Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone to a new episode. If you're wrong
with Molly Hemingway and David Harsani, just as a reminder,
please feel free to email to show at radio at
the Federalist dot com. We love to hear from you.
It's nice to see you, Molly.
Speaker 2: How are you doing great?
Speaker 1: Great?
Speaker 2: So did you follow the news on the Arlington cemetery
scandal that the media are obsessed with right now?
Speaker 1: I was away and I wasn't paying attention, and then
I saw a sort of little, you know, tweets about
it and stuff like that, and as I suspected, it's
just a completely concocted, ridiculous scandal.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. So last week was the three year anniversary
of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. So it's always import
and separate the decision to exit that twenty year war
from the way in which we know physically left Afghanistan.
And there have been a lot of complaints about just
the lack of strategy that went into that exit, leaving
our most secure base first and then leaving from the
Kabul airport where chaos ensued. There was a bombing where
more than a dozen Americans were killed and the family,
the gold Star families of those dead soldiers Marines, there
was another service member. They asked President Trump to come
to Arlington for a ceremony on the anniversary to commemorate
their dead and he said yes, and on that anniversary date,
Joe Biden was still on his vacation at the beach.
I think Kamala Harris might have been campaigning. They didn't
us the issue, they didn't talk. They've never named these
dead Americans, and the media and other Democrats decided to
gin up a controversy where they said that going to
Arlington was wrong because it was political, and they also
were claiming that, you know, somebody at Arlington had tried
to keep the gold Star families from taking pictures and
that Trump officials had At first they said that there
was like a physical confrontation, and then later they were like,
actually it wasn't physical, And then later they were like,
and we didn't even file a complaint because the person
who felt that the Trump people were bad is afraid
that if she were to name herself or you know,
whoever it is, that bad things would happen to her.
Because I think we know after ten years that people
who go after Trump are usually damaged in the process,
not given multimillion dollar book deal or TV shows, you know,
or fetted by everybody in the media. And it was
kind of this war between the media and Trump until
Saturday or Sunday, I forget which day of the weekend
it was when Kamala Harris weighed in and condemned Donald
Trump for accepting the invitation of the gold Star Families
to go to Arlington. And it was really weird because
I think even though Kamala Harris tries to claim that
she was super involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal, or she
did initially until it all blew up, this wasn't really
her story until she got involved this past weekend. It
was a Joe Biden disaster more than a Kamala Harris disaster.
But then she weighs in, goes to war against the
gold Star Families inviting Donald Trump for them him accepting
that invitation, and then what happened next was amazing. All
of the gold Star Families did short responses to Kamala Harris.
Have you seen any of these?
Speaker 1: I did not see the responses.
Speaker 2: Now, Oh, David, you have got to watch them. You
owe it to yourself, just as an American to watch
these responses, and they are unrestrained in their criticism of
Kamala Harris and her attack on them and President Trump.
And you also learn other things like one of the
women who's definitely in English as a second language speaker,
is talking about how this is by no means the
first time that Donald Trump has met with them and
grieved their loss. And it's just such a striking contrast
the gold Star families and Trump versus Kamala and the media.
And they decide the scandal is that he went to
honor these dead, rather than that Kamala didn't, or that
Joe Biden didn't, or that the disaster happened, and it
was something to see.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris said she was the last person in the
room talking to Biden before he made this decision or
something of that nature. And yet, so it's weird that
she has claimed responsibility for what happened and yet goes
after someone who is honoring the dead who needlessly died. Incidentally,
the one thing I liked about this whole controversy was
that it kind of forced the media a little bit
to talk about what had happened in Afghanistan within their
stories always sort of buried pretty deep. But I don't
know if people. I do think that conservatives knew or
understood the depth of the irresponsible, politically motivated behavior that
led to the death of those thirteen soldiers. They telegraphed
the date, they did everything backwards. They created anarchy. They
actually listen, we don't want to rehash the whole thing.
It was a disaster. They left weaponry behind, people died,
it was and we left assets, American assets behind all
of that that. Obviously there's a political element to this,
but I'm happy Donald Trump went there. I think that
if you have a political sin, honoring dead soldiers is
the worst is the best one you can have right politicized.
So the whole I think for most Americans just viewing
this would say, it is ridiculous to attack someone for
honoring the dead servicemen and women who were, you know,
part of this political, politically motivated debacle. So anyway, I
mean that was my reaction to it, not following it
step by step because I was away.
Speaker 2: Well, the context here is really interesting too, because it
was four years ago that The Atlantic, which is owned
by Kamala Harris's best friend. That's something I didn't realize
at the time, but it has come out recently in
really cheery discussions that Loreene Powell Jobs is literally Kamala
Harris's bff. That they are, They're extremely close. And I
have always said when Donald Trump has has mocked The
Atlantic for losing ten million dollars a year, I have
always said, if you view it as a political contribution,
it's a bargain. If you control a publication like The
Atlantic and you can run fake info ops through it,
ten million dollars a year does nothing for a billionaire anyway.
