Speaker 1: Semio the Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going.
Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because I put my hand on a book and
made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: There is video of this live stream the YouTube link
in the description box spontaneous, unplanned just to host venting.
So for all of its flaws, I apologize, but it's real,
and here it is. I'm going to admit to you
a few things I can't believe. I'm going to admit.
And then, of course the phone lines are open if
you want to call and vent. I know a lot
of people have a lot of stuff on their mind.
I have been struggling a little bit with sleep anyway,
and the past few days have just been a freaking nightmare.
And I'm sure you may feel the same way, which
is weird. You know, I know that I am in
probably the least endangered demographic right now. I mean, I
get it. Even though I'm an atheist activist, I think, well,
you know, I'm a CIS white male, and so I'm
not going to be the one as much in the crosshairs.
But I do grieve about the potential, the possibilities of
what is to come. So you know, I'm able to
drop off, and then I wake up and my brain
is like a spinning hard drive. Do you know what
that's like? And I lay there and I get myself
worked up and I worry, and then I get up,
and then I get mad that I can't sleep. Then
I eat something and I'm like, I'm not eating because
I'm hungry. I'm eating because I'm bored. Stop eating, and
then I finish what I was eating, and then I
try to go back to bed, and I can't sleep,
so I doom scroll, I go on social media. Terrible idea,
especially in the middle of the night. You don't want
to log onto the news sites. I've been in avoidance mote.
I don't even go to the news. I don't want
to know what the headlines are. Because I know what
they're going to be for the next several years. Avoidance.
Is it a healthy avoidance or is it not? Sleep
has been a problem. I woke up this morning. I
told Nat, I just feel sad, just sad and angry
and all those other things. So I had some friends
and again, I can't believe. I'm it's not a big
deal to you, but it's kind of a deal to me.
And so they're like, here and they gave me a
gummy and they're like, if you cannot sleep through the night,
take that. I was like no, They're like, seriously, just
take that now. I don't even think this is legal.
But don't you have to have a license or something
like that. They're like, here, take what I mean, it's
no big deal. But I know I sound like a lamer,
but I'm fifty six something years old. I've never been
drunk in my life. I really don't drink. I've never
been high, never done drugs of any kind. And I
kind of don't want to break the streak. That's stupid. Like,
if you can't sleep, then help yourself sleep. What are
you waiting for? You don't want to be at the
end of your life and say, you didn't do the gummies? Yeah,
I mean, are there some things that you want to
try before you leave the world. Yeah, But I don't
want to break the streak. So I was looking at
it last night. I was all wrapped up. It was
sitting on the night stand, like, well, do I take it?
I don't know if I want to take it. If
you're not sure, you shouldn't take it. But come on,
take it, Jesus Christ, come on. It's not cocaine. It's
a gummy and you need the rest now. But if
you take it, you'll have broken the streak. Fifty six
and a half years. I slept for about an hour
and a half, woke up, got mad, went around the house,
ate something that I wasn't hungry for, doom, scrolled, and
finally got about two and a half hours before the
morning came. And then I just woke up sad and no,
I didn't do the gummy. So I literally have this
weird thing that I'm like, well, I'm sitting on the
night stand right now, and what's what good is the
streak do? I just like being able to say that
I've never done anything like that. I'm not getting drunk
half a gummy. I don't know. I don't speak gummy.
I don't speak gummy. I don't know what I'm doing,
but I do feel like I could use an assist
when it comes to trying to deal with what's going
on all around me. And here's the next thing I'm
going to admit to you. I think I talked about
this with the cognitive dissonance guys, and they were it
was a Tom who was speaking about how you think
and how you feel, and how they are often in
conflict with each other. And when you're feeling something you
know is irrational and even harmful, but you would never
act on that feeling. It's that dark part of your
heart that you often preserve and sometimes you don't even
tell people about. So it's weird that I'm telling you
about it because there may be somebody who quote minds
me or thinks the worst of me, or calls me
a hypocrites. But I just don't give a shit. I'll
tell you because I suspect you may feel the same way.
Have you ever been in traffic and you're doing it right,
You're spatially aware, you're doing at least around the speed limit,
You're responsible and somebody comes and they jack their car,
a little hot rod in in front of you, and
they act like they own the road, endangering everybody around you.
They're on their phone texting. You can see them through
the window, just being a jerk, reckless. You ever fantasize
about just taking your car and just just right into
their back quarter panel, or you just right off the
shoulder into the river or into the trees. You don't
want to kill them, but you want them to pay.
