Phone A Friend: Francesca Fiorentini of The Bitchuation Room.

Max: Hey everybody! Welcome to UNFTR’s Phone a Friend. Our guest today is the great Francesca Fiorentini, one of my favorite political commentators in the progressive universe. Smart, funny, insightful: Francesca has had a colorful career as a stand-up comedian and a media commentator for several years.

Now perhaps you saw her on her show Newsbroke on AJ+. Maybe you’ve seen her as a contributor to The Young Turks, or The Majority Report; as a host of So That Happened on AMC. Or, hosting shows on Nat Geo. Maybe you saw her special Red, White & Who?, covering the health care crisis in America on MSNBC. Or maybe, like me, you join her every week in The Bitchuation Room: her podcast and YouTube show that is growing exponentially and bringing new audience members into the fold every day. If you’re any of these things then you are prepared for the force of nature and funny that is Francesca. If you have yet to discover this multifaceted talent then well, you’re welcome.

Francesca Fiorentini I am such a huge fan which my audience already knows so it is so great to have you here. I was able to kind of get my fangirling out before we came on camera.

Francesca: Yeah, that’s very embarrassing.

Max: I’m done with that and this is a serious, serious interview now.

Francesca: There was crochet—people if you’re listening—there’s a lot of homemade crafts with my face on it. A little awkward for your boy Max. But no, so good to be here, thank you so much for the kind words.

Max: I do have the pillow behind me!

But no, no problem. So I have to start out with a a question of etiquette as this is UNFTR, this is not

The Bitchuation Room. But I’ve often called out The Bitchuation Room on our podcast and written about it in our newsletter; because first of all, you have wonderful guests you’ve been able to—I mean bring on in a wide array of guests that are some serious, some incredibly critical and some just a lot of fun to hang with, which has been great, adds a lot of dimension to the show. But you start off famously a lot of your shows by asking ‘Hey what are you bitching about?’

So if I may be so bold is to ask you and to share one of my own, hey Francesca, what are you bitching about?

Francesca: Oh here’s what—okay, here’s what I’m bitching about. It might sound petty. I’m bitching about a lot of stuff, there’s so much. But let’s make it non-Trump related and make it sort of silly in that, I think given the climate apocalypse, obviously that we’re working very hard to stop but can’t really stop some of the impacts of, I think there are enough pools, swimming pools in this country for everyone to have a nice pool at for once a week. Do you know what I’m saying?

Meaning that pools should be redistributed the way once—like once the revolution happens and we unf*ck the republic, my realm, my department will be redistributing everyone’s swimming pools so we can all go swimming because it’s 90 degrees in Los Angeles, and it’s like the heat waves are not going away. It’s just wave after wave after wave, and there’s all these apps where you can rent someone’s pool for an exorbitant amount of money. And yes I’ve done that, and some of them are like, ‘by the way there’s no bathroom,’ and you’re like honey you know what that means. If there’s no bathroom and you’re renting me your pool, that’s right I’m gonna pee in the pool. I have a baby, she’s definitely gonna pee in the pool.

So I just feel like we need to distribute the resources that we have more equitably and look, healthcare of course, general housing and all that. There’s many things, but maybe like 18th on the list is swimming pools.

Max: I feel the same about golf courses as well and redistributing that land, I think more equitably.

Francesca: Oh god, yeah.

Max: And allowing people to sort of frolic on them. So, yeah I think that’s a solid bitch. So are you suggesting, FF, that the free market won’t be able to manage the distribution of pool water in an equitable fashion?

Francesca: I mean look, in Sri Lanka recently, the best image that came out of that massive uprising against the government that has toppled multiple presidents and multiple days and whatnot, was just like the people storming the presidential palace and just in the tight pool that he had, just like vibing, and that’s what I feel like the revolution will look like. But in general I just feel—look, let’s say if you’re in a neighborhood, you’ve got a pool, but you’re not using it every day and maybe there’s a family, or you know, a neighbor who could come over and use it and you’ll get like a tax rebate. If Biden could include that in his Inflation Reduction Act, maybe Gen Z and Millennials will come out and vote for him again.

Max: Not only that, but we won’t really notice that outside of the pool we’re all just boiling.

Francesca: Exactly.

Max: Just boiling to death.

Francesca: Absolutely.

Max: I think it’ll make the the ease into extinction a little more palatable.

Francesca: Right, so it should be obligatory because—sorry the just last thing. Like in the way that golfing is like really? Really? Golf course with real grass. I mean the best part about golf courses is it then they get mowed every single goddamn day. So you’re like, ‘Oh all this water for some shit you’re just gonna keep this tall.

Max: Yeah!

Francesca: Just put astroturf you privileged a-holes! Goddamnit. If it’s good enough for the Women’s World Cup which I guess they thought it was—although now we hate the women because they lost, but we didn’t care when they won. It’s a whole thing. So yeah swimming pools and being able to redistrubute.

Max: I’m not prepared to talk about the U.S. Women’s loss just yet.

Francesa: Oh no.

Max: Yeah my youngest is a very very talented soccer player.

Francesca: Wow, how old?

Max: We’re very devoted—college bound soon, and to play in college no less, so I’m very, very emotionally tethered to the U.S. Women’s team and all that they’ve done for equal pay and for the potential future of daughters like mine. So yeah, I’m not ready to go there, it stings a little. But it’s okay, it’s alright.

Francesca: It’s okay. We went out to a good team, you know. I mean they’re formbidable.

Max: Yeah and the fact that there’s parity, there’s parity among the European teams, it really is their sport if we’re being honest so it’s okay. And a lot of our women play abroad so it’s okay.

Francesca: Right, right right. What are you bitching about are you gonna—

Max: Yeah, I am, and now I feel weird because it’s a little self-serious but one of the things I’m bitching about is—and I think that maybe we can build on this to have a discussion about kind of the nature of where the left is right now—is all of the heat that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking. Not from the normal places or where it’s always come from, but from people that I I consider allies on the left, and the far left really taking aim.