One of the info ops she ran against her best
friend's opponent, Donald Trump was to publish a story written
by the editor Oh my gosh, I just forget his name,
the Jeffrey Goldberg, who always or who was kind of
known for his bad journalism during the lead up to
the Iraq War is bad oversight of bad journalism of
the Russia colusion hoax, and various other things. But he
wrote a story in which he claimed he had four
super anonymous sources who said that despite everything you've seen
and heard and witnessed, Donald Trump secretly hates soldiers and
he hates dead soldiers most of all, but right up
near that is wounded soldiers. And it was a weird
story because you have all these examples to the contrary
of Donald Trump being very respectful, honoring the dead, posing
NonStop with wounded soldiers, and more than that, you had
literally twenty five or so, I can't remember, it's twenty
four I think on the record refutations of these four
anonymous people. Supposedly four anonymous people. So these are people
who were in the room where he supposedly said that
soldiers who died were suckers and losers. And you have
people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders there. I think she was
one of them. Maybe it was Kaylee mcnamney, I can't remember.
But you also people like John Bolton, and he came
out and he said, I hate Donald Trump more than
I hate everything in life combined. And he never said this.
And Donald Trump has made the point that had he
said that in a room full of military leadership, he
assumes they all would have resigned on the spot. But
like hit him first. And so it's like a fantastical
story that the left believes that there is no evidence
in supportive and yet it was used by media even
I think Chris Wallace asked Trump about it in the debate,
or maybe Biden brought it up in the debate, I
can't remember. In twenty twenty, it was used NonStop in
ads from Biden, and so you can see that one
of the problems with Donald Trump visiting Arlington and actually
spending time on camera and off camera with these gold
star families is that it just reminds people how corrupt
the propaganda press are.
Speaker 1: To me, it read like a left wing op to
sully the event and make it see him untoward, do
you know what I mean? And that was the op
with Democrats investigating the supposed physical confrontation that happened there
that we learn never happened, and so on, to take
basically the focus off of both. The issue that I
think started to was the first in a very serious event.
But I think that's when the Biden sort of bubbles,
we burst, and people started realizing how incompetent and ridiculous
he was. So anyway, I started to interrupt, by the way,
kind quickly he actually interrupted you again and talk about
John Kelly. You know, everyone says that he confirmed this story, right,
So I went back and I read this piece in
NBC News that says John Kelly confirms Trump privately disparaged
US soldiers and so on. But when you read the quote,
and I won't bother reading the whole quote, he actually
never says that.
Speaker 2: Not at all. And I have been on this ever
since Jake Tapper came out and said John Kelly confirmed it.
And you read what he says, and he's like, it
has been said that Trump said this. What more can
I say because it has been said, And it's like,
I know he's trying to In fact, I actually do
believe John Kelly is one of the anonymous sources. I
think he knows that he can't actually come out and
say he's one of the sources, because then you'll have
these twenty four people be like, well, that man's that
man's a bleabity, bleeping liar. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I I unless there's some place, and
I doubt very highly there is where there's a statement
where he says it happened. He just condemns him for
calling them losers and stuff. That's not it not.
Speaker 2: It doesn't say he does not say he heard it.
He just says, what more can I say about this man?
It has not already been said. It has been said that,
you know, isn't it like Donald Trump's You know, many
people say this or that anyway.
Speaker 1: So how can you have a headline that says John Helly,
John Kelly confirms Trump privately dispars you as service members
and veterans when you know it is completely misleading, You
can do it in part because.
Speaker 2: I also want to say, I actually kind of wonder
if what happened wasn't that the media negotiated this kind
of thing with John Kelly, Like they all look like
suckers and losers themselves for running this info op, and
they wanted to continue the story, or they wanted to
make it seem like it was credible, and they were
going to point out that he was one of their sources,
or maybe they thought it was going to come out
that he was one of their sources. He's very easy
by just journalistically speaking. One of the reasons why a
good reporter will always try to get something on the
record is because it is so easy to lie anonymously
or to be unfair anonymously, and you take like a
little kernel of truth or even not any truth at all,
and you can spin it into a fantastical story if
your name is not associated with it. And I mean
I was just going to say, like, even when Carrie
Savarino and I were writing Justice on Trial, we had
amazing stories I mean amazing, amazing, amazing stories about Christine
Blasi Ford that were told by her people she knew
growing up, people in her community. Now, they told us
they wouldn't put their names with it because they were
scared of how you know, their children are applying to Yale,
and they think if their name is associated with this allegation,
then it'll hurt their children's chance of getting into school.
That's all very believable, but the bottom line is, since
those people weren't willing to put their name with their allegations,
we weren't willing to put them out there in all
their amazing That's responsible.
Speaker 1: That's a responsible journalistic. That's that's how you're supposed to
conduct yourselves as a journal you know, as a journalist.
But also you're supposed to have two sources typically, I
mean not always, but in most cases. I don't think
The Atlantic even pretended to have two sources on this story.
Speaker 2: Were anonymous sources or okay, so here anonymous sources. They
were John Kelly, John Kelly's mom, John Kelly's brother, John Kelly.
Speaker 1: Not General Millie.
Speaker 3: Maybe no exactly, I don't know the here's the op though,
So typically, and you know, some some groups Democrats will
go from to NBC to AB SEE, you know, and
work their way down to the Atlantic because the others
probably are like, this is too rickety to even take
for us, you know, I mean, you don't have any
sources for this.
Speaker 2: Goldberg will take it, He'll eat anything.
Speaker 1: So the Atlantic takes it, and here's the op. The
Atlantic takes it, and now everyone can talk about it
like it's a fact, even though they didn't report it,
you know. So now NBC, ABC, CNN they can all
mention it as factual as you know, saying the Atlantic
reported it.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's my favorite way of that. They'll say we
confirmed the Atlantics reporting. Now what does that mean.
