Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FBRLST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is a award winning journalist and acclaimed author,
David Harsani, here to talk about his new book, The
Rise of Blue and on how the Democrats became a
party of conspiracy theorist. There are many many stories on
this front and many many examples. David, thanks so much
for being here on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Oh it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You are a familiar voice. We were chatting about this
before we got on the podcast today, but really in
zoom terminology or radio terminology or just down the hall
of course, you are co host of the fabulous podcast
at the Federalist with our very own Molly Hemingway.
Speaker 2: You're wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you are not wrong about Blue
Anon and the rise of the conspiracy theorist. You note
in this excellent new book, which you'll be available just
about everywhere, the left has been consumed by a uniquely
dangerous and delusional brand of conspiracy theories, and unlike those
on the right, the left's conspiracy theories are rarely kept
in check by mainstream institutions. We have seen that play
out more and more over the last few years in
this country. Let's begin with how did you get to
this point where you said, I need to alert the
public of what's going on here, presumably because the accomplice
media is not.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's part of it. I I you know,
I started thinking about how there there's generally a consensus,
at least in the media and maybe in other places,
that the right is always more susceptible to conspiracy theories,
to paranoia, to you know, to believing misinformation and disinformation.
But the truth is that the left, probably starting in
the two thousands, has been just as just as open
to those you know, cultural forces, and in many ways
are more dangerous like you you just quoted me, in
the sense that they take a conspiracy theory a cynical
person like let's say the Clinton Hillary Clinton campaign and
the DNC will invent the Russia collusion conspiracy, but they
launder it through media. Media polishes it up, calibrates it
to seem plausible, brings in, you know, experts who were
supposed to believe, who we used to trust. Intelligence, you know,
former intelligence agency heads and so forth, spreads it through institutions,
through you know, becomes embedded in their conversation as reality.
So it's very difficult to debunk those kind of things
when you have all those forces against you. Whereas on
the right, I'm not saying they aren't conspiracy theories. We
know that there is no one's immune from them, but
quite often it's Alex Jones on the fringe. And I'm
not saying his you know, listenership or whatever isn't too
big and all that, but he is kept on the
fringes of our political conversations, whereas things like the Russia
collusion hot folks are not. And that's just the conspiracy theory.
Then there are you know, other cultural and political forces
that I would call paranoia, you know, and that's a
little bit different. I guess we can talk about that later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, obviously This is a very clever play on words.
Blue anon associated with QAnon and that became the boogeyman
for everything didn't it after January sixth. It's just representative
of what the corporate media, the Pravda press has done
in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, a few years back, you'd have stories
about how QAnon had taken hold on the right, and
it would you know, you take a deeper dive and
it would be something like Republicans are you know, concerned
about sex trafficking or something, you know, something some you know,
some small part of what QAnon was about, which is
just off the crazy stuff. But then in the next
segment they'd start talking about how, you know, Donald Trump
was a Russian asset, so, you know, and people believed it.
I might be getting the numbers slightly wrong, but sixty
seven percent or something like that of Democrats believed that
Russians had actually tampered with the vote totals. Not that
they had had some Facebook ads that may have changed
someone's mind, but they went that they went in and
they had changed the vote totals. Wow, but that is
not new if you go back to two thousand and four.
In two thousand and six, two different polls found that
over fifty percent of Democrats believed that George Bush had
known that nine to eleven was going to happen and
let it happen for some personal gain. So, you know,
we don't talk about it as much but the left
and there are cynical people involved who spread these things,
but there are also many credulous people who believe these
things is just as you know, just as conspiratorial.
Speaker 1: Well, let's be fair, there are people on the right
who believe George W. Bush knew about nine to eleven
and benefited as well.
Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, well, yeah, the things have changed.
There's a there's now a faction on the right that
to me sound like Michael Moore used to sound basically
yeah so, but and let's you know, since I brought
Michael Moore up, you know, you have conspiracy theorists here
on the right. But Michael Moore made a move made
movies in the two thousands that were celebrated at the
Oscars that we need more money than any other documentary
that politicians democrats held as great works of art that
are completely batso nuts, right, and and we're totally mainstream,
So you know, It's just another example of how things,
you know, how can how they're just as conspiratorial or more.
