Jane Coaston: He's So Not a Badass

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovny, and Carise Van Houten.

Speaker 4 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 9 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 8 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 11 Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm coming at you from my parents' basement for the next four days. So, you know, enjoy that.

Speaker 11 I'm delighted to be here today with Jane Koston. You might know her, contributing opinion writer to the New York Times.
She wrote recently for The Atlantic about nudity, and she's a friend of the pod.

Speaker 11 Jane, welcome back.

Speaker 12 Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be back.
And hello to your parents' basement.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you know,

Speaker 11 it's going to be interesting down here. You know, if I have any trauma, if there are any sort of, there's trauma tears or anything, any flashbacks happening, everybody's just got to be patient with me

Speaker 11 because a lot of times you see a picture and you're like, whoa, I forgot how awkward I was at age 17.

Speaker 12 Yeah, your parents' basement always remembers. Like, you forget, but your parents' basement remembers.

Speaker 11 Correct. Correct.
Our topic list today is really just it's a parade of horribles, a parade of comedy, and I think we're going to enjoy ourselves.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately, we have to start with the douchebags at the All-In podcast. For people who don't know the all-in gang, it is David Ball Sacks, Chamath,

Speaker 11 and then two other guys. And they're Silicon Valley tech people.
And they started a pod. They're contrarian tech bros who have decided to support Donald Trump.

Speaker 11 They held a fundraiser for Donald Trump recently. And in exchange, Donald Trump graced them with his presence on their podcast.
So I want to play one clip from it in particular.

Speaker 11 But Jane, do you have any high-level view on, you know, the Silicon Valley Trump bro phenomenon and why these guys are much more prominent than in 2016 and in 2020?

Speaker 12 I think it is speaking to, actually Matt Stoller wrote a piece about this. Now, granted, I think the piece has that, but the wallet inspector never came back with my wallet vibes.

Speaker 12 But he's like, you know, in 2016, Trump talked about like combating big business and like talking about, you know, rooting for the little guys.

Speaker 12 And then in 2020 and 2024, he's not talking about that at all. And I'm like, hmm.

Speaker 12 Hmm.

Speaker 12 Interesting. So to me, this is tethered to that.

Speaker 12 Also, the idea that Donald Trump, I think, smartly recognizes that if he repeats back the thing that the person clearly wants him to say, everybody's happy with him.

Speaker 11 Yeah, well, I'm going to get to the repeating back thing because that is where we're going next. But there's one other element to this that I think is there, which is just fatigue.

Speaker 11 And like in 2016, among the kind of progressive denizens of Silicon Valley, where I used to live, there was just this huge outrage at Donald Trump. He can only be outraged at something for so long.

Speaker 11 And so I'm not sure that the oligarchs, the people at the top of the chain, you know, with the exception of our friend Reid Hoffman, who wrote a wonderful rebuttal to David Balsacks, which I'll put in the show notes.

Speaker 11 I'm not sure that many of the oligarchs actually really hated Trump that much, you know, because they are in their, you know, castles of prosperity.

Speaker 11 They have many moats around them that will prevent them from any dangers of Donald Trump. But they were responding to a bottom-up.
revolt, right?

Speaker 11 And the bottom-up revolt from the people that worked for them.

Speaker 11 And they were like, oh my God, if I don't speak out against Donald Trump, you know, then I won't be able to recruit people and there'll be this huge backlash against me.

Speaker 11 And what they found out was like, nah, actually, that isn't really true. People will be mad for a little while and then they'll go on with their lives.

Speaker 11 And so now I'm kind of free to, you know, let my freak flag fly and support this guy who will obviously give me whatever I want as long as I give him money. That's how I would sum it up.

Speaker 12 I have a theory that wherever you are, the most irritating people around you will help to direct where your political ire is aimed. This is a great thing.
And I've noticed this.

Speaker 12 There are a couple of outlets where I'm like, this is very much, I am surrounded by the most irritating leftists imaginable.

Speaker 12 Ergo, I am furious at the left. You know, I did not grow up surrounded by irritating leftists.
I grew up in Ohio. in the 90s.

Speaker 12 I would have, that was not what we had. I don't think they made irritating Ohio leftists until like, what, 2013?

Speaker 11 Yeah, there were one or two, maybe. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Tough times out there for them.

Speaker 12 Because I think that if you are the all-in podcast or you are someone who, you know, you live in Manhattan or you live in like a big coastal city, you do not experience the outrages of the right except sort of like tangentially.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 12 You experience the most annoying liberals you have ever heard of in your entire life. And they are like literally next door to you.

Speaker 12 But, and I think that this is why like I would love to hear what the all-in podcast would be like if the all-in podcast were based in like

Speaker 12 Kansas City.

Speaker 11 Shreveport.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And it just is like, that's not, I think that this is more about like regional difference in some ways in terms of like what you consider to be the threat.

Speaker 12 Because understandably, if you are in a city in which Republicans or conservatism has basically no inroads, and if you are in a city in which the conservatism that exists in Louisiana or Missouri or Iowa or Utah has

Speaker 12 no entree,

Speaker 12 then it will not be as worrying to you personally as the liberalism that is very annoying to you and exists in San Francisco and Manhattan.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's the ultimate reverse partisanship argument.

Speaker 11 Okay, well, if you have friends that are like this in your life, later on in this podcast, we are going to play some audio from some of the worst people in MAGA world.

Speaker 11 So maybe show that to them, expose them a little bit to what's happening.

Speaker 11 I always want to offer to Republican donors, like I will take you on a tour of TP USA events and Donald Trump events.

Speaker 11 I will go with you. We will bring a bodyguard and we will just go there and just hang out for 48 hours.
And if you still want these people to run the country after that, then that's fine.

Speaker 11 And I think that that would be a worthwhile service for someone to provide.

Speaker 11 I want to play one clip from this podcast. It's the only news in it.
These guys were just like, Donald Trump, why is the border such a problem? And why was the economy so much better under you?

Speaker 11 It was not a hard-hitting interview, but they accidentally made one piece of news on the issue of green cards. I apologize.

Speaker 11 We're going to have to listen to a full minute of the all-in douchebags in Donald Trump, but it's important. So let's take a listen.

Speaker 13 We need to recruit the best and brightest from the world. Every time we get somebody super intelligent from India or Europe, any country,

Speaker 11 sir.

Speaker 13 Yeah, and three of the four here are immigrants,

Speaker 13 the ones without the ties.

Speaker 13 And we can get these great people into our country, and that's a loss for our adversaries and our competitors and it's a gain for us but I've never heard you talk about this.

Speaker 13 Can you please promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America?

Speaker 14 I do promise, but I happen to agree. That's why I promise.
Otherwise, I wouldn't promise.

Speaker 14 Let me just tell you that it's so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also.