Speaker 1: They call Jeffery Goldberg?
Speaker 2: Well, no, it actually means the same people who ran
the op through Goldberg are willing to run the op
through any other global reporter. Right. So, so this would
happen all the time during the Russia collusion hoax. Someone
would break the news. So, for instance, do you remember
that situation where CNN broke the news that Donald Trump
Junior had advanced notes.
Speaker 1: I was about to talk about this Manu Raju, right
of Wiki Leaks.
Speaker 2: I think so, and they said we have two sources
saying this, and then all of a sudden, Kendelanian over
at NBC said he'd confirmed it and he had two
sources too. I wonder who those two sources were.
Speaker 1: Here's what's funny about that that they got the same
exact date accidentally wrong. All four sources or two sources,
which is pretty impossible, I think.
Speaker 2: Right. So, uh, if you if you're on the hill,
it's like a common joke. You can be like, I
want to I want to run this info op, but
they're going to need two other sources. So you just
talk to two other people in your office and say like, hey,
if Manu Raju calls you, you can say you've heard
about this, yeah, and that's confirmation they have heard about it.
They're not necessarily lying. But it's all it's all a
game and an operation. It's not real journalism. I mean
to clarify. At the end of that story was that
Donald Trump Junior did not have advanced notice of a
wiki leaks. What happened is some absolute random schmo from
California had heard about the wiki leak stump that had
already happened, used a publicly available email address for Donald
Trump Junior and emailed him and was like, hey, man,
this looks like pretty interesting stuff. You should check it out,
and then linked to it. And that became one of
the big Russia collusion scandals. Oh he did this like
the date was wrong. He did it after it was public,
and this was after CNN, NBC and a bunch of
other outlets went crazy with the story. Yeah, all based
on two anonymous sources from Adam Schiff's office.
Speaker 1: I meant to say, yeah, and this is what happened
virtually every week during that time, and there would be
a meltdown and then we'd have to walk it back
and all of that. So yeah, I mean, but it
is it is incredible how that Atlantic story has had
this long life. Even Yeah, actually it's not incredible. I
always say that, but it's not. But in any event,
I think this little fake controversy probably back fired on
DEM's I think it just highlighted that Trump had gone
to Arlington to visit these graves that Kamala Harris doesn't
bother to do that. She doesn't bother to take responsibility.
She doesn't even bother to answer questions about the policies.
You know, sometimes we forget Joe Biden's president, but have
you seen him recently? Making he's worse than ever, Like,
I can't believe this guy supposedly running the country. It
is a sham. It is a sham.
Speaker 2: I actually haven't seen him. I mean, I guess I
saw portions of his speech at the DNC, but that's
the last I've seen of him.
Speaker 1: He had some kind of press conference or statement, and
people are throwing questions at him, and he just sort
of smiles and looks off into the distance, like a
person completely confused. It's actually it would be sad if
he wasn't such a terrible human being. Molly, there's breaking
news by the way from CNN Jim Acosta's account. Exclusive
breaking news now in CNN. The Biden administration to accuse
Russia of sustained effort to influence twenty twenty four election.
I have to check to make sure we were talking
about twenty twenty four, not twenty twenty or twenty sixteen.
But it is twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to me that Russia only medals when well, wait, yeah, Russia.
Russian medaling, according to our press, only happens during Democrat administrations,
because it happened during the Obama administration, and then it
didn't happen during the Trump administration. But now it's back
to happening now that Trump might win again. That's so interesting,
they say, that's because he's that. My favorite One of
my favorite versions of the Russia colusion hoax was, ah,
the Atlantic, right, Franklin four at the Atlantic? Was that right?
Or am I missing someone?
Speaker 1: Balfa Bank one, Well, you're.
Speaker 2: Right, so it was maybe. New York Magazine said that
Donald Trump had been a master spy who had been
secretly secretly working with Russia for like forty years. And
I just think think it's funny, just a in a
cinematic kind of way, to imagine Donald Trump, the least
discreete individual on planet Earth, actually being a secret mastermind
Russian spy.
Speaker 1: It's all to blow smoke, to lead you, you know,
to distract you. All all the stuff, the books, the
television show, the real estate stuff. That was Jonathan chait
I think the unthinkable. From nineteen eighty seven till now,
he's been an asset, which is weird because in nineteen
eighty seven it was a Soviet Union. Then they had
you know a little bit of a a change over there.
But Donald Trump stayed true to his Russian roots. Yeah,
then that's perfectly fine. I mean, Manu Raju, we were
just talking about he I think has been elevated to
even in a higher position at CNN. Jonathan Chad is
supposedly the moderate voice of you know, the Democrat, you know,
democratic punditry, and no one suffered at all for making
stuff like that up. But now we're back at it again.
I just don't think it's going to have the same
kind of I just don't think it's going to be
effective anymore. I don't think anyone really believes it.
Speaker 2: Well, there are different ways of being effective, right, So
there are a lot of low information voters, and there
also are a lot of people who need to believe
that they are morally superior in their opposition to their
political opponent. And so I do think this type of
operation run against low information voters can and those on
the left, it can pay dividends. I don't think it's
going to work anymore on the right. And you think
about even what it was like when the Russia collusion
stuff first started coming out, and when it really bore
fruit in the early days of the Trump administration, you
had most Republicans in Congress going along with it like, oh,
seems like we should appoint a special council, which was
the type of impotence in Republican party politics that you've
come to expect. I don't think that works on the
right anymore. And you may never convince people on the
left with facts or logic about the Russia colusion hopes
and how they've been had through this info op run
by their media and the deep state. But people on
the right are so much more aware of what's going on.
