00:00:03
everybody how y'all doing I'm just in my
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room here today it's a little bit it's a
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little bit of a blue room not because
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I'm blue because I messed up the
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lighting but uh we'll see how what it
00:00:14
what effect this has on on the feeling
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of the show today uh because I want to
00:00:19
talk about
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politics uh I think in the past year our
00:00:24
discourse around what's happening in
00:00:26
Gazza has shown that we really don't
00:00:30
know what we're talking about uh the
00:00:32
political awareness of the umah is very
00:00:35
low and politics is a science don't
00:00:38
forget that you know uh it's it's
00:00:40
impossible to talk calculus with
00:00:42
somebody who doesn't understand addition
00:00:44
and subtraction you know it's not um
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unexpected that we as an umah were kind
00:00:51
of stumbling in understanding what are
00:00:54
the actions of isra of the US maybe I
00:00:57
should say the Zionist entity uh you
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know Hamas hisbah Iran you know even the
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Arab states you know how do we
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understand the reality like before we
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even talk about ought to or ought not to
00:01:12
even though what like alhamdulillah what
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is clear among the people of the um
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among the Muslim is what ought to be
00:01:21
happening right it's very clear that the
00:01:24
Muslim states ought to be defending the
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Palestinians ought to be uniting ought
00:01:29
to be showing strength right all of
00:01:31
those things are true and I'm not here
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to add a bunch of academic uh naysaying
00:01:37
to Kur fuffle you know sometimes
00:01:39
academics like to come in and be like H
00:01:41
well you know it's a little bit more
00:01:42
nuanced than that you know they take
00:01:44
they say well you're you're acting a
00:01:46
little black and white right so they
00:01:48
take a black and white view of the world
00:01:50
they make it a gray a gray view of the
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world so instead of black white black
00:01:55
white everything becomes gray so this is
00:01:58
this is what Eliza owski calls the
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fallacy of gray um because when you take
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a two-color model of the world and you
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make it into a one color model of the
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world ironically you're actually being
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even more simplistic in you're thinking
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you know for those kind of
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postmodernists everything is just like
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you know there's no real truth man you
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know it's it's everyone is just a person
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every nation is just a nation and
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they're all just doing their own thing
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and no no no no no there's good there's
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evil there's right there's is wrong
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that's a bad person this is a good
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person uh this these these truths exist
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and your intuitions are correct oh
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Muslim viewer uh
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but if we want to revive we must
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understand the political ABC so let me
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without further Ado I want to get into a
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case study analysis say that you dear
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viewer are running for mayor okay you
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might have heard before that like the
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guy in charge in a democracy quote
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unquote
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uh doesn't have much power is kind of
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like a figurehead uh but you you might
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have heard this so many times and but
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you never understood like the science
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behind that like it never clicked for
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you I want to try to help if I just do
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that in this video I hope I hope I get
00:03:17
you a little bit closer to understanding
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power in politics okay so today I'm
00:03:21
going to help you help make that part
00:03:23
click For You Joe Joe Biden right how
00:03:26
much power does Joe Biden have you've
00:03:27
probably heard many times people say
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well Jo Biden doesn't really have much
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power you know Joe Biden is just the