Speaker 14 And what I wanted to do, and I would have done this, but then we had to solve the COVID problem because that came in and, you know, sort of dominated for a little while, as you perhaps know.

Speaker 14 But what I want to do, and what I will do, is you graduate from a college. I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card.

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 11 on the face of it, a good policy, but there are a lot of things underneath the surface. So, Jane, why don't you take the first swing at that?

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 12 One, I maintain that lesser colleges that are still phenomenal colleges is a funny lie.

Speaker 11 Like Fordham, like, you know, where he went.

Speaker 12 It is, uh, yeah, you know. The Rams.

Speaker 12 One,

Speaker 12 what he is proposing is a visa that sort of already kind of exists, like the highly skilled, high-talent visa. That is a real thing.
As a side note, if you explore the world of

Speaker 12 high-level visas, they're like the visas for like extremely talented people.

Speaker 12 Do you remember like when Justin Bieber was getting into a bunch of trouble and people were like launched a change.org petition to get his visa rescinded because he had like a special one for

Speaker 12 being highly talented or something? So there are multiple types of visas. So this sort of exists.

Speaker 12 The replies to this on Twitter, I will never call it the other thing, were so funny because all of these people,

Speaker 12 that's the thing with Trump that is weird and confusing to anyone who has any political consistency whatsoever or the memory of longer than like 45 minutes.

Speaker 12 Because all of the people who were like, we got to close the border and stop legal immigration, like the people who were like, Stephen Miller, that guy doesn't seem terrifying.

Speaker 12 All of these people replying, like, oh, this is so good, so based. I love it.
And I'm just like,

Speaker 12 so you think it would be an amazing policy? One, I love that Trump was like, Harvard, amazing school.

Speaker 12 And all of these people who have spent the last four months pretending like Harvard is like evil backwater, we're like, yeah.

Speaker 12 Like, if you are a

Speaker 12 student on a student visa and you attend Harvard, and when you graduate from Harvard, you just get a green card, like the immigration restrictionist pretzel that would put immigration restrictionists in, if there was any need for logical consistency, would be very funny.

Speaker 12 And yet, all of these people are like, yeah, it's amazing. And I'm like,

Speaker 12 this is exactly the thing that you said said you were mad about. Like, he literally did the thing of just being like, I do promise because I agree with you.

Speaker 12 I remember that early in like 2017, there was this thing of like, what if Nancy Pelosi just started suggesting things and complimenting Trump a lot?

Speaker 12 Like, you know, you could have gotten universal health care or something. I don't think that was really true because the people actually put in charge of the Trump administration were not like that.

Speaker 12 But it is interesting how he will promise anything, absolutely absolutely anything, and then he will put Stephen Miller in charge of it.

Speaker 12 And every, and like Stephen Miller is like, you know, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 didn't go far enough.

Speaker 12 I've been trying to think more about Donald Trump, less in anything he says and more about what he does or promises to do.

Speaker 12 And not just like promises to do on a podcast, but like policy positions that are put out.

Speaker 12 Because I feel like that's the closest we will get to actually understanding what he would do as actual president, because he keeps doing this thing where he pretends like he wasn't president.

Speaker 12 Like, I don't know if you saw, he fakes that there was a conspiracy around the assassination of JFK. And I'm like, sir,

Speaker 12 you were president.

Speaker 12 There's like all the people who are allowed to know the ins and outs of the assassination of JFK,

Speaker 12 you're like, you are one of the people. That's you.
Like there's such a weird tabula rasa effect happening again, which he did very successfully in 2016.

Speaker 12 But now he's doing it again of being like, the four four years I was president, I don't know what you're talking about. Made up, not real, but like

Speaker 12 it is

Speaker 12 interesting only in that he will say anything and then he will put Stephen Miller in charge. And Stephen Miller absolutely 100% does not think that if you went to Yale, you should get a green card.

Speaker 11 No, absolutely he doesn't. And do you know how we know that? Because Stephen Miller was in charge of the fucking immigration regime for four years.
It's like, are these four guys,

Speaker 11 these four douches, like, are they this gullible when they meet with VC founders who come to them and they're like, I'm going to invent the next great AI widget. Like, you should give me $100 million.

Speaker 11 Like, how gullible do you have to be?

Speaker 11 Trump was in charge of the immigration regime for four years and he throws this aside out where he's like, well, you know, we wanted to do this, but COVID happened. Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 11 COVID resulted in actually a ton of immigration changes. Like

Speaker 11 your administration cracked down in draconian ways on immigration of all kinds, legal and illegal. That's what you did.
You could have changed.

Speaker 11 You could have also said over the course of those changes that people with a college degree who test negative for COVID can get a green card.

Speaker 11 Like you could have done anything you wanted, but you have fucking Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica gobbles running your thing. And like these four guys are just like, yo, yeah, great point, Mr.

Speaker 11 Trump. Great point, Mr.
Trump.

Speaker 12 It's amusing to me only in I wonder what you could get Trump to agree with if you just complimented him a lot on a podcast. Well, and gave him money.

Speaker 11 The complimenting and gave him money. These guys all gave him money and he switched on the TikTok band too.
It's the same thing. He flipped on the TikTok band because some rich guy gave him money.

Speaker 12 He is pretending he cares a lot about crypto, which, again,

Speaker 12 I think that we need to get my dude, Jonathan Swan, to ask Donald Trump, what is cryptocurrency?

Speaker 12 Because the three minutes that would follow would be like what it would sound like if you watched a cat fall down the stairs. Like, it would be true dissembling.

Speaker 12 But it's like, I think that that's the challenge that, and I think a couple, you know, there have been some smart writing on this, is that Trump somehow manages to pretend as if he exists in a world of eternal possibility and non-reality.

Speaker 12 This is not true. He was actually president.
We were all there because I am, you know, in my 30s and I am not five. This all happened.
We were all there. He was president.

Speaker 12 Here are the things that took place while he was president.

Speaker 12 And the idea that you can just memory wipe all of that and pretend as if he exists again as a tabula rasa upon which you can project all of your greatest hopes and dreams is bizarre.

Speaker 12 It is the most giving your wallet to the wallet inspector thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Like

Speaker 12 there are so many things that he actually did and he actually

Speaker 12 supported.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 it is interesting to see again and again how the things he did and things he actually supported exist like in this weird time warp.

Speaker 12 Like the bump stock ban, which I wrote back when it happened in, I think, 2018, like ATF was like, I don't think we can do this.

Speaker 12 Like everybody within the government essentially was like, I do not think we can actually do this. Late senator Diane Feinstein was like, I don't think this is legal.
Like we just cannot do this.

Speaker 12 And Trump was like, we'll do it. And then obviously the Supreme Court shuts it down.

Speaker 12 And so we now have, you know, we've had, I think, someone, you know, write legislation being like, well, Republicans, you all said this was a great idea. We should ban bump stocks.

