The Uncomfortable Awakening: Redefining Worldviews with Monte Mader Part 2

Speaker 1 Hey guys, welcome back to Kate and Ty Break It Down.

Speaker 1 Last week we left off with Monty talking about her fundamentalist upbringing and how she has seen an increase of Christ's followers finally questioning Christian nationalism.

Speaker 1 So nice to have you back, Monty.

Speaker 2 So what I've tried to do with my platform, and that's why I don't talk about my faith on my page. Right, right.
Because I'm like, no, no, no, no. Let's just look at the information.
What do you think?

Speaker 2 Right. Can you be curious? Can you sit with the question, even if it makes you uncomfortable?

Speaker 2 Because what else is happening is as they've taken the hoods off and they've revealed, they've kind of exposed their underbelly, we're seeing people wake up.

Speaker 3 I'm so glad. Most wake up.

Speaker 2 It's a dangerous thing when it comes to fundamentalists and especially theocracies, which is what Christian nationalism is.

Speaker 2 fundamentalism, the only common element that every single fundamentalist group has in every single religion is the subjugation of women.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 Any fundamentalist group across the world, that is the only common thread they all have, regardless of what the religion is.

Speaker 2 But the most dangerous thing in the face of a theocracy or a nationalistic movement is apathy. Oh, right.
People not choosing to get involved. Now it's getting bad enough.

Speaker 2 People are like, I don't know what to do. But we have people who've never voted before who are voting.
We have people who are coming to their first protests. That's my other favorite message.

Speaker 2 I'll get, I'm 67 years old and I just went to my first protest. I'm like, yes, again, awesome.

Speaker 2 Participate in the system because democracy falls when we agree to cede it. Right.
We've seen that and we're seeing that with Zoran Mom Donnie's campaign.

Speaker 4 I was just thinking the whole sweep this last Tuesday. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I mean, like they poured millions and billions of dollars into opposition against him and he still won because we can outwork them. Big money is lazy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then one of the creators that I follow on TikTok, he pulled up the statistics about like it was a huge number. It was mostly young voters coming in and voting for these people.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, which is definitely that. We have to be young.
Because, as young people, we can't be angry about not being represented by these old, you know, white guys. Yeah.

Speaker 2 If we're not out representing ourselves, right? And it's time, especially for millennials to be taking office and running for office. Because

Speaker 2 after that sweep, Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement.

Speaker 2 Good. Yes, right, right.
Good, right. You're a decade past due.

Speaker 2 I guess there's someone else up there.

Speaker 2 Because, I mean, the median age is 38. That's not represented in our government.

Speaker 2 And in contrast with that, because you have Zoron, who is openly Muslim, who is, his policies are very in alignment with the teachings of Christ. Yeah, very.
I'm like, oh, interesting, interesting.

Speaker 2 And then you see James Tallarico in Texas. Oh, I love this.

Speaker 2 Seminary student, deeply religious, family of pastors, former middle school teacher running for Senate, who's like, it is because of my Christian faith. that I am opposing all these things.

Speaker 2 And he's, he to me is really giving Christ's followers an example of, oh, oh, yeah, that's why what I was in felt so wrong.

Speaker 2 This is what, and so we're seeing this huge dynamic shift of young people coming out, getting involved, believing in something. We've got the Afton Bain election in Tennessee coming up.

Speaker 2 Same thing where people are overcoming apathy, and especially young people who have felt part of the reason that insul culture and red pill culture has been so powerful for young men is because young men have felt completely unrepresented and lost, which is true, right?

Speaker 2 They've been told their whole life, you know, you're going to get married and you're going to buy a house. And like, nobody can afford to buy houses right now.
Right.

Speaker 2 So they're trying, and again, it's easy to scapegoat anger. Right, right.
Instead of they're now seeing, oh, I can get out and do something about this.

Speaker 2 I can get out. And they're seeing young men who are not hateful pieces of shit

Speaker 2 do some good in the world. And there's a huge temperature shift that's happening that I think is really good.
I think it is going to get messy. I think our economy's going to be in for a rough ride.

Speaker 2 Right. Right.
Because they are enacting all of the same policies that they did in the 1920s.

Speaker 2 Weird.

Speaker 2 It's like, dude. Historically, not great.
No, not great. Right, right.
Not awesome.

Speaker 4 But there's a hope when you have people like James Halrico who are,

Speaker 4 he's on the rise. And I even said this like probably last year.
I was like, listen, I would vote for this guy for president in a heartbeat.

Speaker 2 In a heartbeat.

Speaker 4 Like this guy, he knows exactly. He gets it.
And

Speaker 4 I always share his videos on my Facebook because I think

Speaker 4 a lot of people that I'm friends with, they believe certain things or whatever. So I'm like, listen, like, you guys, there's another.

Speaker 2 And I love that he refuses to be baited

Speaker 2 into like culture war topics. And that I think is what the young progressives, because it's not even the young Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is the reason we're here.

Speaker 2 Like, let's be so for real. You have to be real.
They have fumbled the football at every turn. They have bought into special interests.

Speaker 2 They have been GOP light for a long time. So this new progressive party,

Speaker 2 they have been able to not, one, they're not shying away from faith.

Speaker 2 The Democrats made a mistake by by shying away from faith and spirituality because regardless of what you practice it's really important for people it is it is and so the young progressives are not shying away from that and they're also getting back to the meat and potatoes of affordability education health care which is what everybody wants the things that really matter the things that matter yeah you know and and because these these like external social issues, you know, and one of the things I love that Tallarico says, because it's so true, he was like, you know, trans people make up 1% of the population.

Speaker 2 He He was like, you're mad at the wrong 1%.

Speaker 2 We should be mad at the top 1% because this is a top versus bottom issue, which is 100% correct. Yes.
The top 10% of people in this nation control 38% of the economy.

Speaker 4 Which is, oh my God, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 The trans kid is not your problem. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Right. Because if you don't believe that that's wrong, but the trans kids are.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, come on now.

Speaker 2 What I will say to conservatives is that they have the right energy. Their anger is justified because someone is scamming the system.
They're just mad at the wrong people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the biggest welfare queen in this country is Elon Musk. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 Because how are you going to take all of these tax-funded government subsidies, all these different companies, Amazon, Walmart,

Speaker 2 and then let's use Walmart as an example because I'm mad at them today.

Speaker 4 Oh, I know, Walmart. Jesus.

Speaker 2 Oh, Lord. So Walmart is the top company that has the most people on Snap benefits because it does not pay a livable wage.