And I’m actually preparing a a column and a podcast on this and I was hoping to kind of work my thoughts out with you a little bit to get your perspective on this. Because every time I read a harsh critique of her from the left, it’s not that it’s invalid to criticize the people who have said that they would stand for the interests of the left, but I find the criticisms themselves remarkably invalid for what they fail to attack, which is all of the other so-called progressives, or leftists, or even left-leaning liberal Democrats that are doing much of the same, or not doing anywhere near what she has done. The amount of education that she’s provided to young people to be able to be more informed about not just leftist policies, but how the government works.

Francesca: Yes.

Max: I mean what she’s done through social media has been transformative in so many ways. For the most part if you look at her distribution of her votes and proposed legislation on Ballotpedia or if you look on Progressive Punch, she is at the furthest extreme of the left that you can be within the system that we have, and it’s almost like the leftists wanted her to be elected and then to immediately leave government and just start throwing Molotov cocktails from outside of Congress, and be like, ‘Ha I did it, I got in and now I’m leaving because I can’t work within the system.’ And it’s like no, no you wanted her to be a part of this system not apart from the system, and so I really can’t reconcile.

So I feel like a lot of it is at its core, just misogynistic, and it’s because she presents with what my daughters call pretty privilege in the world, that if she’s going to be out there and garner all this attention—really through no fault of her own, because we’re obsessed with her as a media culture, that then she is going to then have to withstand this withering criticism from literally every side of the spectrum. And I’m struggling with that because I do want her to do more, I want her to do better, I want them all to—I want every one of the progressive caucus to do more, to do better and to be stronger. But then there are the realities that there are, you know, 434 other people trying to work assiduously against them every step of the way.

Francesca: Yeah.

Max: So that’s what I’m bitching about, and I was hoping I could actually bitch to you and sort of contextualize that and get your feelings on it.

Francesca: I mean I have to say I’m right there with you on just how hollow many of these critiques are and they’re done by a lot of folks—two critiques of the critiques that I have, I feel like they are done often for clout and clicks and even folks who say and swear that, ‘No, no they’re not done for that,’ they are ultimately done for that. When you tweet at AOC, when you make her the target, you put her face on the cover of your YouTube thumbnail and you say, ‘Has she sold us out ?’ Like you know what that’s doing. I’m thinking of you know Jimmy Dore whose name I can’t say two more times, otherwise he’ll pop up from behind my shoulder.

And there’s other people, it’s obviously not just him it’s a lot of people who do that just for clout. I think also what is important to note is who from leftist publications: talking about the American Prospect—something I contribute to—Current Affairs, In These Times; serious left publications. Which ones of those have done deep dives and good, honest, earnest critiques of AOC? Very few. And I don’t mean that because it doesn’t exist, I’m saying that the places we’ve seen a lot of the critiques coming from are New York Magazine. Just recently this dude Freddie deBoer who I don’t actually even know. But the article is flimsy, there’s nothing concrete about the legislation she has gotten behind, it’s nothing concrete about what she’s done in her district.

And granted, I’m not an AOC like super head. I don’t know all the ballot measures that she’s put forward, I don’t know everything that she’s co-signed I don’t know all of that, but what I do know is that there is a line of thinking which is once you get elected, you must always be fighting. Fighting fighting fighting. And the problem with that is—and trust me take it from someone who’s like terrible in a work environment, these are your co-workers. You can’t get anything done if you’re the like—yeah a like pretty girl in the corner who’s like, ‘No!’ You know what I mean? Like, ‘That’s not good enough for me.’

Max: Right, which would be even worse.

Francesca: Right, totally! And she talks about how—she’s told the New York Times about this, [and] in many other interviews as well which is a critique, AOC should give interviews, and she does to The Intercept from time to time. She should give interviews to leftist outlets. I want her to come on my show, been wanting her to come on my show for a while and again not—whatever put that aside. But she said, ‘look Hakeem Jeffries—the new Speaker of the House for the Democrats—has also been throwing incredible amounts of shade, talking behind her back, calling her a social media influencer. So she’s getting it from all sides.

To say that she is, as Freddie deBoer says in his New York Magazine article that she’s just a regular Democrat is just completely bad faith. Regular Democrats absolutely hate her and they still hate her. And they hate Ilhan Omar and they hate Cori Bush and they hate Ayanna Presley, they hate a lot of these young squad members. They hate Jamaal Bowman, his shouting matches. If you just go in there fighting like you’re saying and then say, ‘Oh I worked within the system,’ you’re basically Marjorie Taylor Greene. That’s all you are. You’re building your own personal brand, you’ve got your little MTG podcast with weird fucking Ellen font, and you know you’re like, ‘It’s the swamp!’ It’s like bitch, you’re in the swamp why don’t you do something for your constituency.

And so I think—look, I came up in a time when we had no squad, no progressives. It may be just like one, I mean Bernie was around but like no one really knew about him. But there was, I think to a fault for the left, a very simple minded disregard for electoral politics and the squad is giving us reason to invest—not fully, I still believe in outside movements—but invest a little bit more, and yeah understand how these bills are working, what is happening, what can and can’t be done, what are the constraints? And if you really want to go there, I think the reality is most leftists and most people including myself man, I’m not a super wonk. I don’t know all the ins and outs, I look to others for that information, But I do know that that knee-jerk response to saying like, ‘Oh she sold us out,’ is just, I have so much disagreement with that and I think it’s completely—it’s not based on reality.

Max: And do you think that there is a strong element of misogyny in it? Because one of the benchmarks that I usually use for Progressive House politics is Earl Blumenauer from Oregon. Most people are like, ‘Who?’ And it’s like, oh my man’s been doing this since the ’90s and he wears a little funky Tucker Carlson kind of bow tie, he’s an older dude now but he’s been critical of Israel since he got into the House, he’s been pushing marijuana legislation since he got into the house. I mean my dude is this stone cold radical, and he is right of AOC and literally gets no shade from anybody ever, because he’s an older white dude from Oregon who’s not pretty for the cameras or any of that. And he’s a guy, he’s a white dude.

And so, as he’s almost dismissed, so Jamal Bowman, I think is a perfect example. ‘Oh, look, there’s that angry Black guy again,’ and then you’ve got AOC and then, ‘Oh, you’ve got the little Latina feminist over there.’ And they’re derided in such specific ways that even when they take criticism from the left, that part isn’t spoken and yet seems to me so freaking obvious. Do you think there’s an element of that?

