It’s been a busy few weeks for Russell Brand, since his corporate overlords at Rumble central called him to their Florida HQ staff party for his ill-judged photo-op with Donald Trump Jnr, on Feb 25th 2022.
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This move alone left a number of Brand’s followers scratching their heads, not least about how a man so opposed to vaccine mandates apparently managed to swallow his vaccine skepticism to gain entry into the USA. Could it be that he’s actually taken the vaccine? More likely that he took citizenship during the heady days of his marriage to Katy Perry and his aspiration to Hollywood stardom. Others. As reported by the UK tabloid, the Daily Express , seemed to be more affronted by Brand’s proximity to former First Son and world’s foremost Beavis from Beavis and Butthead impersonator, Donald Trump Jnr. To be fair to Russell, though, it hardly looks like he’s brimming with glee at being photographed with Jnr and fiancé, Kimberly Guilfoyle, but I guess that’s the price you pay for signing the Devil’s bargain that is a Rumble contract.
Next up, an audience with the mighty Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast, posted to Spotify on March 2nd. This started with the rather baffling discussion of the poor treatment of people affected by homelessness by the authorities in LA, juxtaposed with Russell Brand’s emotions at visiting his Hollywood Hills mansion, which has been dormant for years during his absence from the US. It was kind of tone-deaf - glibly bringing up one’s great personal wealth and resource hoarding in such close proximity to great poverty. Only enhanced by Russell’s reminiscence of his own youthful exploitation of an unhoused person in London; bathing him on national television for Nathan Barley like sensationalism and shock value. And then insisting to Rogan that his fellow bather somehow chose to remain homeless (presumably as a less humiliating experience that having his cock washed by Russell, while having Russell’s own tassel waved in his face).
Other highlights included a protracted moan about CNN “lying” that ivermectin is horse de-wormer or some such, relating to Joe Rogan’s bout of COVID. Yes COVID, we’re still talking about COVID. I tell you, for someone who expects some kind of tolerance and forgiveness when it came to light that he called black neighborhoods “planet of the apes” and repeatedly used the n-word on his podcast, this Joe Rogan dude sure does have thin skin! There is something telling here, about the state of America - amongst some portions of the country, veterinarian medicines are viewed as a viable alternative to expensive FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. They are available over the counter, at lower prices, and without the need for an expensive visit to a doctor. Penicillin works just as well for horses as it does for people. I was party to a conversation a few weeks ago where a friend offered advice to another friend on the treatment of eczema - “you put some horse paste on it, you know…the ‘mectin”. There was no shame, no embarrassment. But for a multi-millionaire like Rogan, the implication that he would use horse medicine is a humiliation that he has been nursing for 18 months now!
But this pity party bores me, so we’ll move on to Russell’s March 3rd appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO talk show “Real Time”.
It’s been a few years since I’ve watched this show - Maher’s boomer energy was becoming tedious, and this little excursion only served as a refresher of how tedious he’s become. The opening guest interview segment featured Bernie Sanders. The sainted Bernie - in the same building as Russell? I would’ve expected that to cause Russell’s head to explode. But he managed to contain himself. Perhaps more surprising was evidence of Maher’s regressivism when, despite greeting Bernie as an old friend, he went on to challenge the aging socialist on raising tax rates for the wealthy - citing the highly improbable claim that Maher personally paid more than 50% of his income in taxes. Bill also revealed to the Senator that he objects to student loan forgiveness on the grounds that recipients might spend the freed-up cash on discretionary items and luxuries such as vacations. How dare they not live in penury! I find Maher’s new persona baffling; irredeemable boomer brain.
But I’m not here to critique Bill Maher; let's get to Russell, who is in the talk show segment along with a political journalist and broadcaster on the MSNBC and Showtime networks, John Heilemann. It’s all fairly tepid. Bill opens with his take on how COVID “dissenters are looking pretty good”, in light of “recent studies that have come out about things like natural immunity, mask-wearing, lockdowns and… the lab leak theory” and invites Russell to opine, which he does, lauding the concept of dissent, launching into a word salad of incomprehensibility and non-sequiturs with the statement “we were unwilling to ironically listen to science”.
How does one “ironically” listen to science? Get the Pope to do a Cameo video reading out excerpts from Richard Dawkins’ Blind Watchmaker?
Russell goes on to further explain that “Science does not exist objectively, it exists in a subset of capitalist agendum [sic].”
You what? “Subset of a capitalist agendum”? Agendum is the singular of agenda; an agenda item; a task; a thing to do.
And a subset of an agenda item?
“Right, what do we want to do about science in our ‘capitalist’ plans for world domination?”