Speaker 2 But guess who makes the most money from people spending SNAP benefits at their stores? Walmart.

Speaker 2 Yeah, people are scamming the system. It's not the single mother who's working two jobs.
No. Because over 70% of SNAP beneficiaries are working.
Some of them are active military, which blows my mind.

Speaker 4 Which is crazy. Crazy.
Crazy.

Speaker 3 And we have people literally starving.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And so what I would say to like conservatives who like hold these beliefs of like,

Speaker 2 yeah, I don't want the people scamming the system either, but it's not poor people. No, it's not.
It's not poor people that are, we are the wealthiest nation that has ever existed in human history.

Speaker 2 There is no reason people should not be eating and not be able to go to the doctor. The only reason for that is greed.

Speaker 2 So, to any conservatives that are listening, take that energy, keep that energy, stay mad, be mad at the right people. Yeah, shit that overheated.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we shouldn't have anybody starving, no kids starving, people being homeless, and people being online mocking people who can't eat. Are you joking? You get no moral high ground.

Speaker 2 Sit down and shut up.

Speaker 3 I've seen some of those people that's backfired on a few handfuls, those people where like they've gotten fired from their jobs. And I'm like, fuck yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because it's, it's, and it's also weird.

Speaker 2 to say that

Speaker 2 people kind of pull the hoods off too fast.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.
And they're, and, and so when they pull them off.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 They expose themselves to this. It's like, whoa, dude.
And I think that is what's shifting kind of this younger generation to be like, whoa, like, I don't, I don't have to follow this kind of extreme.

Speaker 2 And it was, it was so important for Zoron to win. I know, yeah.
Not because of his, I mean, I love his policies and I hope that he can get it done. I really do.

Speaker 2 I think he's going to have a little bit of issue with Governor Kathy Hokul, but I hope he can do it. But the win was important because people needed to see that there's hope.

Speaker 2 They needed to see that we can get out and move the needle. We can get out and we can make change.
His entire campaign was so life-giving.

Speaker 2 And that for me, it's like, you know, I go back to the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. What campaigns make you feel that?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Because when we see people out here creating those fruits of the spirit, the Bible says, you know, like, again, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit what is the fruit and I'm looking at the fruit of that campaign I'm like I see a lot of people with hope I see a lot of people with joy I see a lot of caring for the poor I see a lot of feeding people baby baskets for young mothers that's pro-life yes it is free child care so that people can afford to have children yeah that's pro-life those are pro-life policies so for me the importance was the win so that people had hope to understand you can outwork big money.

Speaker 4 I think people didn't have a lot of hope for a while.

Speaker 2 Oh, I think they do. It's It's important.

Speaker 3 Well, and that's why I think it's important. And, you know, what we tell people on our platforms a lot, like, midterms are going to be coming up soon.
And we have to go out and vote.

Speaker 3 Because, like, we saw that.

Speaker 2 We had a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Canvas.

Speaker 2 The other shift that I'm seeing is, and this is even happening for me, as my life has become more digital, I crave human connection, which is why I was so excited to fly up here and sit with you in the same room.

Speaker 2 But like, I want to hug people. I want to sit to dinner with them.
I want to look them in the face and I want to talk to them. And I think everyone's feeling that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so what I'm telling people is find local communities. Join the campaign.
Canvas. Like, push yourself outside of your comfort zone because we have so much more in common than we have in difference.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it's just being demonstrated over and over that these political issues are being used to divide us so that they can rob us.
Yeah. Right.
You know, and it's a plan. Exactly.

Speaker 2 I'm going to probably get the quote a little bit wrong, but Lyndon B.

Speaker 2 Johnson said, if you can convince the poorest white man that he is better the poorest colored man, he will not notice when you pick his pockets.

Speaker 4 That's true.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That like all of this, this has been going on since the revolts in the colonial era, where rich aristocrats realized that if poor white people and poor black people realized how much in common they had, that they could take over the communities.

Speaker 2 And so what they did was they gave the poor white people a little bit more. A little bit more.
Just a little bit. Just enough.
Just enough. You're not starving.
Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 2 You're not starving anymore. And established this idea of white supremacy.
It's just a tool.

Speaker 4 When When I hear a lot of them say, too, like, oh, we need to get back to this golden era.

Speaker 2 What golden era? And I talk, and I even removed the Vanderbilts.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was like, I was like, the golden era of what? And they talk about, oh, like the 40s and the 50s. I'm like, oh, well, look at the, what was the tax rate?

Speaker 2 during those times when everyone when we had one house with one salary and we could you know what i was saying and they're like what what was the tax rate yeah because at that time

Speaker 2 it came boom it's like it was the top one percent of the top ten percent i can't remember only controlled eight percent of the economy oh wow interesting yeah Yeah.

Speaker 2 Which is still a lot.

Speaker 2 Because from 1948 to 1972, when Nixon shut that shit down to give tax breaks to his wealthy donors, we had the fastest-growing, largest economy that has ever existed in human history. Wow.

Speaker 2 Which I think that's what they're talking about.

Speaker 4 They say, oh, we need to get back to the golden era. I'm like, you're talking about.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, so you have to change the tax law.

Speaker 2 You can't keep doing the same thing and expecting it to be any different.

Speaker 4 Maybe we all know Trickle Down does not transfer.

Speaker 2 But the Big Ugly Bill was the largest transfer of wealth from the lowest financial class class to the upper class in history.

Speaker 4 Which is crazy because there's been a lot of other reasons.

Speaker 2 That's not going to, you know, and Reagan was the second biggest. But they also had a major transfer of wealth like that in the 20s as well.
Because the roaring 20s is a bit of a misnomer.

Speaker 2 It was great. Like we're in Detroit.
It was great if you were a Whitney. Right.
It was great if you were a Vanderbilt or a Carnegie. It was not great for everyone else.
Right.

Speaker 2 And we haven't been taught that portion of history, like how important there's a reason that conservative groups demonize labor unions.

Speaker 2 Labor unions are the reason you have sick leave, are the reason you can sue for wrongful termination.

Speaker 2 They're the reason that there are standards about how someone can treat you or safe working environments, many of which have now been gutted thanks to Doge because there was a bunch of lawsuits against Elon Musk for how he was treating his workers.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 we forget that those things are the reasons that we have any protections at all. And there's been an intentional push to push all of that back, pretending it's some golden era.