Speaker 1: Davi But you know what's funny about that. I remember
when Fahrenheit nine to eleven came out, and I remember
the buzz in the newsroom that I was working in,
and somebody had suggested, Hey, let's have a movie night, gang,
let's head on over to the theater and we'll all
watch Fahrenheit nine to eleven. And I remember three quarters, no,
probably more than that. And it wouldn't surprise you, but
at least three quarters of those reporters that walked out
of there were like, Wow, that's so powerful, Oh my god,
what are we dealing with? And the resistance movement began
right there. But you're right, I mean, that's the sort
of stuff that hit. That sort of nonsense. The Michael
Moore propaganda has been celebrated as fact and honored as such.
But he's not alone, is he now?
Speaker 2: And you know, you can go back to the two
thousands where today George W. Bush is celebrated as this
great statesman, but then he was constantly being called a Nazi,
you know, and stuff like that. But you know, and
we just went through a whole election where the entire media,
many you know, in higher education, you know, and and
and other institutions in the past that we used to
somewhat trust that talked about Donald Trump as if he
were a Nazi and that fascism was coming, that the
Handmaid's Tale was about to happen, uh if you won
the election. And I think a lot of people who
do that are cynical, But I also believe a lot
of Democrats believed that some of them even picked up
guns and tried to kill the president, you know, the
the Republican you know, candidate for the presidency twice. So
and again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able
to say what you want. I'm not trying to chill speech,
but we have to think about how if you have
this paranoiic view of the world where you where, where
you're convincing people that if the other party wins your
you will be stripped of all agency, you will lose
your right to vote, you will lose your right to
you know, whatever, you know, all your rights as a woman,
and so on, that you're going to act out in
ways that are unhealthy for a democratic you know, in
a free and democratic nation.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. I mean, these sorts of things
have consequences, and as you noted, that has been the
narrative from the left, from the Democrat Party in this country,
and from the corporate media that it's all happening on
the right, and you know, these consequences. I remember you
writing at the Federalist, how many different columns about Democrats
talking to us and lecturing us on turning down the
cooling the temperature. You know, that's their turning down the
temperature of rhetoric. And you know the but the heat
was coming and we saw the dangerous consequences of all
of that in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.
And again I'm not saying that, you know, we need
to go through and silent speech. I'm just saying, first
and foremost, there's a hypocrisy that's built in from the
left on this, from the bluinon pedlars, and those things
do indeed have consequences. Let's go back. Though you mentioned
that this has been going on for a long time.
I think more people understand that today the conspiracy theorist
from the left, particularly after this election. But when did
this all really begin, if you will, in the modern day,
what it is today? Did this come out of the
move on dot org movement? What can you trace a
starting point?
Speaker 2: Well, the starting point is ancient Greece. I know what
you mean in modern times. As you mentioned, I would
go back to I start my book with Hillary Clinton
appearing on the Today Show in nineteen ninety eight on
January twenty seventh, when the story had broken about how
her husband had had an affair with a intern at
the White in the White House, and she talked about, wait,
well what happened.
Speaker 1: I am not familiar with this story.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just going over it again because wait, wait.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a dry cleaning bill over here. I'm sorry,
go ahead, I apologized.
Speaker 2: We might have some young people listening, so I just
want to make sure we understand. So she came out
and spoke about a right wing conspiracy. It's almost like
a conspiracy about a conspiracy, and a conspiracy theory about
a conspiracy. She claimed that there had been all these
dark forces, you know, gathering to bring down her husband's presidency. Now,
of course it turned out it was true, as all
the stories about all the women were true. But she
kept talking about these dark forces working in the shadows,
and Democrats began to take that up. And I'm sure
you'll notice that when you write a column or you
have an opinion on the left, they know there's very
rarely any debate about what you're saying. What happens is
they play the man. They'll say, you are a Russian stooge,
you are bought by big this or big that. You're
just you know, the the racial society. You're a racist,
you're a misogynist. You know, this is just the Federalist
Society talking, or Project twenty twenty five. There's all this paranoia.