Take that sweet little ride that you're so proud of,
and you want everybody on the highway in all three
or four lanes to notice. And I want you to
have it totaled. I want you to pay for the
endangering that you are doing, for thinking that you are
the only driver on the road potentially endangering you know me,
my passenger's children, peep a school bus, I don't care
what it is. And you, in that emotional part of
your brain, you fantasize about just right into the guardrail
and fuck that sports car up. Oh, I'm sorry, you're
going to need a toe drug. Oh you're going to
have a hard time getting another ride. That's terrible. Bye bye.
In my heart, my emotional self, the ration. I'ms a
rational self the uncivilized? Would that be the ID? Would
that qualify as ID? Don't tell me you haven't thought
this way. I know you have. I used to have
a boss. It was my first radio job ever and
I hadn't started the gig yet. It was my first
radio job. I was going to be a radio disc
jockey for a Christian station and I was just a kid.
I was so excited. And I remember the manager called
about something and I sat on the phone. I said,
by the way, you know, I learned in school how
to do commercials. I learned how to do production. We
call it production when you make commercials. And I was
just a young, eager, enthusiastic person who was desperate to
try to just to help to be a radio guy.
And on the phone, I remember he switched and he
yelled at me and he said that production room is
for this, this, this, and this, and you have no
business in there, and I don't ever want to see
you in there, do you hear me? I mean he
just dressed me down on the phone and I went
sheet wide, I'm sure, and I felt totally humiliated, and
I said, yes, sir, Yes, yes, sir, and I hung
up the phone, and it stuck with me. I've never
forgotten it. And that began a long run of verbally
abusive behavior toward everybody that worked for him. I hate
to say this, but he suffered from and I think
this is a thing he suffered from little man syndrome.
He was a very, very very short guy. And there
were some people who they don't determine their strength and
character by stature, right, and then there are some like
this man, I think, who spent their entire life compensating
for their self consciousness about the fact that they weren't
six foot three. And this guy compensated by not raising
himself up, elevating himself in terms of who he was
as a human being, but by tearing the hell out
of everybody around him. And he did. Every time he
came in. You could feel the temperature drop. We dreaded him.
Is he in the building? Is he in the building?
When's he supposed to go home? Does anybody know? Oh
my god, it's a religious radio station, right. Everybody else
was wonderful, but this guy, he was just awful, awful
to people, and he would dress me down. Here's something
I don't know why, I'm telling you all this. Maybe
it's just because I haven't slept and I don't give
a shit. So we had a radio console in the
main control room, right you had your soundboard at the time,
there were these cart decks where you played commercials and
then CD players, and they were all on this desk.
And you've seen what a radio studio looks like. Well,
it was built for a seated announcer. It was built low,
way down low, and down here near the bottom, that's
where they kept the actual albums. And yes, we still
played a few albums at the time, actual vinyl records.
But because somebody apparently a few years ago with a
chair had scuffed the wood on this day, ask the
boss decided from now on you can only stand. You
were not allowed to sit when you do your radio show.
I'm six foot one and my first shifts were twelve
hours long, and so what we were then required to
do was you would sit in a chair in another
part of the studio and then you would have to
get up, organize yourself, do your you know, your little thing,
you know, and announce the song and the time and
the weather and do whatever you're supposed to do, and
try to organize that, and then when you were done,
you went back to the other part of the room
and you had to sit down. And when you're working
six pm to six a m. I mean, come on.
And one time I just had enough and I pulled
a chair up and I sat down right there. It
was just like, oh God, microphone was right here, the
card deck and the CD players, everything was where. This
was how the thing was built. It's how it was designed.
And I didn't hear him come into the building. He
turns that corner and my heart sank down to my feet,
and I thought, oh, what are you doing. I'm sorry, sir,
it was such a long shift. I hope it's okay.
I just for a few thought i'd pull I wanted
to pull a chair up. And he looked at me
and he said, well, you can go work for somebody
else if you want. I mean, he just then he
just dressed me down. It was just horrible. And every
day was that way, and when he was not around,
I would fantasize about something horrible happening to that guy.
I didn't really want it to happen here, but here
in the id or the uncivilized part, I thought, I
wouldn't it be nice to say, not only will you
never speak to me this way again, but you'll never
speak to my coworkers, You'll never speak to your family,
you will never speak to strangers, you will never speak
in this way to anybody again. And then you take
a baseball bat in your cracks fucking skull open.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's this totally uncivilized, this total primitive thing.
Speaker 4: That you do.