Speaker 12 Like, this is a thing Congress can do. So many times the Supreme Court is like, hello, we are the Supreme Court.

Speaker 11 And then now the Republicans are like, what are you talking about? Trump would be this. This wasn't us.
This was the Libs that did this.

Speaker 12 No, no. And I'm like, but it was you saying this.
And they're like, I don't know. I blacked out for four years.
If they just would say, like, I don't know. I blacked out the entire Trump term.

Speaker 12 I'd be like, you know,

Speaker 12 I get it.

Speaker 12 It would just be like how, you know, David Bowie had absolutely no memory of doing the station to station album he was just like great album no memory of it and everybody's like all right checks out like

Speaker 11 let's not compare Marco Rubio's brain fog to David Bowie all right like we're

Speaker 12 extending uh this metaphor a little far I'm just saying I would respect that more than to just pretend as if the entire Trump administration like to say all of these things during the Trump term and I'll come back now and just be like I don't know what you're talking about and then pretend again that he is this tabula rousa upon which you can project a immigration regime that cares about you, specifically Guyon Podcast, and cryptocurrency.

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Speaker 2 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 9 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 7 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 11 There's been a lot of chatter about the black voter and how Donald Trump is potentially making some inroads there, or maybe Joe Biden's just struggling with black voters.

Speaker 11 And I particularly wanted your insight on one element of this. There's a poll out a couple of days ago of black voters over 50, Biden was at 82%, Trump was at 8%.

Speaker 11 That's essentially in the margin of error from what happened in 2020. Among 18 to 49-year-olds, Biden is at 62%,

Speaker 11 62. Trump is at 25%.

Speaker 11 And that's an absolutely sea change from what we saw in 2020. So, the question I have for you is: do we think, is there something wrong with the polling?

Speaker 11 Are they just, you know, it's hard to pull young black people? Like, there are certain demographic groups that's hard to pull. I've talked about this before.

Speaker 11 It's very hard to pull Spanish-speaking Hispanics. For a while, it was hard to pull Trump supporters, then they started to brag to pollsters.
So, you know, there was a change there.

Speaker 11 Maybe that demo is just hard to pull. Maybe Trump is a tabula rasa for them, right? Because they're younger.
They didn't pay that close of attention last time. Maybe it's economic, right?

Speaker 11 That they're struggling struggling more with, you know, dealing with inflation than folks that had savings. I don't know.
Do you have any theories of the case on this?

Speaker 12 Well, I'd be interested to see what the gender breakdown is. I read about this in 2020.
If you look at 2016 exit polling, 13% of black men voted for Trump. 4% of black women did.

Speaker 12 My favorite number of this is that 1% of black women in the state of Pennsylvania voted for Trump, which I believe means you could fit all of the black women in the state of Pennsylvania who voted for Trump into one room.

Speaker 12 And in 2020, the exit polling was about 19% of black men voted for Trump, 9% of black women did. And so there's been a long-running gender gap among support for Donald Trump among African Americans.

Speaker 12 That's just a thing that has existed for many reasons. So I would be very interested to see what that breakdown would look like, especially even over 50 and 18 to 49.

Speaker 12 I also think that polling is often,

Speaker 12 we treat it as being forward-looking, but i think it's more like it's a picture in time it's a picture in time and it is to me this is reflective of soft biden support not necessarily strong trump support these people you know people are attempting to send a message i'm not going to do the thing of like the polling needs to be unskewed or something like that i am saying like i think that this polling is reflective of trying to send a message not necessarily a predictor of the future.

Speaker 12 I will also say, this is a side note, it drives me kind of nuts when when activist groups look at polling like this and are like, wow, it would be so funny that the thing we care about the most is the thing that we are going to decide is what people care about in this polling.

Speaker 12 That's not a thing. Like, I do not think that if Biden did a specific thing that an activist group wanted him to do, that this polling would change that much.

Speaker 11 Criminal justice reform or Gaza or reparations.

Speaker 12 That's not necessarily how this works. Like, let's keep in mind also that

Speaker 12 if you care a lot about an issue, that means you are way more well-informed about the issue, whatever it is, than 96% of the human race. So I think

Speaker 12 it's important to think about this for me as reflective of a moment in time, as a picture, as a here is a piece of information, not necessarily a forward-looking

Speaker 12 prediction. And I think that that's something, like, you're seeing this from,

Speaker 12 I was about to say conservatives, but I'm like, eh, that's unfair because I think that like what we're seeing this is from like the weirdo right, the people who are like, oh, black people love Trump because black people love criminals.

Speaker 12 Yeah, that's a, that's racist, just to be clear.

Speaker 12 And it is interesting how this idea of like, oh, it's because Trump is, you know, he's a badass or something like that.

Speaker 12 And I'm like, one, of the people who are badass, Trump is like so far down on the list. So far down.

Speaker 11 Can you imagine if Trump was punched? I mean, I always like to bring up my favorite video of Trump where he gets scared of the bird, scared of the eagle. He goes to bite it.

Speaker 12 It's like, understandably, eagles, if you've ever seen like a hawk or eagle in very close proximity, they're much bigger and scarier looking than you think.

Speaker 11 But I mean, he handled it like not like that.

Speaker 12 No, he did not. He did not handle it well.
But I think like it's interesting also because you see, like

Speaker 12 something that I always am really bothered by personally

Speaker 12 is a view of African Americans that is as uncharitable as that while attempting to pretend as if you are supporting African Americans. I don't, there was a piece in the Miami New Times.

Speaker 12 Well, it was actually an ad. There's a great Axios piece on this.

Speaker 12 The ad got pulled, but it basically was a pro-Trump ad from a group called Blacks for Trump, which, if you recall, perhaps, one of the members of which may have been involved in some light murder alleged.

Speaker 12 It is linked to a group, black Hebrew Israelites, which

Speaker 12 are

Speaker 12 not great people in many respects. But this ad was essentially like, yo, Trump is a criminal, he's our criminal, he's just like us, and it uses the N-word a bunch of times.

Speaker 12 And the Miami, people were like, how did this ad get in? But like, that to me is indicative of how some on the right have

Speaker 12 such low views of African Americans writ large. that a person

Speaker 12 doing something

Speaker 12 in every way, like I even remember this before Trump became a convicted felon. The idea that African Americans would find

Speaker 12 commonality in Trump because he had an affair and had sex with a woman who wasn't his wife. Because, you know, that's a thing black people love to do.

Speaker 11 Yeah, white people don't do that. It's a very black thing.

Speaker 12 It's famously not a white people thing. But I think that that is to me indicative of

Speaker 12 a very disturbing view among some on the right of African Americans as being essentially like

Speaker 12 I mean it's the same way that I talked about this online that like the best way to become a very wealthy right-wing person is to be a right-wing minority who just says like incredibly stupid things and then people will just be like oh

Speaker 12 but she's black so it's okay like Candace is back to beating us in the pod ratings now that she's back so you know please send this podcast to your friends so we can we can no longer be getting beaten by Candace yeah it's i mean i think that that's something like the bigotry of low expectations is really it's this is what it looks like when it is african americans are

Speaker 11 some african americans and i would argue probably some african american men are probably going to vote for trump and i'm going to guess that they're not voting for trump on the basis of he's a criminal just like me like come on well this is the funny thing about this like to me it's like the most obvious reason for this is well there's some cultural elements i think the base view of this might be that there is like some kind of machismo element, which explains the gender gap that helps Trump appeal to young men of all races.

Speaker 11 It's not unique to black races, but it's why Trump's doing better among young men. There is kind of this machismo, some progressives might call it toxic masculinity.

Speaker 12 I mean, men in general tend to be currently more conservative, more socially conservative than women in general.

Speaker 12 And like it's very clear if you spend any time on like right-wing Twitter as how much people, the degree of hate right-wing Twitter has for white liberal women,

Speaker 12 whom they believe genuinely to be the source of all evil. But like the gender gap exists across races, just in a general fact.

Speaker 12 So to me, like this is not surprising exactly.

Speaker 11 And to me, it's like the funny thing about it all for me is like the obvious answer to this is, well, there's some gender gap to it. And there is some legitimate inflation.

Speaker 11 If you look, there was another poll out this week that was like, I don't have right in front of me, but I believe it was, Trump is winning among people who say that they are struggling financially 60 to 28 or something like that.

Speaker 11 And it's the inverse amount of people who are saying they're fine or that they're doing better, they're doing well.

Speaker 11 And like younger black voters are not doing as well financially as other demos, right? Like that's just a fact, right?

Speaker 11 So I do think that some of this is just simply inflation has hit working class communities harder. Disproportionately, you know, that is a lot of black communities.

Speaker 11 And so there's some percentage of voters that are frustrated with the economy.

Speaker 11 and as a result they're looking around for another solution besides Biden maybe they'll come home and in the meantime the Trump people are seeing this data set that's like very obvious they're like you know why they really like us because we're criminals because we're outlaws we got to bring up we should bring rappers who killed people up on stage to help do it even better with this group I mean I there's some comedy in in that I mean it's a dark yeah there is I mean especially because it is interesting that they're like, it couldn't possibly be because of like an actual policy issue.

Speaker 12 It has to be because of the thing that this guy did that is why he's a felon now.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it also has to be an ego boost. Like, it's because we're such badass, like we're rebels.
We're the rebels without a cause now. Okay, speaking of

Speaker 11 MAGA white men who think that they're rebels, we've had a segment here. I don't know if you, if you've caught it, I think I kicked it off after your last visit, but it's called The Right Stuff.

Speaker 11 I love that.

Speaker 11 You know, Johnny McIntyre, of course, course, the deputy president, the head of the right stuff, the right-wing dating site, the guy that's going to be in charge of hiring in the next Trump administration.

Speaker 12 I do know, if I recall, UConn quarterback, great and trick shot, Maven.

Speaker 11 Correct. That's a good pull.

Speaker 11 One thing I think when we've done these segments, I might not have made clear to the audio listeners of this podcast is these videos that I play, the conceit on TikTok is that Johnny is sitting there eating.

Speaker 11 He's at a restaurant. And so the conceit is that he is on a date.
And this is a POV video. And the POV is you and the camera are on the date with Johnny.
And he's talking.

Speaker 11 So I just, I think that's important context as we hear these clips. Let's hear Johnny talk about trans fats on a date with an imaginary person.
It's funny how things change.

Speaker 11 10 years ago, everyone was scared of trans fats. But now everybody celebrates fat trans.

Speaker 11 Do you get that one? Do you get the joke there?

Speaker 11 He really tickled himself.

Speaker 12 You know, it's a good sign when you start laughing after your own joke. I do that, and usually it's because the joke is bad, but it amused me.

Speaker 12 I do not want to go on a date with this person.

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 11 Here's a little more evidence. You might want to go on a date with him for your health purposes.
Let's hear a recent take that he had about the vaccine.

Speaker 11 If the vaccine was so great, why is it so easy to find people who regret taking it, but not a single person who regrets not taking it?

Speaker 11 I guess it's true that you can't interview Herman Cain. No.

Speaker 12 No, there are lots of people who I think would probably regret not having the vaccine, but, you know, when we get the means by which we can communicate beyond the veil, well, then we'll get to it.

Speaker 12 You know.

Speaker 11 I met a medium at a recent wedding that I was at, and so maybe we could bring her into the process. That would be so helpful.

Speaker 12 I'm sure Herman Cain has a lot to say.

Speaker 11 Through the expanse of time. These guys are such douchebags.
On the one hand, there's the scary element to this.

Speaker 11 This is the person that's going to be hiring people, an appointment for Project 2025 and the Schedule F reclassification. Then there's the part of me that's like, how is this race tied?

Speaker 11 Like, how does this appeal to people? How are half the country appeal to this fucking idiot douchebag?

Speaker 12 I think think that the best thing we can do is combine concern, action, and laughter.

Speaker 12 Because it's like every time I see somebody like Jack Pesobiak, who helped to foment the Seth Rich conspiracy theory that has made his parents' lives a living hell, his parents and brothers' lives a living hell, do anything, ever.

Speaker 12 Like the whole like white boy summer thing at TP USA, which is...

Speaker 11 Please explain for our listeners what white boy summer is.

Speaker 12 Okay, so Turning Point USA is, you know, they have their big youth conference, which if you look in the audience, there is no youth.

Speaker 12 Everyone, the average age at this conference appeared to be, what, like 34?

Speaker 11 Older. Well, so this is just important context for somebody who's had to suffer through many of these.

Speaker 11 It's one of these conferences where like there's a room where people sit and listen to these horrible, obnoxious speeches where people make jokes even worse than the trans fat joke that we just started to suffer through.

Speaker 11 And the people that sit in the room are like grandparents' age, not 34. Yes.
The median age in the room listening to the speech is like 66. Nothing wrong with 66-year-old.

Speaker 11 We appreciate everybody who's listening who's 66, but it's a youth conference. So that's a little, it's a little concerning.

Speaker 11 Then out in the hall, there are like little like 20-year-old Hitler youth who are trying to, like, boys who are like trying to sleep with the 20% of girls who attend.

Speaker 11 And so, like, that's essentially what's happening here, just for context.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And every year

Speaker 12 they have actual white nationalists who try to come and then they get thrown out because they're actual white nationalists.

Speaker 12 And then the white nationalists complain, which I'm amused by because I'm like, you're a white nationalist. Imagine that life.
But also, your biggest dream is to get into a TPUSA event.