It's a paranoid style of politics that you know hosted
or in the sixties said was part of the you know,
Bircher movement on the right and so on. But I
think that it's happening on the left. I'll give you
an example of the most ernicious kind or maybe the
most insidious kind of paranoia that they spread. It's the
idea that that black people that there's a systemic racist
country here where we all try to keep black people down,
where we suppress their vote when it's easier to vote
now than it ever has been. In the history of
Earth anywhere probably, or that white police eastmen, you know,
are all around the country are hunting young black men
because they want to kill them. These ideas are paranoiic
and they erode, you know, our society in ways that
are very serious, and there's no truth to either. I'm
not saying that there aren't any racists out there. I'm
not saying there isn't a bad cop out there. I'm
not saying that there isn't someone summer is trying to
stop someone from voting. I'm saying it's not part of
who we are. It's not the systemic and anyway. So
that's the kind of paranoia I'm talking about. It's more
I wouldn't call it subtle, but it's more complicated than saying, oh,
there are aliens you know outside or whatever, you know.
But they're also more dangerous than the usual conspiracy, harmless
conspiracy theories that a lot of people believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least with the whole alien thing, it's it's
only the you know, the guy out in you know,
in the hills of Kentucky who's being probed. This is
a national front and it has again consequences on the
Republic and how we deal with the world as well,
and the world deals with us. You note in the
book some very alarming statistics. You alluded to one before,
but I want to get into these. A recent poll
found nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans believed the
Holocaust is a myth, Dear Lord, after October seventh, twenty
twenty three, just an absolutely amazing point in history in
America right now. Historically, Democrats are more likely to be
nine to eleven truthers. As you noted, Democrats have been
accusing Republicans of stealing elections since Reagan defeated Carter, and
we have been dealing with those election deniers. And then
on the other side of that is I have liked
to call them the election integrity deniers. And despite their
law signs declaring science is real, Democrats are twice as
likely to believe in astrology as Republicans. With all apologies
to Nancy Reagan, these are amazing numbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm happy you brought up the election denialism. Obviously,
we spent years being not of Republicans being accused of
election denihalism. Now I'm again there are people who are
nuts I'm not going to deny that. But there are
many people who have legitimate concerns and when an election happens,
they take legal recourse or you know, or ask legitimate questions.
And there's nothing wrong with doing that in a real democracy.
If you want a healthy democracy, you have to be
able to do those things. But the truth is that
if we do talk about election denialism, it's the Democrats
who have been doing it forever. Ask any major Demos
who won the election in two thousand. Every one of
them are on the record and will tell you that
it was stolen from al Gore by the Supreme Court,
even though there have been I think three independent recounts
in Florida, all of them showing that George Bush expanded
his vote total from what had been counted. Everyone forgets now,
but in two thousand and four, every single major Democrat
gave credence to the idea that there had been something
hinky going on in Ohio with voting machines and so
on in suppression of the vote. Then, obviously, in twenty sixteen,
that's one of the most successful election denial efforts in history.
Donald Trump could barely govern because we were enveloped with
a conspiracy theory, and then you can read stories today
in the New York Times. The New York Times will
print any kind of conspiracy theory about an election if
it's coming from the left. There's a big story last
year or two years ago. It was about how Ronald
Reagan had actually stolen the nineteen eighty election because he
had a secret deal with Iran where they would not
release the hostages and would help him get elected. He
wanted a landslide. It's idiotic to think that was the
only issue Americans cared about at the time. But tons
of Democrats and tons of aggressives believe or believed that
Reagan stole that election. They The only reason there's only
a few conspiracy theories going on right now is because
I think Trump want so decisively. If it had been close,
they would have been acting just as many Republicans had
acted in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: How much can we blame the view for this?
Speaker 2: All of it? All of it. I mean, to me,
that is a microcosm of all that's wrong with how
we talked about politics. I mean, it happens in an
incremental way, so sometimes it's not so obvious, but we
live in an idiocracy. A lot of people look at
that why that show and treat it, you know, with
a level of seriousness or and the people on it
are are idiots. I mean most of them are just idiots.
So I don't know. You got me inventing about the
view now.
Speaker 1: I think we need an entire other show about this.
But I'm sure you and Molly will take care of
some of that in the not too distant future. This
is an excellent book and an excellent examination of where
we are in politics and culture and the intersection they're in.
Speaker 3: If you don't have great credit, could a Trump policy cancel.
Speaker 1: Your credit card?
Speaker 3: The Watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wallet. Trump and
Bernie you want to collaborate on capping credit card interest rates.
But credit card debt is a non re course loan.
They can't repossess your dinner or your vacation. Whether it's
happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting
you financially.
Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
mccowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Our Guest Today and the Federalist Radio Hour. Award winning journalist,
acclaimed author David Arsani. His new book is The Rise
of Blue Anon. How the Democrats became a party of
conspiracy theorists. We have people David languishing in Gulag jails
in Washington.
Speaker 3: D C.
Speaker 1: Because of these conspiracies. Can we talk a bit about
Gen six and all that, you know, came out of
those conspiracies from the left, which were based on, you know,
some fringe conspiracies on the right. But again the word
keeps coming up, there are consequences for these things.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously I believe it least that a lot of
the Jan sixth people who are roaming around in Viking
helmets are kind of cuckoo and believe a lot of
Natzi things about the world. But the idea, so I
think that was an embarrassing event for this country for
many reasons. But the thing is it was a political riot.
It was not a coup d'etas, as all the left
would like you to believe. There is no way that
the Viking shaman or whatever his name of this was
going to take the you know, it was going to
take power and run the US government. No one believes that.
So the hysteria created around something like that was, you know, again,
just a cynical effort to make all Republicans who had
nothing to do with that riot at all, and honestly,
most of the people who were there that day protesting
had nothing to do with it, to make it appear
as if Republicans were on a jihad against American democracy.
It just simply isn't true. But yet that became in
many ways the center, centerpiece, the central argument of the
Democratic Party since twenty twenty or twenty twenty two, at
least when Biden gave that speech about how everyone who
disagreed with him was a semi fascist, which means half
a fascist.
Speaker 1: Was have you ever heard a half a fascist? They
are interesting people. I was in Jersey one time, met
a three quarter fascist. That cat was something else. But no,
just right right.
Speaker 2: I don't like those guys. They can't commit, you know
what I mean, you have to fully commit a fascism.
Speaker 1: Exactly fascist or don't even get into the conversation exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: And they were making these arguments while at the same time,
wanting to pack the court, wanting to get rid of
the Electoral College, wanting to you know, under you know,
complaining about the Senate, you know, diffusing of democracy, you know,
doing all you know, abusing executive power and ignoring the
Supreme Court, spreading conspiracy theories about the Court being bought
by billionaires. All these things actually undermine American democracy. And
yet that was their whole case. Now people didn't fall
for it, I think because you know, after the Russia
collusion thing, after COVID, I think COVID was a big
moment as well. Everyone stopped listening. I just don't think
people trust these institutions anymore. It's not a good thing
because we actually need good journalism. We need people, you know,
looking into what the powerful are up to, even if
the powerful are Republicans. But if today the media came
to you and said Donald Trump did X, even if
it was true, I don't think anyone would believe it.
And that's not good for the country either. And it's
fault of these lunan types, honestly, because they've lied so
many times, they've spread so many conspiracies that no one
believes anything they have to say. Anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, you noted it, and I think this is a
powerful period of time, the effects from the COVID pandemic era,
the effects from the lockdown, the real hit to confidence
and trust in our institutions, particularly in our health and
science communities. But you know, you talk about conspiracies. We
had people telling us again to follow the science. People
in positions of authority, follow the science, don't question the science.
The science was in many cases terribly wrong, and it
was used as a cudgel against our civil liberties. I
think Americans remambered all of that enough did certainly in
this last election. But I know you go into it
in your book. But the kind of conspiracies that sprang
out of this health crisis, if you.
Speaker 2: Will, Yeah, I think it began the science. A lot
of science scientific community became more partisan because of client
climate change and the hysteria surrounding climate change, where I
believe they convinced themselves that it was okay to lie,
to scaremonger as long as you were pushing people towards
whatever goal you had. And I think that that bled
into COVID in a lot of ways and then just
blew up. Obviously, there's no science that you follow that
says it doesn't matter what the science says that allows you,
that rationalizers or justifies you shutting down a church you
and the latterly by the state. There's no exemption for
healthcare crisis in the First Amendment, no matter what anyone
tells you. And obviously they were lying about how that
worked anyway. So yeah, I mean, I think that was
the moment. I think it was one of the worst
moments in American history. It sounds like hyperbole, but I
really believe that was the moment COVID where the where
we where trust was broken, probably irreparably, where the government,
not just you know, the government used that power to
to just totally ignore the constitution of ways they probably
hadn't in a very very long time, certainly not in
modern times. And it's going to be difficult to get
back from that. And on the tails of the entire
Russia collusion thing, you know, I don't know, it seems
like it's going to take many years for anyone to
trust health care professor, you know, healthcare the you know,
government health officials, or even or meet or many most
of our institutions or higher ed or you know, I
can't think of any institution other than perhaps the Supreme
Court in my mind, that actually functions properly right now
and is trustworthy.
