The first thing Andrew Tate did after his arrest on Romanian human trafficking charges was to complain about “the Matrix” — a shadowy power structure bent on taking him down for, well, an unspoken reason.
He’s not the first to use the term, of course — it’s a rising meme in right-wing online spaces, he says fever dreams Host Will Sommer on this week’s episode. Even Logan Paul, the YouTube provocateur and would-be boxing star, has scrapped the theory to push back critics after a particularly bad PR week that began with the discovery of an abandoned pig that apparently once belonged to him.
The point of “Matrix” is to point to a global conspiracy, similar to QAnon’s “cabal” but specifically interested in preventing the spread of “traditional” masculinity (often expressed through outright misogyny by the likes of Tate).
“It’s kind of a more Trumpian version of what he calls the ‘deep state,'” Sommer says. “I think ultimately that’s really taken over by guys who don’t have direct political valence, they’re just generally awful… In Andrew Tate’s case, I think he kind of is has inventing a new villain because otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”
Also in the episode, Sommer and co-host Kelly Weill explore the origins of a new front in the culture war: gas stoves.
A study showing that fumes from gas stoves are potentially harmful to residents’ health has been spun wildly by Republicans and right-wing media into a threatening door-to-door seizure of kitchen appliances — an incredibly unlikely situation, Weill says.
“No, none of this is actually going to happen, and both sides know it, but it’s acting as this placeholder drama in the doldrums of the news cycle until something better comes along.”
What’s next for the Diamond and Silk media empire?
Then, in the podcast’s “Fresh Hell” segment, hosts discuss the “sovereign citizen” movement and its recent turn to mysticism — including the mysterious red fingerprints that supporters are putting on legal documents.
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