Speaker 2: You just think to say everything you've ever wanted to say,
and then just just end him, you know, because you
were just stripped raw, you were just humiliated. And I've
had some of those feelings post election. Not about violence,
but my brain and my heart are having an argument.
And I'm fully aware that I'm being in some ways irrational.
And here's what I mean by that. Seventy two million
people just voted to enable a sociopath too essentially set
fire to American democracy. I can't even imagine what the
next several years are going to look like. I can't
process it. Have I can barely log onto the world.
There are a few people that I know who are associates,
friends on my tennis team, etc. Who have called about
something else. I let the phone ring, I cannot. I
cannot speak to them. I'm so angry because even though
I know in this this area over here of their lives,
they are genuinely good people, but they have the Trump
box somewhere inside their skull, and for whatever rationalization they made,
they checked that box on the ballot, and they are
one of those seventy two million reasons that a sociopath,
predator con manchild is going to essentially wreck us. I
can't even talk to him. I'm supposed to release his
speech that I've been giving, and I still hold to
this about how we change minds in this world. We
have to engage those even awful people sometimes to try
to realize that people who perpetuate bad ideas are often
victims of bad ideas, and I was one of those people.
That's still true. I'm not sure I can release the
speech because it feels tone deaf against the absolute heartbreak
that I feel right now. How can I release a
presentation that rightfully says that we have to use things
like street epistemology and the Socratic method, and we have
to try to get into the why. And yes, good
people can do not good things. Some people can enable
bad things because they're deluded or brainwash. You know, beyond
the bigots, beyond the haters, beyond the ones that fit
the caricature, I mean everybody else. You know, the people
who have rationalized that Trump is somehow God's man. The
Lord sometimes uses flawed people to deliver the kingdom unto us.
They believe it is a righteous cause. So they're operating
supposedly for the noblest of reasons. I don't want to talk.
I just can't pick up the phone. As a family
event earlier this week, celebrating somebody's birthday, I stayed home.
I had nothing else to do. I had no excuse.
I had no reason to go or not go. Rather,
I just who wants to sit at the table and
feel that sort of We were at dinner last night.
Somebody walked in with a T shirt on and it
just said Trump won. And he's exactly the kind of
dude you would picture, exactly the kind of guy that
would wear a Trump one T shirt. I would wager
if I could sit him down for three minutes and
quiz him about the founding Fathers, the United States Constitution,
the Pledge of Allegiance, God on the coins, God on
the money, the rest of the world. He wouldn't know
a goddamn thing about it. He would be historically, constitutionally
culturally illiterate, and tens of millions of people just like
him are the reason that in the coming years we
may lose the Department of Education. People like RFK Junior,
a wacky conspiracy theorist, may dismantle the FDA. Ryan Walters,
the superintendent of public instruction in my own state, has
been running for office all of the crazy headline grabbing
shit that he has been doing for the past several years.
He's been waving his arms in the air so that
Trump will notice him. And now that Trump is elected,
Ryan Walter's once a high high position in the Trump administration,
and he very well may get it. He's terrifying. He's
the one who's been jamming the Ten Commandments into public
school classrooms, which spurred Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling. He's the
one who mandated Bibles be in every classroom and that
the Bible be taught. And I don't mean comparative religions.
I mean taught like truth, science and history. I think
of the poor people in Ukraine. If Trump abandons Zelenski
and our allies in Ukraine, Pudin just essentially just skates
right in. He leaves NATO, we begin acting, you knowilaterally,
because we just don't give a shit about the rest
of the world. We're so myopic America, America, America, not
realizing that what we are and what we do affects everybody.
I worry about the white supremacists who think that Trump
is one of them, and I think he is too.
Who was the politician or the pundit somebody on television said,
even if Donald Trump isn't a racist, the racists think
he's a racist. That's the kind of person he is.
And so then I go to that dark part of
my heart and I think, Okay, if you check that
box for Trump, if you voted for this, if this
is what you want, this is really what you want,
then I hope it crashes down on you in the
worst possible way. Oh fine, to put an anti vax
crank in charge of public safety, Okay, fine, fine, And
when the measles or whatever comes for you, right whenever
some horrible virus, a vaccine preventable virus, or a sickness
that science would be needed to intervene on, when it
comes for you or someone you love, and it's not there.
It'll be a consequence of the vote that you cast.
You did it to yourself. And then I switch because
I'm like, well, that's not fair to their children, who
didn't have a say in the matter. I don't want
to see suffering in the world. But then I switch
again and say, but I sure do want to see consequences.