Speaker 12 I am apparently, I'm sure I've told you this, Tim, I am apparently on the banned list from TPUSA events, and it has bothered me not at all.

Speaker 12 It is also interesting how, you know, they keep trying to throw Nick Fuentes out of these events, but on the same hand they keep like Charlie Kirk keeps saying gripery things about great replacement and pretty much with the idea that like you know white nationalism has bad PR but if you just say similar things it's fine.

Speaker 12 But so Jack Pesobiac at this conference is waving this like white boy summer flag which I really think that Tom Hanks' son should sue over that.

Speaker 12 But it was just funny because you look in the crowd, and as you said, it is a bunch of 66 grandparents watching some dude wearing sunglasses waving a white boy summer flag.

Speaker 12 And I was like, this is embarrassing. This is embarrassing on every level for everyone involved.

Speaker 11 It is, indeed, embarrassing. We have a couple more embarrassing things to talk about.
Which one do I want to do first?

Speaker 11 We'll end with your article on the nudes internet and the slow sexualization of everything online.

Speaker 11 And for people who don't want to hear about the nudes internet and Jane talking about labias, you can fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, because we have some great questions from you guys.

Speaker 11 And I'm keeping Jane from the mailbag.

Speaker 11 But I want to do two minutes on the Caitlin Clark discourse, if you will, before we get to the news internet, because these are also some of the worst people in the world.

Speaker 11 And so it's a nice transition. There was a social media post that went viral.

Speaker 11 There have been many social media posts like this, but there was one in particular that I want to read to you because I think it really hits everything on the head. This one received 5,000

Speaker 11 retweets and had 9 million something views.

Speaker 11 Those numbers are kind of skewed, but even still, 5,000 people saw this one, they were like, I agree with this enough that I want my followers to also see this. Here it goes.

Speaker 11 For those who are unaware, here's what's going on with Caitlin Clark. She's a straight white woman in a league of mostly bitter black women and a lot of black lesbians.

Speaker 11 The media has told black women for months Clark is popular only because she's straight and white. The black women are now bullying, assaulting, and smearing her.

Speaker 11 And the mostly black basketball media is defending the black mean girls and asking Clark to defend the women attacking her.

Speaker 11 You know, we also had Clay Clay Travis and many other of the Fox types sharing a similar meme that Caitlin Clark is being attacked because she's white. There's reverse racism.

Speaker 11 And unfortunately, now, finally, when women's basketball is gaining the interest of the public, because like other sports, it's got rivalries, it's got awesome players, it's got amazing shot making, it's got everything that you want in sports.

Speaker 11 The worst people in the world want to make this a race war. Right.

Speaker 12 It's a content thing. I was thinking about this because there's Caitlin Clark, the athlete, and I want to separate that out.
Caitlin Clark is a professional basketball player.

Speaker 12 She plays the sport of basketball. And there have been so many examples of people trying to generate content about her where I'm like, have you never seen a basketball game before?

Speaker 12 And I believe the answer is no.

Speaker 12 We see this all the time in which like when like right-wing or even left-wing commentariat try to talk about sports and I'm like, oh, so you've just never watched a game before in your life.

Speaker 11 Like Caitlin Clark gets fouled and they're like, whoa,

Speaker 11 this was an attack.

Speaker 12 Yeah, they're like, we should call the police. It is also funny for the same people who have been complaining about how soft American culture is, and now they're like, my baby.

Speaker 12 Someone, I saw someone being like, it is odd that people talk about Caitlin Clark like she's their daughter and not their 22-year-old daughter, their six-year-old daughter.

Speaker 12 But there's Caitlin Clark, the athlete. She's averaging 16.3 points a game, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists.
She's doing great. She's very doing great.

Speaker 12 She's playing professional basketball at a very high level on a team where people seem to forget also that, like,

Speaker 12 if you have a really high draft pick, that's not because you were so awesome. It's because the Indiana fever were very bad.
Right. And so, like, they've gone on a winning streak recently.

Speaker 12 That's great. Like, they're doing it.
I want to put her in the athlete box. The athlete is over here.

Speaker 11 It's fun to hang out over there. Like, that's fun.
It's fun to watch. It's inspiring.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Oh, my God.
Actual sports, it's amazing. Then there's Caitlin Clark with Tabula Rosa.
And I came up with this idea, you know, Tim, you're a college football person.

Speaker 12 Do you remember a man named Tim Thibault?

Speaker 11 Of course, yeah.

Speaker 12 So there's Tim Thibault, the college football player who won the Heisman, I believe, twice. Twice.

Speaker 12 And then played in the NFL for like a little bit, had one of the most astounding playoff wins, Broncos over Steelers, with one fantastic pass that caused John Elowway to like leap up and down for 15 minutes.

Speaker 11 That is cool. I can picture it in my head.
It all happened. Going right down the left sideline.
Yeah, it happened.

Speaker 12 And then, you know, kind of fizzled out of the NFL. He tried playing in Major League Baseball for a a minute.
Anyway, he's doing commentary now.

Speaker 12 He's actually very good at commentary. He works by the SEC network.
He's great.

Speaker 12 Then there was this thing which I called Tebowism,

Speaker 12 which was treating an athlete, not as an athlete, but as a symbol of something you've projected onto them.

Speaker 12 Everything mean that people say about that person is actually because of the thing you've projected onto him.

Speaker 12 So with Tim Thiebaud, it was like, you don't want him to succeed in the NFL because he's a Christian. And I'm like, like, there's no dearth of Christians in the NFL.
They do like prayer circles.

Speaker 12 It's a whole thing. Every game.
Like, literally,

Speaker 12 I would say if I had to guess,

Speaker 12 80%

Speaker 12 of NFL players are like either explicitly or tangentially Christian.

Speaker 11 And at least half of post-game interviews, thank God, at least, you know?

Speaker 12 Yeah, like you're thank God all the time. Everybody's thanking God.
Like, because God was like, hang on, I really got to make sure that you get this fourth and one.

Speaker 12 And there have been numerous times in which I'd be like, I believe the Lord did want us to convert that fourth and one.

Speaker 12 And you see this happening with Caitlin Clark, where a bunch of people see that, one, she's a content generator.

Speaker 12 And you even, you're starting to see, I think, smart people calling this that more and more often.

Speaker 12 There was like, you know, she had a shot blocked and somebody taked up and was like, why is this person being so mean?

Speaker 12 And like Trey Wingo, who used to be at the SPN, was like, you're just trying to get clicks because it's like, this is the sport of basketball. Caitlin Clark plays basketball.

Speaker 12 basketball she talks shit she plays hard she will go hard in the paint she goes inside outside like she does the sport that's the way it is that's why she's so good at it and i think that people in this content generation space have no tether to sports that's why you see all these people being like she should start her own league why

Speaker 12 because of content because you just want to say things for content Like people getting very mad that she isn't on the Olympic team when

Speaker 12 she was playing in the national championship game, so she couldn't try out for the Olympic team. And, you know, the WNBA does not run USA basketball, which is how the Olympic team is made.