Speaker 1: To the roots of this. I'm curious what you think
about this. You mentioned, you know, late nineties modern day
Blue Anon movement, so to speak, and I think about
the now generations of this political ideology and quite frankly
conspiracy taught in our public schools. How much do our
educational systems play into this, particularly on the consumption end.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's that's a problem in numerous ways. First
of all, you know, just outside of my book and
the Paranoid and all that, simply that we have young
people who are completely uneducated at civics. I think that's
a massive problem. Not because I think that if you
taught them how it was important to have a diffused
democracy in federalism, they'd be like, WHOA, yeah, that's right.
But they don't even understand. They don't even understand the debate.
They don't they cannot comprehend why you wouldn't believe that
a majority should be able to you know, squash or
lord over a minority. They simply can't understand it because
they think they have the upper hand. I mean, maybe
this popular vote, which is a non existent thing that
we talk about, will change their minds with Trump. But
in general, I just I find that they are incapable
of having that debate. But then it's a favor you
have this. You know, my kids went to a school
district in Maryland near Washington. They had to read Tanasi
Coats books, the sixteen nineteen Project is there, which this
paranoid revisionist history that you know, so fictitious, and they're
taught a lot of terrible ideas, and those ideas obviously,
I believe, you know, spring forth, many of these conspiratorial views.
You mentioned the Holocaust before. But just think about how
much open anti Semitism there is right now on the left,
where it's always been. Karl Marx was an anti Semite,
even though it came from a from family of Verbinic
Jews and so forth. It's always been inherent there because
of the paranoia about Jewish power, about Jewish success and
money and all of those things. There are people, and
I mean again, it exists on the right too. I'm
not blind to that, but how many, there's a whole
there are, there's the squad is in Congress. They are
conspiracy theorists and liars and anti Semites, and they openly,
openly engage in that kind of rhetoric. And not even
the Jewish Democrats on that side will say a word.
The only person who will say a word is John
Fetterman of Pennsylvania. It's allowed to it's allowed to grow,
and it's a cancer on the left because of our
educational system. In a way, the higher education teaches people
provision of histories about Israel and the Jewish people and
Zionism and all that. So it's complicated. But yeah, I
believe that higher education is a huge problem. I think,
you know, my kids are older, but I don't know
that I would send them to most of these schools now.
I mean, I think it's better to be an autodidact
today than to go to Harvard, you know, or Yell
or any of these places. It's just poisonous ideas and
conspiracy and paranoia.
Speaker 1: I felt the same way many many years ago when
I was going through the higher ed system and the
University of Wisconsin system Milwaukee and elsewhere. And that's why
I'm here. I think, you know, I saw the early
signs of that in the early nineteen nineties, when I yeah,
being told at that time, hey listen, you know you're white,
and you're probably wrong.
Speaker 2: But wasn't it. It always existed, and they were always
you know when I was, when I was, were a
little older than you, but you'd see people with MAO
shirts on, for instance, or and probably because my parents, yeah, exactly,
these murderers and you know, tyrants, the probably because my
parents defective from Hungary and were very anti communist. I
was always sensitive to seeing that sort of thing. Used
to feel like it was just this sort of small
rebellion against your parents, against society, and that people then
went on into the real world and came to their senses.
People forget, for instance, that the you know, Reagan had
this huge win in nineteen eighty, but a lot of
young people voted for Reagan. They were pushing back against
the sixties and seventies. Nowadays, the craziest people with these
craziest ideas are writing residential speeches for Kamala. You know,
they're not coming to their senses. They're coming out of
school with these ideas because there's no one there and
they're just silent. There's no one there to have a debate.
You can't even have a conservative on campus. It's rare.
So I just feel like there was more open discussion.
I mean, people forget it was the hippies in the
sixties who were like at the forefront of the free
speech movement. Absolutely, I don't think the left wingers believe
in free speech anymore. I really don't. Not as a
neutral principle, they don't. So well, it's all changed, they
certainly have. I mean, we know that Robert F. Kennedy
Junior left the party of his uncle, his slain uncle,
and his slain father because that party no longer looked
like the party that certainly John F. Kennedy was leading
in nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: So you know, here we are. You raise a good point.