Speaker 2 Like even the Gatsby party that Trump just threw,

Speaker 2 people are not eating. And now today,

Speaker 2 he came out telling states, states that have said, hey, we have funds that we can put to fund SNAP benefits to feed people.

Speaker 2 Trump has now told states they can't do that and will penalize states that try to feed people. Yeah, saw that.
While he has nude fucking Gatsby in a martini glass party for all his rich buddies.

Speaker 2 Who needs a $300 billion ballroom? Nobody asked for that. No.

Speaker 4 All I think about when I hear that and see all this, I'm like, this is like the Hunger Games.

Speaker 2 100%. It's the capital.

Speaker 4 Literally, this is like literally.

Speaker 3 And like Hanman's handmaids,

Speaker 4 like the weird craziest thing how you can look at life that's imitating art which is like the book of hammock the you know it's like dude this is getting insane and also it's like you know what is what is his reasoning like why the fuck does it matter to you if states are saying hey we have this we can feed our people why because

Speaker 4 he wants to use starvation to end the shutdown so they can get health care and privatize it further yeah it's it's which obviously is a whole nother yeah health care in this versus every other wealthy country in the world is a whole different it's insane.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 2 And sometimes I sit down in the corner and I'm like, What is going on?

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Speaker 2 My personal belief, and this is a joke sort of, but I think that we entered a different timeline when we killed Harambe.

Speaker 2 And ever since,

Speaker 2 we're now in hell. Like, we are now

Speaker 2 existing in hell. Like, literally, it's crazy.

Speaker 4 But I will say, I feel like

Speaker 4 when it comes to that kind of stuff, like, I hear, as far as the recent pushback I've been getting, just from, and like, I'm very much like you.

Speaker 4 I'm not talking about my religion beliefs or anything, or I just show my spiritual practice, or I show my, this is what I do. And the pushback is so intense.
And most of it comes from, well,

Speaker 4 they yell at me or criticize me and then say, well, I'm only telling you this because I love you and I want you to go to heaven.

Speaker 4 And in my head, I'm like, I don't think you understand how that comes across. And I feel like you're doing, like, it's like, you're doing, like you said, you have the right energy.

Speaker 4 You're just, you're just doing it in the wrong way.

Speaker 2 And it's their own fear about their own eternity. That's what they're projecting on.

Speaker 4 And when I respond to them and say, I do not fear what you fear.

Speaker 4 And it's like, so you saying these words to me literally just fall flat.

Speaker 4 And so, and they get in, they get very frustrated and mad that I'm pretty much, I feel like I'm calling out you're gaslighting me. You're saying, you know, no, no, no, because I love you, though.

Speaker 4 You're, you're, you're going to burn hell. Right.
And I'm telling you this because I don't know. Because I love you.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like, that little boy only hits you because he likes you. Yeah, right.

Speaker 4 It's the same concept.

Speaker 2 It's insane. It's insane.
And it's, it's just an excuse for cruelty and fear because

Speaker 2 there's a huge amount of fear. And again, instability if your worldview changes.
Because Because for them, it's like, what if I'm wrong?

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 2 Everything that they've built their entire world around collapses. And that is a terrifying thought.

Speaker 2 It's very destabilizing because for me, my deconstruction really hit full form the same year my dad died. Oh, wow.
So his control and his power in my life and his influence is suddenly gone.

Speaker 2 I'm also realizing the whole worldview I had built my life on not true. Very destabilizing.
Very terrifying. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, very, like, that was a period of time, not just because despite my dad's faults, like, I deeply loved my father. I was very close to my dad,

Speaker 2 still am.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it was the loss and the grief and the anger and trying to, it is a difficult, it is, it would have been so much easier to just bury myself in the rhetoric, way easier.

Speaker 2 But I had to make active decisions not to do that because I'm like, I don't, I want to know what's true. even if it hurts and even if it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 But maybe that's what they're doing.

Speaker 4 They're kind of diving deeper in the rhetoric and holding on really tight, even though it's like because you're afraid.

Speaker 2 They're afraid of losing it.

Speaker 2 It's what they've defined their whole life with.

Speaker 4 Which is crazy because

Speaker 4 they're projecting that fear on people who may have a little different belief or whatever. And it's like, that is so, like, I always, I always, I said it in my last video.

Speaker 4 I was like, you know, if you're trying to get me to, because they're like, oh, my job is to spread the word of God and get you to, you know, follow him or whatever.

Speaker 4 I'm like, well, you're doing a really bad job of it.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm not trying to do this at all. You're not selling it.

Speaker 4 I'm like, you are not a good salesperson for this.

Speaker 4 You're not doing a very good job. It's insane.

Speaker 2 Well, and that's the other thing about it is that, you know, and

Speaker 2 I also clearly get a lot of enraged Christians on my page.

Speaker 2 But my thing is, is I was like, if your lifestyle was as compelling as you say it is, you wouldn't have to enact it by force. It's true.

Speaker 2 Very true. Like it, it should be compelling in and of itself.

Speaker 4 You shouldn't need to scream at me about it.

Speaker 2 Well, it's the same thing. It's the same thing again with like these gender norms quotation marks where they're like, well, a woman's natural role, if it's natural, she'll do it naturally.
Right.

Speaker 2 Right. I need to break that to you.
Yeah. Right.
That's what natural means. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's just really,

Speaker 2 it is, it's a fear response. It's, it's fear, it's projection.
Um, and thankfully, a lot of people are waking up to it.

Speaker 2 And I think that it's important that people see people like us with different spiritual practices or talking about these issues because we have to keep chipping away at the veneer.

Speaker 2 Because for me, there were several moments in my teens and early 20s where people planted a seed I wasn't ready for.

Speaker 2 What do you mean? So like would have an argument with me about my brand of Christianity and my fundamentalism or my nationalism.

Speaker 2 They would challenge me on a topic and I'd eviscerate them with my apologetics training. That's right, right.
But then later I'd be like, huh,

Speaker 2 it would eat at me a little bit. Oh, interesting.
It would bother me. Like,

Speaker 2 that's weird. Why am I thinking about that? It bothers me.

Speaker 2 And then when I started to deconstruct, I was able to go back to those topics and recognize that those people were part of my journey to deconstruct how how hateful and vicious I was because I was very hateful and very vicious and I was really good at it, which made it really dangerous.

Speaker 2 And I think that we're seeing a awakening.

Speaker 2 And that awakening is really uncomfortable because we're in a period of time very similar to the early 20th century where things are being redefined. You look at masculinity.