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president there's more powerful people
00:03:34
behind Joe Biden okay but but how is
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that like he's the president he gets
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elected you know dour dour in name he's
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the head of state of the United States
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of America right so this is like the
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first thing I want to teach you the the
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distinction between dour meaning in name
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dour Joe Biden is the head of state of
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of of of the United States de facto is
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he really you know the shot caller
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that's the question right uh so imagine
00:04:03
that you dear viewer just let's take
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things down from the state level to a
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city okay you're running for I don't
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know I live
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in a city in Canada I was going to dox
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myself let's you're running you're
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running in for for for mayor of New York
00:04:18
City let's say you're running for mayor
00:04:20
of New York
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City in order to get elected how do you
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how does a mayor get elected he needs
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the people to vote right how do people
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vote we're going to just take this step
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at a time so that you understand where
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power comes from right as a person who
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wants to get elected mayor you need to
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get the votes to get the votes you have
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to understand how people
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vote let me tell you how people don't
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vote people don't vote by looking at oh
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these are your policies these are his
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policies those are his policies and I
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agree with these policies so I'm going
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to vote for for you it doesn't work like
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that maybe a few people vote like that
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uh most people vote according to what
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other people are going to vote for okay
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so one of the most important
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um ways that you one of the most
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important de levers to leverage when
00:05:21
you're getting elected in any election
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is key
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endorsements there are influential
00:05:28
people in societ Society Community
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organizers
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unions uh past mayors and
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legislators
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um religious
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leaders people that the people look up
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to people that the people uh will follow
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and adhere to
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their whoever they
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endorse so but the problem is these
00:05:56
people also don't look at your policies
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and their Pol and the other candidates
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policies and the other candidates
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policies and endorses the candidate that
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most agrees with their policies no no no
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doesn't work like
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that politics is
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transactional understand that politics
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is about aligning incentives exchanging
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incentives for me to get on a page with
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you where we're both advancing our own
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incentives whether those incentives be
00:06:23
personal like I want to get rich or
00:06:26
those incentives be tribal like I I'm a
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police Poli Union head and I want to
00:06:30
bring up the police and increase their
00:06:33
benefits and wages and blah blah blah or
00:06:36
those incentives be ideological right
00:06:38
like someone who has a vision for the
00:06:39
city and you know they have some
00:06:42
ideological motivation to to to affect
00:06:45
to to change the impact of the city in
00:06:47
some way right so incentives are of many
00:06:50