So then are we now at a Reagan eighty moment?
Are we now at Dare I say, a Warren G.
Harding moment of acting normal? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, we are actually now Listen, I'm not going to
a lot of people compare Trump to Reagan. I don't
think it's right. I think Reagan was much more ideological.
I think he was a lot smarter than people understand.
I think he thought about these ideas, the market, you
know American greatness all this stuff in a much more
serious way than Donald Trump does. I know that people
don't like to hear that, but I do think that
he is in a way like Warren G. Harding in
that he is the candidate of the normy American. I
don't think he's very ideological, and I don't think a
lot of his fans, let's say, in Michigan or Pennsylvania,
care about his policies as much as they care that
he speaks to them in a way that they see
as normal, whereas the other side, you know that ad
Kamala is for they them, donald Trump is for you.
Oh yeah, so that was the way most powerful ads
exactly because they then is a microcosm of all the
goofy social science quackery that has you know, that has
infiltrated the Democratic Party and that they're trying to force
feed you. So I think in a way he's different
than Reagan, which is that Donald Trump is anormy but
he tells you a lot of the times what you
want to hear, whereas Reagan, I think, had to change
how people thought about government and government's role in their
lives in a very dramatic way, and it took a
long time from nineteen sixty four when Goldwater ran to
Reagan to do that. Whereas I don't think Trump is that,
you know, big of a change agent. I think he's actually,
like you say, more like Warren Hording, where he's bringing
back some kind of normalcy, which is weird because they
talk about him like he's this crazy Nazi, but in
fact his policy positions are incredibly moderate. Most of them
are very normal. Normal people want the border closed, you know,
normal people don't you want a functioning government. Normal people
don't like law fair, even if they if it's a
candidate that they don't like. So I really do believe
he represents a kind of normal scene, a return to normalcy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that's a great point. Didn't the
Blue and Non movement and all of these crazy conspiracy
theorists that the gain currency thanks to an accomplished, irresponsible media.
I mean, they're trying to I've always said this, what
we're seeing from the American left today is a war
on reality. You know, we talk about the war on
women and the war on this and the war on that.
This really has been an assault on reality. They want
to change the construct of reality. So at some point
reality is going to win. And that's another question for
these modern times. Are we at the reality he wins
moment in America?
Speaker 2: I don't know if we're there yet, because you know,
you mentioned RFK. You know, I think he's kind of
alone as well. You know, so there are a lot
of looney people around in my view that aren't exactly
in line with reality. But overall, I think you're right Democrats.
Once you know, I'm pretty libertarian about life. You want
to live your life a certain way as long as
they're not hurting anyone. What am I going to do
about it? Nothing? But when when the moment comes that
you demand that I say that a male is a
female simply because they wish it, I can't be participating
in that because it's not reality. If you say, oh,
you know, a fetus is alive whenever I decide it is,
then I you know, that doesn't make any logical or
moral sense to me. So I can't participate in that.
And this goes on across. Like you say, it's they
are attacking reality, and most normal Americans don't like to
be attacked. So same thing where you have a border
district right, filled with Latinos. They o O for Trump,
and one of the view women says, yeah, they're misogynists,
you know, they just will simply can't understand the fact
that even Latinos don't like anarchy on the border, or
you know, they don't like to see people suffering when
they come in here because they're you know, you can't
just have this anarchy. It's bad for the immigrants, it's
bad for people who want to be here legally, it's
bad for the people who live here. They just deny
that reality and make it about something that bothers them.
It's very emote. You know, what is that Ben Shapiro
quote where facts don't care about your feelings. They just
try to bend feelings into facts, like you say. So, yeah,
that's that's a big problem as well.
Speaker 1: Again, I might add that the view has really challenged
our love and our belief in the First Amendment. But
here we are. The First Amendment was designed not for
popular speech, but to protect the most loathsome speech, and
that I.
Speaker 2: Was watched, Yeah, I was watching this documentary and I'm
sure maybe you've seen it, but it's gor Vidal and
William Buckley and oh I.
Speaker 1: Love that my best fiend or what is that called?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forget what it's called. Yeah, but it's excellent.