I want to see action and reaction. Fine, you want
to say, we're going to do whatever RFKG Junior wants
to do, remove fluoride and use ivermectin for COVID or
whatever else he is doing. You want to do that. Fine,
you want to do that. If you want to see
what that kind of world looks like and you end
up in the intensive care unit, I'm probably not going
to be holding a vigil outside the door. That's how
I feel. You want to give a temperamental, vengeful man
child access to the United States military, potentially engaging US
and who knows what, turning the National Guard or worse
against United States citizens who dared to disagree. All right, fine,
you want to see what that's like. Sooner or later,
that's going to come for you. You're going to think something
or say something that there's going to be a point
of perhaps disconnect, and then that militarized nation that's supposed
to protect you within its borders will come for you.
Are someone you care about, and you're going to see right,
you're going to fuck around and find out. I kind
of want that. I want these people who are going
to thumb their nose at climate scientists, I want them
to experience in my emotional heart right, not in my
logical brain, in my emotional heart, in my primal part,
I want the hurricane to fuck up their stuff. I
want to see the fine. You want to see the
consequences of not taking care, not being a steward of
the world on which we live, and it comes back
to bite you in the ass. It's not karma, that's action, reaction,
cause effect, and you pretty much had it coming. I
want the people who have enabled what is about to
happen to feel consequences for what is going to happen.
I don't want them to remain in the privileged class
where they wanted the public school system turned into a
Christian church and then they got it yay them, or
where they're a white heterostack, actual Christian family, so the
whole game works in their favor. All the rules advantage them.
I don't want that. I don't want them to sit
back smugly and say, oh, good for us, we got
a seat at the head of the table. Let's dole
out the scraps. Do everybody else. I want to see
somehow what's about to happen flip. I want to see
some chaos, and I want to see them receiving the scraps,
going how the hell did this happen? And already in
the chat I can see someone's like, you know, Seth's
just butt hurt because he lost, and these people aren't
hearing me. I'm amazed and struck and a little bit
amused because once Trump won so decisively, I had some
people who were I think they're atheist or whatever. They
gleefully came onto my social media pages just a gloat.
That's what you get, you lefties, you libs. You thought
you had the temperature put was going on, and now
you fucked around and found out. How does it feel,
mister woke? I thought about trying to explain how just
because something is popular it doesn't make it right, but
then I realized I would be wasting my time and
energy on someone who just came to gloat. Oh, the
majority decided doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it right.
It doesn't make the assault on democracy right. It doesn't
make stacking further stacking the Supreme Court right. It doesn't
mean waging war on scientists right. It doesn't mean endangering children.
It doesn't mean any of that stuff is right. It
just means it's popular. And the fact that it's popular
actually exposes one of the problems. One of the deeper
root problems, is that we are as a nation spoiled, rotten,
and pretty much functionally illiterate. I know somebody right now,
master's degree in college, works in the medical field, thinks
the earth is flat. Refused to get the COVID vaccine
because it was all a big conspiracy in the vaccine.
And she got COVID. And you know what she did
when she got COVID. She went to the fucking movies.
She went to the movie theater, a closed space, surrounded
by other people, knowing she had COVID. Nineteen big into homeopathy.
I don't want that regular western medicine, that evil pharmaceutical medicine.
I want an unregulated debunked pseudo scientific remedy, master's degree
in college works in the medical field. Voted for Trump.
I don't think I could sit at the table with
her right now. I just don't think I could stomach it.
Do you feel that. I don't mean to go on
and on? You know, the war on science has consequences,
disinformation campaigns from within and without, and yes I'm including
interference by Russia. They love the chaos, but I mean
the wellness industry, the conspiracy theorists, which are going after
everything from the moon landing to everything. I mean, they
are essentially priming a culture to believe the craziest, most
whack a doodle shit. And then those people go out
and they're not we don't live in a shared reality. Well,
if they aren't living in our shared reality, if they're
off in gumby Land, And then they start to make
decisions decisions about how they act and react, whether or
not they sit next to me in a movie theater
while they have COVID nineteen and dangering me and everybody
else into the city, whether or not they're going to
indoctrinate their kids with anti vax nonsense and then potentially
harm them sending them off to school where diseases exist.
They're going to jam mythology. You're going to teach Noah's
Ark as historical fact in public school history classes. I
said in a video that I sometimes I fantasize that
what if we were to partition the country into two halves,
and our half could celebrate the science, root ourselves on
solid ground, see ourselves as not just a country of individuals,
but a community of shared humanity. We'd be good stewards
of the planet. We would vaccinate our children. We would
embrace and teach the wonders of the science of evolution.