Francesca: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, look, I think as radicals, as socialists, as people who do want to severely reign in, if not dismantle and replace capitalism (maybe not in our lifetimes), but I think identity politics are radical politics. They always were, they were spearheaded by radical Black women and queer women in the ’80s. And they’ve been whitewashed and watered down by corporations, by everyone, by yes, leading Democrats.

But I do feel like the leftists who even deny—let’s take a more obvious example—that Hillary Clinton was targeted with sexism and misogyny. It’s like, no, you’ve got to be just an idiot. Yes, all of the reasons that Hillary Clinton should not have been the nominee, all of the reasons I personally, politically disagree with her points, her generally. But, was there a massive air of misogyny? Yeah, oh yeah.

Did it make me deeply rethink and think about how much patriarchy plays into our electoral politics and electoralism and what it’s going to take to get a woman elected to the highest office? Yes, very much so. Especially a woman who’s not doing the bidding of the far right, which I think sadly might be our first female president, unless AOC has anything to do with it or say about it. But yeah, I think there’s a heavy—the problem is whenever you talk about that, the left always accuses you of being lib about it. Like, ‘Oh, you’re doing, just pure, basic identity politics.’ And it’s like, no, you can still have a radical critique and still be a radical feminist and critique sexism, let’s understand that. I think it’s important to actually study her record. So I’m very excited for your podcast. I’m very excited for the work that you’re doing and also just thank you.

Max: I think you said something important. Like, we can’t master all of it, whether you’re commentators or you’re just consumers of this information, and no matter where you identify in the political spectrum, there are very few people that are masters of so many disciplines that they could be considered experts in all of this stuff. And yet, when you look at what we expect of our elected representatives, we are asking them to do just that. And so whatever your personal peccadillo might be, you’re expecting that person to be an expert on that, almost on day one. Whereas most Congress people will tell you that when they get there, it’s like they get the equivalent of the phone book, and they’re like, ‘Good luck, see you in chambers.’

Francesca: Totally, they don’t even have their phone lines connected, and they’re handcuffed in so many different ways. I mean, again, this is very funny, because I was living abroad during the Obama years.

Max: Where were you?

Francesca: Many of the Obama years I was in Argentina. I lived there for five years. That’s where I started standup comedy. Very, very random place to start standup. But I did it in English and in Spanish. And I would always sort of—when you’re outside of the U.S. and you look to the Obama years, it was like, why isn’t Obama doing more? Why isn’t Obama doing more? And I think inside the U.S. it’s very easy to say that. And then outside of it, I remember I would tell my friends in Argentina like, I’m a little disappointed because Obama is really, he could do more. And they would always be like, ‘Yeah, but wouldn’t he just be killed? Like, wouldn’t he just be shot or assassinated?’ And I’m like, what?! And they’re like ‘A Black man as president, doing anything too radical.’ And like, obviously that’s hyperbolic. Obviously he could’ve done more, but for sure the massive barrage of racist obstructionism that he was subject to, I think needs to be added into our overall assessment of the Obama years.

And so again, this is with anyone we elect. And the last thing I’m going to say is, what does a movement look like? What does a movement that AOC is actually accountable look like? Justice Democrats is effectively a campaign, a vehicle, it’s not really a grassroots generated movement.

Max: Also, RIP?

Francesca: Yeah, and a little bit RIP, I mean they have fired a lot of people or had to let go of a lot of folks, and I think they’re now pairing down and focusing purely on candidates and primaries. And I think less on legislation, if I’m not mistaken.

Max: And I think they’ve been subject to what a lot of nonprofit organizations or activist organizations have, which is a precipitous decline in funding. And part of that is a result of the changes in the tax code that have not been reinstated, which is bananas that that didn’t happen earlier.

Francesca: Seriously.

Max: But yeah, you see that. I think there was so much blowback on Justice Democrats. But again, I kind of fault the left for that because the left was so busy. You said before, just in your short span of being a commentator—and relative to the republic—no progressive in the caucus or in the house to then having nearly a hundred in the progressive caucus.

Not all aligned 100% because they’re humans and they’re Democrats, and so that’s never going to happen, it’s still the equivalent of herding cats. But wow, if that is in progress, I don’t know what is, at least from a representation standpoint. And yet you see that the left pushes so much back on the Justice Democrats that that has to resonate with the funding base as well, where people saying like, ’Ooh, so even the left isn’t happy about what they accomplished.’

And so we’re sort of doing ourselves a disservice by being so overly and extremely critical. And I’m not saying give anybody on the left a pass, but just look at the stone cold facts of what they’re doing instead of just cherry picking, oh, she wore this dress at the Met Gala, she’s an elitist.

Francesca: No, yeah.

Max: Wow. We’re so focused on the wrong things. And that same article is I think what got me to bitch about this situation. I do want to ask you though, so you spent five years in Argentina, I think you spent some time in New York, if I’m not correct.

Francesca: Yeah, I went to undergrad.

Max: You were a California, native?

Francesca: California native, but yeah, undergrad at NYU, which was a massive—that was 2001, September, 2001. What happened then?

Max: Wow.

Francesca: But I very much got involved in the anti-war movement immediately after 9/11. And quickly sort of became steeped in a lot of New York organizations, national organizations, but like major mobilizations; going down to DC all the time. And we all remember what 2003 looked like. And it was, as the New York Times said the second superpower, and that’s what we were, and that’s what we felt like, and then we invaded. So yeah, that was kind of my on-ramp into the world of activism, and then I got involved in a left magazine called Left Turn which is RIP, but was great and kind of came up around the same time as Jacobin. Jacobin survived and we did not.

Max: So then when did you go back to the left coast?

Francesca: Went back in 2013 to start working at AJ+ of Al Jazeera Media Network. I had started standup and I had a YouTube channel. And now I do standup and have a YouTube channel. I’ve come very far Max! It’s been a long time, but that’s when I came back was to start work. I was always a fan of Al Jazeera Media. I love how they actually have reporters from the global south, always the best international coverage.

Max: What, why?

Francesca: Yeah ew.

Max: Isn’t it so much easier to northsplain everything?