I mean, there's so much more aware that it's actually
gonna be much more difficult to run whatever op they'll
need to run. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Russia does, you know, throw disinformation out,
misinformation they get involved. I mean that's true, as does China,
by the way, and we keep finding Chinese spies everywhere,
but no one seems very concerned about that. We should
talk about that in a minute. So it's this thing
that exists that they can blow out of proportion, and
it's impossible to disapprove. I can't disprove that Russia's convinced
someone to vote for Donald Trump, even though you know,
I doubt a single American has actually been convinced. But
I don't want to jump the gun, but I do
think actually, can we just remember too, that the Russian
disinformation of twenty sixteen was not.
Speaker 2: Best described as pro Trump. It was best described as
pro chaos. It was very minor. It was like one
hundred thousand dollars in Facebook ads. Most of it played
like at no time near the election. It was partially
pro Hillary or pro other Democrat content, and partially pro Republican.
So this, you know, it became this Adam Schiff narrative
that Russia was meddling in order to and everything they
were doing was to help Trump get elected. Russia is
an adversary and they want to sow chaos, and they
do a really good job of it. And nothing sewed
more chaos than the Russia collusion hoax. And it is
kind of interesting that the dossier's main author, Igor Danchenko,
is Russian. I'm not saying he did it on behalf
of the Russian government. But like, if you wanted to
look in a direction for Russia collusion, the people who
paid through cutthroughs Russians to spread disinformation might be a
better source for a Special Council investigation than the victim
of it. But that's just me.
Speaker 1: Well, almost surely some of the dossier came from was
Russian disinformation, and that's almost indisputable at this point. So
you know, I would say that that had a more
of an effect by far on American politics, as you mentioned,
than any Facebook ad, which I you know, which in
my book that's coming at I really take a deep
dive on. I mean, it was laughably juvenile, you know,
and it was basically just trying to cause, like you say,
chaos and pit people against each other. Listen, I don't
think we need help in that regard democracy, if you
really believe in it is messy, and it's better to
have some Russian disinformation and our information flow than it
is to keep banning people and creating and attacking free
expression and allowing people to interact.
Speaker 2: So and we can see what the real threat is
to people in power by what you just said, and
the real threat is, of course freedom of speech. I
loved that line in RFK Junior's speech about how the
government isn't afraid of misinformation, they're afraid of the truth.
He said it much more eloquently. But people are afraid
of real facts and information getting out there. And that's
why in Brazil they just made it impossible for X
to operate and have draconian fines on anyone who's using
an VPN to get around their ban on X. People
are afraid of real facts and information getting out, not
not misinformation, that's just a lie.
Speaker 1: Did you see how many people in the American left
either or made excuses for the Brazilian government or we're
supportive of what had happened there? I mean, can I
read you aligned from the Associated So what happened was
one single justice in the Supreme Court of Brazil shut
down X. Then they went to the full orb. I
don't know how they're exactly or Supreme Court works, but
many justices and they all they all upheld that order.
I think the guy's name was Alexander de Moreus. This
is how the Associated Press reports on it. They say
the High Court's decision undermines the effort of Musk and
his supporters to cast Justice Alexander d Mores as an
authoritarian renegade who is intent on censoring political speech in Brazil,
like it makes a difference if one judge does it
or a bunch of judge judges shut down what is
I believe, the most popular social media site in the
largest country in South America. By the way, did you
know that the Brazilian Constitution protects free expression in all
its forms? And it I know this because I looked
it up and it is on in chapter five, Article
two twenty or page one eight of my of the
Brazilian Constitution, so you know they take it super seriously.
Speaker 2: But it does show you why you don't need just
laws but a culture that protects speech, because.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly it's what Justice Scalia said. Every Banana republic
has a you know, a bill of rights. It doesn't
really matter. But I just want to say that the
reason this is politically motivated. The Brazilian president, Lula, you know,
came out and said we don't need his right wing
politics here. But I know that Musk is a much
more idealistic person who believes in freedom because he lets
Lula have an account on Twitter, even though the guy
attacks him with nine million followers, do you, I mean,
he views speech as a neutral principle. But anyway, I
thought about that, and I also thought about Europe, where
they also have a constitution that supposedly protects free speech.
But now in places like Britain, in Germany, cops will
show up at your door. They will literally take you
in and arrest you for posting something on Twitter or
elsewhere that is, you know, supposedly offensive. But the reason
I think we should talk about this is because I've
watched this. I'm sure you saw this video of Kamala
Harris talking to Jack Jake Tapper in twenty nineteen where
she said that whereas social media companies are directly speaking
to millions and millions of people without any level of
oversight or regulation, and it has to stop. I mean,
that is insanely authoritarian. I can't even believe an American,
a presidential candidate would say something like that, and it
it's going to be fine, It's very I doubt it's
even going to be mentioned in major media. So Kamala
Harris becomes president, she's obviously her instincts are all authoritarian.
Surely on speech. We had President Biden, obviously, and let's
talk about it. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg the other week
said that the Biden administration had pressured him into taking
posts down. So what makes us think anything's going to
change if Kamala Harris becomes president?