Speaker 12 And you don't need to put somebody on the team just because you would generate content with people who don't watch sports. Like,

Speaker 12 it's insanity producing for people who care about sports. It is insanity producing for people who care about athletes.

Speaker 12 We keep doing this thing where like women's sports is a thing that we're allegedly very supportive of. But when women play sports, we get very like people don't know how to talk about it.

Speaker 12 But I think also treating Caitlin Clark, who is an actual person, an actual person who's playing in an actual league, an actual league that has lots of straight white women in it for the record, tons of straight white women and some queer white women.

Speaker 12 Yeah, some queer white women and some queer black women and some straight black women, because that's how many people are.

Speaker 12 Like treating this in this way that like she has no tether to any of this content generation nonsense like you know caitlin cart gets criticized or people aren't super into her because she's straight and white like what

Speaker 12 and so i think like this is the the perils of content generation

Speaker 12 as an avowed good sports center wants to talk about caitlin cart because she generates a lot of eyeballs And I think that that is,

Speaker 12 in many ways, such a challenge because, yes, more people are talking about women's basketball. That's great.
More people are talking about a sport. That's awesome.

Speaker 12 And more people are watching the sport and seeing the sport and that's great. But I think that

Speaker 12 what people are not doing is taking the sport seriously as a sport that is real. It really speaks to this idea that there are people and then there are women.
And those are two different things.

Speaker 11 Yeah, this is important. So just listeners,

Speaker 11 the way I'd sum that up, because I agree with everything you just said, is

Speaker 11 you don't have to play into this, right? If you're a white listener, there is no race war happening. There are a couple of basketball players.

Speaker 11 One happens to be white, one happens to be black, Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark that are both very good. Caitlin's probably a little better.
Angel's team was a little better when they were in college.

Speaker 11 That's why they won the championship.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 they're having a little feud.

Speaker 12 Yeah, and they have a rivalry, isn't it?

Speaker 11 They have a little rivalry. They're having a few.

Speaker 12 They enjoy it. That's what you do.

Speaker 11 Yeah, there's nothing. So you don't have to come to Caitlin's defense.
You don't have to try to spur racial animus over this. You don't have to pick a side.
You can just enjoy it.

Speaker 11 And that's my takeaway on this because it's wonderful.

Speaker 12 It should be good. Yeah.
And also, like, you are allowed to engage in one of the great joys of watching a sport, which is like random hateration. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Like, you can have an athlete that you just are like randomly. You get mad at and hate.
But, like, in sports ways, like, how I've been mad at

Speaker 12 former Pittsburgh Steeler, then Eric Jett, now retired. His daughter now plays basketball for Oregon State.

Speaker 12 Kima von O'Hoffen, I've been mad at him for 19 years because he tore Carson Palmer's ACL playoff game, wildcard game. Like, I've been mad about this for nearly two decades.

Speaker 12 If I saw Kim Ovon O'Hoffen, I'd be like, it's a pleasure to meet you. You're scum because you tore this guy's knee leg at me.
But that's what sports is.

Speaker 12 It's like, yeah, the joy of success and the thrill of victory, but sometimes it's just hateration. And as we learned from Kendrick Lamar, hateration can be kind of cool and awesome.

Speaker 11 We're not going to have time to get to Kendrick, unfortunately, but the Kendrick live concert from this week was

Speaker 11 one of the great cultural moments that we've had. I'm with you.
I hate you, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gobert, and Grayson Allen. And it has nothing to do with the fact that you're French or white or black.

Speaker 11 It's just that you're on the teams I don't like. And I didn't like the way that you acted in free agency.

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Speaker 11 I gotta get to the mailbag, but we do have to at least do one minute on the nudes internet. Because I think this is important.

Speaker 11 You wrote about this for the Atlantic, the slow sexualization of everything online. Why did you write about this? And just talk about what you think the evolution has been.

Speaker 11 There's always been porn on the internet, you might be aware. What do you think is different now?

Speaker 12 I think that the way in which sex is so tethered to content generation, I think in some ways the nudes internet is actually my strident plea against. the use of sex for content generation purposes.

Speaker 12 For example, like if you go on Twitter Twitter at any one time, there are like weirdos showing a video of women doing something and then yelling about how this is why Western women are failed or you see like kind of the weird red pill dudes, Andrew Tate, any number of sexual criminals.

Speaker 12 Like the way in which sex is wielded for content generation, for money, for power, but it has nothing to do with anyone actually getting laid at all, ever.

Speaker 12 And so I wrote about this because part of this is that like if you Tweeted anything

Speaker 12 You were you know, I tweeted about the great show alone which is like one of the few good reality shows It's like that in RuPaul's drag race alone is a show in which it's on the history channel and It is a show in which they leave people with a camera and like some supplies There's a supply list and you can figure out what you would take basically in like

Speaker 12 the

Speaker 12 most remote parts of Vancouver or any other place and they're far apart from each other. And they basically are like, there you go.

Speaker 12 And it is surprisingly fascinating because, you know, there's no like, oh, you have to complete a challenge. There's no teamwork.
It's just these people by themselves trying to survive.

Speaker 12 There's always like some guy who's like, I think I'm so tough. And then he makes it three days before bears bully him out, which actually happened on one season.

Speaker 12 There was a guy who was like, I'm never more than three feet away from a gun in my house. And a bear walked past his tent and he was like, I'm out.
Can't do it. Goodbye.
Please come get me.

Speaker 12 You know, there will always be somebody who makes it way further than you think they will, or someone you kind of kind of root for people. It's a really interesting show.

Speaker 12 Anyway, I tweeted about that in the replies. Full labia,

Speaker 12 full, straight-up labia. And I was like, wow, that's a lot.
And so, like, the prominence of porn bots has been written about on, you know, in many platforms, on the prominence of porn bots on Twitter.

Speaker 12 But I think I was getting at like

Speaker 12 how there is this way, one,

Speaker 12 you know, I was engaged in evangelical culture in the 90s and early 2000s at the peak of like purity culture, where the thing that I learned was that the most important thing you could do is not have sex.

Speaker 12 Sex is the worst thing you could possibly do. Second to having sex would be getting pregnant, which is actually the worst thing you could possibly do.

Speaker 12 The biggest crime you could ever commit in the history of time.

Speaker 12 And as a side note, I think that people have not looked into how much that messaging might impact how people feel about having kids like as adults when it's still like I was talking to a friend of mine about this, where you know, we find out that a friend of ours is having a baby, and there's like a moment where you're like, Oh no, oh wait, hang on, no, that's it's cool and good now, it's cool.