Francesca: Exactly! Just base everyone in Miami. Which is just, I mean, it’s so amazing. Latin America is so robust when it comes to media. There’s such good reporting, such amazing journalists, and the gap between English language translation of that great reporting is massive. And so sadly, a lot of the English language reporting that we get from Latin America, it’s always out of Miami. It’s always a Miami bureau, and it’s always through the lens, again, of the United States, of capital, of the Department of Defense, if you will, and U.S. foreign policy, definitely—

Max: I think you have a little oversight there because we also get a lot of great reporting from Glenn Greenwald’s compound.

Francesca [smiling]: Oh, that’s true. That’s, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Max [smiling]: Not for nothing.

Francesca: I mean, yeah, exactly. Look, when I was a reporter in Buenos Aires, I was definitely in an armed compound with lots of fountains and dogs [laughing]. And then I would get on major news outlets and I would just say, ’why isn’t the left doing more? And in fact, the left is terrible because you’re all trying to police me.’ And I really need to clean the sort of buckets of saliva that always fill on the sides of my mouth every time I talk, because I can’t even take a breath. Oh god, that guy. It’s been a really interesting 10 years media-wise because so many people I used to respect in this space just kind of did a 180.

Max: Yeah, my team and I, we paid to go see him lecture at Lincoln Center back in the day. It was right around the time that Intercept was just being formed. And so Jeremy Scahill—who I still have a tremendous amount of respect for—had just put out, I think it was the Dirty Wars documentary following the release of that book. And Greenwald I think had just finished publishing the Snowden book that he did, and it was like, they were just on fire and they had so many unbelievable civil libertarians and leftists kind of collaborating and swimming together.

And again, you don’t all have to align. You don’t all have to get along, but the obvious nature of how everybody has gone on to sort of pad their wallets and lean into certain narratives that have kernels of truth, but are largely disingenuous in order to build their platforms—and it was actually one of the areas that I wanted to, to go with you, but before we get into sort of the evolving media landscape and what platforms look like these days I was just wondering if you could help me dig into California politics just for a smidge, because you sort of have—

Francesca [laughing]: You want to talk about Gavin Newsom?

Max: No, I really never do [laughing]. But you do have this embarrassment of riches in potential candidates to take over Diane “Frankenstein’s” seat. So you’ve got Schiff, you’ve got Katie Porter who’s been a brilliant advocate for the left in a controlled environment, but just a powerhouse nonetheless. And then you have probably one of the most significant leftist figures in congressional politics in Barbara Lee, who’s running a distant third, but just an amazing human who had the fortitude to stand up against the authorization for military force as literally the only person in Congress. So her bonafides are there, certainly.

But first of all, how do you see that all transpiring over the next  18 months or so? Like what’s the odds on consensus out in California, and then also, what is your take on the whole situation?

Francesca: So this is going to sound dumb because I wish we had ranked choice voting in this election, and I don’t know if we do, I actually don’t think we do. But I think it might be top two, but it’s not ranked choice obviously. And so Schiff is going to run away with the money. He has not pledged to not accept corporate PAC money, dark money. He’s probably getting a lot of outside money. But he’s got enough millionaires and rich people in California who like him because he made his name with the Donald Trump impeachment. And he’s not terrible. But he’s not what we need in the Senate, especially not from a state that went to Bernie. I mean, come on.

So look, I will say I really like—between Barbara Lee and Katie Porter—it just depends on what your priorities are. I think if we were in a time of war, like hot war, (fast forward 15 years in the future when we’re waging war on China), but you could make the argument that Barbara Lee is stronger on a dove like or a diplomatically led foreign policy. Ergo, I want her in the Senate leading that.

I’ve heard her speak recently. I think she is sort of a lick to the left, if you will, from Katie Porter on this issue. And I definitely think Katie Porter visiting Israel, or at least I believe it was a delegation, or visiting with the Prime Minister—god, this is me not remembering, but like, that was a bad look. We know it was a bad look. I don’t believe in putting Israel as the barometer for all progressive politics in Israel/Palestine. I just don’t, I don’t think that’s strategic. But I do think it is worrisome that she was like, ‘We had a great meeting, we’ll see, blah, blah, blah.’ That being said—

Max: There are a lot of other countries in the world you could be part of a delegation.

Francesca: Exactly, exactly. And Hakeem Jeffries just did a delegation to Israel as well. So again, where’s the daylight if push comes to shove? Are you going to fall in line with this, or are you going to—I think Barbara Lee has chances of pulling this back from the brink, should we come to war. But I also feel like Katie Porter is, in terms of that fighting spirit, she is more of a fighter. She has, I think, more class consciousness, I’m just going to be real. She does, I think truly understand. She’s been outside of Congress for long enough. I’ve spoken to Barbara Lee, she’s great. She’s been in Congress for so long and I do think she is tired. And I know that sounds messed up, but I do get a lot of like, ‘Ugh, this place fucking sucks’ vibe from her. Like ‘I don’t know, whatever.’ Like that’s the vibe. Katie Porter—

Max: See, that’s great. That’s interesting. Katie Porter has a lot of energy.

Francesca: A lot of energy. So in terms of someone who’s going to fight but who can also compromise I do feel like Porter for me personally is where I’m at. That being said, I have a sinking feeling that Schiff with all the money may run away with it without a lot of grassroots effort.

Max: To stay in California for a second, just because it’s so closely tethered to the entertainment industry, and you came up through the entertainment industry as well. You certainly have a lot of colleagues and confidants in that space. And so with the writer’s strike and with the SAGAFTRA strike going on right now, that obviously is going to portend some economic difficulty and some challenges down the road for the state of California; and also who cares, because this is about labor, this is an authentic labor dispute, that to me at least—I think that one of the most positive aspects of the dispute is that it helps shine a light on other causes because it starts to talk about the nature of capitalism and class warfare. And I think the extremes in the Writer’s Guild fight have helped highlight some of the extremes in other corporate sectors that people don’t necessarily think about.

I mean, when you hear—especially because you’re connected to it—when you see what some of the writers of your own personal favorite shows have made, versus the CEO pay, it’s been really illustrative in painting a better picture for all of the labor struggles. But just looking at that struggle in particular, since you are in California, you’re certainly part of it, and you certainly have come up through the industry; what demands—because it does seem to me a little nebulous—what demands, when you’re fighting something as ephemeral as AI, you’re fighting something as almost ridiculous as like, what do you get paid for your knowledge and intellectual talent, rather than your physical labor, (which is usually what we associate trade unionism within this country)? What kind of outcomes do you think would be good? Where can we hang our hat on it and say, apart from just shining a light on class struggles, they also were able to achieve some equity in X, Y and Z? Like, what are you and your friends and your colleagues hoping for out of this fight?

Francesca: I’m not in either union, I hope to be one day. I have many friends and guests of the podcast who are striking now. And I think there are people who, some have been able to make a living, some are just sort of like scraping by, and it feels like a good credit to then be able to do a standup tour off of it. There’s not a lot of money to rely upon for a stable income as there once was. And they can talk about, writers talk about obviously the shrinking writer’s rooms and all that. The fact that you need many, many, many jobs to last a year rather than usually one or two jobs at most for the year, which is intense.

And so I would just say it is hugely important and I don’t know where this ends, but the reason I think it’s critical, and it is ironic that right now the only place that is entertainment-adjacent that is not striking is news. Is like news and journalism and all of the writers who belong into that field. Ad some of them are unionized, a lot of them are not unionized.

But you see something like AI, which is trying to undermine not just these shitty copywriting, fucking content mill bullshit sites, where this person’s getting paid, like $45k a year, whatever it is, or $50k to live in New York or something insane. But it’s leveling everyone to this like, oh, no, no, no. That’s how it starts, you start with, basically making everyone’s job precarious. And I think it’s interesting that some of the newscasters who are part of the same corporations that are refusing to come to the table with the writers and the actors are also themselves at risk.

So as a journalist and as a comic, I’m kind of in the nexus of a lot of these, even though I’m not in any union. But I do think it is about the future of intellectual labor. It’s the future of creative work. It is about claiming a creative worker as a worker, as actual labor. And I know you’re saying that it’s not physical—well, arguably it is incredibly physical, especially as an actor, especially with these long, long days and ridiculous shoots. Even reality stars that are now looking to unionize who are completely mistreated, who aren’t even in any union yet, it’s galvanizing that sector as well.

But it’s basically treating everyone like they are an unpaid intern at, I don’t want to throw a BuzzFeed under the bus, but like at Vice, for example. Fuck Vice, even though they do some good stuff, but a lot of bad stuff. They’re also working with the Saudi government, like fuck Vice. But like, a young new intern at Vice, getting underpaid, and it’s reduced everyone to that level. And then along comes AI and it’s like, now everyone is [underpaid].

I don’t know how articulate this answer is Max—

Max: No, it is.

Francesca: But I think it is about carving out the fact that like, it is incredibly labor intensive to break story on a show. Now, I know there are a lot of people listening who are like, ‘I write stories.’ And you’re like, okay, but do you actually?

To write a quality show, to map out the season arc, to write these characters. I’ve been working on one pilot that I’m like, I think it’s there, but it’s been like two years. It’s almost there. It’s getting there.

You guys are not prepared, if we don’t stand with writers for the amount of shit content that is coming our way. And to be real with you, it’s so funny where they’re like, ‘Oh, AI is just going to rewrite all this.’ They already kind of do, like, there are writers who are talented writers, but they’re tasked with rewriting like a shitty horror movie around Halloween. And there’s like five different writers involved, they all rewrite it to death, and it kind of ends up with this sort of run of the mill basic whatever, and yet they all get paid. That’s the difference. They get paid. It’s the executive’s decision to have shitty content or not. It’s the producer’s decision whether they want this to be like boring or run of the mill, but at least the writer got paid. At least someone got to feed their family. At least someone got to pay rent or mortgage.

So I don’t know Max, that’s where I’m at with all this is, I think it’s about the future of valuing creative work in general. And look, as someone who does internet content, and you and I know this, the downward pressure, if you will, on the market, on people like me, where it’s like, ‘Oh, a star of Orange is the New Black is now on TikTok?’ Now we’re all just shilling for the algorithm, and nothing is sacred and nothing is creative. It is all just content. I mean, anyway.

Max: And so when I put up the thumbnail of this interview and say, ‘Did Francesca Fiorentini sell out the left?’ Is that not okay?

Francesca [laughing]: Please do! We should. If only I could sell out the left. I’m just kidding. I just think it’s funny.

Max: We should all just start fucking with each other just to goose the algorithm to see if we could get as much crazy attention on all of our stuff.

You know what, that actually—so I have a couple of policy things I want to get to toward the end, but I know I’m sucking up a lot of your time, but you’re touching on a couple of intersections that, I find kind of fascinating about the way that you approach content. First of all, as a woman creator, one of the things I find so interesting—we have a segment called Independent Platform Man. We actually even have our own theme song for it.

Francesca: You have the best theme songs.

Max: Sort of self-aware because I am an Independent Platform Man, of course. And as a cisgender, white presenting male in the world, I have agency over all things, I don’t know if you know that or not.

Francesca: Oh yeah!

Max: The world is my purview and it’s, mine to dissect as I see fit. As a woman content creator one of the things that I admire is that you’ve been very open about—also as a new mom—and working in the platform economy as it were, the difficulty of navigating that. And somebody had called this out recently in an interview that I found really terrific, which was—and I think I even brought it up in the interview with Nathan, was that new dads aren’t asked the question of like, ‘How’s it going? And how are you dealing with it? And how are you making it happen?’ But new moms are all the time. Whereas you’ve taken a very, very open, very funny—you’ve given me a couple of spit take moments that I referenced in our very first email that I won’t repeat here, but we’ll leave it for afterwards.

But you’ve been very open about the struggle of now managing a family and managing your own business. Because that’s what you are, you’re a business owner as that platform, you’re the independent creator and business owner. And swimming against the tide of the Independent Platform Man who’s just always doing things to goose the algorithm as it were.

I mean, the power of the Daily Wire network as an example—sharing content among each other and then feeding into the algorithm is massive, with a billion dollars behind them, by the way—is massively disruptive these mediums that we go after. So I guess my question for you is how gender conscious are you in your approach to your material, to your worldview, how you’re perceived in the general media landscape; and has it added a different sort of weathering pressure to you in trying to build momentum—as for me, a formidable creator and keen mind in the space that is adding essential elements to the left narrative, which I think you’re doing beautifully.