“Make it a smaller part of an existing agenda item.”
“Really? I mean, science is quite a big subject; maybe it deserves a whole agenda item to itself?”
“No, it only needs to be a distinct yet small part of an agendum!”
“But, surely if an agendum contains smaller agendums, it becomes an agenda?”
“Look, don’t get smart with me. Just make it a subset of an agendum and move on!”
To my eye, it looks like the globalists aren’t really giving science the attention it deserves.
We’ve encountered Russell’s attitudes towards science before - there is the science that he wants to believe and the science he blatantly ignores. This approach to science is absolutely fitting for someone like Russell who has recently been platforming Graham Hancock, the “ancient aliens” weirdo who relies on vilifying genuine scientists while amplifying charlatans for his books and new Netflix show - for more on Hancock’s grift, watch this.
But Russell’s latest antiscience take is an escalation harboring something very sinister behind his casual slip-of-the-tongue. Dismissing science because you don’t like what it says is regressive, verging on the authoritarian, and is contributing to a growing trend of vilifying and targeting scientists. The idea of a shadowy elite with a hidden agenda that has set out to control the fundamental machinery of our society is hardly new, however. It is a toxic concoction with obvious parallels to the odious Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy theory and blood libel. All Russell has done is replace Jews with (((Capitalists))).
And, of course, Russell still gets to pick and choose which science he likes when, for example, his fellow guest accuses Donald Trump of racist politicizing of COVID's origins (mirroring what I said here), Russell, as part of his defense of the former president, says “it’s difficult to condemn the right for politicization when all we’re doing is having a reasonable conversation around how these regulations are rightfully changing… after emergent evidence around natural immunity, vitamin D, steroids, mask efficacy, and lab leaks”. How was this “emergent evidence” gleaned? Astrology? Séance? The entrails of sacrificial offering to the gods?
The real purpose of bringing up these points, however, is Russell’s Gish Gallop, a rhetorical trick where someone tries to overwhelm their opponent with a large number of arguments in a short period of time (regardless of the accuracy or strength of the arguments). What about changing regulations? Or emergent evidence around natural immunity? or vitamin D? Steroids? Mask Efficacy? Lab leaks? What specific arguments are even being made? And how could they all be addressed within the time limit and format of a television talk show?
It’s a technique that’s well suited to Russell - his apparent verbosity, and his loquacious eloquence, if you will, are the cornerstone of his comic persona. He will say the same thing three times just so he can use three synonyms - they don’t even have to add any further depth of meaning or insight to the topic. And if he can find an antonym, he’ll throw that in for good measure, too. Oh yes, he’ll say the same thing three times! He’ll say it in triplicate! He will say a trio! But not twice! No, never a brace! Not a mere duplicate!
But Russell is unraveling. Stanley Unwin was a British comic act in the 1960s who would adopt the persona of a respected communicator, such as a TV interviewer or science educator, and then deliver a talk in his own invented form of mangled English, inserting silly vocalizations and nonsense words so that the entire talk becomes incomprehensible even as it is delivered in the tone and cadence of confident authority. And so it is with Russell - the bodies of his arguments are incoherent nonsense, full of misapplied fancy-sounding words and logical non-sequiturs. The logic of his diatribes doesn’t matter; if he can deliver a one-sentence conclusion that is sufficiently coherent and approximates a message that his audience is primed for, they cheer and clap.
He again resorts to Gish Gallop when challenged about his assertion that MSNBC has as much of a partisan Democrat-leaning bias as Fox News has for the Republican party, in light of both old and new revelations about Fox, including that Fox shared Biden’s advertising strategies with Jared Kushner, Fox hosts' campaigned with Trump, and that Fox knowingly lied about the results of the 2020 election. Russell goes off on a Gish Gallop that includes MSNBC shareholders, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Joe Rogan and Ivermectin (again!), Rachel Maddow and vaccines, Bernie Sanders, and lobbying. It is delivered with a degree of anger and vitriol that perhaps belies a defensiveness of the news network that could be in anticipation of his, at this time unannounced, appearance on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Today the following week!
And it was apparently without this foreknowledge that the Guardian newspaper and the New Statesmen magazine, both of which Russell has guest-edited in the past, appear to have taken the Bill Maher appearance as their inciting event in the disavowal of Russell. The New Statesman, more so, as their piece “We’ve Lost Russell Brand” hardly deviates from the Bill Maher appearance, but does give us this rather charming line “The benign - if abrasive - hippy is long gone. In his place? An American culture warrior with a cockney accent.” Personally, I would’ve gone with “mockney accent”, but you get the idea.