Speaker 2: Right, Biden administration had pressured zuck Well, really, and it's
not just you know, it's permanent DC. It's not just Democrats.
It's that we have this time bureaucracy, you know, sort
of extra constitutional branch of government that is very powerful
in DC. So, yeah, censored discussion on public health, which
is one of the most important things that you should
be able to be free to discuss best approaches for
how to handle a global pandemic. The government made it
so that you couldn't do that. It was really difficult
to fight against that. They also ran an op to
suggest that if any stories came out about the laptop
that they that they had had for a year, that
that would need to be censored as well, and zuck
went along with that. And then he also said he
had meddled in the election. You know, he'd been led
to believe that it would be in a nonpartisan way.
I'm not sure how much I believe that, and he
believes it was nonpartisan to fund that get out the
vote operations in the blue areas of swing states, but
that he understood other people didn't think that, and so
he wasn't going to do it anymore. But yeah, we
have all these threats going on right now. Kamala Harris's statement,
it's not just you know what she said to Jake
Tapper in that interview where she's like, Donald Trump needs
to lose his ability to communicate with the American public
because he has said things I don't like. It's also
that on the debate stage with Elizabeth Warren, she was
badgering Warren. Warren said something like, I don't want to
take away Donald Trump's free speech rights. I just want
him to I want to beat him at the ballot box.
When Elizabeth Warren is sounding like a rational defender of
the American constitutional order against what you're saying, you know,
you know, you've kind of messed up, and she would
not let it go. Like the moderators were trying to
get Kamala Harris to move on, and she wouldn't move on.
She wanted to get everybody to agree that Donald Trump
needed to be silenced, and that government force needed to
be used to silence him, that corporate pressure sort of
like a fascistic corporate pressure could be applied. And this
is the nominee, the current nominee, who says her values
in opposition to free speech have in no way changed.
And yeah, nobody in the media is like actually talking
about it, even though it was just a few short
years ago that they had her on videotape saying all this.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget Tim Walls, vice presidential candidate, said
that there were no guarantees on free speech when it
came to misinformation. Hates speech of course, just means social
conservative views most of the time, or democracy. Well, I
mean it's like you said, the more serious the issue,
the more we need free speech not to be encumbered
at all. I mean, none of it should be, of course.
And yet the entire Democratic Party ticket now is against
says that you can shut down free speech if if
they deem it hate speech or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I wrote a story that I feel like relates
to this that I wanted to talk about. I live
in Alexandria, Virginia, and one of the neighborhoods here in
Alexandria is known as this like really charming, cute, you know,
just like very very boutique kind of area, lots of
dogs and children. It's called del Rey, and it was
people kind of knew about it also in part because
the Obamas used to come to the area. They got
ice cream, got custard at the Dairy Godmother and the
favorite custard shop. And then a few months after Donald
Trump was inaugurated, a baseball field full of Republicans practicing
for the congressional baseball game was gunned down by a
Bernie Brow Democrat activist, and I think six of them
were shot or injured, and one of them was nearly
fatally injured, Steve Scalise. You know, it's like a miracle
that he's even walking again. He went into emergency surgery.
And when you have a major assassination attempt of this type,
you would expect it to be a huge issue in
the neighborhood. And I actually lived in, you know, right
near that baseball park at that time, and it was
like crickets. Nobody said much of anything. I think maybe
maybe that afternoon there'd been like a little gathering and
then it was just like we're moving on, and people
posted even more of their hate has no home here signs,
even you know, even though one of their own had
just gunned down a baseball field full of Republicans. Anyway,
cut to a couple of years ago, Jade Vance wins
election to be senator from Ohio. So it's very common
for people who are senators. You know, they they're here
during the week and home on weekends usually, and so
they will they make a decision either to come with
their family or not, and you know that effects where
they live. And JD. Vance bought a house in Delray,
and these neighbors of Delray decided to put out what
they call not so welcome signs, and they call it
yarn bombing, and it's where you knit a protest sign
and then you wrap it like around a pole in
front of the person's house, so their utility poles and
parking sign poles and stuff like that, and so they
put yarn around it to let them know they were
not welcome. I was appalled by this at the time.
I mean, I have friends who live right around there.
They were all appalled, and it was it was just
so unsettling to say, like, we know where you live.
We know that you have young children, and we want
you to know that we don't want you here. And
on the neighborhood list serves and in the Facebook chats
and all that, all these women who were participating in this,
they were calling it utterly delightful, and they were even
saying that they hoped that maybe some of the protests
that had come to Trump officials in the neighborhood would
also come to the home of JD. Vance where he
lives with his children aged two, four, and six. And
isn't that delightful? And so recently President Trump was nearly
assassinated and then like two days later he picked JD.
Vance as his running mate. And last week the Secret
Service says they're going to shut down the Tiny Tot
playground that's right near his house. And I certainly took
my kids there when they were at that age. It's
a charming little playground. There's also one literally two blocks
away that serves the same age group. The neighbors were
just heartbroken about it, and they were devastated that this
might be closed. Now. During COVID, when Alexandria closed all
parks and schools, there was no protest and they did
it for years, by the way, but here in this
case it was supposed to be a big deal, and
so they held a protest at the park to protest
the closing. They called it a party, and that you
were encouraged to wear your cat ladies for Kamala shirts
and other things that are like democrat merged that I
wasn't totally aware of. And anyway, I wrote a piece
criticizing it. And one of the things I'd learned while
researching the piece is that authoritarianism can be a problem
on both left and right. But one thing that's very
interesting about studies of totalitarianism is that if you are
on the right and you want, you know, your enemies
punished or something like that, like all the criteria for
what makes an authoritarian, you actually self identify as having
authoritarian tendencies. Whereas people on the left, they'll support brutal
punishment of their enemies and then reject the idea that
they are authoritarian, or they will want strong leadership where
opposing opinions aren't really given the right to fly free,
and they don't think that's authoritarian at all. And I
thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you must be beloved
in the neighborhood. In your neighborhood, I imagine I.
