti-israel sentiment and into anti-Semitic sentiment. Look at the way Candace Owens talks about Israel and Jews very seamlessly in the same sentence.
And it makes me crazy because the Democratic establishment left this issue on the table because of them being in bed with AIPAC and J Street and all these pro-Israel funds. They've left the issue on the table for someone like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, to come in and take credit for correctly identifying this as a humanitarian issue. And it's so concerning.
That's exactly right. That's the point at which I am right now. We are still witnessing a genocide. And not only is it a genocide, now we're seeing the... plans of our government to build high rises. It is not only sadistic and psychotic and murderous, it's also just disgusting bad taste. I can't even hold it. I continually spill out about it. And, you know, that honestly, that's where I'm at.
And I actually think that's for me how it should be right now. Losing my mind. But then also I'm starting to see that where we're at right now in spring of twenty twenty six and October 7th happened. Twelve hundred Israeli Jews killed by Hamas. October 8th began Israel's genocidal response. It's taken however long this is, two and a half years to get to this point where.
anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment is being absolutely wielded by the white supremacist colonial power structure and centering Israel as the root of this system rather than a branch off of the white supremacist colonial system. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. And I think also just like the right wing of American politics often just sort of ebbs and flows between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. That's right. And clings to scapegoating whichever group feels like a better scapegoat at the time.
That's right.
I think a lot of these figures on the right, like Candace Owens, like Tucker Carlson, like Nick Fuentes, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. They are looking at the future of the Republican Party after Trump because Trump has two years left. You know, he is at the I think the MAGA movement is like seeing its end right now. It's I mean, it's sort of falling apart right now. But what's next?
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