The Guardian brings out the big guns in the form of George Monbiot, who laments Russell’s decline based on a watching of 50 of Russell’s recent videos. Monbiot provides a good read which, as a thorough assessment by a highly influential thinker and writer, succinctly samples Russell’s content and places it in the wider cultural struggle. He identifies and addresses several of the conspiracy theories that Russell has been peddling recently, which he then contextualizes as follows…
“Conspiracism is fascism’s fuel. Almost all successful conspiracy theories originate with or land with the far right. I’m not suggesting for one minute that Brand is sympathetic to fascism, but his videos are likely to assist its spread. As for his own politics, while he claims to have transcended left and right, I see a clear rightward shift. He concentrates his fire on centrists – Biden, Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Trudeau – while appearing to support Trump. He extols Trump’s “virility”, which he contrasts with “Biden’s senility”.”
I disagree with Monbiot’s apparent reticence on Russell’s sympathies towards fascism - how can you produce Russell’s output or align yourself with the characters that Russell has and claim ignorance of the dark forces that you are enabling? Russell’s own prior content shows that he knows what these forces are, and we can only conclude that he has intentionally set out to profit and capitalize on the same fear, hatred, and division that he once accused his new allies of engendering.
But you know what, though? I’ve very little sympathy for either paper’s position on Russell. Russell’s performance on Maher was milquetoast compared to what he posts to YouTube and Rumble. And it’s not like it’s been a secret, either. There has been other reporting on the subject of Russell’s lurch to the right, and a former left-wing media darling now sharing a platform with Donald Trump’s Truth Social must surely have ruffled a few feathers. But the Guardian and New Statesmen remained silent on Brand; they gave him a pass as “Nostromo” - Our Guy.
And, just like the literary Nostromo, Brand has become consumed by resentment towards his former friends and betrays them in pursuit of personal wealth.
Besides, all this fuss from the left-wing media because Russell attended a garden party with Don Jnr and was interviewed on formerly left-leaning Bill Maher? Imagine what they would’ve said if they’d seen Russell’s next trick…
Again, apparently at the behest of his Rumble overlords, Russell was trotted out to welcome into the Rumble stable the absolute bucket of charm that is Steven Crowder. Crowder had been the host of “Louder with Crowder” on Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” network and recently stirred controversy by publicizing his rejection of a $50 million offer to join Ben Shapiro’s “The Daily Wire”. The resulting public feud was quite amusing, including Jordan Peterson’s enthusiastic support of Crowder before realizing that the latter’s barely veiled criticism of conservative media was actually directed towards Peterson’s own employer, the Daily Wire. Right-wing grifter infighting aside, the episode also threw light on the “oligarch-funded media landscape” that is the right’s new media, fueled by billionaire largesse rather than free market capitalism.
Another interesting aspect of this whole escapade is timing. There were four months between Crowder’s rejection of the Daily Wire offer and his “I’m done being quiet…” tweet initiating the whole scandal on January 16th. Why be quiet and only speak up, unprovoked, after four months? Weird. As events unfolded, Crowder added further fuel to the controversy by releasing secret recordings of a phone call he had with Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing.
Strange timing, one might think, while seeking a new employer, to very publicly burn a bridge with one of your few potential employers and attempt to humiliate them in the process while simultaneously demonstrating your lack of integrity and trustworthiness. Doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing you’d want to do if you were in the jobs market and didn’t already have another contract lined up. And yet, barely one month after the whole manufactured scandal had settled down, Crowder announced his move to Rumble.
Can anyone else think of a Rumble signing that was announced almost immediately after a self-induced scandal? Maybe, for example, the spreading of stupid lies about ivermectin on YouTube and subsequent video removal? Russell, I’m looking at you!
Russell is now ensconced in Rumble and well-placed to roll out the red carpet for Crowder in the form of a video interview. Oh, what joy that must’ve been, Russell Brand - former left-wing progressive metrosexual, spreader of messages of love and tolerance - to be celebrating his new colleague Steven Crowder, replete with pistol in shoulder holster (a hallmark of Crowder’s show) famously intolerant racist and homophobe, having been penalized as such multiple times by YouTube. Steven need not worry about such penalties now that he’s on free-speech-loving Rumble, releasing daily hour-long live streams - much like Russell currently does.