And listen, I'm not saying that we all have to
sit around listening to the Lincoln Douglas debates whatever, you know,
but I am. But there has been a real drop
in the level of you know, here's what it is.
They all are just pandering. You're pandering to people telling
them what they want to hear. And there's a lot
of group think, and group think that's a place, a
fertile place for paranoia because you're just constantly reinforcing each
other's greatest fear is And that's what I see the
view as you know, or places like that, or big
groups of voters. Even we don't really have any debate
anymore because why should I debate Hitler? Right, just call
him Hitler and move on, right. So I do wonder
if that will change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there has been a definite in this election,
and we've seen it growing across this country, groups like
Moms for Liberty and you know the players involved, and
it is this I think, this backlash against the arrogance
of the state, the arrogance of the statist of the
regime of this regime, the status quo, whatever that is
of this regime. And I think that arrogance was really
defined in the number one issue still the number one
issue in this election, the economy. And they kept telling
us the Biden Harris administration and their surrogance. They kept
telling us, don't believe what you are experiencing at the
grocery store, at the gas pumps, because our data experts
will tell you that inflation is getting under control, and
then you go to the grocery store and of course
that's not true at all in your personal experience. So
how much of that is shaping the resistance, if you will,
to the Blue Anon movement and how important will that
be moving forward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point. That's another bending of reality. Now, Listen,
I don't people hate to hear this from me as well,
but I just don't think that groups of voters always
know what policy is good for them. I think sometimes
it's an emotional reaction as well. But it's clear even
to me and I am so I'll go to the
grocery store and I will just hand over the money.
I don't even know what anything costs. It could be
one hundred. You know whatever, it is my whole life.
I have no clue. I'm clueless. But even I notice
everything's getting more expensive, right, And then you know, they
do this year to year inflation difference and they're like, oh,
inflation's falling. You know, it's not falling. There's been compounding interests.
People aren't idiots. They see that everything costs more, and
you keep telling them everything's great. It's a big problem.
And for them, of course, it was a big problem
that they helped cause this by dropping trillions into the
economy as inflation was starting to bubble up. So but yeah,
that's another that's another example of bending reality. But yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I think sometimes I wonder
again if the if people who spread these stories believe
them because they want to, but it just breaks trust,
you know, just keeps breaking trust with the media. There's
there This is another separate topic and you probably know
this as well. You have a lot of people on
beats in this country, at newspapers for a long time already,
at you know, major outlets that really aren't don't really
have any expertise in their beat, that don't really understand economics,
even though they're on that beat, yes, and so they're
always belittling others for not understanding anything, but really they're
not very bright themselves. I notice this all the time
on the Middle East beat, you have people or how
about this the religion beating. People write about religion and
at New York Times out they know nothing.
Speaker 1: Without any faith. They write about religion without faith or belief.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, or any kind of deeper understanding about what's
going on. There's kind of contempt actually for religious people
in a lot of the writing. Another bending of reality
that I that I like to point out that it
makes people mad, is are are you know, hey, let's
just start a new denomination among you know, that's a
Catholic denomination that says abortions. Okay, you know you have
a lot of left wingers doing that. You know, you
see churches with you know, rainbow flags outside whatever. Jewish
people have been doing this for a long time. You know,
they just keep it. It's kind of an off road
from the you know, an off ramp from the religion.
But whatever. That's also this weird bending of reality. And
so then they talk about faith in such a demeaning way.
They talk about people who are faithful in the demeaning way.
Kamala Harris, you know, is clearly anti religious. I think
that that's another underrated aspect of this election. Just to
get off topic again, is that she's anti Catholic. I mean,
she's probably anti all orthodox faiths, but it was clear
she trusted judges who were Catholic. She treated what is
that men's organization in the Catholic Church?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Forget, but she talked about them with a little yeah
if columnists. Yeah, and then someone yells Jesus's Lord as
an event and she says, you're at the wrong rally. Yeah,
that is something maybe they should reconsider as well. I'm
not saying they should. All you have to pretend to
be religious, but you know, there are still a lot
of people in this country believe in God more than
most in the Western world. And demeaning those people I
think is a very bad idea because normal people, even
those who aren't religion religious, respect tradition in a way anyway.