We would reject the idea of the billionaire, the money hoarder,
the oligarch, who could buy an entire social media platform
and sing handedly weaponize it against the rest of us.
We wouldn't allow that to happen. Who was it who said,
you know, all right, fine, if you hit nine hundred
ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred
ninety nine dollars, we give you a plaque that says congratulations,
you won capitalism. We name a dog park after you,
and then we take all of the extra money and
we use it to feed the poor, and fund cancer
research and build homes for the homeless, and develop a
better society. Jesus Christ, how many thousands of millions of
dollars does one person need? The society that I would
like to live in would never allow for that, because
that society would be broken. Trickle down was always a myth.
I would like to see people who are acting in
anti social ways, who are the agents of harm, to realize,
even if at this moment they don't get it right,
it'll be like, don't touch the stove. Who was that comedian?
It was Chris Porter. He had this joke with his
kid and he was like, don't touch the stove, don't
touch the stove, don't touch the stove, and the kid
wouldn't listen. And then finally he's like, you know what,
fucking lick it right now. You can't taste anything because
you're stupid. There would be a consequence, action, reaction. Only
when the people feel some kind of pain. Will they
change some of these people only whenever there are consequences
to what they do. I'm not talking about like us
acting in illegal ways, not talking about civil war, I'm
not talking about violence too. I'm talking about something that
happens as a direct result of what they voted for,
and it sort of splashes back on them, right, So
they help to concoct the poison, and then all of
a sudden, the barrel of poison explodes and they get
splashed with it, and they're like, oh shit, what have
we done? That kind of thing, And that's the emotional
side of me, and I've really been navigating that. Callers
are next, and I've got plenty of them. Hang on,
Thank you so much for listening. This is idiocracy. It
is also therapy. As we go to the phones, David
out of the UK, are you there? Okay?
Speaker 5: Can you hear me?
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 5: I don't know if I'm being irrational or overly anxious
some from the United Kingdom, but I'm terrified Trump pulls
out of NATO and Russia seeks revenge on the United
Kingdom and that our country might be finished because we're
not in a position to fight Russia want to learn.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very legitimate concern.
Speaker 5: I'm like, should I be making plans to flee to
another country? I mean, I'm someone who makes close to
minimum wage?
Speaker 2: Not why?
Speaker 5: And I can top up my money from online poker.
I know you wouldn't want to encourage gambling. I'm not
claiming to be a genius in either category. I'm working
my way for a statistics degree and I'm not claiming
to be a statistics genius. But I can say I
have verified my results to I am profitable online poker,
And I'm like, should I just be doing everything I
can to get my money together to just flee this
country before it's too late? Is that irrational?
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's irrational or not. I don't
know if I'm being irrational. Whenever I think where in
the world would I like to live? I told somebody
the first time Trump won, I went into battle mode.
This time, I feel like I'm going to I'm going
to continue to battle. But again, in my emotional side,
I feel like I'm going to have to find a
chair and essentially bear witness to the end of democracy
in the West. You know, so I fantasized about leaving
as well. So all I know is that I feel
what you're feeling, and I'm afraid as well. Sir.
Speaker 5: It's just terrifying, Like there was a period of my
life where I'm embarrassed to say the first time Trump
was running, I was a pro Trumper, and I know.
Speaker 6: What caused it.
Speaker 5: I know what pushed me to be pro Trump, and
I kind of go a responsibility to put out there
what it is to cause me to be pro Trump.
Speaker 2: And there's a number of things.
Speaker 5: First of all, there's been a lot of lies about
Trump said. And I'm not saying he's a good person
because he isn't, and I've got a lot of criticisms
for him. But the media manipulate and lie about Trump
a lot, and that makes Trump look like the guy
who's telling the truth. And I know Trump tells a
lot more hies on his side than what the media
tell about him, but it's not helping our cause when
people lie like that.
Speaker 2: My friend, all I know is I'm terrified. I'm going
to keep fighting. But my optimism, the optimism I had
not long ago, I don't feel it. I literally think
I mentioned Gore Vidal and how he had talked about
witnessing the decline of Western civilization. I don't think it's hyperbole.
I think we may be the democraty, the American experiment
may be imploding in on itself, and we will be
a nation that died of stupidity and cruelty. Those would
be the two main ingredients.