This whole situation must smart a bit for Russell - to be trotted out just to welcome and introduce your own younger, more dynamic competition? Much like Russell, Crowder claims a background in standup comedy. He claims to have been Fox News’ youngest contributor and is an established fixture of the right-wing new media. His schtick has established a sizable audience among the more youthful element of the right, which I’m betting Rumble sees as being more likely to follow him to their platform than Russell Brand’s YouTube collection of casual viewers, wine moms, Russian bots, and confused legacy Trews subscribers. Maybe Rumble didn’t pay him the $50 million that the Daily Wire offered, but you got to assume Crowder got a hefty pay packet. Wonder how it compares to dear ol’ Russell’s? And I wonder if Russell also wonders.
Putting office politics to one side, Russell was still not finished with America. Next stop, Fox News! For his March 8th interview with the Tucker Carlson Today show, hosted by Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Perhaps it is just as well that the Guardian and New Stateman had already emotionally parted with Russell before this appearance as I’m not sure their dear little liberal bleeding hearts could’ve handled the shock.
But aside from the cognitive dissonance of lefty firebrand Russell Brand appearing on Fox, it was really quite unremarkable. Russell sat distant from Tucker, on the other end of a desk at a length the SI institute has now defined as “a Putin” - maybe as a result of Fox’s own draconian COVID mandates or maybe just for reasons of personal hygiene - was essentially given an open mic’. In delivering what Tucker describes as “the clearest explanation of what we’ve just lived through” (i.e. COVID, again), Russell retreats to a position more suited to the audience, vague statements about institutions “profiting” during COVID, speculating that natural immunity was suppressed in order to support “monetizable solutions to COVID” - a reference to vaccines, but at least an acknowledgment that they are a solution to COVID, I suppose.
Making accusations of powerful elites suppressing facts for the sake of profits in front of Tucker might be considered a bit gauche, however, considering recent revelations that Carlson sought to suppress the fact of Biden’s election win on the grounds that it would damage Fox share value, even going so far as calling for a Fox News journalist to be fired for fact-checking Trump, texting “Please get her fired. Seriously...What the f*ck? I'm actually shocked...It needs to stop immediately… It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
Russell also throws in a reference to the UK’s hapless former health secretary, Matt Hancock, wanting to “scare people” during COVID, Russell deploying his own scare tactics to vilify a legitimate approach to influencing public behavior. The actual exchange between the health minister and his advisor went as follows
Hancock: "We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain."
Adviser: "Yep, that's what will get proper behavior change."
Appeals to Fear, as they are called, have been a core part of public messaging for decades, including public health campaigns for tobacco, AIDS, and seatbelts. Surely Russell is in favor of government policy trying to influence behavioral change rather than impose it by force? Wouldn’t this be his preferred approach over mandated lockdowns or vaccines?
And by indulging in his scary fantasy of some kind of big-brother run-amuck, Russell still manages to ignore the tawdry corruption that was the hallmark of both Hancock’s and the UK Tory party’s oversight of the COVID response. Including Hancock awarding a £40million government contract for COVID tests to the landlord of his local pub landlord, who had no experience in the medical industry, and his awarding a £180 million contract for the supply of PPE to a fellow Tory and former MP, again with no experience in the area.
One of the things that struck me back in the Trews days was when Russell said, “Fox is not a news organization. Fox is a context removal system. Tyranny is the removal of nuance”. And here we are, eight years later, with Russell Brand appearing on Fox News, removing context and nuance, pandering to tyranny.
Russell’s Fox appearance has been lauded by the right and by Carlson’s fellow hosts. Greg Gutfeld, for instance, boldly declared that “Russell Brand canceled cancel culture!” with Greg revealing his 20 year admiration for Brand, which stands in contrast to his prior admonitions for “scruff-bucket” Brand’s career in 2014 as documented by Russell Brand in the same video where he described Fox’s tyranny by removal of nuance. A video that also sees Russell’s Rumble phot-op partner, the delightful Miss Kimberly Guilfoyle, then a Fox host, piling on Russell, braying, “whoa! I’m staying away from THAT dude!”. And so it comes full circle for both Russell and Kimie!
Watching old Trews videos, it is interesting to see Russell construct and put forward well-reasoned arguments and state his case without lapsing into flamboyant distractions or incoherent ramblings. In closing his 2014 video, he addresses Fox as follows: “Their coverage of the news is constantly biased…why would we continue to cooperate with a system that oppresses us and exploits us?”. Why indeed, Russell, why indeed?
In his Rumble postmortem of this US visit, Russell expresses amazement at his Fox appearance - according to Russell, this wouldn’t have happened two years ago. But the truth is that Fox would have gladly hosted Russell at any time in the last decade. It wasn’t Fox that impeded Russell’s appearance, and it wasn’t any change at Fox that allowed him through the doors. That was Russell’s personal evolution and his own choice to support the evil he once deplored.
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