Speaker 2: Did get two negative emails from it, and I also
got i would say, like more than three dozen positive emails.
So and all of the positive emails, and I'm talking
about from people in the neighborhood or nearby, the positive
ones were so nice and so appreciative of what I
was saying, and that they had felt that they wished
they had spoken up against these they call themselves, by
the way, the del Rey mafia, and they think it's
like cute. And then when you say, like, gosh, you're
engaged in some mob like tactics, They're like, how dare
you say that I am in any way engaged in
any bad behavior? Yeahwhelmingly positive response. However, the thing that
I thought was interesting were the two negative emails I
got were definitely from people who matched that study showing
that left wing authoritarians do not perceive of themselves as authoritarian.
In fact, it's like incomprehensible for them to realize they're
engaged in authoritarian tactics. The paper that was written by
the scholar who's researching this had noted that, you know,
we live in a country where we have raised people
to witness the firing of Gina Kurano for having the
wrong political views, but not to understand the authoritarian impulses
behind that decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's been clear to me that left
wingers are not all, but many are incredibly intolerant Progresses.
Especially I've lived in their neighborhoods for years, and the
very notion that a conservative might to be able to
put up like signage like they do would be they
would just blow their minds that such a thing could
happen in their neighborhoods. And I've seen that happen. And
obviously the way that they I hate the word canceled,
but the way they just simply cannot abide by anyone
disagreeing with them. I actually don't think that politicians should
be bothered in their homes at all. I'm not saying
there's a First Amendment right to do what you want,
but I think it's it's it shows that the ugly
nature of politics and that that has invaded sort of,
you know, our everyday lives, which I think is just
a terrible, a terrible trend in American life overall.
Speaker 2: You know, sorry, I did want to put up a
sign a few years ago. I think I've mentioned this before,
but you know Voss Lovefavell's Power of the Powerless essay
about green grocers and how everyone puts up a sign
workers of the world unite, and how this is a
sign that signals to the people higher than your station
in life that you are not a threat, and it
also signals to the people below you that they can,
like do work with you. So if you're the green grocer,
you want to let shoppers know it's safe to come
in here, and you want to let the people who
control your distribution understand that you are a team player
and all that. So in my neighborhood when they put
up all the hate has No Home Here signs, Actually
my neighborhood did the weirdest opposite thing. They did what
I would call hate has a Home here signs. And
what I mean by that is during the BLM riots,
that's a Marxist movement. My neighborhood has no problem with that.
So one of the principles of this BLM movement is
that you have to acknowledge that you yourself are a
horrific sinner, a horrific racist if you actually want to
make things better. So if you're white, you have to acknowledge.
Speaker 1: This right, you're a racist, even if you don't know
it or act.
Speaker 2: So all my neighbors put up these signs that said
ending racism starts here with a map to their house,
and then they would put that in their front yard.
Some of them still have them. And so I have
now for four years, more than four years, been stopping,
you know, like every time I walk by their house
with my kids, they say, a racist lives here, and
I want you to never be racist. Racism is wrong
and contrary to what we believe is Christians. So like
I just keep doing it because they have the hate.
You know, hate lives inside this house signs.
Speaker 1: It's so reminiscent of just a struggle session sort of thing.
You know, it is just insanity but going.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to put up a sign that said
I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient, because Havell says
that if you were to take that Workers of the
World Unite signed and translate and translated into what it
really means, it would mean I am afraid and therefore
unquestionably obedient. So I wanted to make that sign, but
I thought it was like way too complex and also
maybe too hostile to my neighbors. Now we do have,
by the way, right now, at this moment, people living
in my house have little People in my house have
put out signs for the political viewpoint of their choice.
Speaker 1: And so shouldn't there be a sign in front of
your house that reads I can't believe I live next
to all these racists or something like that. I know
that's what you're going for on a very high elevated
intellectual level, but I'm not sure that your neighbors are
going to know hovels gring grosser parable. But I like it.
I like it. I like it. Yeah, I just I
get again, We've gone through so many times. I get
that some people on the right dome like Trump. I
understand why they don't. However, I don't see any on
any level in any policy that the progressive left, which
has taken over the Democratic Party, any of their goals.
They all seem pretty authoritarian to me, from speech to
you know, to the entire entirety of the First Amendment
religious freedom as well economic freedom. I mean, I can't
think of what were you know, the abuse of government powers.
I saw Dennis Quaid, the actor, said that he wasn't
a big Trump fan, but he was going to support
him because after he saw, you know, that the Justice
Department had essentially become a you know, politicized and weaponized.