So I think that's a problem as well. Remember, I
couldn't be more I couldn't be more off topic. I'm
sorry about that.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's all on topic quite rankly, and
I think you're absolutely right. I think faith had a
lot to do with this, whatever you think of the
veg Ramaswami. I remember covering, you know, the parade of
contenders and pretenders in the Iowa caucuses leading up to
the Iowa caucuses throughout twenty twenty three, and his message,
I think at some level obviously a populist message, but
he was talking about this void in America where faith
used to be, where community and foundational principles used to be,
and people are filling it with crap, you know, They're
filling it with drugs and and sex and all kinds
of different things. And at the end of the day,
they're screaming out for something bigger, bigger than themselves. And
a lot of people get that, and a lot of people,
as you say, are still tied in at least at
some level to their faith, and they felt assaulted and
insulted over the last several years in this country, and
they should have. So that gets us back to your book.
Final question for you. Rust never sleeps, neither does the left.
It has been muted the response to this Trump win.
Do you expect this stuff to these crazy theories and
the more radical notions from the left to get violent
in the coming days and years.
Speaker 2: I think because of the how solid Trump's win was,
they're regrouping and rethinking how to approach it. Because obviously
the conspiracies about democracy falling and Hitler, you know, and
trumping Hitler have fallen. But that didn't work. But generally speaking,
right now, just talk about the media for a second,
which drives a lot of this. All the incentives are
wrong because you will get Donald Trump will bring you ratings.
Getting hysterical about Donald Trump will bring you ratings. It's
going to be very hard. It's like catnip. I just
don't think they're going to be able to have a
tempered even you know, unbiased. Look at that you see
it on MSNBC. I've been watching shot in Freud, not
because I enjoy it, but the conversation isn't Wow, Maybe
we shouldn't have called all these people Hitler. The conversation
is why did all these people vote for Hitler? I
don't from the entire culture of the media needs to
be changed for things to change, because, as you there,
if a newspaper runs the wrong opinion or doesn't run
a pro Democrat op ed The entire staff will rebel
against you. Sometimes they'll get you fired, as they did
in the New York Times op ed editor. So you know,
these places are filled with activists, not journalists. Again, or
I've said this often, is that it's not that you're biased.
Everyone has an opinion. I think trying to hide that
is kind of a waste of time. The thing is,
you must present your opponent's positions honestly, you must not
be an activist. They do all that, and so I
think they're paranoia in nature, these younger people especially, So
it seems very unlikely to me that they can just
entirely change their culture after one election. But we'll see.
I mean that's just you know, I just don't think
things change that quickly or that easily.
Speaker 1: So you're expecting vagina hats, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that's nuts, right If you wear that, you
are not.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's the opposite of nuts.
Speaker 2: Very well done, no, But what I mean yeah, well, yeah,
that was a good one. But what I mean is that, Yeah,
you know, I think most Americans see that as weird.
I think dressing up and in a handmade's tail none
outfit or whatever, I think people will think you're weird
when you do that, and these things are weird and paranoiic,
and most people are not that way, especially because Trump
was already president and none of that happened, so they're
less likely to believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing we couldn't believe is when Tim Walls
was telling people that JD. Vance was weird, not even yeah,
that was weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I am not a huge JD. Vans fan, but
I have to say he was the most normal person running,
and he's probably the most normal person who's run on
a presidential ticket in a very long time. So I
believe his Like he started out with very low favorability ratings,
and I think now he is the highest of all
of all four that ran so well.
Speaker 1: However you feel about is where he's come from politically
or those sorts of things. He's a bright guy and
he's very grounded, and I think that that was a
calming effect for a lot of people. That was very
helpful to the Trump campaign. But that's a different topic.
This is a great book, and I always enjoy talking
to you. I've told you this before, I mean it sincerely.
You have a standing invitation to join us in the
Federalist Radio Hour to talk about anything you want, particularly
the View.
Speaker 2: I think we should we need an episode on the View.
I think we do have a lot to say about
each member of the view.
Speaker 1: You have a lot to say about a number of things,
and that's why I've always always enjoyed talking to you.
And of course you can find this gentleman every week
on You're Wrong with our very own Molly Hemingway. Enjoy
that podcast as well. You can read his book too.
I want to thank our guest today, award winning journalist
and acclaimed author David Harsani, here to talk to us
with us about the rise of Blue Anon, how the
Democrats became a party of conspiracy theorists. You can find
this book wherever you find your books out there. It
is worth your time, worth the read. You've been listening
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
Senior correspondent at The Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray.