Hey everybody, welcome to the Munkerick Podcast.

I'm Jared Y. Sexton here, as always with Nick Hausman.

Reminder to everybody, this Friday on the weekend or episode, we'll be taking questions from our patrons,

our patrons over at patreon.com slash muckrake podcast.

Get those questions in. but today we have an incredibly

special guest fresh from south by southwest one of my favorites out there in the world the author of

go back to where you came from daily beast contributor wajah alay how you doing wash i Wash? I'm fresh. I'm sizzling. I'm hot.

I'm off the grill. Just came back from Austin where people don't like wearing masks.

And people also don't like Governor Abbott, but it doesn't matter because Texans,

Texan Republicans run the state legislature and are using that state as a

laboratory to see just how far right and fascist asymptotic they can get leading up to the

2024 elections.

I get a question on that front, actually.

Texas is doing an interesting thing where they're actually trying, Nick and I were talking about

this not too long ago. They're actually trying to Nick and I were talking about this not too long ago,

they're actually trying to bring people in from California with like libertarian right-wing

sort of philosophies in order to build up almost their own right-wing state.

Like you said, a laboratory to see what's happening.

Austin, of course, is continuing to try and keep it, quote-un unquote, weird while also embracing Elon Musk and a bunch of other bizarre things. It's hell weird. What was the scene down there? Like, South by Southwest is such a weird place anyway. But, like, what did you find there politically? So, so South by Southwest, you know, it was one of the major festivals that's come back. It's like the lifeline of Austin and it's been virtual for two years and it's like devastated the local economy. So many people lost jobs. So the fact that they opened and so many big stars came was like just this huge, huge infusion of life and money into the place. But I've been going there for a few years and, you know, like you said, for those who don't know, like Austin says, we like to keep things weird. But Beck was performing. He performed this awesome two-hour, like, folk set, right? And he was just having fun. He's like, man, I haven't performed in months. And he was on the stage and he's saying, yeah, I remember I started my career in Austin. It was like the freakyest, weirdest place. But then I went walking and there was this Hermes store.

I'm like, okay, let me get a hat from the Hermes store.

So even when Beck's calling it out and you see a Google building and you see Elon Musk,

and I made this comment repeatedly because I had friends from Austin there who were part of my team.

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