I mean that matters to me as well. Now I'm
not saying the other side perfect, but I just don't
see what on what level they aren't acting in a
soft or pretty hard authoritarian manner. And again the other
side is not perfect, but how can That's what I
wanted to say. So at the d n C, they
kept saying they were the Party of Freedom, and it
was just so confusing to me because it is orwelly
and their description of freedom is or well and it's
basically means you're going to be safe from hearing things
you don't like, You're going to be safe, you know, economically,
even if you know, and you know, in a risk
free environment, and so on and so on. I just think
it's very un American, I have to say, and pretty
scary to me at least. And as you know, I
am not some I try not to be this, you know,
try not to use hyperbole. Is that I guess I do,
so I don't know, but you know what I'm saying.
So it seems very authoritarian the most I think Kamala
Harris is a most authoritarian presidential candidate of a major
party we've ever maybe had, or maybe since Wilson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say since Wilson, I would say. And Wilson
was so much more competent than I think he knew
exactly what he was doing. She's just a poorly educated
or educated in Wilsonian thinking.
Speaker 1: She think she's that complicated, meaning does she think about
things in that way or is she just like whatever
further's power from me and my party, I will do
what I'm saying. I feel like she just is really
a liberal in her way of thinking, but not again
in an intellectual or very smart way, right, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Think I think when you look at a Wilson, he
really wanted to reshape America, sure or very he'd really
thought and spent a lot of time thinking about it.
With her, I think she does desire power, and I
think it's reflexive for her. I don't. I think that's
less bad than Wilson, but it's still kind of terrifying
to live through it.
Speaker 1: Well, it is. I mean, one thing I forgot to mention,
which is super important. I believe as far as the
authoritarian stuff goes, is that, as far as we know,
she supports packing the Supreme Court, transforming it into this
political or political institution that's going to be like everything else.
And when she does that, I really think free speech
and all these other authoritarian things she wants to do
are going to be a lot easier to achieve. And
that's important as well. Every time we move on to culture, Molly,
I feel like it's always the depths of despair, Like
you know, we were like there, you know, we're headed
towards authoritarianism. Now, let's talk about the records we've bought
this week. Did you do anything culture wise this week?
Speaker 2: We went to the Reagan movie. Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, So we took the kids to the Reagan movie,
and I'm very glad we did it. I want to
talk about what was good about it first. Sure, So,
Dennis Quaid does a fantastic job as Reagan. I mean,
you can never quite capture that joyful spirit that Reagan had,
but when he looked like him, he had the mannerisms down.
I really thought he did a great job with it.
And I also, I'm so so bad at remembering names,
but the actress who played Nancy Davis, I thought did
a very good job. The Nancy Davis character was written
in a very less complicated way than she was in
real life. And it was really fun to see all
these different people, you know who in some cases I
know Admiral John Poindexter, you know, see him pop up
in the film. And also it was fun to see
I truly have no idea if the people in the
movie all shared non left wing politics, but you saw
a lot of people who were out conservatives playing different
roles there.
Speaker 1: Jenelope Anne Miller, what He's Gonna Say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Mina Suvari played Jane Wyman, and it covered
his entire life from childhood through Alzheimer's. So it was
very ambitious, and I actually wonder if it wouldn't have
been better served to have a more narrow focus. The
focus it did have was about the summits with Gorbachev,
and those were really interesting to see how much he
cared about peace, how much he cared about peace through strength,
What a formidable opponent he was, you know. It was
just nice to remember some of these things. You know,
I was born after he was governor, but I lived
in California and just remembering everything from the assassination attempt
to how he made Mondale laugh with his little cut
about how he's not going to make his opponent's youth
and inexperience, he's not going to take advantage of that
during the campaign. So I liked it, and I was
really glad that my kids got to see. You know,
they hear us talking about Reagan so much, and they're
definitely studying American history and so I think it helped
them contextualize some of what they've been learning about the
World War. So yeah, I would definitely recommend going to
see it. I just also felt that it was, I
don't know, it's like more biography than biopic in some ways,
Like it was very It just covered a lot, and
I'm glad for that, but I just kind of wished
that it had if it had had a more narrow focus,
I think it could have done a better job of
making all the characters a little more well rounded in
terms of both their flaws and their goodness. It was
a bit hay giography.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's I'm happy about that I think.
You know, obviously it's become sort of a caricature in
people's minds, and a lot of people feel like Republicans have,
you know, worship him in a way they shouldn't, and
maybe that's true as well. But what I always find
is that he's simplified by both sides. He was a
really serious person, Like I have his notebook somewhere, you know,
they published them, and he's he's really thinking about issues
in a far deeper way than I think most politicians
do today. Frankly, you know, it's not like he just landed,
you know, on the conservative side of you know, on
foreign policy, there is I'm not saying this conservative foreign policy,
but his foreign policy views, plus his economic views and stuff.
It was. And what I loved about him and I
grew up during the Reagan years, was that he was
one of this rare politician that actually convinced almost the
entire nation to think differently about the world, you know,
after many many years of failures of the frankly, the
sort of mainstream left. So that's very rare, you know,
And I think that as far as presidents go, he
was up there.
Speaker 2: So if I can say one thing, about it then too.
It's that seeing the clarity that he had about the
threats posed by the Soviet Union, it made me feel
so frustrated at something we were talking about earlier about
China and how so many people aren't aware of the threat,
like communism is the threat. The Soviet Union no longer exists,
and Russia, while an adversary, is not communist, we do
have a communist empire in the world, and people treat
it like it's not and they work to see how
to help it achieve its economic goals. They're not, you know,
when you think about how even the Left wasn't fully
in bed with the Soviet Union. They weren't doing a
ton of business with the Soviet Union. Companies kind of
understood that we were in this Cold War and that
you wouldn't be trying to make sure that the Soviet
Union was able to achieve all of its economic goals.
