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Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,

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an idea.

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Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going.

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Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.

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Speaker 3: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,

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not because I put my hand on a book and

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made a wish.

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Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.

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Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,

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Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.

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Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the

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Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

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Speaker 2: On the show today, I'm going to be speaking with

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three people who escaped MAGA. They voted for Trump, they

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supported MAGA, they identified with the Make America Great Again movement,

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and now they're out and they're kind of blowing the

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whistle and they're talking about why they were wrong, what

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they were thinking, and how we might be able to

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approach some of these people if we want to go there.

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And so I'm interested. You know, you know, Stephen Hassen

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is a cult expert. He's an ex mooney. He wrote

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a whole book called the Cult of Trump, and I

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think it's straight up a cult. It's the identity of

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the group and the leader. It's an authoritarian model. I

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will take care of you, and I will solve all

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your problems and distrust everybody else. So it's an information silo,

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and you live in an alternate reality, and you're spending

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all your money and your time and your resources to

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support the great leader. I mean, that's just straight up cult.

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But I'm going to talk to some ex magas on

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the show today. Now you may hear in my voice

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it's a little bit raspy. Natalie got sick three days ago,

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and when you share a house and oxygen with someone,

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there's a fair chance that you're going to get sick

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as well. And so yesterday, oh joy, Now I've got

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the symptoms that she had. I feel okay, but my

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voice is a little scratchy and a tad sketchy. Just

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bear with me, okay, I'm and do my best for you.

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Before I get to my calls, let me share an

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article that was published in The Daily Beast a while back.

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It's titled January sixth, Convict tells the truth about Trump

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He's a cult boss. The article says, this actual truth

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has erupted on truth social It came on Monday, and again.

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This was last year after Donald Trump posted a compound falsehood.

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He posted American Justice sixty nine year old grandma with

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cancer given more prison time for walking inside US capital

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than Hunter Biden for sharing classified documents with foreign regimes

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and multi million dollar bribery schemes. Trump endorsed the lies

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with one word horrible. But then that same grandma with cancer,

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who is actually seventy, came right at him and she posted,

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please don't be using me for anything. I'm not a

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victim of January sixth. I pleaded guilty because I was guilty.

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Hashtag stop the spin, Pamela Hemphill of Idaho wrote on

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the platform. She added that Trump should not compare her

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to the current president's son. He didn't try to attack

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the capital, she tweeted. Himp Hill says that until three

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months ago, she was under the spell of what she

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calls the Trump cult. She attended the January sixth rally

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as a self appointed citizen journalist and videographer after her

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brother gave her a plane ticket to Washington. He was

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trying to lift her spear's She fought breast cancer, she said.

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My brother calls says Hey, you, since you're going to

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start chemotherapy, why don't you go see Trump and video

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record that. I said I couldn't afford it, but he said,

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I'll give it to you for a Christmas present. Three

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days after Christmas, Hemphill announced on Facebook she was going

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to Washington. It's not going to be a fun Trump

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rally that has planned for January sixth. She said, it's

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a war, and war is in all caps. She added,

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the fight for America is real. Show up. I don't

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need to hear your excuses. We have no second chances.

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If millions, and I mean millions show up, we may

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have a chance find a way. That New Year's Eve,

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a friend posted on Facebook what Hemphill says was just

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a joke photo of her holding a plastic rifle. Happy

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New Year on my way to Washington January wherey sixth,

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the caption read. Hempell later said she had not realized

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how lost she had become. She said, you don't see

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it as a cult. When you're in it, you don't

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recognize it. She said she still had forty stitches from

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her breast surgery when she was caught up in the

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rush into the Capitol building. She credits one of the

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cops with saving her from serious injury. A combination of

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excitement and pain medication caused her to then urge the

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crowd to go on in. She said, this is your house,

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your house, she can be heard saying on her own video.

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The next morning, she flew back to Boise. She was

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home eight months later when FBI agents arrived at her

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door and arrested her. They were nothing like the jack

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booted Feds of far right fictions. She said. The FBI

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were really good to me. They just have procedures. It's

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what they do. The agents agreed to let her just

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sit down and collect herself. I said, I got a

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vape for a minute here. I'm nervous. I've never been

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in jail in my life. After Hemphill pleaded guilty to

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invading the capital, she was sentenced to sixty days in prison.

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In mid July of last year, she paid two months

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rent in advance and surrendered at the federal prison in Dublin, California.

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Hemphill says the sixty days felt like an eternity. She

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said she had deepening doubts that the election had really

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been stolen. She said, I was starting to see things.

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I was back and forth, not knowing what to believe.

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But trump Ism kept its hold on her until she

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was back home and family members began speaking hard truth

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to her, just as she had two alcoholics and drug

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abusers before she retired as a substance abuse counselor. She recalled,

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they told me, Pam, you're in a cult. You really

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need to get out of that. We really care about you,

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but this is a cult. You're trapped in a cult.

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She began to see the Trump who had been there

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all along. She recalled, I started seeing the narcissistic behavior

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and I said, wait, wait, this is gaslighting. This is

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not true. She began to listen to what her gun

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had been telling her. I never liked how he talked

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to people anyway. She said. He's rude. He's very mean

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to people. She discerned the truth about fake news. She said,

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tell everybody it's fake news, and they don't listen to

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that news. She became angry when Representative Marjorie Taylor Green

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out of Georgia and others spoke of her as a victim.

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She said, what's happened is they're using me like a victim.

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I'm not a victim. I pleaded guilty because I was

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guilty period. I mean I was trespassing. I had a choice.

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I could have left. And she was disturbed by the

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ongoing Trump mania, all those flags with his picture on

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it and T shirt. She said, it's like, wait, you guys,

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this is getting a little weird. In the meantime, other

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January sixth participants and their supporters were bombarding Hemphill with

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texts and tweets. She recalled, They were just telling me

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all their victimness gas lighting, and I started saying, wait, wait, wait,

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you guys. The officers were nice to me. I don't

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see what you're talking about. I started hearing all their lies,

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their stories. I said, wait, it doesn't look like the

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police started anything. In April of twenty twenty three, Hemphill

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finally broke the spell. She told herself what her family

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had been telling her. I said, this is it, Pam,

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this is a cult. This face it, back away one

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hundred percent. Those still deep in the cult were fury,

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She said. I started debunking them, and they got mad

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at me, and they started getting more mad at me

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and started a smear campaign on me that I was

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a Fed agent, that I was Antifa, just silly children,

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high school stuff. She was exiled from January sixth, Twitter spaces,

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she started one of her own that filled with people

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who wielded the best weapon against a cult. Facts, She said.

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She came to understand how she and others became members

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of the Trump cult. She said, it's called love bombing.

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He's a rescuer trying to save the world, you know.

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On Monday, Hempill responded to Trump with facts on truth

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social and it was not because she favors any of

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the other presidential candidates. Too bad, we don't have a

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black woman running, she said. And again this was before

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Kamala Harris. Over the last fifteen years, we've talked a

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lot with people who have escaped cults and have insider knowledge,

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and cults can exist far beyond religions. Yes, there can

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be political cults, and there are others, you know, like

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the wellness industry cults. You'll find some kind of hardcore

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people there. It's just one of those things that applies

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in so many ways. And I'm interested in the stories

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of people who were there and got out, and we're

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going to talk to them today. I've got Jeff on

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the line. Jeff are you there, I'm here. Tell me

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about yourself. I guess we start with your backgrounds. What

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were the precursors to MAGA for you?