Francesca: Thank you.

Max: Is it an extra added pressure for you to be weighing all of these societal norms that are against you? Because again, I am an Independent Platform Man and don’t have that same type of experience.

Francesca: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how to answer that, which part of that to answer; but for sure it sucks. It’s tough to be just a left voice, a progressive voice on the internet, had a show on, a thing. People recognize you, but they don’t know where from, maybe it was just Instagram. And it’s really hard. And generally people do a lot of circular firing squads and call outs. And I really try to keep it positive because that’s why I do comedy, is because I need a break from my seriousness. I enjoy it. And I think we all, the left, especially needs to take everything a little bit less fucking seriously. And I don’t believe in anything more than I believe in that, is that we need to have fun.

But because I occupy these different spaces, I’m not the political wonk, I’m not the comic that you’ve heard about. Like, it is weird, it’s hard. And I do think being a woman, I look at the stats on who watches, and it’s a lot of dudes, it’s a lot of dudes. And people don’t always expect women to be talking about politics. And a lot of us don’t, and a lot of us don’t for very good reasons, and a lot of us aren’t interested in politics for very good reasons. A lot of those reasons are patriarchal, maybe more occupied with domestic responsibility—having like a small creature latch to your nipple at all times, that kind of stuff. Your husband not knowing how to pick up after himself [laughing].

No, but there’s a lot of reasons for that. And also part of me is like, I wonder why women are not—to AOC and to the squad, heavily women of color. I hope and I do think there has been a change where women are starting to see themselves as actors in the political arena, and that’s scaring the shit out of men. I mean, look at what they did to our abortion rights. And I hope that also tracks in left spaces. And I’ve been in a lot of left spaces around my life, in terms of activism and different conferences and different professors speaking on this and that and that.

And oftentimes you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of dudes having like, dude fucking political theory conversations, and I just hate it. I mean, and I used to be into jam bands. Oh my god. I’ve been surrounded by men, just like, ‘Let’s check out this fucking fiddle solo or whatever the fuck,’ like I know what it is to be surrounded by dudes. And so I think it is changing, it is hard. And I often think that the people who have the most free time to let’s say stream every day, work every single day on something—like honestly as detached from real life as streaming a show about politics, are often men, and are often cis straight men, whatever, white guys. That’s generally who it is.

And I also think there’s something about our culture that looks to those men, just as in comedy where it’s like, ‘Yeah, there’s an unassuming white guy that’s going to make me laugh. He won’t make me feel bad and talk about his vagina.’ Same in politics. Like, ‘Oh, theres a man, he must be sensible. He’s not going to have a real lived experience like she will. She’ll bring that in and that will color her, that will change her perception of reality.’ You’ve got to look at it from the norm, and the norm is exactly the description that I was saying.

Max: I mean, I think you’re maybe a bridge too far with that because Jerry Lewis said that women can’t be funny. And he was really one of the forefathers of comedy. So kudos to you for trying, it’s adorable.

Francesca: Oh god [laughing]. The best is when people, men will email me and say—they’ll find my email through my website and say, ’I don’t think you’re funny, I just want you to know. You call yourself a comic, but I don’t think you’re funny.‘ And you know what that means? And it hurts every time I see that, it hurts me. But what it means is that they laughed at something I said and they actually did think that it was funny and then they were like, ‘But you, no!‘

Max: Because that’s a lot of work!

Francesca: Yeah! Because I made you laugh, or I said something that was silly or whatever. But yeah—the final thing I will say is, look at who the top streamers are who are women. Look at them. They generally have like full beats of makeup—and believe you me, I try to keep up and look sharp—full beats of makeup, boobies up to you know where, and are just generally really doing things for the dudes. And they make money. I mean, that’s kind of what you’ve got to do, except I’m lazy [laughing].

So I can only do that so much. And so again, it’s like there is a lot of performativeness on the internet. The internet has the same sexism, racism, patriarchy and homophobia that the real world does, but times a million, and it is not neutral. These platforms are not neutral. We know what they go for. We know what they like. We know what sells. I don’t have arms like Hasan Piker and I should get them.

Max: Yeah, I want Hasan Piker’s arms. So I get it, I totally get it. And listen, he’s a beautiful man. There’s just no two ways about it, he’s a beautiful man. Yeah fuck it, he’s beautiful.

So alright, let’s careen towards an ending here.

Francesca: Let’s do it.

Max: The political slate on both sides of the aisle. I will tell you that one of the spit take moments that you gave me recently, I think you were speaking with Hari, and talking about RFK Jr.—Hari is incredibly bright and funny as well.

Francesca: Yeah.

Max: And one of you said—and now it’s back in my memory a little bit—but one of you said, ’Hey, quick question, does Sirhan Sirhan perhaps have a child?‘ And it was like a drive off the road moment for me because I just didn’t see it coming.

Francesca: That was Hari.

Max: But you were talking about, ostensibly, I guess he would be considered a libertarian. He’s running on the Democratic line, whatever. We have faith healer, the secret holder Marianne Williamson running on the Democratic line. We have no Bernie this time around. There is no one from the squad who stepped up to make a challenge, DNC wasn’t going to let that happen. The absolute clown car that is the Republican slate right now.

My question for you is, as a commentator, as an observer, as somebody who’s now I understand even been in other countries where you get a whole different perspective on us, as loopy as we are, can you fucking believe how bad the choices are? Are you shocked at all that it’s come to this or is this sort of the inevitable conclusion to what we’ve been running up into?

Francesca: God, I mean, it’s a good question. I haven’t been as taken aback by how bad 2024 is, because look at this country. you think we deserve better than that? No. This is where we are: two old white guys, one of them is an out fascist more so than ever, the other one’s just kind of there. He’ll get some stuff done, but he’s just kind of like, ’Hey, at least I’m not that guy.‘ It’s like, that’s exactly where we are as a nation, and it’s very real.

I mean, I think that in terms of Biden and in terms of the Democratic party, each party has their own soul searching to do—let’s put the Republicans aside—but in terms of the Democratic party, the fact that Joe Biden was Obama’s running mate, okay, I guess? The safe older white guy who’s been in politics for forever, but like usually your veep is supposed to be next in line to be president—was that always going to be the plan? And then if it was, who’s prepping the next class? Like, what about all of the people, what about all the other Obamas?