But we just have a lot of unseerious people. We're
in a much better place now than we were in
twenty sixteen in terms of understanding the threat post by China.
But even just like how rarely people point out that
it's read China, it's the Communist Party of China that
runs China just very different from where we all were
during the heyday the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: I agree generally, but I think people need to remember
when you have Russia, Russia has a sphere of influence
they care about, you know, traditionally, going backbeat before communism,
Communism is a universalist ideology. They want the whole world
to be Communists. Now, I don't think Chinese are good communists.
They remind me a fascist in many way more but
they don't think about the world the same way that
up Putin does. In my view, Utin doesn't want to
spread Putonism to Idaho. He has a sphere and influence
he's worried about, So that is the main difference. I
think in Reagan understood that communists were trying to spread
their ideology to the Central America so forth. Unfortunately, there's
a resurgence in it in certain places. But yeah, I
agree with you. So I'm happy this movie was good.
I planned on seeing it. I'm happy. I was kind
of surprised because Dennis Quoid is not one of these
sort of fringe actors. He's actually a pretty big actor.
He's been in a lot of big stuff. So for
him to take on the roll and then actually support
Trump is a weird, weird thing to see.
Speaker 2: I got to meet him at the Republican Convention.
Speaker 1: Oh he was there. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was coming out of makeup as he
was coming into makeup for a hit on Fox and
and he was there, and I was like, oh, Dennis Quaid,
you know. And then I went to get my I
was getting my hair done. This is way too much detail.
And I realized, like, oh, that was someone I had
a major crush on in my youth, Like I mean,
like I thought he was super hot. And I was like,
this isn't good that it took me this long to
remember that I had a crush on this person.
Speaker 1: He was. He's very American, you know what I mean.
It's not like he could play international spy. He always
needs to play sort of very American rules like the
president or you know or something like that. Yeah, he's
been around a long time, he said. He's a good actor.
How about is insane? Brothers, he's like a Republican Still,
I don't even know what's up with you?
Speaker 2: Like that guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's wild.
Speaker 2: Did you ever watch The Big Easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with Ellen Barkin or no, it was with didn't
just talk.
Speaker 2: About this a few weeks ago. I feel like we're
literally repeating from a few big easy now maybe someone
else that about.
Speaker 1: Meg Ryan, wasn't he? I forget Okaylen Bark.
Speaker 2: I did want to also mention really quickly that I
saw Double Indemnity. That's one of the few movies that
I'll watch like over and over again. And the kids
wanted to see it, so we we watched it. It's
you know, those are bad people in there. And I
just love Fred McMurray.
Speaker 1: It's weird to seeing him in that role after watching
him growing up as my three sons the dad.
Speaker 2: It's just really well done. Highly recommend doublin Dimnity. Okay,
I'm done.
Speaker 1: I only watched one thing that I can remember was
a documentary on Albert Brooks called Defending My Life. Have
you seen that? Oh?
Speaker 2: No, but I will do that when I wrote today.
Speaker 1: Yeah nice. You know as a ever, you know, many
people know his real name was Albert Einstein and all that,
and it's just he has unfortunately. Listen a lot of
it takes place at a dinner table with him talking
to his best friend Carl Reiner, who insane on Twitter,
but it was still okay. I could get over that.
Guy is such a clown that I could get over
get over it, So that was really good. I'm a
fan of Albert Brooks. Then when I was I was,
I spent my time last week upstate New York, which
I love, visiting friends and Adaron Dykes, which are just
so freaking beautiful. I love it. I went to two
record stores I found time and they were they blew
my mind. I just have to say. I was in
Schenectady and the place was called Love Vinyl. This is
like the best record store I've ever been. And they
had experimental section, like ambient section, and classical music. It
was just fantastic. It was in a place you would
never imagine that such a great record store would be in.
And then I was in Albany and I went to
a place called Again on a side street in a
neighborhood you'd never expect to see it, but it was
called Last Vestige and that too a lot of great
used records. I don't know. We have listeners who live
up there and are interested in vinyl, they should definitely
visit anyway, that's what I did, So I didn't watch
a lot of TV. I'm actually rewatching Justified. I do
that once a year. I think it's my favorite to
show of all time. And that's all. That's all I've done. Okay,
okay again, if you'd like to write the show, please
do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. We
love to get your mail and.
Speaker 2: Until next week's I'm sorry to but did you see
that email from the runway from the RFK Junior Oh
my god, he was But no, I loved it when
when I was like raving about the RFK junior speech
and he was like, where have you been? He's been
giving this speech for a year and a half.
Speaker 1: He did not like our ignorance on the RFK topic.
He was so mad that I didn't know the VPS
VP's name, which I think is Nicole Shanahan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, but I loved that email and it made
me realize that there are these areas, these blind spots
that I have that I need to work on.
Speaker 1: I have to say I do read most of them
unless I see it's like nine hundred paragraphs. I have
to say I do this game first to see if
I'm going to be yelled at it or not. If
I'm not being yelled at, I'll probably. If I am
being yelled at, I move on.
Speaker 2: But anyway, sorry to interrupt that going.
Speaker 1: No, it's okay. I was on the runway. I had
a good, perfectly timed but manx. Anyway, we'll be back.
We'll read your emails. Until then, be lovers of freedom
and anxious for a friend.