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Speaker 4: Well, I go back a long way. I first started

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voting for Ronald Reagan back in nineteen eighty because I

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was kind of taken in by his charisma, if you

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want to call it that. And I thought he seemed

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like a really good person, a good hearted person, and

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I still believe that. But I think he was very

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misguided on economics. And also I come from you know,

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I wasn't born a Republican, but I come from a

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Republican family. So it's it's just one of those natural

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things that it seems like, well, everybody in my family's

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a Republican, so I must be too.

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Speaker 2: I was a Reagan guy. I mean I was relatively young.

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Let's see, I graduated high school in nineteen eighty six.

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But I was part of that. You know, he was polished,

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and he was smooth, and he was you know, Hollywood,

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so he knew how to string sentences together and be

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charismatic and all the catchwords freedom, American exceptionalism. And it

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was only afterwards when I looked back and saw things

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like the AIDS crisis and his abysmal handling of it,

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and the debts and the greedy eighties that I really

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looked through the looking glass. The other way was that.

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Speaker 4: You absolutely And what I was just thinking is I

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saw all of those things and I didn't like them,

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and yet I was able to overlook them. And I can't.

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I'm almost embarrassed to say that, but I saw the

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flaws and I just ignored them.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well tell me about your mindset. In twenty sixteen,

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pre election, Donald Trump is running. He's supposedly the outsider,

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beholden to no one, and he's going to come and

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just fix it. He's going to be the hero that

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saves us all. Were you thinking that?

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Speaker 4: I don't know if I would go that far, But

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by twenty sixteen I was already starting to kind of

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doubt my mindset. I have a lot of friends who

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leaned very far left, and they were very good as

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far as we had a lot of conversations and there

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was never any you know, no harsh words or anything,

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but they were really beginning to win me over. But

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the problem I had at that time, and I'm embarrassed

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to say this too, I did not like Hillary because

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I blamed ben Ghazi on her, and I don't even

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know if that's correct or not, but that's I had

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been for many years. I listened to Rush Limbaugh and

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Sean Hannity and Glenn Back and all of those nuts,

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and I think I was buying a lot of things

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that they were saying. So by the time the election

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came around again, I hate to admit this, but I

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ended up voting for Trump in twenty sixteen, and I

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regret it a lot, but almost immediately I realized that

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was a very bad move.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to back up. I was in radio. This

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was nineteen ninety four ninety five. I would work the

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morning show and then by the time it was I

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was ready to drive home, Rush Limbaugh and his monologue

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would come on the radio, so it was like one o'clock,

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and I remember I would be calm at the beginning

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of the drive, and by the time I got home,

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after fifteen seventeen minutes of him getting worked up and

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me getting worked up, I thought, this whole country's going

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to hell in a handbasket. Were you that way? Did

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he ramp you up?

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Speaker 4: Absolutely? I can remember at one point in time thinking

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that what is wrong with these liberals? Can they not

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see the light? It's so obvious.

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Speaker 2: I like what you said about how your liberal friends

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didn't treat you like a Nazi. And in the age

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of the Internet, we're seeing the death of discourse and

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people say, well, we can disagree on what kind of

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coffee we like, in our favorite color, and whether we're

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dog people or cat people, but we can't disagree on

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our values. And on the surface, I totally get that,

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I really understand, but it's a conversation stopper. I mean,

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do we want to change minds? So when you were

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essentially you were Maga before Trump, you weren't an evil person.

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Speaker 4: Right, Yes, I would go along with that.

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Speaker 2: Right, you loved your family, you wanted everybody to win.

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You you know, you weren't a bigot. I mean I'm

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projecting here, but I'm looking for you to validate you

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were a person who genuinely wanted good things.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I feel like I've always kind of rooted for the underdog.

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And you know, there's never been any kind of group

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of people that I hated or even disliked. I'm very

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sociable and enjoy everyone's company, and I remember correctly I

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think it was. Will Rogers has said I never met

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a man I couldn't learn something from.

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Speaker 2: Were you a Christian and did Christianity inform your political viewpoint?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 2: I was.

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Speaker 4: I grew up again as much as a Republican household

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and a Christian or Baptist household, And I don't know

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if that had a strong influence other than the fact

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that virtually everyone I knew at that time in that

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religion they were also conservative Republicans. So I don't know why,

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but they do tend to coalesce, don't they.

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Speaker 2: Who was it who was talking about how travel is

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one of the best cures for bigotry, And I think

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this can be true when traveling out of our own circle.

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If we're always looking at people from a distance, the

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different from a distance, it's a whole lot easier to

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be bigoted against them, isn't it.

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Speaker 4: That's absolutely true when you.

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Speaker 2: Look at Maga now Christians who are supporting a person

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who is the antithesis of the best teachings of Christ

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and what looks to be just a day by day

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cognitive decline, the culture of cruelty. When you look at

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all this and you see his supporters in the fact

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that it's even a race. Do you have opinions about

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this when you're sitting over coffee with your people and

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what kind of things are you saying?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's surreal. When I look at the situation, it

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boggles my mind. I cannot understand how people can put

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those things together and they can look at this con man,

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convicted criminal and think he's some kind of god fearing man.

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Speaker 2: I will make a confession to you, Jeff, I can

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usually find one redeeming quality in someone they love their

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children or something. I mean, if I'm really stretching, I

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look at Donald Trump and I got nothing. I cannot fight.

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Is he kind?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: Is he smart?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: Does he have a charitable heart?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: Does he seem to genuinely love his wife and children

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and honor that relationship? And how does he speak about

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them in public? I mean, over and over and I

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can't find anything, Jeff, Am I a bad person?

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Speaker 4: I can't. I can't think of.

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Speaker 3: Like you.

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Speaker 4: I cannot find a single redeeming quality with that man.

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Speaker 2: Well, do you have any other observations having that look

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inside the culture? Are there any other observations Like I'm

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hoping that our callers can maybe teach us about the mindset,

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get us in the machine, let us see the gears turning,

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you know, can you help us out.

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Speaker 4: The only thing that I would maybe add is that

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having been on both sides of this fence, it really

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I think it helps open your minds a little bit,

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and I think that it I don't think I would.

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I would obviously feel the same way if I had

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been on the left side the whole time, but having

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been on the other side, I can see this from

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both points of view, and that's that's one of the

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reasons that I think the more the more people, the

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more conservatives that we can have these good conversations with,

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if they can open their minds and step back and

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look at this thing without the blinders on, I think

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they're going to have a whole new respective like I did.

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Speaker 2: Do you have an opinion about strategy?

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Speaker 4: All of my tactics up to this point have not

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worked very well, because it seems like I've never met

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a group of people that seems I hate to generalize,

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but they seem to have their heels dug in so firmly.

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The Republican Party today is just not what it used

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to be. In fact, as far as I'm concerned it

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doesn't exist anymore. It's now the Maga Party, the Party

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of Trump, because his followers are loyal to him and

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not the country or the constitution, And in my opinion,

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that makes it more of a cult of personality. And

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the people who are in a cult, they're the last

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ones to know they're in a cult. If you look

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at Heaven's Gate Branch, Davidians and Wicco People's Temple and Jonestown,

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none of those people would admit or even realize they

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were in a cult. They would follow their leader to

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the gates of hell, and Maga really now is no different.

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In fact, January sixth, I think is a perfect example

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of that. I think it checks all the boxes of

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being a cult. The leader is always right, criticism of

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the leader is persecution, regardless of how harmful it is.

