Charlie's 2024 THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving With the Crew

Speaker 1 My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

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Speaker 1 Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same.
Here I am. Lord, use me.

Speaker 1 Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

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Speaker 1 Okay, everybody, hello. It is Thought Crime Week.
It is Thanksgiving week.

Speaker 1 And we are here. By the way, the official uniform of Thought Crime this week is the Thanksgiving uniform.
I decided to go as Charlie Kirk for this Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 I didn't fully shave. I might later.

Speaker 1 And then like your hair thing where you do like the down-up. It's Hey, it's the natural colour.
It's like a Nike swoop. It's like a Nike swoop.
It is.

Speaker 1 I have it trademarked. Is that why you only wear Nikes? I actually don't only wear Nikes.

Speaker 1 But I should. So we also have Blake and Tyler as well.
What are they wearing? Let's see. Blake is probably wearing a Tyke.
I'm wearing my turkey hat.

Speaker 2 I believe this is a Kirkland shirt. I don't actually have a Costco membership, but I'll be honest, my mother buys a lot of shirts for me.

Speaker 3 I'm wearing my turkey hat, my Native American shawl.

Speaker 2 I hear all you guys in there.

Speaker 3 And then my Arizona State t-shirt because we're going to the Big Tall Championship unless things go awry on Saturday.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe. Hold on, Tyler.
You know the story of Arizona football. Whatever is predictable.
No, Tyler knows this. They will curse whatever inevitable path they have.

Speaker 1 They mess it up.

Speaker 1 It is an inevitability of Arizona State football.

Speaker 3 I've got a front row seat, Charlie, on Saturday with my two brothers right behind Kenny Dilleham. So,

Speaker 3 and down to Tucson.

Speaker 2 This is a very dumb question.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're going.

Speaker 1 Going down to Tucson.

Speaker 3 I'm going down to Tucson and front row seat.

Speaker 1 I like Tucson.

Speaker 3 So it's going to be a miserable drive to get to the bottom.

Speaker 1 Not knowing what you're doing.

Speaker 2 This is a dumb question. Having never gone

Speaker 2 to an ASU football game. Do they just like suffer in complete agony for their first three home games of the season? Because, you know, it's a tricky thing.
Oh, no, they do evenings.

Speaker 3 Evenings. They do them in the evenings.

Speaker 1 Evenings.

Speaker 1 It's still 95 degrees in Arizona.

Speaker 3 It's a nice brisk 98.

Speaker 3 But here's the factoid for everybody that's listening: Arizona has the longest rivalry game in the country, the Territorial Cup, between Arizona State and Arizona. People don't believe it.
Look it up.

Speaker 1 No way. Oregon, Oregon State has to be.

Speaker 1 Look it up.

Speaker 3 Territorial Cup is the longest recognized NCAA

Speaker 1 football.

Speaker 1 I've played or longest.

Speaker 1 And here come all the caveats. The oldest.
Yale Princeton goes back to 1873. No, it's the oldest.

Speaker 1 It's the oldest.

Speaker 2 Is it like the oldest that has this?

Speaker 1 How is it older than 1873? No one. Yale Princeton is pretty.
I mean, Yale-Princeton was 1873.

Speaker 3 No, but the rivalry game.

Speaker 1 I'm surprised.

Speaker 1 Yale-Princeton is a rivalry game. They hate each other.

Speaker 3 You have to look up the territorial.

Speaker 1 Montana, Montana State, 1897. That's pretty old.
We were before that. Illinois State, Eastern Illinois, 1977.
Arizona wasn't even a state back then.

Speaker 3 It was before. That's why it's called the Territory.

Speaker 1 It couldn't be in Arizona State because there wasn't a state.

Speaker 2 That's why there's people living in the world.

Speaker 2 I'm looking online, and it says the duel in the desert is just 1899, and there's many rivalries that are older than 1899.

Speaker 3 No, look up.

Speaker 2 Michigan, Notre Dame, 1887. Duke, North Carolina, 1888.

Speaker 1 Guys, it's the oldest one that Tyler knows of. No, no, no, no.
Look, Google Territorial Cup.

Speaker 2 Army-Navy game, 1890. I feel like the Army-Navy game is pretty old,

Speaker 2 and they're still going.

Speaker 3 Territorial Cup, the nation's oldest rivalry trophy.

Speaker 1 Oh, oldest trophy. That's so they.

Speaker 3 You can't really have a cup without a trophy.

Speaker 2 You could just spiritually have one.

Speaker 1 That's it.

Speaker 3 So, and that's, and that was territorial. That's what's called a territorial cup.

Speaker 2 Sounds like your territorial.

Speaker 3 Arizona State was the normal school, and that was it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. I'm not saying it's good football.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying it's the.

Speaker 2 By the way, since it is a Thanksgiving Day episode, I wanted to flag that we have all something very

Speaker 2 important to be grateful for.

Speaker 2 Remember Real Raw News, Charlie?

Speaker 1 1912.

Speaker 2 You remember Real Raw News, America's only trustworthy news source?

Speaker 2 They have a breaking report today, just before Thanksgiving. Special forces have arrested Kamala Harris.
She has come back from her vacation in Hawaii, but they nabbed her.

Speaker 2 According to the story, there were moles inside of her Secret Service detail, and they couldn't get her in Hawaii.