Speaker 11 This is our first main disagreement because I love babies and I'm a natalist, but please

Speaker 11 pure joy every time.

Speaker 12 I love babies, and I'm a huge fan, but there is just this moment where I, you know, if you spend the first like your entire puberty going up to like 22, having the idea of getting pregnant being like, we would would rather you committed murder like it would just be easier on all of us like if you like you know shot someone i feel like my high school would have handled that way better than like when one girl got pregnant and was like get out get out go hide hide somewhere we will never see you again

Speaker 12 it's been so weird to see this turn all based on content to you know we're all cheering for elon musk because he keeps impregnating people with whom he has no relationship you know women need to have babies right right now.

Speaker 12 There's nothing more important. It is so important that you are having sex.
And you're saying, like, there's a Catholic blogger who was like, you know,

Speaker 12 it's okay if you get pregnant before you get married. It's just weird that Catholic women don't think that.
And I'm like, oh my God.

Speaker 12 And so I was writing about this in a way because it is about

Speaker 12 content generation and it's about the wielding of sex. And the wielding of sex is a form of power.
Like the ability to have sex, the ability to be wanted for sex, being a power source.

Speaker 12 And I think about that, like, especially online, when it's everything, when it's conservatives complaining about how high school students aren't sexy enough, when it's people complaining, like left-leaning commentators complaining that, you know, we're not having sex because of capitalism.

Speaker 12 And it just is like, everybody just shut the fuck up. Stop it.

Speaker 12 The fact that we're mad that teens aren't having as much sex is like baffling to me.

Speaker 12 I will not be mad. This is fine.
It's also, it's like when people show the like, the graph of like teens are drinking less and smoking cigarettes less or whatever. And I'm like, good.

Speaker 12 Sex is not the end-all and be-all of human existence. Like, the pursuit of it doesn't need to be for everybody all the time.

Speaker 12 And especially for content purposes, it just is like, I just, I was infuriated. So I also.

Speaker 11 You're just hoping for balance. You're hoping for balance on the end.
And I also don't know. You don't want evangelical schools telling us to be scared of pregnancy.

Speaker 11 And you don't want the highest and best purpose of of yourself online to be sexy picks so that people give you the most likes. That's

Speaker 11 what you want.

Speaker 12 And I also, we swing from evangelicals yelling about how you did not have sex to evangelicals yelling about how it's very unfortunate that women aren't having more sex because they aren't having babies.

Speaker 12 I'm like, pick Elaine.

Speaker 11 Pick Elaine.

Speaker 11 Pick Elaine, Martha. Okay, we have to get to the mailbag.
You should read the whole piece. It's wonderful.
Boy, people want advice from us, apparently, Jane.

Speaker 11 Well, I guess they want advice from me, but I want your advice. I want to start with Jonathan.
My siblings and I want to connect with our 74-year-old MAGA father.

Speaker 11 He lives in his big Bear Mountain cabin and only texts me. He's cut off my brother and sister, thinks we're all woke snowflakes.
His wife and he watch Fox News and get drunk every night.

Speaker 11 The last time we met, we argued about politics. How can we build a relationship with him? First, I want to say, I'm sorry, Jonathan, that sucks.
And thank you for emailing.

Speaker 11 Do you want to go first, Jane, or would you like me to go first?

Speaker 12 I'm interested to hear what you think. But I think the biggest thing I have found for relationship building is doing the best to talk about things that aren't politics.

Speaker 12 Because you are connected by a thread that is stronger than any political mechanism.

Speaker 12 This is your father. And so when I've had friends who are in that same situation, I think that really connecting about family and good memories, because what it sounds like to me,

Speaker 12 this sounds like somebody who is deeply depressed. Like the whole thing about getting drunk every night and watching television by themselves and they don't talk to anybody.

Speaker 12 like I think that there have been

Speaker 12 I Talked about this somewhere else, but like there are lots of things where I'm like when people get really doomery online I'm like are you really concerned about the end of the world or are you dealing with depression that has not yet been treated or diagnosed?

Speaker 12 I mean, so I think like

Speaker 12 one

Speaker 12 recognize that this could be someone who is dealing with

Speaker 12 some issues that are way bigger than politics and but then are being fed everything they need to continue fomenting the issues because cable news specifically fox news wants to keep you anxious and watching like fox news will never be like everything's cool now good job everybody because somewhere someone will be doing something that they don't like but try to find means by which you can connect with them about things that aren't politics like one of the reasons why i love sports so much is that i have gone to so many football games or sporting events in which I'm aware the people around me are like they differ from me on everything but we are there united by this thing I remember going to like a Michigan Maryland game at Maryland and these very nice people offered me drinks and were like you know rooted from Michigan together and they had a giant let's go Brandon flag above their car and I was like huh huh okay and like there are moments where you can't argue about politics you can't do it but you can

Speaker 12 reform the bond that is bigger than politics.

Speaker 11 I agree with that. I would add to it.
I mean, this is a related point to the sports, but when I was reading this note, I think back, me and my mother, we're doing great now. Hi, mom.
But, you know,

Speaker 11 I was a piece of shit. I was a Braddy teen like anybody else.
And so when we would fight, like the thing that me and my mom always had was Scrabble.

Speaker 11 And so we would have, you know, a beer summit, but not beer.

Speaker 11 It'd be a Scrabble summit, you know, where a lot of times at the beginning of Scrabble, it would just be quiet because we're angry at each other. We're just scrabbling.

Speaker 11 But over the time, you know, you begin to discuss the play on the board.

Speaker 11 And then over the time, you maybe have a memory about a Scrabble game prior, and then all of a sudden, you're talking about Scrabble, and then we would go to our separate ways, and it would be healing.

Speaker 11 Like, this is just it. I don't, and it needs to be the person that something that your dad likes, you know, like you just have to suck it up.
And, like, I don't know, does he like to hunt?

Speaker 11 Does he like to fish? Does he like to whatever? I don't know. He's got to have some other, he has to have some other interest, or maybe it's a past interest.

Speaker 11 Maybe he no longer has any interest because he's depressed, and his only interests now are Fox News and drinking. But maybe there's something from your childhood.

Speaker 11 Just say, like, Dad, we need to go and go back to this play. I want to take you back to wherever we had a camping trip, whatever it is.
And maybe that won't work. Maybe it will.

Speaker 11 But that's your best bet. And not taking the bait on politics because it's over.

Speaker 11 Like, there's no hope at this, as you said, for like this person voting for Joe Biden or you guys having healthy dialogue about immigration regime.

Speaker 11 So like, try to have healthy dialogue about something else.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Also, because both hunting and fishing, great activities to do together while not talking.
Perfect, great.

Speaker 11 We have to stand in silence, it's great, yeah, yeah, stand in silence together. It's beautiful, Big Bear Mountain is beautiful, and um,

Speaker 11 man, it is tough. I've been there, but yeah, you just got to try to find other things to talk about.