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The leader's behavior is always justified, and the leader has

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the exclusive franchise to the truth. So I think the

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only way out of a cult is to recognize that

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you're in one. I'm glad I did.

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Speaker 2: Well. You are proof that somebody can be extricated. You

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know that people can reason their way. There's a saying

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out there that says that you can't reason someone out

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of something they never reasoned themselves into in the first place.

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I think that's crap. I think you reasoned your way

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out right.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that's true. That is true.

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Speaker 2: Jeff, you are much appreciated. Thanks for giving us a

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few minutes of your insight into MAGA culture. I'm glad

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you escaped, and I appreciate you listening and participating that.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2: Two more perspectives, and just a second, I've got Jessica.

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She said she was pretty much motivated by fear and

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an analytical mind who managed to reason his way out.

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How did that happen? We've got more. Next, a little

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patriotic music as we talk about ex magas on the broadcast.

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It all right, enough of that bullshit. I do not

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go in for that, you know, the horns and the

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everybody stands up with handover heart. It just feels so

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manufactured to me, you know, sort of this cheaply bought patriotism.

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That doesn't that just feels fake anyway, Sorry about that.

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Continuing with my raspy voice, a conversation about former magas Jessica. Jessica,

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you're with me, Yeah, you were a make America great

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Trump voting. I don't know, I describe yourself instead of

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me sort of grasping at it. What were you like?

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Speaker 5: Oh, unfortunately, I us a Make America Great Again Trump's

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supporter for a few years. I was raised in a Mormon,

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pretty Christian nationalist, conservative household, and that just stuck with me. Sorry,

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that is my kid.

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Speaker 2: That's okay, no problem. I mean she can, she can

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join the call, that's all good.

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Speaker 5: And I was raised to be afraid of socialism, which

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is any government program that conservatives don't like, and to

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be afraid of gun control and be afraid of abortion,

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and be afraid of the rise of specularism. For me,

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being a Trump supporter.

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Speaker 3: Was really a.

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Speaker 5: Fair response. Mormonism is interesting because Christian nationalism is really

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baked into the doctrine of Mormonism. In the Book of Mormon,

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it actually says that if the people in America stop

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worshiping God, then they will be swept off the face

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of the earth. So that was just an added level

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of fear.

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Speaker 2: And you draw a circle around something I find interesting.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, But Mormons are pretty cool

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with Christians, like we're all in the same club where

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Christians consider Mormonism of false faith. Am I close?

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Speaker 5: Yes, Oh, it drives us crazy because Mormons do believe

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in Jesus. They just believe that all the other Christian

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faiths have like lost truths over the last two thousand years,

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and that Joseph Smith had to bring some of that

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truth back through the Book of Mormon, through the doctrine

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and Covenant of the Revelations. And so Christians are totally

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consider themselves Mormon. And then sorry, I'm mixed out by words.

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Mormons totally consider themselves Christians, but other Christians are like,

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watch with this, Joseph Smith, stop that you guys aren't

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real Christians.

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Speaker 2: The Mormon faith is an authoritarian culture, male domint so

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here comes a dominant male, right, an alpha male type.

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Donald Trump? Was that part of the reason you responded.

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Speaker 5: I'm sure that probably had something to do with it.

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It would have been more of a like subconscious thing

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for me, Like I knew that Donald Trump wasn't a

401
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good person. I knew that he was a jerk. My

402
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parents actually never voted for him because they could see

403
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through him. But I went with him because I thought

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he was like sticking it to the lib sort of thing.

405
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I thought it was like a good thing that he

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was being loud and obnoxious and not politically correct, and

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so I didn't really care that he was a bad

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person until January sixth, when I realized how bad of

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the person he was.

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Speaker 2: Well, hang on, help me understand that it was it

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that he was a jerk just to the people you

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didn't like. So, hey, you know, you got break some

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eggs if you want an omelet. And he's you know,

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he's hating on the right people kind of thing.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, i'd say that. I thought that the liberals,

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the leftists, the trans people, the atheists what they deserved

417
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to be hated on because they were ruining the country.

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Speaker 2: So if you hadn't met me on the street, I

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would have been like the evil enemy.

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Speaker 5: I mean I would have been nice. In fact, I

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served a Mormon mission and I met atheists and stuff,

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and i'd try to be like, oh really, oh why

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don't you want to have gone in your lives sort

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of thing. So I wouldn't have been one of the

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Trump supporters who would have gone up and yelled in

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your face or anything like I just thought you were wrong.

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Speaker 2: It's funny. When I was in the faith, I knew

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evolution was wrong, but I'd never taken an evolutionary biology class.

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I knew socialism is wrong, but I couldn't define it communism, etc.

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And I'm not saying I'm an advocate. I'm just saying

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I was an opponent and ignorant, Like I don't know

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what it is, but I know it's crap. Were you

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the same way?

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Speaker 5: I actually did believe in evolution, which is kind of

435
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funny Mormons are They like try to say science can

436
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fit in with our religion even though it can't really,

437
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And so like in Mormonism, it's okay to believe in evolution,

438
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it's okay to believe in an old Earth. So like

439
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I believed in evolution, but I also believe that God

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just created humans and like maybe he did.

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Speaker 3: It through evolution.

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Speaker 5: For socialism, like, yeah, I didn't really know what socialism was.

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I basically thought it was taxes that I didn't like.

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Speaker 2: Socialism is Russia. They want to make us the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 5: Right, yeah, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: So January sixth, all of a sudden things started to shake.

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What happened on January.

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Speaker 5: Wake up to the news that the capital has been

449
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stormed and stuff, and like Oh, he's stupid people. Why

450
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would they do that? And making conservatives look bad. I

451
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was so mad and Donald Trump just started saying like,

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the election's been stolen and we can't let this happen.

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And I realized that he wasn't pro democracy, and so

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I'd realized that he was a jerk before and that

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he was I realized he wasn't a great person, but

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I thought he was the man for the job. But

457
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then when he went after like actual freedoms and democracy,

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I was like, Okay, I was wrong about him. I

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need to rethink this. So I did, and I was

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still a conservative for a while after that. I just

461
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wasn't supporting Trump after that.

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Speaker 2: So what year are we talking about.

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Speaker 5: Twenty I guess January sixth, twenty twenty one. By the

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end of Want to Anyone, I was shifting more progressive.

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It kind of took that whole year to think things through.

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Speaker 2: Did did that affect your relationships.

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Speaker 5: That my family and friends have? I mean, no one's

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like cut me off or anything. There are some people

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who I have a harder time talking to now, but

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I haven't actually lost any friends or family over this,

471
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which I know I've been I'm very privileged in that regard.

472
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I'm like a full blown liberal atheist. Now I left

473
00:27:36,759 --> 00:27:40,880
Mormonism as well, and like people still talk to me,

474
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:41,799
So that's great.

475
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 2: So that's a parallel track, right, You deconstructed Mormonism and

476
00:27:47,279 --> 00:27:51,039
you were deconstructing Trump cult at the same time.

477
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, two cults at the same time, baby, I mean

478
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:55,799
that much.

479
00:27:55,839 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 2: Your autograph, that's remarkable.

480
00:27:59,079 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 5: Well, thank you.

481
00:28:00,519 --> 00:28:03,319
Speaker 2: Did this result in any identity problems?

482
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 3: Like?

483
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:07,079
Speaker 2: Who am I after all this time? This sea change

484
00:28:07,079 --> 00:28:08,960
in my life? What are my values?