Speaker 2 I guess Hawaii is like the deep state safe zone where they control things, but they got her back to D.C., which is also a deep state safe zone but not as safe and so they managed to take her into custody she and dog amhoff will be sent to gitmo to stand trial for treason i i'm glad real raw news was able to get thanksgiving happy thanksgiving

Speaker 1 we got him i was worried that she might be out there taking so tyler's half right it's the oldest trophy

Speaker 1 it's the oldest trophy

Speaker 1 that is that is legit so it is the oldest trophy i mean it's a Territorial Cup.

Speaker 3 It's pretty impressive.

Speaker 1 It doesn't sound like Arizona.

Speaker 2 It's a trophy. It sounds like it's a cup.
Nothing's older.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, no, he's right. The Territorial Cup was created 125 years ago at his 1899 championship.
It's the oldest rivalry trophy in college football. But what was the school even called before?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 ASU was called the Normal School.

Speaker 3 It was called the Normal School.

Speaker 1 It was literally called Tempe Normal. Tempe Normal in Arizona.
Huh. I was teaching that it was a teacher's own state teachers.

Speaker 2 The Territorial Cup is so old that it literally is like a cup. It looks like a teacher's college, too.
It looks like a vase that you're talking about.

Speaker 1 I'm actually impressed that.

Speaker 1 I thought no one lived in Arizona until like 1930.

Speaker 3 No, my ancestors were there.

Speaker 1 It was literally just two football teams.

Speaker 1 Prior to 1912, it was just two football teams.

Speaker 1 Arizona's population. I didn't know that you had to replace someone on the team.

Speaker 2 Arizona's population in 1890 was 88,000 people.

Speaker 3 Did you family moved here?

Speaker 3 we chased twice as many more than twice 65 percent of them were related to our town i'm a seventh generation arizona when did when did the old boy show up here it wasn't boyer it was lambs and uh and and those people but they was the 1860s 1860 in 1860 the population of arizona was 6482 people

Speaker 3 that is that is oh gee second cousins with sheriff lamb yep

Speaker 1 man

Speaker 2 now there's uh six thousand there's like probably

Speaker 2 more than that within like a couple of blocks of here.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 For sure.

Speaker 1 Okay, guys. We have to talk about Thanksgiving.
Is it okay to eat steak on Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 I really worry.

Speaker 1 Not if it's the only thing you eat on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 No. No.

Speaker 1 That's incorrect.

Speaker 2 Incorrect. No.
Not allowed. No.
You can have. Tyler and I were discussing this.
You're saying not at all?

Speaker 1 Not at all.

Speaker 2 Not at all. You can have.

Speaker 2 You must have turkey. It is required to have turkey.

Speaker 2 You may have ham if it is supplementary to the turkey, but like it should be, any meat you have should be from like a central meat dispensing entity. You cannot have individualized servings of meat.

Speaker 2 That is, that is my position on this.

Speaker 1 Steak is not from a central meat dispensing entity.

Speaker 2 No, like you don't, you don't make a giant, you don't make like a 50-pound steak and then take like a piece of it and like pass the giant super steak around.

Speaker 2 Like that, that's what you do with ham or turkey. Like you make the whole turkey or you make the whole ham and then you like cut a little bit of it.
But you don't do that with steak.

Speaker 1 No, but that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.
You can have a separate serving of a plate of steak for people. You just similar to the ham.

Speaker 2 No, it's just wrong.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 3 ham is like supplement to the turkey taste. You have to have turkey and ham on your plate.

Speaker 2 You don't need ham.

Speaker 1 You don't want to turn. No, you don't need ham.
You have to have turkey. No, no, no, I'm a turkey purist.
Yeah, turkey. But some people think that they can start to get really.

Speaker 1 Now, Christmas is a completely different ballgame. Totally.
There are no rules with Christmas. Ham is usually center, but steak is acceptable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but no, but still, Christmas is a whole Thanksgiving. It is un-American not to have either turkey, some sort of dressing, cranberries.
But here's the thing about the cranberry thing.

Speaker 1 If you want to be an ultra-traditionalist, it must be straight out of the can, taken vertically with no adjustments.

Speaker 1 And now if you want to have

Speaker 1 the cranberry. Hold on, hold on.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 And if you want to have cranberry with adjustments, that could be supplementary. But however, it must be out of the can and you just take it vertically and it just jiggles.

Speaker 1 Walk me through your stuffing. The stuffing is very interesting.
Okay. Now here's the big question.
Yes. Does the stuffing go in the turkey or is it prepared outside of the turkey?

Speaker 1 Is that stuffing versus dress and then put it in, cook it with the turkey? Or some people will prepare it and then just put it it in for like the final

Speaker 1 leg. You got to go the full lantha.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 dressing has to be obviously cornbread. Yes.
Some sort of celeries and carrots. Sure.
Sausage. Need your crunchy.
A little crunch. Mix that all together.

Speaker 1 But you know what makes the stuffing really kicker? The gravy. Yes.
And so you need the gravy. You have the stuffing.
You have the jiggling cranberry.

Speaker 1 You got the turkey, and that's all that's accepted. And then also, maybe green beans and then sweet potatoes.
Green bean casserole. How do you make cotton? No, no, no.
See, now we're getting too.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What's the issue with green bean casserole? I, I just, I just, it's not, it's not allowed. Green beans are allowed.
You're getting too cute.

Speaker 1 Oh, green bean cat. Green bean casserole with

Speaker 1 a total staple.

Speaker 3 With the, with the

Speaker 1 crunchy dice on top, never. Fried onions.
Fried onions. Fried onions.
No, no, no. I like.
What? I like the long, uninterrupted, unblemished green beans. With butter.
With butter. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's good, though. No, those are good.
No, no casserole.

Speaker 1 I never said casserole. The casserole is a.

Speaker 1 We are saying casserole is a staple. It's an absolute Thanksgiving stuff.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's a staple. 100%.

Speaker 1 And then, let me think what else. Okay, yes.
Then the sweet potatoes. Sure.
But none of this marshmallow stuff. You see, this is New Age, and it's a mistake.
We're all of a sudden. It's a full trad.

Speaker 1 No, no,

Speaker 1 it's a mixture of, it's like 1950s Thanksgiving. Right.

Speaker 1 That's why it's like the gel. You know, it's...
No, no, no. I'm saying no marshmallows.
No, no, no marshmallows. The marshmallow thing is a disgrace.

Speaker 1 Well, Charlie, hold on a second, though, because there is one thing. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
There is one thing, one dish that we know for a fact was served at the original Thanksgiving, Charlie.

Speaker 1 You know where I'm going with this. Smallpox? No, no, no, Charlie.

Speaker 1 Not what we served. What was served to us?

Speaker 1 Corn. Oh, see, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Corn was served at the original Thanksgiving. That's the corn that is acceptable as cornbread.
I will say.

Speaker 1 You have to bend the knee to the corn god, and cornbread has to be either the the dressing, the stuffing stuff. Do you agree, Tyler? Longtime ThoughtCheim

Speaker 1 listeners will remember that Charlie is.

Speaker 1 Blake radicalized me against the corn god. He's anti-cornite.

Speaker 1 I think corn has no redemptive value unless it is for Thanksgiving, because then it is a sacrament to Squanto. No, no, corn is good in the summertime.

Speaker 2 We eat the corn on Thanksgiving to show our thanks that the angry corn god has not destroyed us.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, corn on the cup

Speaker 1 is summer. This is exactly what it is.
I forgot forgot his name. I forgot the corn god's name in the name.
No, no, we're not talking about corn on the cup.

Speaker 1 We're talking about corn elements, cornbread, for example. Cornbread is a good one.

Speaker 1 Even way,

Speaker 1 even Charlie Kirk,

Speaker 1 the anti-corn. Wow, that's good.

Speaker 1 No, this is what Thanksgiving is. This is big.
Let's be very clear. Thanksgiving is not about what you want to do.

Speaker 1 It is what

Speaker 1 your ancestors did.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter if you don't want the cranberry.

Speaker 1 No, that's what I'm saying. It's not about.
I don't care about if you don't like cranberries, you don't like turkey, suck it up. It's Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 there is no this we this modernity like I'm gonna put like steak Tanya doesn't Tanya will not eat turkey she won't it doesn't matter she'll make it she won't figure it out she won't eat it so here in Arizona I don't know what to tell you I completely agree with Charlie I think the canned cranberry is a must on the table however

Speaker 3 you have to have boom you have to have a second in Arizona we have jalapeno cranberries

Speaker 1 incredible if you haven't had it see now you're regionalizing this too much no it's good good.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 It adds a little spice. It's just a little bit.

Speaker 2 It's like when I went to the Grand Canyon last summer and I discovered that I guess they just sell like prickly pear everything at every Arizona.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's pretty pear chicken.

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Speaker 3 So I have a question for everybody though. And this is getting deep into the weeds.
So we talked about stuffing or dressing. Moist stuffing or dry stuffing?

Speaker 1 It's got to be dry, but the gravy makes it moist. If you make it too moist,

Speaker 1 you can always make it moist. Before the gravy.

Speaker 1 It has to be on the spectrum of tilt moist, but not too much, because if it's too dry, then it's just, it's too brittle. And brittle, there's nothing worse than brittle dressing.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 1 it's scoopable.

Speaker 1 I'm noticing that you call it dressing. It should be stuffing.
However, I've been corrected many times.

Speaker 1 I've always called it stuffing, even though it's not technically stuffing unless it's within the turkey. Yes.

Speaker 3 Dressing's outside the turkey.

Speaker 1 Stuffing's inside the turkey. No, it's not.
No,

Speaker 1 I grew up calling it stuffing, even though we never put it in the turkey. No, but it's the, I mean, I get that, but the...
the type of food would be called still stuffing. Dressing is like for salads.

Speaker 3 No. No, no, no.
Dressing is outside.

Speaker 1 It's cooked in the body.

Speaker 1 It's stuffing. No, I reject that completely.

Speaker 2 For me, stuffing is like a a type of food, and it should be used to stuff in it, but it is still stuffing, even if it's not doing the stuff.

Speaker 1 Dressing is outside they don't use the name properly, but we but we still call it that because it used to be outside. I'm outside over Thanksgiving at this point.
This is great.

Speaker 1 So we're pretty sure people know we're pre-taping this. Yeah, ahead.
Yeah, we are, we are today is

Speaker 1 Tuesday. We actually are in law.

Speaker 2 We blew off Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 We're supposed to be eating right now. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So now let's now go to the more fundamental fundamental question. Okay.
Dessert.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Because that really is what DNA.

Speaker 1 Well, for me, I mean, if I have, I have, all right, go ahead. No, no, you go.
No, this is.

Speaker 1 I have, I have at times, and my mom knows this, I have left the house, gone to the store, and purchased the ingredients for pumpkin pie and brought it home and made it myself because there was no pumpkin pie available.

Speaker 1 It is required. Oh, I completely agree.
It is like 100% required. The first commandment of Thanksgiving

Speaker 1 is: thou shalt have pumpkin pie with whipped cream. With whipped cream.

Speaker 1 It is a non-negotiable. If it's not there, like, I got up, I got in my car.
I was like, I'm just going to go. I'm not going to do it.
Now, Ryan asks a really good question.

Speaker 1 Is Thanksgiving meal a lunch or a dinner? The answer is both. Around 3.30 to 4 p.m.
Yeah. That is the sweet spot.
Right as the sun is going down in Chicago, boom, you sit down, right?

Speaker 1 Thanksgiving is way too late.

Speaker 1 It is itself its own meal. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 That's way too late. You do it.
I would say

Speaker 2 NEF family tradition is maybe 1 to 1.30 p.m.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's so early.

Speaker 1 So early,

Speaker 1 halftime of the second football game. When are you going to

Speaker 1 five?

Speaker 1 No, yeah, you get to go. Yes, no, no.

Speaker 1 The first football game is the Lions. The Cowboys are always second.

Speaker 1 We have a tradition in our house. Halftime of Cowboys, we get seated.
Because we're cheering that the Cowboys will lose. Yes.
Well, that's good, but but no it's that's just way too

Speaker 1 we shared this tradition as well like oh tv's off during the meal no

Speaker 2 yeah like

Speaker 2 i i i greatly dislike the like tv sanctification of thanksgiving like i don't know i would watch

Speaker 2 i i would consider it like if the packers are on i would watch the packers but i do not consider it essential to watch now there's three games on thanksgiving well we usually have like No, this is true.

Speaker 1 There has been a desecration. It used to be only two games, and it was on Fox.
It would be the Lions, who used to be bad, and now they're good.

Speaker 1 And actually, who do they play this week? Let me see. I bet it's actually pretty good lineup.

Speaker 1 And then it was the Cowboys, but now NBC got greedy because it was Fox had their game, CBS had their game, and then NBC got greedy and they snuck in their own. So is that this week? No.

Speaker 1 Okay, let me see here. What do we got? We got a new week of football.
Okay, there's three games. Oh, Blake, you're in luck.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 I know. I'll see you.
It's the evening game. The Dolphins are visiting Lambeau.
Okay, I'm going to be watching that. Oh, and Chicago plays on Thanksgiving.
Oh,

Speaker 2 they're going to get annihilated. They're going to die.

Speaker 1 At Detroit. It is going to be.
At Detroit, that's, yeah, that's like a bad thing. By the way, you could tell who's having a better season.
Tickets start at Ford Field for $181.

Speaker 1 Tickets start at Jerry Stademan, $28.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my son asked me the other day because he saw when we went to the Eagles game and he was like all jealous that we went.

Speaker 1 and so he was like oh daddy give me some Eagles tickets we'll go and so we looked up the ones for Thanksgiving weekend and I was like I got to sell a lot more pillows yeah like Eagles tickets right now are it was $500 was like the highest nose break 311 is where they start out insane yeah this week you're seeing what 311 and that's in Baltimore but Baltimore's so close you're basically you're basically in the light right yeah you're pretty much in it's like 90 minutes you know the way I drive it's 90 minutes okay so now that we have developed some by the way by the way I don't want to throw my mom under the bus because every single year, and I know she's going to watch this, every single year post that, there's like a selection of pumpkin pies that is always available.

Speaker 1 The way it must be. By the way, do you think that pecan pie can also make an appearance? Of course.

Speaker 1 Most tomatoes. Other pies can be there, but pumpkin is the only thing.
Pecan pie, I actually prefer more than pumpkin pie. However, I must have a slice of pumpkin pie.

Speaker 1 Wait, were you always like that, though? When you were little.

Speaker 1 My mom makes a killer pecan pie. Okay.
Like, destroys the world. Okay.
What about

Speaker 1 soga? So when I was younger, I was always pumpkin, but then pecan pie. Now we're getting into chocolate pecan pie, and that's where you just surrender.
You're just done at that point.

Speaker 1 So you throw, you throw it, because guys, you know, folks who don't know, Charlie, you're usually pretty strict with your diet. You're usually.
Pretty strict. It's like, I mean, you're usually like...

Speaker 1 No, no, no, but Thanksgiving is different. Thanksgiving, you go all in, and it is a holy day.
By the way, I think Thanksgiving is one of America's greatest traditions. It is.

Speaker 1 Because it's a day just to give thanks. I think it's uniquely awesome.

Speaker 1 Talk about that for a little bit because there's, you know, a lot of people say, well, it's, you know, it's just about the, you know, it's the Indians, it's the Pilgrims.

Speaker 1 Well, everything is what you make of it. Who cares, right? Who cares? There's no God involved.
Why do you like that? Well, no, first of all, the Pilgrims were definitely giving thanks to God.

Speaker 1 Let's be right. They were not giving thanks to Brahmin.
But they were giving thanks to the Almighty God.

Speaker 1 But yeah, secondly, I just think it's amazing.

Speaker 1 Especially during the season where we have such abundance and we won the election, that there's a day where you just stop and you say thank you, which then, of course, course, acknowledges you're saying thank you to a higher power.

Speaker 1 And I don't know of another nation or another country that has a day of gratitude.

Speaker 1 I think I actually said this once, and I guess there was like some random African country that has it, and that's fine. I got like in trouble for saying this last year.
Yeah, okay. Okay, so fine.

Speaker 1 I guess Senegal has a day like that. I'll look it up.
However, great job, Senegal. Or whatever.
But

Speaker 1 following in some good footsteps. But a day of gratitude,

Speaker 1 I subscribe to the Prager. Hopefully he's doing better.
He's fighting like crazy right now. Belief, he's really struggling that happiness is impossible if you are not grateful.
And I believe that.

Speaker 1 I do not think you can have joy. I do not think you can be content if you are not grateful.
And I think it's a beautiful thing as a nation. We have a day to say thank you.

Speaker 1 We have to dogs on the nation.

Speaker 1 The nation who always gave us the story of Thanksgiving. Real quick, notice, real quick, you know, shout out to the OG who always told us the true story of Thanksgiving, Rush Limbaugh.

Speaker 1 Oh, man, he was an OG on that. He just did it every day.
Every year, I've still got, I've got a recording of it somewhere. We used to play it.

Speaker 1 I got to re-listen to that.

Speaker 1 It was so good.

Speaker 1 Send that to me tonight. I got to retry to recreate it to me.
I did something on the show last year where I sort of like,

Speaker 1 I didn't try to do it, like rushed at it, but I told the story. And people just have to keep telling that story over and over.
They tried socialism. It failed.

Speaker 1 Then they tried giving people ownership of their various plots of land. And then they had an overabundance of their harvest.
And so they gave thanks to God.

Speaker 1 What a concept. What an incredible concept.

Speaker 1 But instead, now it's all like, oh, the pilgrims were dying, and the Indians had to come, and they saved the pilgrims because they were stupid Europeans, didn't know anything.

Speaker 1 Even though Squanto had actually lived in Europe,

Speaker 1 even he had been in London more recently than the Pilgrims had. So he spoke English so well.
But of course, you know, facts are, you know. Blake, you were saying something.

Speaker 2 Well, so, first of all, I was saying we should make fun of Canada for having their knockoff Thanksgiving that is just one one month before ours.

Speaker 2 I think we should always seize every opportunity to bully Canada because it's fun. And, but also,

Speaker 2 even like the full story of Thanksgiving, because evil liberals always want to dunk on it. Like, it's even more beautiful than just the pilgrims doing it when they settled here.

Speaker 2 Like, the very first like annual Thanksgiving national holiday, fourth Thursday in November, like clockwork. That was started by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.
Yep.

Speaker 2 Middle of the Civil War, the peak of the Civil War. I think that's probably the bloodiest year of the Civil War.

Speaker 2 And he says, yes, like in the middle of this, we're going to have a celebration of national Thanksgiving. And like that was what set it as a national holiday.

Speaker 2 George Washington declared a day of Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 It's truly,

Speaker 2 you know, it's a great thing because it is...

Speaker 2 possibly the one great national tradition that was created in America that we have had for the entire history of America, that is just totally our own thing.

Speaker 2 And then us being America, we have exported it to the rest of the world in various ways.

Speaker 2 Someone was very shocked to learn. I was talking to a foreigner who was like, wasn't Black Friday this week? No.
No, Black Friday is this week. And it's kind of terrible.

Speaker 1 Not

Speaker 1 I used to be a Black Friday person, but now I'm done. It's awful.
It's just so awful.

Speaker 1 And it's not even Black Friday anymore because Black Friday, there's like, well, Charlie, given everything that you just said about the importance of Thanksgiving, what do you think about the people who leave Thanksgiving dinner early to go and start shopping?

Speaker 1 First of all, first of all, I totally,

Speaker 1 when I grew up, it was actually Black Friday. Yeah.
Now it's like Black Thursday evening. Right.
And it's not like you start lining up. Like the sales actually begin.

Speaker 1 It's actually interesting for younger listeners that don't know. After so many people got trampled in the Walmart raids,

Speaker 1 because people would line up, they keep the stores open. Right.
They don't close them and reopen them. Because it used to be the Walmart would close and then

Speaker 1 all the deals and the sales would be set and then people would get trampled so much. I think someone almost died and they got hospitalized and they pulled the lawsuits.
This is the plot of that.

Speaker 1 This is the plot of that. Did people die? Is that right? I didn't know that.
Yeah, people died. People got watched that.

Speaker 1 I didn't know they died, though. There's that Thanksgiving horror movie.
This is actually the plot where people get killed and then someone's getting revenge on the people who started the stampede.

Speaker 1 So I had no problem with like you have a really, really good Thanksgiving and then you want to get good deals on stuff. And I think that was fine.
It was like a good kickoff to the Christmas season.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 and it used to be when I grew up, there was a grittiness to Black Friday. Yeah.
There was like a took it took real spirit. So you have to understand, like I grew up in Chicago.

Speaker 1 It would always be like sub 20 degrees. And if you wanted to get a Black Friday deal, you had to earn it.
So you had to like leave with your family at like 10 p.m. after all that turkey's full.

Speaker 1 And you like stood in line at Target from the open their doors at 12.01. Yeah.
Right. And you would like shop all night and you would like get 7-11 coffee and get home by like 5 a.m.

Speaker 1 and you felt like I earned this deal. And it was like, it was like a sense of accomplishment.
And you know what I mean? And you had to have, there was like a limit to what you could get.

Speaker 1 Of course. No, and it was very narrow.
And also one specific deal. We would go through catalogs and go through what was on sale.
Yep.