Speaker 11 Okay, I've got one more that's relevant for both of us and a bunch of other mailbag things, but I'll get back to them next week. But this one is relevant for both you and I.
It comes from Matt.

Speaker 11 I live in an increasingly nuttier Republican state that's making life slowly shittier, But we're raising a toddler, and our entire friend and family circle is in a 40-minute drive.

Speaker 11 Plus, we genuinely like our neighborhood and bought our house years ago when rates were low. What should I do? I'll take this one first and answer.

Speaker 11 Matt, I've got some hopefully happy news, maybe disappointing news for you. You're living the dream.
Your life is great, actually. You know, life is hard.

Speaker 11 A lot of people live in places with very bad politics in America, throughout the world.

Speaker 11 The ideal place where you live somewhere that is affordable and where you have friends and family who love you around and where you also think the governor is great.

Speaker 11 Man, if you've got that going for you and you're listening to this podcast, I hope that you just wake up every day with a freaking smile on your face because that just isn't life for a lot of people.

Speaker 11 Part of the reason why we moved to New Orleans was because it's for me, it's just the friend circle, but most of my entire friend circle is within a 40-minute drive of where we live, related to the Jonathan question.

Speaker 11 None of those friends are MAGA, but none of them are really into politics. We mostly talk about our kids and fun memories and LSU and music and other stuff.
And that is fulfilling for me.

Speaker 11 And that brings me an important respite from these conversations I have to have with you all all the time. And it's nice.

Speaker 11 And we have a Republican governor in our state that is making life slowly shittier, and he sucks. And Jeff Landry, if you ever want to debate me on this podcast, I'm happy to come do that.

Speaker 11 But, you know, it's the best of some bad options. And I also think that there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast who live in blue parts of red states.

Speaker 11 And I think that's kind of the sweet spot right now in a lot of ways. People in blue cities and red states, a lot of great blue cities and red states right now.

Speaker 11 And I think that people who live in redder parts of those red states, particularly marginalized people, particularly people who don't have a lot of money, it's a different animal.

Speaker 11 If you told me I live in a red part of a red state and I have no friends and family around and I have to send my kid to a public school where they're demanding that they teach the Ten Commandments and they tell them that if they say that they're gay, then they'll be expelled.

Speaker 11 And I would tell you that you should probably move, but that's not your situation. Jane, do you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think also let's politics changes over time. Like, there are some areas that have gotten bluer or redder over time.
My parents, they bought their house in 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Speaker 12 They are in Cincinnati. My sister lives about like three streets away.
And like, that is where they are. That is where my aunt is.
That's where my late grandmother was, late grandparents were.

Speaker 12 And I think for my parents, like everyone that they know and want to be around who is not me is there. And so I think that having that real community is so important.

Speaker 12 We try to create, I think, especially now, people try to use politics as a

Speaker 12 replacement in some ways for community. But I think that political community does matter.

Speaker 12 But I've lived in places where I think everyone pretty much agreed with me politically and been like super annoyed all the time. And I've lived in places, you know, I live in Utah.

Speaker 12 I live in Salt Lake City, a blue area in a red state. And it's pretty great.
You know, I've really enjoyed my time here.

Speaker 11 You do have a much better governor than I do. I don't know where Matt lives, but probably a better governor than Matt.
It's about the best case scenario for a red state governor.

Speaker 12 Well, it is also funny because Republicans are very mad at him all the time.

Speaker 11 Yeah, right.

Speaker 12 Because he's not like super MAGA. But like the thing that my parents have shown me is like Cincinnati used to be in some like a very conservative kind of backlashy place to be if you were a liberal.

Speaker 12 My house honestly felt like a blue island in a red sea when I was a kid. You know, I went to Catholic school.

Speaker 12 Everyone we knew, I knew, like their parents were like big-time Republican donors and they were all like young Republicans. It's interesting.
None of them are.

Speaker 12 None of the people I went to high school with think of themselves as being Republican.

Speaker 11 They're a red dog Democrat, which is interesting to me. Make sure they're listening to the Bullard podcast, your high school friends.
That's our target demo.

Speaker 12 Exactly.

Speaker 12 Now, Cincinnati is like a pretty progressive place to be. Ohio is not, but you know, that's Ohio is a large state with a lot of people in it.

Speaker 12 Like Cincinnati now has like a cool mayor and people are moving there. And it's like a blue city in a red state.

Speaker 12 And my parents locked in early and are like, whatever happens, they have their home, they have their friends, they have close family, and that's it.

Speaker 12 And so often I think that we permit politics to change how we want to live our lives in a lot of ways that are helpful in some ways, but not so helpful in others.

Speaker 12 And if you're in a place in which you're close to friends and family, you have a locked in community, you feel good at home, and you can use that place as a bulwark against the outer politics of the world in which you have a place in which people can come and feel safe and good and build a community that stands athwart the politics of your state.

Speaker 12 That's awesome.

Speaker 11 Amen to that. Jane Coston, you're always a delight.
I am tonight in a couple of hours interviewing Jared Polis, governor of Colorado. So we'll be airing that on Monday's episode.

Speaker 11 We'll do a little news of the day too for folks because, you know, we went far afield today.

Speaker 11 Even though we didn't even get to all my topics, I wanted to discuss Victor Orban saying that Germany no longer smells the same because of immigrants or the secessionists.

Speaker 11 And, you know, we've got a lot more to get to next week. So, thank you all for sticking with us.
Kelly and Jessica, we're going to get to your mailbag next week, Jane Coston. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 11 Please come back soon.

Speaker 12 Will do. Thank you so much.

Speaker 11 We'll see you all back here on Monday. Hopefully, I don't embarrass myself with Jared Polis.
Bill Crystal will be here. See y'all then.
Peace.

Speaker 11 I'm everyone

Speaker 11 in all in me.

Speaker 11 I can read your thoughts right now. And I'm afraid

Speaker 11 to say

Speaker 11 I can cast a spell, secrets you can tell.

Speaker 11 It's a special rule with fire inside of you.

Speaker 11 Anytime you feel dangerous,

Speaker 11 then it's to me.

Speaker 11 I feel the

Speaker 11 echo

Speaker 11 find

Speaker 11 everyone.

Speaker 11 It's all in you.

Speaker 11 In a fan, you're home done, baby. I do it now,

Speaker 11 ladies.

Speaker 11 The Bullard podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 16 Gun violence isn't just a policy issue. It's personal.
Every day in America, 125 people are shot and killed. For too many, it's left a mark.
And for all of us, it's a crisis we can do something about.

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Speaker 16 You believe in progress. So do we.
This is your moment to act. Go to everytown.org and donate today.
Together, let's build a future free from gun violence.

Speaker 5 Everytown.org.

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