kinds different actors in the city
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different actors in this field of
00:06:55
politics and power have different
00:06:58
incentives so if I want to get the
00:07:01
endorsement of the teachers union so
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there's going to be a power broker or a
00:07:07
few power Brokers that are behind that
00:07:10
endorsement for the teachers union to
00:07:12
come out and say we are endorsing Abu
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Brahim for mayor mayor of New York City
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right how do I get that well I have to
00:07:20
understand what are this person's
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incentives what do they want is this
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power
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broker um what can can I offer this
00:07:30
power broker are they are they P do they
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have personal incentives do they do they
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uh do they do they do they want certain
00:07:37
things from my Administration usually
00:07:39
yes right usually a person will endorse
00:07:43
you because they get to basically buy
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shares in your
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Administration so here's a cool way to
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think about it all right you guys aren
00:07:53
are familiar that in a business a
00:07:55
business has shareholders and
00:07:56
shareholders get a vote right there are
00:07:59
a board of directors and so on uh but
00:08:02
you know a a business gets sold on the
00:08:05
open market investors come in and share
00:08:08
shareholders get a voice in the
00:08:11
direction of the
00:08:12
company politics works the same way when
00:08:16
you run for let's say a a governmental
00:08:20
position be that anything from as small
00:08:22
to as like an MP or Congressman to as
00:08:25
big as like the
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president every endorsement you get
00:08:31
every collaborator or power broker that
00:08:33
you align in order to secure the vote
00:08:36
whether that be in media whether that be
00:08:39
in in in you know like the political
00:08:41
scene whether that be the community
00:08:43
leaders whether that be the unions uh
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whatever endorsements collaborators uh
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and power broker relations that you
00:08:50
secure are
00:08:53
transactional so these people are going
00:08:55
to want something from you so in essence
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you are you as as a person running for
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mayor or running for an elected position
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are selling shares of
00:09:05
yourself so when you do get elected if
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you do get
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elected you've probably sold off most of
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your
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shares so you don't really you're not
00:09:15
really in that mayor's seat executing on
00:09:18
your own
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agenda you've been bought not
00:09:22
necessarily with money but with
00:09:25
transactional politics like okay the
00:09:27
police Union endorsed me now I need to
00:09:30
kind of give back my due otherwise I'm
00:09:32
not going to be reelected and more
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importantly like even if it's your last
00:09:36
term you're not going to be able to
00:09:39
govern this is what people don't
00:09:41
understand like in an elected position
00:09:43
or even this is this this goes beyond
00:09:45
just elected positions even in
00:09:47
dictatorships no one person can execute
00:09:52
on their mandate you need the buying of
00:09:55
the people below you the power Brokers
00:09:57
in society to to carry out your mandate
00:10:01
right so you can't basically just get
00:10:03
into office and say screw you all you
00:10:05
know I'm going to give you the short end
00:10:07
of the stick now now that I'm in power
00:10:10
uh and do what I want cuz no one's going
00:10:12
to work with you you're going to
00:10:14
immediately be shown to be like an
00:10:16
embarrassment who can't push anything on
00:10:19
their agenda you can't push out a single
00:10:22
item on your agenda and you'll be
00:10:24
probably forced to resign or impeached
00:10:26
or something like that so in in politics
00:10:29
you have to learn how to play with
00:10:31
others and you have to learn how to how
00:10:33
transactions works you have to learn how
00:10:35
to align incentives right like if this
00:10:39
person uh in the city who has this power
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wants this building
00:10:43
built right I might need that guy for
00:10:48
other things that I want to do in my
00:10:49
agenda so I might need to like okay help
00:10:51
him get that building built or whatever
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however it works
00:10:55
right depending on who you're trying to
00:10:58
get the endorsement of
00:11:00
so people aren't going to play ball with
00:11:02
you if you don't play ball with them and
00:11:05
hopefully now you understand just a
00:11:06
little bit a little bit of intuition on
00:11:09
the lack of power that
00:11:12
um or or or you know like the the the
00:11:15
gap between the perceived power that you
00:11:17
see an elected official has or has in
00:11:19
name versus the reality the Practical
00:11:22
reality that to get
00:11:24
elected and to carry out your mandate as
00:11:27
an elected official you need the buying
00:11:30
of the power Brokers of society from the
00:11:34