485
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 5: I mean?

486
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: Did you have to go out of MAGA? Did you

487
00:28:11,279 --> 00:28:14,480
have to go issue by issue and sort of reintroduce

488
00:28:14,519 --> 00:28:16,039
yourself to the things that matter.

489
00:28:16,599 --> 00:28:22,079
Speaker 5: The biggest identity crisis for me was leaving Mormonism conservativism

490
00:28:22,279 --> 00:28:26,039
like that wasn't that big a deal for me to

491
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:32,240
change politically, But leaving Mormonism after twenty five years was insane.

492
00:28:32,519 --> 00:28:35,519
It was so hard. And I'm sure you know what

493
00:28:35,559 --> 00:28:39,960
that's like, leaving Christianity, so your entire identity is gone.

494
00:28:40,319 --> 00:28:43,799
Speaker 2: What do you think people get wrong about MAGA? Those

495
00:28:43,799 --> 00:28:46,279
of us on the outside looking in? And I might

496
00:28:46,319 --> 00:28:47,920
have I don't know if i'd have been one when

497
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:49,839
I was a conservative, but I was a I mean,

498
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,319
I was a Ronald Reagan Rush Limbaugh kind of guy.

499
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 3: You know.

500
00:28:54,079 --> 00:28:57,039
Speaker 2: So I don't know. What do you think we on

501
00:28:57,079 --> 00:29:00,200
the outside may need to know about the culture that

502
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:01,920
we get wrong? Do you have any thoughts on that?

503
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:03,079
Speaker 3: Yeah?

504
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:09,039
Speaker 5: So Trump is mean and some of his followers are mean,

505
00:29:09,279 --> 00:29:12,359
but I think most of them aren't mean. They're just

506
00:29:12,519 --> 00:29:16,880
scared and they see their way of life like being

507
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:22,119
challenged as we get more progressive than as science shows

508
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,960
us things that we didn't think before. But I think

509
00:29:26,359 --> 00:29:32,079
most people who support Trump aren't actually jerks. It's one

510
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,440
thing I'd say, And it is a lot about fear,

511
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,039
and also just they're very sheltered. They just don't know

512
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:45,960
any trans people or even any atheists. They just maybe

513
00:29:46,079 --> 00:29:51,880
haven't met very many minorities, and so it's hard to

514
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,160
try to get along with them. But also like it's

515
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,720
hard because I look back on myself and I thought

516
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,000
that I was a nice person. I thought that I

517
00:30:02,119 --> 00:30:05,279
was a good person. But then I looked back at

518
00:30:05,319 --> 00:30:08,160
myself and I'm like, oh my god, I was a jerk.

519
00:30:08,279 --> 00:30:10,000
How could I think that way.

520
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 2: Let's talk about patriotism, love of country. That's a different

521
00:30:15,799 --> 00:30:18,359
word when you're in maga and when you're out. I'm

522
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:22,440
not opposed to love of country patriotism in its purest form.

523
00:30:22,839 --> 00:30:25,839
I have a problem with jingoism and blind nationalism, but

524
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,960
love of country. Has your perception on that word patriotism changed?

525
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 4: It has.

526
00:30:32,359 --> 00:30:35,319
Speaker 5: I actually have a really hard time now with like

527
00:30:35,559 --> 00:30:40,599
the national anthem and sporting events and stuff, just because

528
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,640
when I used to sing the national anthem, I'm actually

529
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,559
a vocalist, so I would sing it for sport events

530
00:30:48,599 --> 00:30:51,160
and other things. When I used to do that, I

531
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,880
was like, America is the best, and you know, God

532
00:30:55,079 --> 00:30:58,440
and all in country and all this stuff. And now

533
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,920
when I listen to it, son, I'm like, I'm cringing inside.

534
00:31:03,519 --> 00:31:05,759
And I don't want to be that way because I

535
00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:08,920
do love my country, but it reminds me of who.

536
00:31:08,759 --> 00:31:09,519
Speaker 3: I used to be.

537
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:14,599
Speaker 5: I really appreciate that the Harris Walls ticket and all

538
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,920
their conventions and stuff, that they're like incorporating patriotism into

539
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,440
it to be like, hey, Democrats, undecided, we love our

540
00:31:24,519 --> 00:31:29,240
country too. You know, Trump and his people don't have

541
00:31:29,559 --> 00:31:31,000
a monopoly on that.

542
00:31:31,559 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Junior had vehement criticisms about this country

543
00:31:36,279 --> 00:31:41,039
racial inequities and oppression, etc. And some would argue, and

544
00:31:41,079 --> 00:31:43,079
I would include myself, that he was one of the

545
00:31:43,079 --> 00:31:46,839
greatest patriots. Right, if you truly love your country, you

546
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:50,119
wanted to achieve the best version of itself.

547
00:31:50,319 --> 00:31:51,799
Speaker 5: Definitely, Jessica.

548
00:31:51,839 --> 00:31:54,039
Speaker 2: It's interesting too that years ago, when I saw an

549
00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:57,519
American flag, like my perception of it has changed because

550
00:31:57,559 --> 00:32:00,799
I've seen it sort of weaponized. Like if fifteen years

551
00:32:00,839 --> 00:32:03,240
ago i'd have seen somebody who had a car antenna

552
00:32:03,319 --> 00:32:05,160
had a little flag on it, I'd be like, oh, okay,

553
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,599
and that's nice. And now when I see one, I

554
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,759
start to immediately make assumptions about that person, like who

555
00:32:11,799 --> 00:32:14,559
they are, and what their position is on Trump, and

556
00:32:14,599 --> 00:32:17,640
whether or not they're pro gun or nationalized healthcare, and

557
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,599
how they feel about foreign policy and Israel. And I

558
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,720
start to just add all that. I feel like our

559
00:32:22,759 --> 00:32:26,640
perception of the American flag has totally been kind of perverted.

560
00:32:26,759 --> 00:32:28,319
Is the word. I don't know. Do you relate to

561
00:32:28,359 --> 00:32:28,759
that at all?

562
00:32:29,279 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, I see what you're saying there. I think it's

563
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,920
the same thing for me. If I see someone driving

564
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,839
down the road with a flag on their truck, then

565
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,599
I definitely think that they probably support certain things and

566
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,519
think a certain way, and that makes me sad that

567
00:32:45,599 --> 00:32:48,279
I think that, but it's just kind of how it is.

568
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,359
Speaker 2: Well, how you doing these days? You're on the other

569
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:52,640
side where you at?

570
00:32:53,319 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 5: I'm doing really well. It's us about two years of

571
00:32:58,839 --> 00:33:04,440
political and especially religious deconstruction to kind of get out

572
00:33:04,519 --> 00:33:08,599
of the cave, I guess into the light if I

573
00:33:08,599 --> 00:33:12,400
can wax metaphorical. But I'm doing really well. I'm happy

574
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,039
with where I'm at. I still feel like I'm lacking

575
00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:18,160
some community and the fact that I don't go to

576
00:33:18,279 --> 00:33:22,440
church anymore. So like if I went, they would all

577
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,119
be like, Hi, how are you. Oh, so good to

578
00:33:25,119 --> 00:33:28,279
see you, Jessica. You know, they wouldn't be mean, But

579
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:30,759
I don't want to go to church, and so I

580
00:33:30,839 --> 00:33:34,960
never see them. But I just have such a love

581
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:39,000
for everyone now, more so than I did as a Christian.