Speaker 1 This was all before internet i want to throw it to blake in a second but there was internet ruined it there was a and also there was a divide and conquer strategy of what stores are we gonna hit are we gonna go to best buy are we gonna go to home depot because like and you're shopping for other people and there was like a real like conquest like chess game oh yeah where it's like oh wow best buy opens at 11 30 and walmart's at midnight my my strategy would always be like i would find the one store that was like within a 45 minute drive but in like a like a non-populated area And it was so much fun.

Speaker 1 Think about or like a Staples because nobody thinks that Staples would have stuff, but they do have computers and different, you know, hot items.

Speaker 1 So like what are, what's the thing that people aren't going to think about? And that's where I'm going to go. And now you just wait for Cyber Monday and click a couple buttons.

Speaker 1 And so all the adventure of it, and you don't earn it anymore. It used to be you'd get home at 3.30 in the morning.
You're like, I got a good deal on a big screen TV.

Speaker 1 It was a teenage rite of passage in suburban Chicago. Blake, your thoughts?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was really,

Speaker 2 I can still think of like individual things I went out of my way to get on Black Friday. I think I still have a PlayStation 3 that I got in 2011.
I think I can remember the exact deal.

Speaker 2 It was a PS Slim, $250. It came with Little Big Planet and like some crummy ratchet and clank game.
Who cares?

Speaker 2 But like, that was the best deal you could get for, I think, like, two years after that point. But what ended up killing it was, as you said, you know, you were, you'd go for the timing.

Speaker 2 It used to be, okay, it was on Black Friday normal hours. Then they would open it at like 6 a.m.
in the morning and people would show up before.

Speaker 2 Then someone got ahead and made it, oh, let's open exactly at midnight. And then what finally killed it, I think, the rise of the internet was a factor.

Speaker 2 But another thing that killed it was companies decided to get so greedy and they just said, we're doing Black Friday on Thanksgiving. And they would just be open on Thanksgiving with those deals.

Speaker 2 And I think to America's credit, there was popular backlash to this where they're saying, wait, you're forcing employees to skip Thanksgiving to come in and work on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 Though, I must hedge, I have to be personally grateful for the fact that stores are open on Thanksgiving, some of them, because I visited a friend. This is about 10 years ago.

Speaker 2 I went down to a friend in Tennessee for Thanksgiving, and I took a mega bus down. I'm, you know, poor.
We have to travel by bus. And I took a mega bus down.
And I had a bag under it.

Speaker 2 And I had to get off in Chattanooga, which was the final destination was Atlanta. And they get out and they're like, Okay, where's your bag?

Speaker 2 I'm like, Oh, it's under the thing, and they open it, and they feel around. They're like, Ah, yeah, we can't find it.
We have a schedule to do.

Speaker 2 We have to go. And they just drove away with my bag, with all of my changes of clothes.

Speaker 2 And I arrived late Wednesday night, so I had to go to a Walmart, which thanks to American capitalism, was open on Thanksgiving, and I had to buy an entire set of clothes for the whole weekend.

Speaker 3 So I had that perspective. I actually, one of my first jobs was in high school.
I took the

Speaker 3 seasonal job at Target and my first day, like first real day was Thanksgiving or Black Friday.

Speaker 3 So I had to wake up after Thanksgiving when I was like a sophomore in high school at like literally 4 a.m. I had to be at Target at 4.30, help stock everything.
This was still the days.

Speaker 3 that they still open the doors like Charlie was talking about before they just like leave it open or open like super early.

Speaker 3 And there would be like, I get there at like four o'clock, and there would be a line wrapped around the building of people waiting to get in. And then we had to stock everything.

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Speaker 2 So here's a crazy story. So

Speaker 2 you guys, there's a myth that Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. And you know why that's a myth?

Speaker 2 Because the real truth is,

Speaker 2 the real truth is that Thanksgiving is the day before Black Friday. And that is because,

Speaker 2 let me finish the story. This is because I am not making it up.
The current date of Thanksgiving is because of like an evil plot by FDR.

Speaker 2 No, I'm not making this up. So Lincoln's proclamation of Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving is on the last Thursday of the month.
Yes. It is on the last Thursday.
Right. It is not on the last Thursday.

Speaker 2 It is currently on the fourth Thursday of the month. That is what the federal law is.
So there are sometimes five.

Speaker 1 Which requires a Friday.

Speaker 2 So there are sometimes five Thursdays in November, and then it would be on the fourth. It used to be on the fifth.

Speaker 2 And then during the Great Depression, I believe in 1939, FDR got in his head, if there is a longer, like if there's a longer time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there will be a longer Christmas shopping season.

Speaker 2 And so people will shop more, and this will stimulate the economy.

Speaker 2 And so he intervened and he moved Thanksgiving to be a week earlier. And this became a partisan political issue.
And so for a few years,

Speaker 2 Republican states said, we're not doing this and we're refusing to go along with it. So you had a Democrat Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday and you had a Republican Thanksgiving on the fifth one.

Speaker 2 And I think Texas, because they were a Democrat state, but had a lot of like conservative Democrats who didn't like FDR, they called a truce and they just had, they said, they're both holidays and they had two Thanksgivings.

Speaker 2 And then sadly, Congress submitted and now it's just on the fourth Thursday and we we lost that culture war battle.

Speaker 1 But what you were saying though, what you were saying though, there's a deeper and producer Foz talks about this all the time. His birthday was this week, by the way.
Shout out.