from the unions to the developers to the
00:11:36
influentials in society who have like
00:11:39
you know Community organizers bishops
00:11:41
priests right you you need those kinds
00:11:43
of people on your
00:11:45
side so why am I explaining all of this
00:11:48
am I trying to get you am I trying to
00:11:50
get you elected mayor no but Power work
00:11:55
power has principles politics has
00:11:57
principles if you understand those
00:11:59
principles here just for like a city
00:12:02
you'll understand them on the global
00:12:04
Arena yes there are nuances for each you
00:12:07
know um different
00:12:10
context but the principles always stay
00:12:12
the same right you look at Iran and you
00:12:16
look at the United States dour meaning
00:12:19
in name these are two states they have
00:12:23
two presidents they both have a seed
00:12:25
that the United Nations they're both
00:12:28
Sovereign countries one of the 190
00:12:30
whatever almost like their peers the de
00:12:34
facto reality could not be further from
00:12:36
the
00:12:37
truth let alone one of them economically
00:12:40
dwarfs the other let alone one of them
00:12:42
militarily dwarfs the other let alone
00:12:45
that one of them uh dwarfs the other
00:12:48
from an intelligence gathering
00:12:50
perspective from a technology
00:12:52
perspective uh one of them dwarfs the
00:12:54
other from a regional influence
00:12:57
perspective
00:12:59
see when you only look at the names of
00:13:01
things and you look at Iran is coming
00:13:04
out and saying coming out against the US
00:13:06
and the people of Iran are chanting
00:13:08
death to America and stuff like this you
00:13:11
have to understand like what is the
00:13:13
purpose of all of this like there are
00:13:15
certain ways that you approach politics
00:13:17
number one what are the incentives of
00:13:20
these
00:13:21
people incentives are not communicated
00:13:23
in speech because someone might be
00:13:26
saying something like death to America
00:13:28
but who who who is the audience for that
00:13:31
speech and what is the intended effect
00:13:33
of that speech right not every
00:13:36
communication as people should know
00:13:38
anyone with high emotional intelligence
00:13:40
is going to be good at political
00:13:41
analysis or not necessarily good but
00:13:43
they're going to have a good leg to go
00:13:45
off of because the politics of the
00:13:47
office
00:13:48
politics office politics has the same
00:13:50
principles right some people are never
00:13:52
going to advance in the corporate ladder
00:13:54
because they don't understand office
00:13:55
politics they don't understand that
00:13:57
certain Communications have certain a es
00:13:59
with certain objectives that might not
00:14:01
be reflective of the reality of the
00:14:03
position of the person right so people
00:14:06
on the streets of Iran chanting death to
00:14:08
Israel who who's or death to America
00:14:10
who's the audience of that is it the
00:14:13
American state department is it the
00:14:15
American public is it the Arab
00:14:19
public uh it could it could have
00:14:21
multiple different
00:14:23
objectives um how you understand the
00:14:25
incentives of these people you have to
00:14:27
look into their histories
00:14:29
you have to look into their actions
00:14:32
their actual political actions right we
00:14:35
know for example that America flew from
00:14:39
Paris to Iran and and and allowed that
00:14:43
to happen without shooting down no plane
00:14:44
they they help provide that plane we
00:14:47
know for example that when Iran wants to
00:14:48
strike American military bases they call
00:14:51
ahead of time and they say you know we
00:14:54
just want to get your and Trump even
00:14:56
kind of flubbed this one he he spilled
00:14:58
the beans on some interview he said you
00:15:01
know the Iranians they call us and they
00:15:03
say we just got a save face and we you
00:15:06
know pull your people out we just want
00:15:07
to do a retaliation strike to save face
00:15:10
right we know for example in this recent
00:15:12
strike from Iran to to Israel um the
00:15:16
they called the head to the American
00:15:17
Consulate and they said you know America
00:15:20
was
00:15:20
forewarned of the attack right so what
00:15:25
does all that what does all of that tell
00:15:26
you it tells you Iran does not want to
00:15:28
challenge Amer America even though they
00:15:30
might say death to America and so on the
00:15:33
reality is they don't want to challenge
00:15:35
America and they don't want to challenge
00:15:36
America
00:15:38
because they're they don't exist on the
00:15:40
same plane one of them can easily crush
00:15:43
the other right
00:15:45
so it's hard to discern underlying
00:15:48
motivations for people right it might be
00:15:52
that the Iranian
00:15:53
regime uh has an ideology has an agenda
00:15:57
and they're being quote
00:16:00
pragmatic that the US is here and we
00:16:02
kind of need to maneuver that and
00:16:05
maneuvering that means sometimes cow
00:16:07
Towing to America's agenda right and to
00:16:11
America's interests in the region uh and
00:16:14
not Crossing certain red lines that
00:16:16
America has for foreign policy in the
00:16:17
Middle
00:16:18
East um you know sometimes they might
00:16:21
play with that sometimes they might test
00:16:22
the
00:16:23
waters uh you know as any uh as as any
00:16:28
regime would as any because any regime
00:16:30
has its own kind of agenda but at the
00:16:32
end of the day they have to kind of play
00:16:34
Within the perimeter of the United
00:16:35
States or at least they see that they do
00:16:38
they see that they have to play Within
00:16:39
the perimeter of the United States right
00:16:42
um the reality is if the Muslims United
00:16:45
if we created a power block then we
00:16:48
would have the military economic and and
00:16:51
hopefully technological resources to act
00:16:55
independently right uh unfortunately
00:16:58
it's just
00:16:59
and this is what you need to understand
00:17:01
hopefully you have some insight
00:17:03