Speaker 2 Early 19th century or sorry, early 20th century, men are going from these traditional kind of labor-driven jobs to working for someone, working in an office.

Speaker 2 Here, we're seeing where the provider role is changing because families can't live on one income. No.
So that definition doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2 So we're getting a new definition of what that looks like. And obviously women are like, you know, this is the first 50 years that women have been able to have financial autonomy.

Speaker 2 So it's this huge conflict because it's an awakening, because it's a change. Change is always uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 And these worldviews are so integral to people's identities that disagreeing with their worldview is an attack on their identity and their mind.

Speaker 4 So if we could separate, if people could just separate that though and look at it not as an attack, which I don't look at as an attack, I mean, I feel like, yeah, I mean, kind of you're attacking me, but it's like, well, you're calling me names.

Speaker 2 It is, then. Right.

Speaker 4 But if we could just separate that, I mean, we could have a lot more constructive, you know,

Speaker 2 conversations.

Speaker 3 And it's crazy because, like, how when you post things or like, for instance, when you do and you have like the Christians or whatever coming in and like berating you and stuff, it's mind-blowing because to me, it's like, you know, no, I might not be a Christian or a very religious person, but I'm telling, I sometimes feel like I am more, I have more empathy and more kindness and

Speaker 2 you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 I'm willing to help my community and help anybody I can more than even they would. Like, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 Well, and what's what cracks me up, um, because I'm, I'm a salty individual, I'm pretty sexy, and so I do a lot of educational work on my platforms, but I also do a lot of like rebuttals, if you will.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you do. It'll be so funny because people will be like, I just, you're just so angry.
You're so, I should be angry. You're advocating for like starving kids, number one.

Speaker 2 But also, how dare you come on my page, insult me, call me names, send me rape and death threats. I'm supposed to be, no, no.

Speaker 2 No, we're going to use this opportunity to flip a table and you're going to be embarrassed.

Speaker 2 You should be embarrassed for your behavior. I'm not going to coddle.
bad behavior. And I'm always, I love like genuine questions.

Speaker 2 And I'll get those sometimes in my inbox or people send an email saying, I really just want to know. And

Speaker 2 they're wrestling with an ideology love it love it like let me sit down and like let's talk about it yeah you're gonna come at me talking sideways out of your mouth your mom's gonna be embarrassed for you like yeah so that's kind of why i want to have this conversation because i want i want to show people that this is this is possible yeah that you can have these conversations and not and that it's okay to ask questions yes and it's okay to disagree right to be curious yeah i think curiosity is important very important i have curious tattooed on my arm for that reason literally like and i call my followers the coven of curiosity because i'm like don't don't believe me because I say it.

Speaker 2 Fact check me. Here's my sources.

Speaker 4 Please fact-check me.

Speaker 2 Please also, if you don't agree with me, great. Oh, yeah, right.
Did you sit with the question? Sit with the question.

Speaker 2 And that is really the most important thing to me is for people. We organized religion has caused us to outsource our faith to another person

Speaker 2 instead of developing it and studying it and learning it for ourselves. Right.
And so, and that's why I think so many people that deconstruct from religion are still very spiritual. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Very spiritual because it's an integral part of who they are.

Speaker 2 But they're they're getting a chance to build it in a different way. And that's just so important to me.

Speaker 2 But also not just the freedom to have the conversations and the freedom to be curious and ask questions, but the freedom to be angry. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 Because in, again, in fundamentalist cultures, especially, especially towards women, but a little bit towards everyone, is, well, you just need to be, you know, sit there and smile and be quiet.

Speaker 2 Well, just don't react. Just don't know.
The reason that people get away with abuse and harmful ideas is because we don't check them.

Speaker 2 So no, like

Speaker 2 be angry at the right things.

Speaker 2 Channel that.

Speaker 2 Angry is simply an emotion telling me that a boundary has been crossed. Right.
Right.

Speaker 2 Fix the boundary. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And it's, and it reminds me, like, when you say, like, they tell the women mostly to sit down, smile, and be quiet. It's like that documentary we watched.

Speaker 2 What was that one? Oh,

Speaker 4 oh my gosh. It was about all the

Speaker 2 God, what was it called?

Speaker 3 Oh my god, it was something about like

Speaker 2 now.

Speaker 3 I have to Google it, but God, that reminds me so much of the girls where they were raised in the, um,

Speaker 4 with their father in this community. I can't remember what it was called.

Speaker 2 Anyway, it was about, yeah, very much

Speaker 4 fundamentalist women and what it was and kind of how they were raised. But I was going to ask you, because I think people who don't know what

Speaker 4 deconstruction means, what would you define deconstruction to be like?

Speaker 2 Deconstruction, and you can do this, deconstruction is simply breaking down an ideology or a worldview into its pieces and see if they hold up to the truth. You can deconstruct

Speaker 2 anything. Break Break it down to the pieces.
Does it hold up to scrutiny? Because the truth is never afraid of questions and the truth will always hold up to scrutiny. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's just about taking a worldview, breaking it down into its pieces, and seeing, does it hold up? Yeah.

Speaker 4 I've seen a lot of people come to me and they're, you know, a lot of the comments were just so like, well, I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to call you here.

Speaker 4 I'm supposed to call out this heresy or this witchcraft or whatever. And I'm like, I'm like, guys, they didn't burn witches.

Speaker 2 They burned women.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker 2 So women who owned property or didn't want to to get married or who knew how to heal with plant medicine or were midwives.

Speaker 4 And then I get, and then I get a little, like, I get a little satire because I'm like, there you are decorating your Yule tree with

Speaker 2 pentagram on top of it.

Speaker 2 Whatever.

Speaker 3 So people wanted to know the documentary I was talking about. It's

Speaker 3 keep sweet, pray, and obey.

Speaker 2 Keep sweet, pray, and it's about the FLBS church stuff.

Speaker 3 And because that brought me back to when you were, I know I'm kind of backtracking, but when you talked about being in that room with all those young girls being pregnant,

Speaker 3 that documentary popped in my head because so many of those young women being forced to marry old men.

Speaker 2 Like, it's, it was disturbing. Yep.
And it's just, and they're just, it's always cycles of abuse. And honestly, because speaking of the Mormon church,

Speaker 2 the Book of Mormon was a big deconstruction moment for me. So

Speaker 2 I, when I was,

Speaker 2 like, I just was like, I just want to know the truth. I'm, like, I did a study on world religions.
I read the Quran. I was reading the Book of Mormon and I had studied who John Smith was.