I’m someone who really likes Julian Castro, but Julian Castro is not being groomed to be the next president. We’ve got Kamala Harris, who don’t get me started. But there isn’t anyone who is that outsider, the genuine, ’I’m going to change shit. I’m going to fuck shit up.‘ I think whether real or imagined, I think Obama definitely was offering that. I mean, shit eight years of Bush. I was a John Kerry girl myself, obviously interpersonally a piece of shit, but politically, I’m much more aligned with Kerry. But it’s amazing that they literally don’t have the people next in line. Again I can’t believe I’m saying groomed because if there are right wingers you’re going to freak out—but groomed to take up that mantle.

But also politically, that eight years of Bush, that Obama’s response to that being, ’We’re going to stop the Iraq war.‘ Yes, he expanded in Afghanistan. yes he never shut down Guantanamo—but that was the promise, and that really set him apart from Hillary Clinton. Nobody fucking wanted Hillary Clinton because they knew she voted for the war, we wanted to get as far away from that as possible.

And that the Democrats have not been able to take up that anti-neoliberal, populist, true FDR mantle that’s been there for the taking, and that it had to be Bernie Sanders to do that is just insane. And so there’s all this fluff in the Democratic Party. There are all these people who are like, ’Well, it’s their turn.’ Well, yeah, but the next person in line, we cannot literally survive for that person to make their careers just because they were next in line. We need to see it.

Max: So how are you interpreting Cornel West’s entrance into all of this right now? Where are you putting that in your mind space?

Francesca: I mean, sadly, I do think that a lot of these people who are running for president are running on a branding exercise, and it’s a little bit of using their name and saying something a little bit different. And what I would love to see is a candidate from the ground up, from the real grassroots, from a movement, from a victory, from a local election that works their way as a progressive supported by movements. And look, Cornel West has been a supporter of movements, but he is still kind of just a figurehead, really. And I’m glad he moved away from the People’s Party, I think they’re—speaking of clown cars—but I don’t know what to make of it. Look, I did a whole episode on Marianne Williamson’s run with the guys from Conspirituality, which is a great podcast that I highly recommend.

Max: Oh yeah, it’s our co-hosts favorite.

Francesca: Yeah.

Max: She loves those guys, they do a great job.

Francesca: They do a great job. And so they sort of broke down Marianne Williamson for me—that’s on the Patreon version, and sort of recast her in a light that was like, ’oh shit, the fact that I’m falling for her, not really falling for her, but kind of like what she had to say.‘ That’s all part of the plan [laughing].

And it really, it came before with me when I asked her very pointedly, I said, what do you think about defeating the right, you’re all about love, you’re all about understanding and yet we have to really beat the fascist right. And she got very mad at me and chided me for putting that in that terms, ’I don’t think we have to defeat anybody, I da da da,‘ and like, sort of scolded me. And these guys, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker from ’That’s kind of her thing, especially with young women, put them in their place. Say that’s not what it is.‘ And also, if you’re not about beating the right, I can’t get with you. You’re not actually a progressive, you’re not about stopping fascism.

Max: Yeah. You have to recognize that this is a war, it’s an ideological war. And dare I say, Francesca, it’s a war for the soul of the nation [sarcastically]. No, I’m not going to say that, Jesus Christ. But we’re about to hear another two years of that.

Anyway from a practical perspective, I try to examine these candidacies and whether it is a Cornel West who’s performed very admirable advocacy and also has a ’I’ll invite everybody into my tent, you are my brother, you are my sister, and we’ll have it out perspective,‘ Marianne Williamson who has, I think, the closest to all the beats down for progressives in terms of just aligning from a policy perspective, she’s got all the right notes. And then you’ve got an RFK who offers a couple of—it’s like he throws some chum in for the far left and then turns around to the other side of the boat and throws chum to the far right.

Francesca: Right.

Max: I think to just stir up the base on both sides in some sort of bizarre attempt to unite the furthest extremes of what we have and play spoiler. But my criticism of all of them is, there isn’t any one of them who has done the practical groundwork of building political coalitions from the ground up like a Bernie had. Now I recognize that there are other great candidates from history who have come up to the top and did not do that. Donald Trump is probably the greatest example of ’Do you really need to do that to become president?‘ And I would offer that as the same example as to why not.

That’s why you don’t want somebody—

Francesca: Absolutely.

Max: Even if he’s running, or she’s running as your preferred candidate, you have to recognize the bureaucratic nature of the levers of power to understand that things are going to get done,  you’re going to be run over one way or the other unless you know where the bodies are buried and how to build strong coalitions on the ground, state by state and precinct by precinct.

Francesca: And the reality is, we don’t want the sort of left, or seemingly left Trump to go in there and burn all the bridges and just be like, ’Nope, everything by executive order.‘ Like, yeah, some executive orders would be nice. But also let’s say the parliamentarian, the filibuster, all of these things that are getting in the way that we all know need to be abolished and reformed, that’s the kind of move we want to see, I think. But we don’t want to see the dismantling of democracy just to achieve our aims. That’s the difference between the right and the left, I would argue.

Max: Right. Those bureaucratic, technocratic changes from within do have to have some sort of knowledge and structure and force to bear. I just finished a series on reexamining the brief tenure of Jimmy Carter, and the thing that was most brilliant about the Carter administration was the technocratic excellence that they brought to bear on the system. And they fixed so many structural things that we take for granted these days, that I think cleared the path for us to have a sustainable democracy for the next few decades—to the extent that we have that—because there were a few things on the precipice that had they gone demonstrably wrong would’ve been tragic for the republic.

And on the other side, he was sort of eaten from within and then collapsed from the outside. I’m not sure that there would be any other politician in our lifetimes who would’ve been able to even get through that term intact the way that he did. It was a remarkable run because the forces from around the globe were extraordinary at that time.

Francesca: Didn’t we just learn that there was someone on the inside working against his administration during the hostage crisis?

Max: Yeah. Henry Kissinger, not from inside.

Francesca: Oh, that asshole [laughing].

Max: Yeah that fucking guy [laughing]. So Kissinger was working with State Department members against Brzezinski because he had an ax to grind with him. But then as we also later discovered, was one of the closest associates to David Rockefeller. And it was Rockefeller’s bank that was holding the escrow money from the Iranians, and it became a financial negotiation as to who was going to get paid what interest on all the money that was outstanding. I mean, truly, truly amazing stuff.

And Carter’s people had no idea. So I mean, it just, as it ever was, but I mean it’s about do we blow it up or do you change from the inside? These are questions, these are great debates that we should be having on the left: how much of this do you keep intact or do you burn the barn to get to the nails? But, having candidates that literally have no political acumen, I don’t think is necessarily the right way to go about it.

My last question for you, Francesca Fiorentini.

Francesca: Yeah!

Max: You did a piece on MSNBC. You did a special, a whole healthcare special that was extraordinary. But it was at a time when the country was talking about healthcare. And here we are now with some victories, some victories. I don’t want to diminish the out-of-pocket prescription cap for seniors, super important.

Francesca: Yeah, oh my god yeah.

Max: As much as there have been some backsliding, there have been some victories along the way; but again, in sort of fixing what is a broken capitalist system and augmenting it, rather than actually looking at it from a structural, socialist perspective or what have you, what is the difference now in tone and what you hear and perceive in the conversation about healthcare, from just a few years ago when you did that piece, to where it is now? Because I have this impression that like, ’Well, that’s it, that’s that and we’re never going to get what we want, so stop talking about it.‘

Francesca: I mean, pretty much, I mean, that’s what the healthcare industry would like us to do. And that piece sadly ran in the dead of December in 2019, on the precipice of the pandemic and then also an election. So mainstream news was like, ’Sorry, we don’t need this show to sell anything, because we’ve got enough shit happening.’

But it’s amazing that we’ve emerged from this pandemic—or not emerged, or sort of in it, whatever we are—and we have not truly come to grips; it’s like a trauma and we have not actually assessed like, ’Hey, we need a public health system that can withstand crises like this, and no one should be going bankrupt for the inability to pay for these vital treatments,‘ and to say nothing of like long COVID and whatnot.

I think sadly the conversation feels—we’ve moved so little that it almost feels hack, where you’re like, ’oh, Medicare For All, we were talking about that in 2016!‘ You’re like, yeah, still hasn’t happened, people still dying. Like Michael Moore coming—

Max: Like minimum wage.

Francesca: Yeah. Michael Moore coming out with his film, what, 2007, or 2009, I believe? Because 10 years later we talked, Sicko 2009, 10 years later, 2019 was my special, obviously same level.

No, but nothing fucking changes and you’re totally right, it’s important. I hope Biden talks about that at every single campaign stop, about the caps on medicine, specifically under Medicare, Medicare’s ability to negotiate prices for prescription drugs. In my special, we didn’t even talk about prescription drugs, I’ll tell you that right now. We didn’t talk about it because it felt like so much. We were there to talk about Obamacare. Is Obamacare working? What are the premiums like? And the long and short of it was: it’s not working, it’s incredibly expensive.

But what’s interesting about the meds discussion and pharmaceuticals, is that it’s the one area that Republicans, they won’t say it on national television, but to their constituents and to them, to their other fellow legislators—we went to Utah and spoke with a Republican legislator—they want to reign in big pharma. They are so on board with that. It is a bipartisan—

Max: It’s seniors vote.

Francesca: Because seniors vote and it’s expensive, especially for—this was fucking crazy, the piece that we couldn’t include because it just felt like so much, it was not that long of a special. It’s cheaper for Utah to send their state employees to Mexico first class, pick them up in a limo and get them to stay in like a five star hotel, obviously.

Max [laughing]: Obviously.

Francesca: All expenses paid trip to Mexico to buy their meds in Mexico, than it is to pay for Humira or whatever, here in the United States.

Max: That’s ridiculous.

Francesca: And so what did they do? They literally, Max, created a program to do that. So there’s a program where they send state employees over to Mexico and they can get their meds cheaply, and that way they, who are footing the bill for this, don’t have to pay as much.

Max: Wow, wow, wow.

Francesca: You just get them in the pocketbook, man. Yeah, insane. So it’s the pocketbook issues. And again, back to why these democrats—it’s so there for you to pick up. And instead, you’ve got RFK and other medical loonies, and conspiracy theorists, they’re the ones who are able to—thanks to the last 10 years of inaction—drive that wedge into all of our suspicions about big pharma anyway, the medical industry anyway, And COVID became the perfect storm for them to capitalize on. So look, if there’s a vacuum here, an intellectual, a policy, a political vacuum, someone’s going to step in. And they did.

Max: That’s such a good point. Yeah. That’s such a great point. I love this, I love your show. I really do.

Francesca: Thank you.

Max: And the way I think about it, as I was thinking about you coming on—the way I consume your content, it almost implies that it’s a guilty pleasure because it’s fun.

Francesca: That’s so great.

Max: So like everybody I’ve got a couple of shows, a couple of podcasts [I listen to], but it’s not, it’s not a guilty pleasure because I get meaning out of it. And I think one of the things that you do really, really well is that you are able to inject absurdist humor into it sometimes, just some really raw human stuff, and mix it together with this cocktail of intellect that allows us to learn at a deeper level. So I think you’re performing a great service.

Francesca: Thank You.

Max: I’m so happy to be kind of associated and in this sphere with you, and I hope we can do this again.

Francesca: Absolutely. You’ve got to come on the show now, that’s what this means.

Max: Giddy up. Francesca Fiorentini, where can everybody find you, just give us all this stuff.

Francesca: Yeah. Find me on YouTube @FraniFio or type in the Bitchuation Room podcast. So it streams on YouTube every Tuesday and Friday, 1:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 PM Eastern, you can also get it on all podcast platforms. And you can follow me on all the socials at the same handle at @FraniFio. I’m on literally everything, but I hate all of it. And I hate Twitter. Oh no, I hate Instagram the least, so maybe I’m the most there.

Max: Okay, that’s fair. Alright, well I appreciate it and I know the Unf*ckers do as well. So thank you for appearing on the show.

Francesca: Frantifa says hi to the Unf*ckers. Thank you.

Max: That’s some coming together. That’s some unite the clans, huh? Tough stuff. Thanks so much. We’ll talk to you soon.

Francesca: Thank you.