now that when there's a huge power gra
00:17:08
power gap between two
00:17:10
Nations the the one that's the inferior
00:17:13
cannot be cannot be independent by
00:17:15
definition because the interests of the
00:17:17
dominant will just crush the the the the
00:17:21
the inferior Nation right some Banana
00:17:25
Republic uh like Costa Rica or Cuba
00:17:29
can't just like act on its own it has to
00:17:32
align itself with a world power right so
00:17:35
any nation is either a world power you
00:17:37
know like Russia or China or the United
00:17:39
States or Europe as a block because
00:17:41
Europe can behave as a block um it's a
00:17:45
world power it can it has a certain kind
00:17:47
of Independence to execute its agenda
00:17:50
and push push the envelope against
00:17:53
stronger powers that they still exist in
00:17:55
some kind of similar league with or
00:17:58
they're like a state
00:18:00
lit like Egypt or Iran or Saudi Arabia
00:18:03
or Lebanon or any of these states to be
00:18:06
very Frank do not exist even in the same
00:18:09
universe of power military Manpower all
00:18:12
of that kind of stuff right it's like
00:18:15
you know a sixth grader fighting a fully
00:18:17
grown
00:18:19
adult you know the sixth grader is going
00:18:21
to eventually do what the adult has
00:18:24
tells them to do cuz you know otherwise
00:18:26
we you know we and so so might someone
00:18:28
might ask okay so let's say one of these
00:18:30
countries says screw you United States
00:18:33
or screw you Russia or screw you China
00:18:36
screw everybody I'm going to go do
00:18:38
whatever I want to do what would what
00:18:41
would one of these powers do let's say
00:18:43
the United States there's many ways that
00:18:47
a world power can can exert leverage
00:18:50
over a nation to bring it in
00:18:54
line so let's say you have a rogue a
00:18:56
rogue state like Saddam was a rogue
00:19:00
State like saddam's irq was a rogue
00:19:02
State um you know went against America
00:19:05
so they had to come in and correct
00:19:06
things so that's one way America can
00:19:09
correct a rogue State direct Invasion
00:19:11
but that's not their preferred method
00:19:14
their preferred
00:19:15
method understand that every nation
00:19:18
every nation in the world has a power
00:19:20
struggle sometimes that power struggle
00:19:22
is clear and obvious sometimes that
00:19:25
power struggle is more like hidden right
00:19:28
every na has a power struggle so if the
00:19:31
if if the current regime goes Rogue the
00:19:34
United States knows that in that Nation
00:19:37
there is a competing party there's a
00:19:39
competing faction that that's struggling
00:19:41
with power for for power with that with
00:19:44
with the uh current regime and because
00:19:47
many of these countries are already
00:19:48
unstable the United States doesn't need
00:19:51
to do much in order to further
00:19:53
destabilize the country to the extent
00:19:56
where a public opinion for the current
00:19:58
regime goes
00:19:59
down B they they they empower the
00:20:04
competing faction with
00:20:06
intelligence uh with resources if they
00:20:09
want to escalate it into an armed
00:20:11
Insurgency with
00:20:12
weapons uh and with
00:20:16
propaganda uh and they will use all the
00:20:18
resources that they have at their
00:20:19
disposal to bet on this new horse right
00:20:22
so so America has kind of like an
00:20:24
unspoken deal with these people either
00:20:27
you're our horse that we bet on you get
00:20:30
to have some freedom in domestic policy
00:20:32
you get to have some Freedom where our
00:20:34
interests are not relevant like if we
00:20:36
don't care about something go do what
00:20:37
you want with it and you guys get to be
00:20:39
the guys in the Palaces and the
00:20:41
rolls-royces and all that kind kind of
00:20:43
stuff but if you don't like that
00:20:45
Arrangement I'm sure there's someone in
00:20:47
your country who
00:20:48
will so that's how it works um it's it's
00:20:52
a very disgusting situation and it might
00:20:54
sound very demoralizing but hey that's
00:20:57
the reality of power
00:20:59
and if you want to if you want to end
00:21:01
that reality you need to have power who
00:21:04
would have th right so you need to you
00:21:07
don't need to be as powerful as the
00:21:09
United States but you need to at least
00:21:11
be a fully grown adult to fight a fully
00:21:13
grown adult right like they might be
00:21:16
Mike Tyson but you but you don't have to
00:21:18
be Mike Tyson you can be like some
00:21:20
weaker guy and but you're really
00:21:22
determined and you have courage and you
00:21:23
can go Bam Bam Bam right uh but if
00:21:26
you're a sixth grader it's not going to
00:21:28
happen happen right there there are laws
00:21:31
to life and just enough
00:21:34
determination from a very very weak band
00:21:38
isn't going to cut it right when the
00:21:40
Prophet The Prophet Alam did not fight
00:21:43
for that reason until Medina was
00:21:45
established when Medina was a city state
00:21:48
it could compete with its Regional
00:21:50
Rivals and when it could compete with
00:21:53
its Regional Rivals and it was able to
00:21:54
kind of cap you know unify Arabia now
00:21:58
now it could compete with the Roman
00:22:00
Empire and the Persian Empire were they
00:22:01
as powerful as them no not by a long
00:22:04
shot from a material perspective but at
00:22:07
least it was state to state and you know
00:22:11
pretty powerful state to pretty pretty
00:22:13
powerful state right like it wasn't the
00:22:16
Gap that we see today between say Egypt
00:22:18
and the United States right it's not
00:22:21
even comparable uh you know especially
00:22:24
considering that the Roman and the
00:22:25
Persian Empires were heavily weakened by
00:22:27
fighting
00:22:29
right Allah kind of organized that
00:22:31
situation so that the Muslims could
00:22:33
expand rapidly at that
00:22:35
time anyway I'm waffling now so I'll
00:22:38
sign off if you have any questions leave
00:22:39
them in the comments
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