Speaker 2 And I was like, this man is a con artist.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm reading the Book of Mormon.

Speaker 2 and some of the stuff is just so I'm like people can't possibly believe this right and the first thought that zipped right into my brain was this is how people feel about the story of Jonah when they've never read the Bible and I was like oh my god yeah no right

Speaker 2 um because it's just about like challenging these ideas can you sit with the question but it was the Book of Mormon was a big moment for me where I was like This seems incorrect.

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Speaker 3 I have a question too. I just want to, to ask,

Speaker 3 I mean, about your dad. So like for him to have a daughter and you're like learning and growing and changing your views and stuff on these things,

Speaker 3 did he ever change his views before he died?

Speaker 2 So my dad softened a lot the older he got.

Speaker 2 He really started to, especially around like LGBTQ rights and like, not so much to the point where he was like, he would still do the whole like, I don't support your lifestyle, but I love you.

Speaker 2 But he was starting to realize like, oh, maybe people should just have the right to make their own decisions, regardless of if you believe in it or not.

Speaker 2 But, and I had had questions, I had had talks with him about some of these social issues to my dad's credit because my dad died this, the summer of 2016.

Speaker 2 And he was diametrically opposed to Trump. Oh, was not having it.
He was enraged.

Speaker 4 Which is surprising because

Speaker 2 my dad was consistent in the sense of he did believe in a moral standard for leadership. And my dad always had a consistent view about adultery.
He was not, that was like a thing with my dad.

Speaker 2 But he was like, how in the world is this serial adulterer scumbag calling himself a Christian? Like my dad recognized the hijacking

Speaker 2 and he wanted a different candidate.

Speaker 2 So to his credit, he was never on the Trump train.

Speaker 2 But it was that summer he and I had been fighting a lot. So the summer of 2016, my uncle died, his brother.
And then two weeks later, my dad died.

Speaker 2 And then a month later, my grandmother and a close friend of mine died on the same day. So it was just this huge loss

Speaker 2 amount of loss in a short period of time. But my dad and his brother had been feuding for 25 years in large part because my grandfather kind of pit them against each other.
But

Speaker 2 I was the only person from my side of the family that went to my uncle's funeral. Wow.
Wow. And my uncle's side of the family hadn't seen me in.

Speaker 2 20 years, but I just felt that it was the right thing to do. So my dad and I were having kind of a couple weeks of argument over that where I'm like, dad, that's not right.

Speaker 2 Don't you think that when he dies it's time to bury the hatchet right right

Speaker 2 and went back and forth with him and he his argument was and I understand where he was coming from was he was like I was concerned that my presence there would cause conflict and would be deemed disrespectful yeah I'm like you know what I can see that where you're coming from I can see where you're coming from I still think you're wrong but I can see where you're coming from

Speaker 2 but after that conversation

Speaker 2 Where he and I really kind of hashed it out our disagreement and and my dad said, you know, I understand that we disagree and I appreciate you confronting me.

Speaker 2 I just want us to make sure that we end every conversation, like that we love each other, that we support each other.

Speaker 2 And he was talking about I was getting ready to release music for the first time and

Speaker 2 really establishing that belief of it's okay to have these conflicts, but let's establish

Speaker 2 that we love and respect each other.

Speaker 2 And I realized in that moment that I really have to have a sit-down with dad and address that my belief system is completely different now, especially with social issues. And he died that night.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Never got a chance.

Speaker 2 But I think, I mean, he already knew because I had already kind of challenged him on a lot of those issues. But I never got to have that conversation of, dad, this is not,

Speaker 2 and this is not what I believe is right anymore. And here's why.
I never got to have the conversation.

Speaker 4 But do you feel like, I mean, I feel like him, Pat, I mean, he's, you think he's proud of you? I would.

Speaker 2 I know he's proud of you. Okay, I was going to say,

Speaker 4 but like, I, yeah,

Speaker 4 I would feel like he's very, very proud of you. And I think my belief is that when souls pass on, they elevate and they,

Speaker 2 you know, all the spiritual wisdom, they go, boom, oh, shit. He's learning too, yeah, right, right.

Speaker 4 And I think I want to say it's beautiful that you give him such grace, yeah, considering like how you were raised. Um, because it's not easy to do, especially, you know, with being a kid and stuff.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's hard.

Speaker 2 It's it, and it's like I can hold him accountable for his behavior and also see his humanity. Yeah.
My dad, as violent as my upbringing was, my dad's was infinitely worse.

Speaker 2 Right. And so my dad, and I can look now and I can see my dad's fear, his depression, his unhappiness with his life.

Speaker 2 My dad was an incredible musician, and all he wanted to do was music and write books. That's all he wanted to do.
My grandfather guilted him with, well, good sons come home and take care of the ranch.

Speaker 2 My dad hated it, but he spent his whole life trying to earn his father's love that he never got. That's sad.
And then when he passed away, my stepmom had him erased within a month. Really?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so I not only learned from his life based on the choices he did and did not make, where I realized after his death, man, life is short.

Speaker 2 I have to make decisions based on what I believe in and what I dream about doing. And it changed the trajectory of my life.

Speaker 2 But I can also look at him in this beautiful, broken humanness.

Speaker 2 And kind of hold my dad as a kid and say, buddy, this was never supposed to happen to you. And I'm really sorry sorry that it did.

Speaker 2 And I'm really sorry that you carried that pain your whole life because you didn't know what to do with it. Yeah.
And so I've been able to like forgive my father.

Speaker 2 And I went through a period of time really angry at my dad. I felt lied to.
I felt deceived. I was angry about the abuse.
I was angry about how he treated my siblings and my birth mother.

Speaker 2 And I was then able to forgive it.

Speaker 2 But I think that that's such an important step of forgiveness that we kind of leapfrog over sometimes. People are like, oh, you need to forgive.
You need to be angry first. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 2 Be angry first. Give that energy right back where it came from.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I, uh, someone taught me recently just a form of meditation where if you're dealing with hurt like that, they said, you know, sit down, sit in a room, give yourself two minutes to kind of get in the zone and imagine confronting this person.

Speaker 2 Like, give all of the pain and the energy back to them. It is not yours to carry.
Call them out. Curse at them.
It's all, and it's all in your mind. You're doing it.
Scream at them.

Speaker 2 Scream at them. Yell.