Speaker 1 He calls it micro wins, micro W's. And how, so Charlie, you'd appreciate this, is that like in your teenage years and working retail used to be part of this too.

Speaker 1 But in your teenage years, there used to be a variety of things that you would do as a rite of passage that have all been pretty much completely destroyed because of new technology.

Speaker 1 One of those, of course, was waiting in line like this. Another one of those, you know, having those retail jobs again with no phone to like just constantly be there getting you through it.

Speaker 1 Just monotony going through it.

Speaker 1 One of the other ones, we, I don't know how I got into this the other day on Twitter. It was like, it's not even Thanksgiving related, but it was like when you used to have to call someone's house.

Speaker 1 And if you wanted if you wanted to call a girl, you had to call her house and you had to get through mom or potentially dad.

Speaker 1 And so it's like the elimination of all those things in society has now created men or adults who don't actually go through any meaningful rite of passage.

Speaker 1 No, I mean, I totally agree with that. I mean, some of these other rites of passage were like elementary things, such as be home before dark.
Like that was like a very simple thing, right? right?

Speaker 1 I mean, other rites of passage were that you need to memorize, like you say, the home phone numbers of at least five people that you're talking about. Yeah, memorizing phone numbers.
Right.

Speaker 1 I don't think anybody does that anymore. Like anybody.
I know Tanya's. I don't know my parents.

Speaker 1 I know all the phone numbers from when I grew up. I know a bunch of when I grew up, yeah.
Like I know a bunch of my buddies,

Speaker 1 but like my brother got a cell phone later. I don't know.
I also think it was really important

Speaker 1 that when I used to call somebody's house, I had to speak to an adult. That's what I'm saying.
I think that was

Speaker 1 think about that. Think about it.
I think it's a very under-appreciated. There was no texting.
It didn't exist. No.

Speaker 1 When I was in sixth grade, AOL Instant Messenger was just starting. Okay.
And that was a thing. But it had to be on a publicly available computer in my house.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't like you couldn't bring it with you at all times. It was like, there was like a very, you know, like.
So it was this, like, logging on and logging off was a thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, it was totally a thing. They had the away message.
Oh, yeah. You had an away message.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you would come home to see if you got any messages. And I actually, again, I don't even know if that was a healthier version of this crap that we have right now.
Much healthier.

Speaker 1 And so I loved AOL Instant Messenger for the record. I thought it was really fun.

Speaker 1 And it was actually a really, really good service.

Speaker 1 It was really, I mean, I really liked it. And

Speaker 1 so we're going to search for a lot of the normal.

Speaker 3 A lot of our social norms on texting came from AOL Instant Messenger.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. 100%.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Does it? LOL comes from that? LOL B-R-B. LOL.
T-T-Y-L. LOL absolutely comes from AOL Instant Messenger.
AOL still exists, by the way.

Speaker 2 There are still millions of people getting

Speaker 3 Instant Messenger.

Speaker 2 Instant Messenger has been dead. Not only is Instant Messenger dead

Speaker 2 for like

Speaker 1 AIM is done. AIM is dead.

Speaker 3 Charlie, it's even older than that because I was on Instant Messenger because Jack and I are a little bit older than you. I was on Instant Messenger.
No, but I'm saying again.

Speaker 5 It would start to go.

Speaker 1 Tyler is way older than Charlie.

Speaker 2 Way older.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 Jack's older than me.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tyler actually is the first generation spectrum. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I loved AOL and stuff. Yeah, I was thinking about it.
Well, my wedding. What else is bigger? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Here's another rite of pet passage. Okay.

Speaker 1 Playing a video game so much that it overheats.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What was it?

Speaker 1 That's like a real thing. Or playing a game.
Oh, no. Jack knows what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 Especially computer games, though. No, no, no, no.
If you play for too long and your computer wasn't that sophisticated or good,

Speaker 1 your whole hard drive would like

Speaker 1 start to overheat, right? That's a real thing. 100%.
Or how about another one?

Speaker 1 Playing on either Age of Empires or Sims or whatever it was, and

Speaker 1 it malfunctioning before you save or you can log your progress.

Speaker 1 Right? Mom, mom unplugging the Nintendo before. Well, when you were on level eight of Mario and there was no way to save it.

Speaker 2 Or mom telling you to wait at all, mom telling you to pause the game game when it's actually online and you're playing against other people.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I had numerous times beating it, defeating a level of Super Mario and then forgetting to save it and you shut it off and you go back. You're like, ah.

Speaker 1 That's shameful. It's just so funny the things we worried about back then were just like so insignificant.
I miss, I'll say this. I don't know if any of you guys remember this one.

Speaker 1 I miss New Music Tuesdays. Does anyone else remember New Music Tuesdays?

Speaker 2 So that was albums would release on Tuesdays, right? I think games still Yeah, it was always Tuesdays a lot. They did, at least when I was a kid, I think.

Speaker 1 Oh, thank God there's something.

Speaker 1 But maybe that album varies. Which was a group of music, and it was always Tuesdays that it would come out.
So you used to have like these mini Black Friday type things where you'd go on.

Speaker 1 I guess people still kind of do it for games, where you would come out for new music or a new album was dropping. So

Speaker 1 back when music actually was good.

Speaker 1 That being said, I did see Creed again this week.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to think of other rites of passage. Oh, yeah.
Knowing the dial-up sound is definitely a rite of passage. Like not having super fast internet all the time.

Speaker 1 Having to just having to sit, remember waiting for websites to load? Do you remember asking friends for rides? Oh,

Speaker 1 Briggs is a significant thing. Wait, wait, Charlie.
What about asking directions and having to know directions?

Speaker 1 I'm still really good at directions, partially because you had to know where you were going. Like this was before GPS.
How about this? How does it know when? Printing out MapQuest directions.

Speaker 1 Printing it out. Well, see, is that not the best?

Speaker 1 I used to be cheap, so I would just write it down charlie were you around old i was a big map charlie were you i would i would go to map quest and then i would write down the directions and then i'd just like bring my little note card with me what were you saying

Speaker 2 charlie you might be too young i once had a a journey where my parents made me actually uh narrate the the turns to make on an actual physical map that we had purchased like with you know the highways of america oh yeah no no all the time I remember 100% yes.

Speaker 3 I remember I was living in New Jersey for two years when I was in junior high and my mom printed them out on MapQuest and was going somewhere for my brother's football game and got so lost and turned around.

Speaker 3 She like pulled over in a gas station crying because she didn't know where to go or how to go anywhere. She was like completely lost, like in any place.
I had no idea.

Speaker 1 It makes you think like actually.

Speaker 3 Sorry, mom, for sharing that.

Speaker 1 Is it a good thing or a bad thing we have the GPS? I mean, in some ways. Like, we're probably more efficient.
When China comes after us, that's the first thing they're going for. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's number one. Day one.

Speaker 1 It's that one, then like all of our online banking. It's crazy.
We're just all screwed.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you still have to do this, but I know in London, in the UK, to become a cab driver, you used to have to, maybe you still do, but you had to pass this test called the knowledge.

Speaker 1 And it was basically you had to memorize

Speaker 2 the location of like 27,000 different things. in London.
And like people would like lose their minds attempting to pass this thing.

Speaker 2 And obviously, if it's still around, it's obviously just a crazy thing.

Speaker 1 It's crazier.

Speaker 3 It's more difficult to become a cab driver.

Speaker 1 They've done.

Speaker 1 I feel like they've done.

Speaker 1 They've done brain scans of cab drivers that have mastered the knowledge. And their hippoclamus, which is the actual part of memory, is bigger in their brain than the average person.

Speaker 1 And so in order for that to be true, in order, and this is actually in... So that's self-selecting that.
No, no, no. In order for that to be true, one of two things are true.

Speaker 1 Either that these are people with disproportionately big hippoclampuses that are coming into the taxi business, or your brain can change. Which is the most profound.

Speaker 3 Giant hippoclampuses.

Speaker 1 No, but

Speaker 1 sorry, hi-pa-campus. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 It's the thing that was indelible

Speaker 2 in Blasey Ford's brain, remember? Indelible in the hippocampus.

Speaker 1 However, it is indelible.

Speaker 1 It was the most profound development of neuroscience in the last 20 years, discovery to show that your brain raw material can change based on your environment and your circumstances. Essentially.

Speaker 1 There is no other explanation. There's no way that people that have disproportionately active parts of the hippocampus all just want to become taxi drivers.
Right. It's just that this is not a thing.

Speaker 1 Well, no, no. The idea would be then that those are the only ones who can pass the test.

Speaker 1 No. Again, it's just, it defies logic because

Speaker 1 you're in the sub-one set of... the standard deviation, right? These people just happen to all want to become cab drivers? No, no way.

Speaker 1 Meaning that your brain can actually become better at a certain task. So it's applied.
So it's like a muscle that actually let me find the study. It's super interesting.
So the more you work with it.

Speaker 1 It was in Sean Astor's book called The Happiness Advantage. Let me see here.

Speaker 1 So the idea being then the more you, yeah, the more you work it out the same way like when you go to the gym and you're like, I'm going to focus on whatever muscle. So right here,

Speaker 1 a taxi driver's knowledge is often linked to an enlarged hippocampus, blah, blah, blah. Key points.
And the study here shows about brain plasticity.

Speaker 1 Phenomenon demonstrates the brain's ability to adapt and change based on the experience where the hippocampus can grow in response to intensive spatial learning.

Speaker 1 So let's put this on the flip side then. The fact that we're all using GPS now.
It makes us dumber.

Speaker 1 Literally, and

Speaker 1 physically. Unless you do what I do, which is

Speaker 1 you try to anticipate where the GPS is taking you before. Because

Speaker 1 GPS is like AI. It could be an enhancement to you, or it could just make you totally check out.
Well, it's sometimes wrong. Well, the GPS is wrong all the time.
All the time.

Speaker 1 All the time when Mikey's driving, I'm like, why isn't it taking us this way, not that way? Yeah. That's a good sign.
If you are fact-checking your GPS, you are getting actual.

Speaker 1 I did this when we were driving around Pennsylvania with my brother during the election, and

Speaker 1 we were driving from Penn State to Philadelphia. And at one point, it wanted us to go on this road, which would take us to Baltimore.
And I was like...

Speaker 1 Why are we driving to Baltimore? It's 83 south. We need 76 east because we need to go to Philadelphia because we're going to the Eagles game.
And now it eventually like picked up.

Speaker 1 But I remember sitting there looking at it and it was just, it was just clearly wrong. It was clearly wrong.
I put it in the chat, the scientific American. Okay, I got a dash.
You guys keep talking.

Speaker 1 Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And you guys hold on the fort.
Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie.

Speaker 3 Have a great Thanksgiving, Charlie.

Speaker 2 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.