582
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,559
You know, Jesus says to love everyone, But when you

583
00:33:42,759 --> 00:33:46,000
have this feeling of oh but they're trans, Oh but

584
00:33:46,119 --> 00:33:48,799
they're gay, Oh but they're not a Christian or a

585
00:33:48,839 --> 00:33:51,599
Mormon like me, that gets in the way. And now

586
00:33:51,599 --> 00:33:54,559
I can just love people and as people, and I

587
00:33:55,279 --> 00:33:56,279
really appreciate that.

588
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:01,039
Speaker 2: You're amazing. I so appreciate this sort of inside out look. Jessica.

589
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,400
Thanks for reaching out and sort of volunteering your time.

590
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,279
And I hear your baby girl in the background, so

591
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,320
go take care of your child, and thanks for talking

592
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:10,639
to us.

593
00:34:11,079 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.

594
00:34:13,119 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 2: Still to come. I've got a guy named Ethan who

595
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:21,000
has an interesting take on how conspiracy theories tie into MAGA.

596
00:34:21,079 --> 00:34:30,400
Thinking we'll talk to him next. I am talking on

597
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:34,480
the show today to people who were once in Trump cult.

598
00:34:35,079 --> 00:34:41,159
They were magiz, but they are magiz no more. I've

599
00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:44,159
got Ethan on the line. Ethan, are you there.

600
00:34:44,679 --> 00:34:46,119
Speaker 3: Yep, I'm here. How's it going for you?

601
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:51,159
Speaker 2: I'm good. We're talking MAGA and ex MAGA, and you

602
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,760
reached out and said you might have a story for us,

603
00:34:54,599 --> 00:34:58,079
So I guess I'll start your back at square one.

604
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,559
Speaker 3: So to give a little bit of background on the

605
00:35:00,639 --> 00:35:03,639
Maugas stuff, I mean, I'm only twenty six years old.

606
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,719
So this election that's coming up later this year, it's

607
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,239
only the third election I've ever voted in, or well,

608
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,480
presidential election, if we're going by that first one I

609
00:35:12,559 --> 00:35:15,280
voted in. It was back in twenty sixteen, so I

610
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,920
voted for Trump in that one, and then I voted

611
00:35:18,119 --> 00:35:22,679
Republican in the midterms in twenty eighteen, and I graduated

612
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:24,679
college in twenty twenty, and so I had a lot

613
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,039
more free time on my hands. I was pretty bogged

614
00:35:27,039 --> 00:35:30,199
down in college. I didn't have time to really research

615
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,239
and look into politics for myself. So as soon as

616
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,639
I graduated in twenty twenty, I had all that free

617
00:35:35,639 --> 00:35:38,000
time to really, you know, break away from what my

618
00:35:38,079 --> 00:35:42,199
family was telling me. In college, and before that, pretty

619
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,480
much all my political information was getting funneled through my

620
00:35:45,599 --> 00:35:48,079
family and the people that they listened to, a lot

621
00:35:48,079 --> 00:35:50,920
of people like Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, all

622
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:55,360
those conservative talk radio host figures. But as soon as

623
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,880
I graduated college in twenty twenty, I had so much

624
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,239
more time to actually kind of dig in to this

625
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,360
stuff for myself. And I started to see that, you know,

626
00:36:03,639 --> 00:36:08,039
the Conservative Republican Party, it really didn't represent what my

627
00:36:08,199 --> 00:36:12,039
family was telling me that they represented. It would kind

628
00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:13,719
of go on and on about how much they're for

629
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,960
freedom of speech and all that, and I started to

630
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,800
find that, you know, they're really more of a party

631
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:23,559
about traditional speech than free speech, and so that made

632
00:36:23,559 --> 00:36:26,559
me step back. I went neutral, and so I did

633
00:36:26,639 --> 00:36:29,800
not vote in the election that year. A couple of

634
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,480
years later, as I dug into it more and I'm

635
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,760
going to just glott over this part but then backtrack

636
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,679
and go into more detail, because the conclusion of this

637
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,360
is that, I mean, by twenty twenty two, after I

638
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:46,719
had really dug into both sides, both conservative and liberal. Yeah,

639
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,599
I voted liberal in the twenty twenty two midterms. Of course,

640
00:36:49,639 --> 00:36:52,480
I'm planning to vote for Harris.

641
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,159
Speaker 2: Well if I can. I want to get in your

642
00:36:54,159 --> 00:36:58,400
head back before. Can you describe yourself back then? What

643
00:36:58,440 --> 00:36:59,639
were you thinking? What were you like?

644
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 3: Yeah? So ironically, it's actually good that you are backtracking

645
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,880
to that because that also ties into the wider web

646
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,119
that I'm kind of seeing connected to Trump Is' specifically, So,

647
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,679
I was born with some sort of unknown condition. I'm

648
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:18,239
not sure what it is. I've talked to doctors about it.

649
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:22,920
It's not schizophrenia, it's not anything schizotyple But basically, just

650
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,280
to give a brief explanation for it, I do have

651
00:37:25,559 --> 00:37:29,320
like all sorts of strange and bizarre like abnormal century

652
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,119
experiences and stuff like that. Like basically, where if I

653
00:37:33,199 --> 00:37:36,599
was less skeptical, I would be calling them like paranormal experiences.

654
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,159
So the point in me bringing that up is I

655
00:37:40,199 --> 00:37:42,480
was a very spiritual kid, you know. I had all

656
00:37:42,559 --> 00:37:46,119
these experiences and believed in all this spiritual stuff even

657
00:37:46,199 --> 00:37:50,800
up to the age of around twenty one twenty two.

658
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,320
I can't remember exactly, but that was pretty much my

659
00:37:53,519 --> 00:37:57,239
entire life and definitely my entire childhood, and my family's

660
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,719
largely spiritual as well. So it wasn't just us, the

661
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,159
Glenn Beck and the Rushman in vall to Sean Hanny,

662
00:38:03,199 --> 00:38:05,480
the Mark Levin. I mean, certainly those types of figures

663
00:38:05,519 --> 00:38:09,280
were there, but there was also this wider net of

664
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:14,559
information or misinformation that we were really into, like Coast

665
00:38:14,639 --> 00:38:18,559
to Coast AM, which would usually come on after Mark Levin,

666
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,960
same same channel. From what I remember listening to it

667
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,000
when I was maybe like eleven years old.

668
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if I made Coast to Coast was wacky.

669
00:38:27,519 --> 00:38:29,480
I mean that was art Bell. They were talking about

670
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,800
aliens and UFOs and the Illuminati and stuff like that.

671
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 3: You were into that, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and we

672
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:39,079
we were definitely into all that. Those were my beliefs

673
00:38:39,119 --> 00:38:42,559
as well. So like my family, my parents believed in

674
00:38:42,599 --> 00:38:47,159
all that stuff. You know, the reptilians, they're being faces

675
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,360
on the far side of the moon, like the whole shebang,

676
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,440
the entire you think, take the conspiracy theories all the

677
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,119
way out to the edge, and that's where we were,

678
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:57,079
and that's where I was that when I was a kid,

679
00:38:57,119 --> 00:38:58,679
and not even just a kid, like I was saying

680
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:03,119
up to i'member the exact age, but only a few

681
00:39:03,199 --> 00:39:05,760
years ago, you know, the early twenties. And then I

682
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,320
kind of deconstructed myself out of it. So yeah, really,

683
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:13,440
back then, my whole mindset was not just a conservative one.

684
00:39:13,559 --> 00:39:17,559
It was really I was living in this world where

685
00:39:17,599 --> 00:39:20,320
there was all this stuff around every corner. You know,

686
00:39:20,519 --> 00:39:24,280
there were aliens walking among us, there was a global

687
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:29,159
elite controlling the world. And given my condition that I

688
00:39:29,199 --> 00:39:31,480
was born with, you know, these sorts of quote unquote

689
00:39:31,519 --> 00:39:35,199
paranormal experiences that I had in my mind and in

690
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,239
my parents' mind, this was a gift, right, This was

691
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,480
like something that was given to me. I was born

692
00:39:40,559 --> 00:39:43,559
with it, and I had to be careful with this

693
00:39:43,679 --> 00:39:47,400
information that I was getting from my experiences. And if

694
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,159
I wasn't careful, there was like this government that would

695
00:39:51,199 --> 00:39:53,239
lock me away or do this or that you know,

696
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,079
now you start to think of like Andrew Tait and

697
00:39:56,119 --> 00:39:58,440
all those guys, you know, like the Matrix, there's like this,

698
00:39:59,559 --> 00:40:01,480
it's real a lead out there where if if you

699
00:40:01,519 --> 00:40:05,519
share too much of the quote unquote truth, somebody out there,

700
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,079
they're going to be watching you and they're going to

701
00:40:08,119 --> 00:40:10,440
take you down. That was kind of a whole mentality

702
00:40:10,639 --> 00:40:13,320
that I grew up in and my family still holds

703
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:18,280
to that mentality. So in a very very simplified way,

704
00:40:19,079 --> 00:40:21,719
that would be my answer as to what the mindset was.

705
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:24,199
But there's definitely a lot more steps to it. I

706
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:25,880
could just go on and on and on about.

707
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 2: So I mean what I call this QAnon, I mean,

708
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:30,039
were you a queue?

709
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,679
Speaker 3: I was not a qu but I was further than that.

710
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,440
I was probably more extreme than that, not in the

711
00:40:37,559 --> 00:40:41,800
sense that I wanted to do harm like what I

712
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,920
at least here about from a lot of the que drops,

713
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,880
it seems like they're actually wanting to engage in more

714
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,679
like physical action, violence and stuff like that. So I'd

715
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,039
never had that mindset. But in terms of just the

716
00:40:54,199 --> 00:40:58,280
pure ideology, yeah, my idea is my beliefs. They were

717
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:03,039
definitely a lot crazier. If I had known about Q

718
00:41:03,199 --> 00:41:04,599
and on when I was a kid, I would have

719
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,119
read those and been like, Okay, yeah, old news. That's

720
00:41:08,159 --> 00:41:10,760
just that's a regular Tuesday. To me, it's nothing weird.

721
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,840
It's nothing bizarre. My ideas are far more bizarre than that.

722
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:18,159
Speaker 2: Ethan, were you a religious person, I.

723
00:41:18,199 --> 00:41:21,760
Speaker 3: Would somewhat describe myself as religious. Really, the term I

724
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:26,360
used was spiritual. Typically, when I use the term religious,

725
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:30,199
I kind of define that as more doc trinle, like

726
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,000
they adhere to a specific doctrine, you know, the Bible,

727
00:41:33,079 --> 00:41:36,880
the Kuran, so on and so forth. Spiritual, as I

728
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:40,880
use the term, it's more not doctrinal, but more like personal.

729
00:41:41,199 --> 00:41:45,079
You see everything in the universe as being some sort

730
00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:48,239
of personified thing. So you look at a tree and

731
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:50,880
there there's a spirit in that tree. There's a life

732
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,119
force in the tree, kind of manifesting the tree. Or

733
00:41:54,199 --> 00:41:56,880
you look at the earth, there's an earth spirit. Or

734
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:58,760
you look at the stars. You know every star has

735
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,199
a life force or this or that, So you kind

736
00:42:01,199 --> 00:42:05,039
of over personify everything, so it's more personal.

737
00:42:06,039 --> 00:42:09,679
Speaker 2: Did you admire even worship Donald Trump?

738
00:42:10,679 --> 00:42:14,119
Speaker 3: No? I, ironically I never got that far. I'm not

739
00:42:14,199 --> 00:42:20,519
quite sure why. Maybe ironically that was only one benefit

740
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,440
of the fact that it went so far out with

741
00:42:23,559 --> 00:42:26,599
the conspiratorial and spiritual thinking that I was just way

742
00:42:26,639 --> 00:42:31,000
too out there to see Donald Trump as anything significant,

743
00:42:31,119 --> 00:42:33,760
Like he didn't really look like a big blip on

744
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:35,400
the radar to me. It was just like he was

745
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:39,440
this one small figure in this entire beast universe of

746
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,559
all this wacky stuff going on, and so I never

747
00:42:42,599 --> 00:42:46,480
really saw a reason to worship that or even praise that.

748
00:42:46,639 --> 00:42:49,519
In my mind, I just saw him as like, Okay,

749
00:42:49,559 --> 00:42:52,400
we need to vote for him so that we can

750
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,199
have freedom and that the quote unquote truth can get

751
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,719
out and it's not going to be demonized. Because again,

752
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:01,880
going back to my whole childhood mindset and my family mindset,

753
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,559
that was the big thing. You know, there's this global elite,

754
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:10,360
and if people like me aren't careful, we're gonna speak

755
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,639
the quote unquote truth, and we're gonna get arrested for it,

756
00:43:13,639 --> 00:43:15,679
we're gonna get tortured for it, we're gonna get killed

757
00:43:15,679 --> 00:43:18,639
for it, and so on my mind, Trump was a

758
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,719
necessary stepping stone to getting us out of that world.

759
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:25,599
Speaker 2: Ethan, if I was to ask you at the age

760
00:43:25,639 --> 00:43:30,440
of eighteen sixteen, I don't care to describe the Libs

761
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:32,719
a liberal. What was your perception?

762
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:39,039
Speaker 3: I would say they're deeply corrupt in that they're very biased,

763
00:43:39,079 --> 00:43:42,480
they don't care about freem of speech, and they're not

764
00:43:42,679 --> 00:43:46,679
as accepting as the Republicans. I would describe Republicans and

765
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,760
conservatives as being more open to different viewpoints. And then

766
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,760
I would say that liberals are the opposite, that they're intolerant.

767
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,760
They want to shut down opposing viewpoints, especially if those

768
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:02,039
viewpoints are very controversial, where if they are seeking a

769
00:44:02,119 --> 00:44:05,280
harsh truth, you know, they wouldn't be so willing to

770
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,840
engage in that harshness, even if it is the truth.

771
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:11,199
That was kind of my general thinking about them back then.

772
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 2: Did you buy into the one world government? You know,

773
00:44:15,039 --> 00:44:18,119
the liberals want to dismantle the United States for a

774
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:19,960
sort of a global cabal thing.

775
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 3: I had a very interesting relationship with that idea because

776
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,599
that was one where, for some reason, my parents thought

777
00:44:29,119 --> 00:44:31,920
as more of a problem than me. So here's the

778
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:36,639
difference with my parents. They saw the one world government

779
00:44:37,079 --> 00:44:41,800
as an inherently problematic idea, meaning whether it was a

780
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,840
one wolf government with corrupt leaders or with benevolent leaders,

781
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,880
they just thought like the entire model was corrupt, that

782
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,199
there was no way that any type of one wolf

783
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,400
government would ever be a good model. You know, even

784
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,119
things like the United Nations are not necessarily good. In

785
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,920
my mind though, even as a kid, I saw the

786
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,719
whole one world government conspiracy as bad in the sense that, okay,

787
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:09,239
we would have these corrupt elites rolling over us, rolling

788
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,400
over every nation, dictating what everybody and every nation should do,

789
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,239
and so on my mind that was bad. But I

790
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,559
never really had any animosity towards the notion of a

791
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:23,559
unified world government in general. I thought that back could

792
00:45:23,599 --> 00:45:27,119
be good, whereas my family thought, no, it's just one

793
00:45:27,199 --> 00:45:29,719
through and through. You gotta throw it away. It'd be

794
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:32,679
a new world order no matter which direction we go

795
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:34,920
with it. So the whole idea has just got to

796
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:36,320
be thrown out.

797
00:45:36,639 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 2: Ethan, do you want to tell me how the domino

798
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:40,239
started to fall for you?

799
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 3: So basically I started looking back and analyzing all my

800
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:48,559
ideas and kind of saying, okay, looking at each one individually,

801
00:45:48,599 --> 00:45:52,639
can this simply be told or can I actually show

802
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:56,559
something for whether empirically or even just intangibly, see a

803
00:45:56,599 --> 00:45:58,800
thing like in a math class. You know, you don't

804
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,000
have empirical demonstrations, just like the professor just asked, you,

805
00:46:02,079 --> 00:46:04,159
can you go up to the board and demonstrate to

806
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,039
us that this formula works or this equation works. So

807
00:46:07,079 --> 00:46:09,880
there is such a thing as intangibled demonstrations as well.

808
00:46:10,599 --> 00:46:12,079
And so I was kind of just going back through

809
00:46:12,079 --> 00:46:15,400
all my ideas and after myself, is there something to

810
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:18,079
show for each of these or can I just tell

811
00:46:18,079 --> 00:46:21,400
people about it? And I ended up throwing out the

812
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,639
majority of my ideas because they can only be told

813
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,320
rather than shown in any sort of way. And I

814
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:31,400
kept about like five categories of ideas where yeah, I

815
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:33,239
kind of looked at it and I could show something

816
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,440
for it. And I sat back and looked at those

817
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,159
five categories and I saw that, okay, three of them

818
00:46:39,519 --> 00:46:43,280
are actually like my biggest categories of ideas, like the

819
00:46:43,599 --> 00:46:47,679
most quote unquote out there. You'd call crazy or something

820
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,400
like that. But when I would sit down and discuss

821
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,079
these ideas with professors, you know, it was those five

822
00:46:53,199 --> 00:46:55,599
categories where they'd be like, yeah, no, those actually have

823
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,800
some academic rigor you can write papers about some of

824
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,719
those ideas, or really even all of them. And yet

825
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,199
three of those five that had some academic rigor. They

826
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:10,599
were the three biggest. So I found out that evan

827
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,679
or having the capability to show something for your work,

828
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:19,559
it does not discriminate again, crazy ideas. It's not about

829
00:47:19,599 --> 00:47:22,480
which ideas are crazy. It's just about which ideas have

830
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:26,679
something to show for themselves, something external to your claim.

831
00:47:27,519 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 2: I remember when I was in the faith and we

832
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:34,440
would posit something that they thought sounded insane. They would

833
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,480
call us crazy, but we thought that was a feature,

834
00:47:37,559 --> 00:47:39,840
not a bug, right, I think it was it. I

835
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:43,800
heard a scientist say once that the mindset is you know,

836
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:48,000
they said Albert Einstein was crazy. They call me crazy.

837
00:47:48,079 --> 00:47:50,199
So I'm like Einstein, right, right.

838
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 3: And I love that idea too, because my parents will

839
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:54,960
often bring that one up. That look, guys like Einstein

840
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,320
were called crazy and they proved everybody wrong. And I said,

841
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,440
so back up, wait a minute. Nine out of one

842
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,559
hundred people, if you count Einstein in that hundred, ninety

843
00:48:03,639 --> 00:48:06,880
nine of those people, yeah, they had crazy ideas like Einstein,

844
00:48:07,199 --> 00:48:10,119
but they had nothing to show for those ideas. The

845
00:48:10,159 --> 00:48:14,119
reason why Einstein was both crazy and right is because

846
00:48:14,159 --> 00:48:17,440
he was the one guy out of the analogous hundred

847
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,360
who had something to show for his craziness. It wasn't

848
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,320
just him being crazy, it was the universe being crazy, right,

849
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:26,159
the universe back to up right.

850
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,800
Speaker 2: I find it interesting what I had expected, and I

851
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,000
think it all ties together when we talk about make

852
00:48:32,039 --> 00:48:37,480
America great again, the Trump cult or culture, but conspiracy theories,

853
00:48:38,119 --> 00:48:41,880
end of the world type stuff, the illuminati, the Deep States,

854
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,320
They're coming for your children, They're drinking the blood of babies,

855
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,320
and those types of things. It all ties into the culture.

856
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:51,719
So as you escaped, you weren't necessarily a worshiper of

857
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,960
Donald Trump. You found it was more of a transactional thing, like,

858
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,000
if I'm going to get the country that's more free,

859
00:48:57,599 --> 00:48:59,920
he's the option. That's what I'm going to do.

860
00:49:00,079 --> 00:49:03,679
Speaker 3: You. Yeah, it is transactional. That's certainly what drove my

861
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:07,639
election for Trump in twenty sixteen. Is that. Yeah, in

862
00:49:07,679 --> 00:49:11,079
my mind and in my parents' mind, you know, I

863
00:49:11,159 --> 00:49:14,039
have these ideas. I was this quote unquote gift, and

864
00:49:14,079 --> 00:49:16,559
I had to be careful that I didn't elect somebody

865
00:49:16,559 --> 00:49:19,960
who would do away with me in whatever sense they

866
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,679
would choose to. And he would keep the country safe

867
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,159
and he would make sure that doesn't happen. And not

868
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,000
just that it wouldn't happen to me, but that it

869
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,760
wouldn't happen to other people out there. They wouldn't get

870
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:32,920
innocently condemned or anything like that. So yeah, in that sense,

871
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,880
it was very much transactional. But then the second comment

872
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,199
that I wanted to add also goes back to the

873
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,559
common sense thing. And this is another thing that I've

874
00:49:40,599 --> 00:49:43,360
noticed which is really big in the MAGA culture. So

875
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,440
this kind of tackle of the heart of your question here,

876
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:51,400
which is I've noticed that pretty much every person I've

877
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,400
talked to who is in MAGA. It's rare that I'll

878
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,760
talk to a group of people and get a one

879
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,000
hundred percent distancy on something, because of course people are

880
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,559
so varied. But somehow with this I have noticed at

881
00:50:05,639 --> 00:50:10,199
least anecdotally a one consistency, and that every MAGA person

882
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:15,079
I talk to things that common sense equals evidence. They

883
00:50:15,159 --> 00:50:18,719
think that validity equals evidence, and they don't understand the

884
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,679
difference between an idea of being valid and the idea

885
00:50:22,679 --> 00:50:25,639
of being evidential. And if you don't mind real quick,

886
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,559
could I use like an example that I typically like

887
00:50:28,599 --> 00:50:31,320
to use to highlight what that difference exactly means. And

888
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,599
why it's so problematic with MAGA thinking yeah, please do Okay,

889
00:50:35,599 --> 00:50:38,559
we learn in middle school that the reason that the

890
00:50:38,599 --> 00:50:42,719
sky is warm colored at sunrise or sunset is because

891
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:46,639
longer wavelengths of light, like red and orange light, they

892
00:50:46,639 --> 00:50:50,719
don't scatter in the atmosphere as easily as cooler colors

893
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,639
of light do. So, now that the light's coming in

894
00:50:53,679 --> 00:50:56,199
at a longer angle, you know, at sunrise or sunset,

895
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:58,639
it's only the longer wavelengths of light that are really

896
00:50:58,639 --> 00:51:01,199
going to be able to make it through all that atmosphere.

897
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:04,039
And so we see the reds and the oranges and

898
00:51:04,039 --> 00:51:07,679
the yellows more. Now, given that, so we know that

899
00:51:07,679 --> 00:51:09,800
that's true. But here's where this gets kind of funny

900
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,400
is I could make an argument that therefore, if all

901
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:16,239
that light is having to go through more and more atmosphere,

902
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:19,719
then what if we say that the light's getting refracted

903
00:51:20,119 --> 00:51:22,519
like a straw in a glasse. You know, you see

904
00:51:22,559 --> 00:51:27,639
the straw, it looks bent, and that refraction gets exponentially

905
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:31,719
more severe as the sun goes down at sunset more

906
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,719
or you know, if it's earlier at sunrise, it just

907
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:39,239
the refraction gets deeper and deeper until eventually you could

908
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:42,480
say the angle of the sunlight is so refracted that

909
00:51:42,559 --> 00:51:45,960
it looks like the sun is gone. It looks like

910
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,719
it's beneath the horizon, but it's not. It's still up there.

911
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:51,559
And so night time's and illusion, and so look, I've

912
00:51:51,599 --> 00:51:54,440
just come up with a model earned argument that basically

913
00:51:54,599 --> 00:51:58,199
argues for Flatter that night time's and illusion that the

914
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:01,519
sun is actually still up above, but we don't see

915
00:52:01,519 --> 00:52:03,880
it up above at night time because the life is

916
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,719
getting refracted by this middle school fact that we all learn.

917
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:11,519
And there's no contradictions what I just said. There's no

918
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,440
identity breaks or inconsistencies, and why I said it's a

919
00:52:15,559 --> 00:52:18,960
very valid model. There's nothing logically wrong with it. But

920
00:52:19,079 --> 00:52:22,599
the reason why the model is still wrong is because

921
00:52:22,679 --> 00:52:25,800
validity is not enough. You have to have something to

922
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,199
show for the idea. It's not enough to just come

923
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:31,960
up with an argument that has airtight logic and it's

924
00:52:32,039 --> 00:52:36,440
valid and it's uncontradictory and it's consistent. Like, that's not

925
00:52:36,679 --> 00:52:39,360
good enough because if you think that's good enough, you

926
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:41,800
could become a flatter. They're so flatter or are not

927
00:52:42,039 --> 00:52:44,960
stupid people? There are people coming up with all sorts

928
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:48,239
of valid models, and they don't see the difference between

929
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:52,719
validity and evidence. From outside of CAMAGA, I've found that

930
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,840
one hundred percent of the time, all the people I've

931
00:52:55,880 --> 00:53:00,119
talked to anecdotally and MAGA, they're the same exact way

932
00:53:00,119 --> 00:53:03,280
come up with all these valid models. There's logical reasoning.

933
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:05,840
They can give you an argument down a narrative which

934
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:10,840
has no contradiction, no inconsistencies, and so they're like, look, there,

935
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,840
there it is. There's nothing illogical about what I just said.

936
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,480
There's nothing wrong with the narrative I just gave you

937
00:53:16,559 --> 00:53:20,239
about whether it be the Trump assassination or trans people

938
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:21,920
in schools or any of that. They can give you

939
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:26,320
a perfectly consistent narrative, and they think that the consistency

940
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:29,159
and the validity is enough. So they think that common

941
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:33,440
sense is enough, that an idea of making sense is enough,

942
00:53:34,079 --> 00:53:39,119
because they don't realize that evidence is validity plus more.

943
00:53:39,159 --> 00:53:42,719
It's not just validity. I really think that's an important

944
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,519
distinction that people need to learn. I think maybe that's

945
00:53:45,599 --> 00:53:50,039
one failure of our education system is that we never

946
00:53:50,119 --> 00:53:52,960
learned that difference between validity and evidence, and that was

947
00:53:53,039 --> 00:53:57,559
the big difference and distinction that made all the dominoes

948
00:53:57,599 --> 00:53:59,559
fall for me, so to speak, that you know, it

949
00:53:59,639 --> 00:54:03,199
does not matter how much something makes sense. It matters

950
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,039
how much there is to be shown. And things can

951
00:54:06,079 --> 00:54:08,239
be shown for boring ideas, they can be shown for

952
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,079
crazy ideas and big ideas too. It doesn't matter. Just

953
00:54:11,159 --> 00:54:14,239
bring something to the table to show people what you're

954
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:17,800
saying instead of just claiming it. And I think we

955
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:21,320
just we need to somehow build that into our education system.

956
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,679
I don't know what that's going to look like. I

957
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:27,920
think if we can somehow build that question and all

958
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:31,559
the surrounding questions into our education system, I don't know,

959
00:54:31,599 --> 00:54:35,920
maybe that'd be one way to really decrease the spread

960
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,519
of misinformation in our society. Because I really think this

961
00:54:38,599 --> 00:54:43,920
whole Maga movement, it's just one circle of misinformation among many, many,

962
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:47,159
many others that I've seen connected through this web. And

963
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:51,440
the main thing connecting the entire web of misinformation is

964
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,480
this fact that all the people in these circles and

965
00:54:54,559 --> 00:54:57,960
in this web, they think validity is enough, and they

966
00:54:58,000 --> 00:54:59,760
need to learn that it just isn't.

967
00:55:00,199 --> 00:55:03,159
Speaker 2: My subjective take is that I'm hearing you speak, and

968
00:55:03,199 --> 00:55:06,079
I hear an analytical mind and then when I see,

969
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:08,719
you know, the daily show, go out and interview people

970
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,280
at Trump Rowley's, I am not hearing analytical minds, so

971
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:14,000
that you know, you may have had a leg up,

972
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:18,079
but I'm so thankful for you and your perspective. You've

973
00:55:18,079 --> 00:55:20,119
got a lot of good stuff to say, a window

974
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:24,800
into Trump's support magat culture, and I think a lot

975
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,559
of really good information about how that thinking works. Ethan,

976
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:29,920
You're much appreciated.

977
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,280
Speaker 3: Thank you. I definitely appreciate the condos.

978
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 2: That is about all I can swing. I'm going to

979
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,840
go and hit some cold medicine and put a dog

980
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,599
in my lap and catch some Z's ghost stories is

981
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:44,000
next week. I should be one hundred percent for that.

982
00:55:44,119 --> 00:55:45,920
Going to be a lot of fun as we get

983
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:49,920
into the October Halloween spirit. Thanks to my callers, Thanks

984
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:51,199
for listening. I'll catch you later.

985
00:55:51,599 --> 00:55:55,159
Speaker 1: Follow The Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a

986
00:55:55,159 --> 00:55:58,800
complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and

987
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,840
t shirts featuring the things King Atheist logo, links to

988
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,800
atheist pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought

989
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:13,400
events and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.