Speaker 2 And he told told me he was like keep doing that until you're ready to forgive and you'll know should i need

Speaker 2 i need to do that with hundreds of people in my head because

Speaker 2 because you it's a process and he's like because when you have given all that rage and that pain back to them

Speaker 2 then you can forgive

Speaker 2 and then it's true forgiveness true forgiveness because you're not carrying the damage of it anymore and i was like that's actually great advice it's really good advice and i skipped that that forgiveness requires accountability yeah otherwise i'm just enabling you right right oh it's fine.

Speaker 2 It's fine. No, it's not fine.

Speaker 4 And a lot of times forgiveness is just like a word to people. It's like, or oh, I just choose it.
It's like, no, it's a process. It's like a grieving process.

Speaker 4 Same thing, grieving is a process. Like forgiveness is a process that you can.

Speaker 2 And forgiveness does not mean tolerance. Right.
I can forgive you and also want nothing to do with you.

Speaker 2 Those can both exist at the same time. And I think that's such a the anger and the hurt is part of the process.

Speaker 2 And for people who are dealing with what's going on currently politically, or you're leaving the church or you're whatever process you're in, that anger, anger is not a sin. Right.
It's not.

Speaker 2 Again, it is an indication that a boundary has been crossed. Fix the boundary.
Sit with the anger because only when you've processed that anger can you actually forgive someone. Right.

Speaker 4 No, right. And especially when even when it comes to the Bible, I'm pretty sure Jesus was angry.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, he represents a lot of people.
Yeah, flipping tables.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know,

Speaker 3 but I did state one thing I thought was so funny. When he started like educating me about the young child Jesus and the stuff he would do, I was like in awe.

Speaker 2 Well, people don't know what

Speaker 2 that is. I actually read the Quran, so I thought that was interesting about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because he would like tell me some things and I'm like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 He was a little demon.

Speaker 2 You know what's funny though? And this is like off topic.

Speaker 4 I will say, I always thought in my head, I'm like, well, I know people like don't want to talk about that stuff or whatever.

Speaker 4 They don't believe it happened or whatever the case is, but like, what a humanizing.

Speaker 2 What a way to humanize Jesus.

Speaker 4 He was a could perform miracles as a child.

Speaker 2 He's uncontrollable child. Like, you know what I'm saying? Which is

Speaker 2 What do you mean I can't have more cookies? Magic. You're right, all right.

Speaker 3 He would start telling me things. I'm like, this is like so intriguing.

Speaker 2 And for those of you who are like, what are they talking about? It's from the Quran. Yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 4 And that's why when you said that, I read it. I was like, all right, you'll get it.
You'll understand that reference or whatever. But yeah, I always thought that was interesting.

Speaker 4 I'm like, well, I feel like they should probably introduce that because what a way to humanize it. Could you imagine being Joseph? Be like, yo, listen, buddy, Jesus, chill out, man.

Speaker 4 You can't blind these people.

Speaker 2 Listen, it's okay. Mess with the puddle.
It's fine. You don't know what it is.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 4 So at the end of it, he brings everyone back to life and he's a good Jesus.

Speaker 2 Oh, if I had the power to smythe people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Seriously. He couldn't tell me anything.

Speaker 2 But it is. It's really, it's like the process of healing, though, that comes with deconstruction is so beautiful.
I'm so much more. And my process is constantly ongoing.

Speaker 3 And I, but it probably is like a lifetime. It's like a lifetime.
Right.

Speaker 2 It's a lifetime of unpacking, of healing the wounds and learning because as I learn new things, my opinion changes. Why? I've just, just, I've gained new information.

Speaker 2 I'm taking Hebrew courses starting in the spring because I'm like, I want to know more.

Speaker 2 And I wish that more, I wish that I could gift what I've been given in my change, like the happiness, the freedom, the joy, the peace, the compassion, the empathy.

Speaker 2 If I could bottle that and give it to people and even the self-acceptance.

Speaker 2 Because growing up in these cycles of abuse, but also the demonization of my weight and my looks. And, you know, this is the only important thing about you destroys your sense of self-worth.

Speaker 2 There's a reason that so many deeply religious women really struggle with like their sex life and marriages because they've been taught their whole life, your virginity is the only thing that matters, that you're not going to like it, but you have to do it for your husband.

Speaker 2 They haven't been taught any form of like self-love, self-care, self-respect. And then they're supposed to flip a switch the night they get married.
That's not how reality works.

Speaker 2 And if I could even package the healing I've had when it comes to myself and my body, like

Speaker 2 finally living life, not hating my body every single second. Hello, like 90s heroin chic propaganda.
Like,

Speaker 2 is it

Speaker 2 life altering? I'm so glad that you have that now, right? Like to be able to love yourself and your body. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's one of the reasons like fashion is so important to me because it was, that was part of my healing process was like, my body's not a sin. Yeah.
My body's not a sin. My body's not ugly.

Speaker 2 My body's not definitive. My body's not all of these things because I have five extra pounds.
Like, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and to be able to go through that process, if I could gift that healing to people, oh my God, like, if I could just, it's totally different now.

Speaker 3 Well, and I think what you are doing is on like your social media and stuff too. I think you are, I think you are definitely helping in healing people for sure.
Was that? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'll see you guys.

Speaker 2 I'm like, you are making an impact.

Speaker 3 You are making a difference.

Speaker 2 You're teaching people.

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Speaker 2 And that's my hope is just to get like, I just want to open the door. Yes.
Just like show people the way of like, hey, there's light out here. Yeah.
Come on.

Speaker 2 What if there's a better answer to the question? Yeah. And the question is, what if? Maybe there isn't.
But what if there is? Right.

Speaker 2 And I, I mean, I would love to see people free from these systems. Because I mean, when I was doing, and I was very good at the game.
I was

Speaker 2 really smart. I could defend the faith.
I knew all the scripture. I knew all the study.
I checked all the boxes. I did everything right.
And I fucking hated myself. And I hated my life.

Speaker 2 And I was miserable all the time because nothing was good enough. Nothing was worthy enough.
Everything was always, you're never going to be good enough. And I don't feel any of those things anymore.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 Isn't that something?

Speaker 2 That's a hallelujah.

Speaker 2 You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Speaker 2 Man, am I so much more free than I was?

Speaker 2 And it's made me a better human. The older I get, the more I think that, and I think that Paul believed this too, because Paul believed that Jesus was coming back in his lifetime.

Speaker 2 I think that when Jesus was talking about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of hell, he was talking about right now.

Speaker 2 That my decisions, I reap what I sow, I can choose to create heaven on earth or I can choose to create hell on earth by the choices I make right now.

Speaker 2 Because when you outsource eternity to the only thing that matters is after I die, it gives you an excuse for cruelty and apathy right now.

Speaker 2 And I don't think that's in alignment with the gospel at all. I don't either.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 That's what confuses me so much. And that's why I was like, I need, after I made video and all that stuff, I'm like, I gotta, I didn't want to talk about this really.

Speaker 4 I was kind of, but now I was like, no, I cannot, I have to because it's, it's almost like, and I, and I'm a very big, like, I don't question my intuition at all.

Speaker 4 If I feel that I need to, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, when you've retrained your intuition, you can't ignore it anymore. You can't ignore it.

Speaker 4 Dang, it's almost annoying. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, I wish

Speaker 2 I was like, I have to do the most right thing.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to be today. Can I just like please let me be complacent today, but I can't.
And so like I,

Speaker 4 the older I get, the more I'm like, I don't even question it at all. I sensed it.
I was like, listen, this is a conversation that's important.

Speaker 4 And I think it's one of those things where people are afraid to talk about it because it sparks so much, I mean, hate and so much just, oh, and,

Speaker 4 but it's, it's important to, to, like you said, chip away slowly, and we have to do it.

Speaker 4 And I feel like if people are deconstructing, what would be your advice to them on how to do it or what to focus on?

Speaker 2 Because is there like support systems for people? Yeah, like I'm like,

Speaker 2 really?

Speaker 3 It's starting to be like, how do they get support?

Speaker 2 We need to start some kind of like,

Speaker 2 there's communities popping up now. And that's part of my goal with my platform is to give people a space that they can process all of this.

Speaker 2 And I'm actually teaming up with, getting ready to team up with the American Humanist Organization to start like in-person events

Speaker 2 to get people connected with each other to understand that, hey, there's a space for you.

Speaker 2 Wherever you're at on this trajectory, wherever you're at on the spectrum, we can sit with each other in real time with real humanity.

Speaker 2 Because I think that is one of the things that's hardest for people. Yeah.
Is again, the loss of community.

Speaker 3 That's what I was thinking. Like, yeah, they need support in some aspects of this.

Speaker 4 If you want them to leave this one or get out of it, then they need something of the.

Speaker 2 And I think that, you know, that's one of the things I want to, and I want to commend you for making the video of like, oh, I don't want to talk about this, but it's important.

Speaker 2 Because when people see people like you leading the way in those conversations, it enables them and encourages them, literally, giving courage to, oh, I can ask these questions. Okay, you know what?

Speaker 2 My intuition was telling me that things should be a little different. Maybe I can ask that.

Speaker 2 And that's what I hope that my reputation and my legacy is, is that it encourages and empowers people to ask the questions. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 It's really like, I'm not here to tell you what to believe or to build faith for you.

Speaker 2 Can you, I'm here to let you know that you can ask the question, and it allows me to talk about the questions and my journey and take all that backlash and hate, which does not bother me at all.

Speaker 2 It doesn't, honestly, it's tickles me quite a lot.

Speaker 3 That's like in our life with things.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm like, honestly, you guys make me laugh a lot.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't even know it. And to people who are like, oh, I'm afraid of backlash, understand that people will hate what you do no matter what you do.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because if you try to outsource your happiness to pleasing other people, the only person who will be miserable is you.

Speaker 2 And, but I can, I can kind of stand in the wave and take the brunt and allow the people, like the little, little baby questioners behind me to start asking questions without having to take the full weight of that.

Speaker 2 And that's another part of my purpose: let them talk, let them call me. I get called trans, I get called, you know, all kinds of names.
It's the nose ring, it's the earrings. It's you're the old hag.

Speaker 2 You're washed up.

Speaker 2 I get rape and death threats all the time. I'm like, ooh, look at you being such a good Christian.
It's true.

Speaker 2 It's really your profile.

Speaker 2 But for me, it's about being a bastion because I can. I can take it.
I can take the heat.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to, so that people behind me can get stronger so that we can all stand together in front of the wave and say, no, like we're not going to tolerate that.

Speaker 2 But I think it takes people in these very visible roles to stand up like that and take that. Yeah.
So that other people can

Speaker 2 feel safe enough to ask those questions.

Speaker 4 So explore their own curiosity because I feel like when we talked about, like, you know, we got a lot of backlash for kind of exposing the adoption industry.

Speaker 4 And I said, I said, I will stand on a stage and I will take every single arrow. It's fine.
My arms will be wide.

Speaker 2 I'll give it to me.

Speaker 4 I will gladly take every single arrow

Speaker 4 if that means that a couple people behind me are protected,

Speaker 4 but still be able to come from the sides and explore their own curiosity. It's super, it's super important.

Speaker 4 I think it takes a special type of person and also it takes a specific vigor and tenacity to kind of stand there and take the arrows to be able to take it.

Speaker 4 And I think it's important that people like us who have, who are so blessed with this platform and just even have people listening, that we don't take it for granted and we don't waste it, you know?

Speaker 4 And so I feel like, I don't know, I just feel like, I'm so grateful that you came here.

Speaker 2 I'm so

Speaker 3 me too. And I want to know, like, so safe for people that are listening, maybe they don't know where to find you and they are wanting to find you, where kind of lead them in the direction.

Speaker 3 Where can they find you?

Speaker 2 So there's a, depending on your interest, there's a bunch of things. So all of my social media platforms are Monty Mater, M-O-N-T-E, M-A-D-E-R.

Speaker 2 And if you're just looking for kind of a lot of more current events and Christian nationalism, how it relates to that, Instagram is really the baby for that.

Speaker 2 But I have a podcast all about American history, Deconstruction. Really, I bring in theologians, I bring in authors, doctors of history, and it's called Flipping Tables.

Speaker 2 And it's really about, can we sit with the question? I also teach, and these are my gift. I wanted to have something that I always did for free that was my gift to people.

Speaker 2 And I teach scholarly Bible studies where I just

Speaker 2 present information. And we deal with questions.
So we deal with like the Bible and the LGBTQ. Well, what does it actually say? What's the historical context? We talk about the Bible and women.

Speaker 2 We've talked about the divinity of Jesus and the history of the church in that way. And I just present information and I take a QA and I just say, hey, I'm not asking you to change your belief.

Speaker 2 Here's the information. How do you feel about that? And those are always free.

Speaker 3 So where can people get that at?

Speaker 2 So if you go to my Instagram, it's on my website, but it's also, if you go to my link tree, it's a crowdcast, but it's live. We do two a month.

Speaker 2 Always free. And the replays are up for 24 hours so people can watch them if they can't attend.
And it's just my gift. to people because I always want to, it's very easy.

Speaker 2 And I've been a small business owner before this and I've been a musician for a long time that it gets easy to get egocentric when you're doing your own business. right? Right.

Speaker 2 It's like my stuff, my stuff, my bills, my this. So for me, I was like, okay, how do I make sure that I'm always decentering myself and giving back?

Speaker 2 And that was, that's my thing, is those studies to just so important.

Speaker 4 So important.

Speaker 2 And I mean, we, I did a two-part series on what I called the making of biblical womanhood, really talking about scripture and women.

Speaker 2 The second study, I had 3,000 people attend. You

Speaker 2 know, that's awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 That is awesome.

Speaker 2 My community is just incredible. And it's just this huge mix of people where I'm like, can we sit with the question? That is awesome.
So those are really my babies.

Speaker 2 I also do a weekly newsletter you can find on my website about current events, current action items, because a lot of people are like, I want to help. I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 I try to lay that out in a newsletter.

Speaker 4 You also do really good at saying how to get information.

Speaker 4 Which I like, there's a code.

Speaker 2 There's a code.

Speaker 2 Can you tell people about that?

Speaker 2 Which code? Which one?

Speaker 4 The one that where you get all the news and it's like.

Speaker 2 Oh, ground News.

Speaker 4 Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so that is,

Speaker 2 I'll just share it here for sure.

Speaker 2 So, Ground News is an app that I use. Obviously, the news is so overwhelming right now.
There's 18,000 horrific headlines every day.

Speaker 2 So, what Ground News does is it's an app that assembles all of the news sources on a particular story and combines them so you can find them in one place.

Speaker 2 You can also go to each source, it tells you what the bias rating of the source is, who owns the source,

Speaker 2 and what their factuality rating is. So, you can get really accurate information quickly.
Good. And you can also build a for you page there

Speaker 2 where you can customize what topics you really want to be following.

Speaker 2 So you'll still get the breaking news page, but then you have a for you page where you can follow these because things get buried in the news cycle.

Speaker 4 Especially in this day and age, there's so much misinformation.

Speaker 2 So much misinformation.

Speaker 4 I thought that was super important.

Speaker 2 And because so many people are getting their information on social media, which I'm participating in as well,

Speaker 2 always, always go to sources because social media is not governed by laws of factuality the way that media is. The reason that Fox News, after they had their $787 billion lawsuit,

Speaker 2 the reason they reclassified themselves as entertainment

Speaker 2 is so that they're not accountable to the legal laws that bind news sources to report factual information. Wow.

Speaker 4 They let them get away with so many lawsuits.

Speaker 2 The reason they got fined that much was because when they pushed the stolen election narrative, they knew it wasn't true.

Speaker 2 And when discovery for that court case happened, they found out that top executives knew it was false and decided to push it anyway, which violated those news laws.

Speaker 2 So then Fox reclassified themselves as an entertainment channel so that they're not beholden to those laws. But other news sources are still beholden to those laws.

Speaker 2 So when you hear something on social media, go to a place like Ground News or go to a news source and check it because social media has no legal accountability to tell you the truth.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they can say what they're saying.

Speaker 4 I didn't know about Ground News until I saw you post about it. I'm like, oh my gosh, this should, people should be screaming about this Ground News thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and you can go, if you want to use my discount code it's groundnews.com slash monty you'll get 40 off their vantage plan it's five bucks a month it's so worth it it's so worth it like my favorite thing is being able to see the bias distribution and i can immediately see who's reporting it they also have a feature called blind spot where you can find articles that are or stories that are either getting just not reported or they're not being reported by left-leaning sources or they're not being reported by right-leaning sources.

Speaker 2 So a lot of things I would have no knowledge about unless I went to the blind spot feature. I find interesting.

Speaker 3 Well, that's good. Yeah, that's very good to know.

Speaker 2 A lot of sneaky news. So, always, always, always fact-check.
Always go to a news source. I know that there's a lot of distrust in legacy media, and I don't blame people.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But they are still bound by those laws, which gives you a little bit of a buffer that they can only sell you so much misinformation without getting a lawsuit. Right.
So, that's important.

Speaker 3 And then, one more thing, too. Your podcast, your podcast flipping tables, can every is that available on all platforms?

Speaker 2 Yep,

Speaker 2 everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 3 That is awesome. Monty, I want to thank you so much.
Thank you. Tyler was like over the moon excited.

Speaker 2 Thank you. And you're a fan girl on over here.

Speaker 2 So excited.

Speaker 4 I wrote you on Instagram and I was like, she's never going to answer me.

Speaker 2 She's got so many people that are going to, but I do need to get better about my message requests. But thank you for having me.
And thank you for having it in person.

Speaker 2 Like not just flying me up here and putting me up in a great hotel, but like just having the conversation. Like,

Speaker 2 oh my goodness, this is. food for my soul, but it's also so important that people like sit with each other.
And you're doing it. You're facilitating that with what you do.

Speaker 2 And I'm really appreciative of that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I just want to let you know that I definitely learned a lot from you today, and it was very intriguing.

Speaker 3 I hope that everybody listened.

Speaker 2 I love it. I love it.

Speaker 3 And I hope that you know you guys can follow Monty and reach out to her if you're curious. And I hope somebody learned something today.
That's what's important.

Speaker 3 And make sure you guys follow, like, and review our show. And we will catch you guys again next week.

Speaker 2 Yeah, love you guys

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Speaker 2 Hey, never.

Speaker 7 Hi, I'm Adam Rappon, and this is Intrusive Thoughts, the podcast where I finally say the stuff out loud that's been living rent-free in my head for years.

Speaker 7 From dumb decisions to awkward moments, I probably should have kept to myself, nothing's off-limits.

Speaker 7 Yes, I'm talking about the time I lost my phone mid-flight and still haven't truly emotionally recovered from that. There might be too many sound effects.
I've been told to chill. Will I?

Speaker 7 Unclear. But if you've ever laid awake at night cringing at something you said five years ago, congratulations, you found your people.

Speaker 7 Intrusive Thoughts with Adam Rappon is available now wherever you get your podcasts.