Speaker 5: I think that I've been fearing for climate change and
what's going to do to our planet and whether our
species is going to continue to exist. And when I
look at the science and by no means qualified scientists,
but just looking at the history of our planet and
making a guess, which is you have lacked so much
information on I think it looks like intelligent life is
so incredibly rare in this universe. But then just how
large the universe is, there has to be other cases
of it, and anything for how long the universe is
going to exist after this and anything we're so utterly
insignificant does it really matter? And then I'm just reminded
of this thing that I saw from a film, but
I don't know what film it is, but as there's
character who's meant to be like this religious icon in
the film, and he tells the parable of there's this
girl walking along the beach and she sees a load
of fish on the beach, all being washed up and
all dying, and this little girl is picking up the
fish and throwing them back into the ocean one by one,
and the guy says to this little girl, what are
you doing. You can't save them all. You can't make
a difference, And then the girls comes back round back
to them, says yes, but to that individual fish, it
makes all the difference in the world. And I'm thinking,
as bleak as things are and as dark as things are,
we can still make us tiny difference, however insignificant, to
try to at least meet things better for the few
people we can.
Speaker 2: Does I don't know, does that so stupid? It does
not at all. You know, it sounds like a little
bit of a cliche, but it's like, we can't change
the world, but you can't change the world for one person.
And the fact that it's a cliche doesn't mean that
it's not true. And I think that's that's something I'm
glad you left us with that thought before we finish
the call, David. All I know is that we'll be
watching what happens and trying to react as best we can.
In the meantime, be safe over there, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 5: My plan is just to try to do what I
can to get as much money together as I can
and as soon as if it happens, I hope it doesn't.
But as soon as I see America pulling out of NATO,
just plead his country. I don't know where to but
the Russian babble secret venture in UK have America to
protect it.
Speaker 2: All right? Well, thanks David, thanks for calling, Thanks for
your input. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, you bet. I've had
this thought, and it's a naive one, I'm sure, But
when the tyrants go crazy Putin whatever, what would cause
everybody around that tyrant to not shut it down? Like
if you know, we know that so many of the
Russian people think that the Ukraine war is just bullshit
and they don't support it and they don't want it,
and you know, there have to be some people in
Putin's government who feel the same, this is bullshit, we
don't want it. This is one guy's you know whatever.
What would keep those people from removing the tyrant at
the top of the pyramid? Is it the power that
is bestowed? Are they afraid for their lives because the
dictator has that much power? And I think to myself,
at what point, where's the critical mass point where people
say this is crazy and we've had enough and you're gone.
I realize it sounds rather childlike, when why don't the
people around the tyrant do something about the tyrant?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: I understand, but I do have that thought. Maybe you've
got a thought on it. Four zero five, it's Sam, welcome,
what's on your mind.
Speaker 7: I remember it was almost twenty years ago that I
actually graduated high school here in Oklahoma, and we were
ranked pretty high in education as I remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we were ranked
two decades ago, but education in Oklahoma, I think we're
in the forty eight. We're either forty eight or forty nine.
I think it depends on if you incorporate college. But
I think if you take college out of it, if
it's elementary in high school, I think we are just
above Mississippi in terms of education ranking. So yeah, that's
our one of our claims to fame. I think we
are down near forty nine. So yeah, I understand your frustration.
Speaker 7: Basically, it's becomes such a shit show in education in
Oklahoma alone, let alone every other far red state. That
not does sound crass or anything, but it's a good thing.
I don't have any kids.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that's crass. I think a lot
of people would be afraid to bring children up in
a place where their rights would be fewer tomorrow than
they would be today. I don't think that's crass. I
think it's understandable.
Speaker 7: Now. I could try and move, but I don't have
any real resources to find a new job or get
any kind of loan to go somewhere else because I
have nothing set up anywhere else. Everything I have is here,
And honestly, I've just been in a really almost numb
state because I'm stuck here. Other people are going to
be stuck here. I just need to help somebody, and
because it's going to get worse, I got someone to
help me figure out how I'm going to do this.
But I'm going to go help some kids that are
trans are clear despite myself being you know, a cis
white man, they need all the help they can get.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 2: Well, I think advocacy is the point, right, I mean,
I don't think only LGBT people can stand with LGBT people.
I don't think you have to put an ass to
risk there. And I think that's good medicine. I think
that's you know, we're back to you can't change the world,
but you can change the world for one person. Two people,
five people, So I think, you know, we start where
we are. I don't know really much of what else
to do. I think we make. I'll definitely be making
some grand gestures. But I'll also I think once my
resentment begins to, if it does subside, begin to try
to do more work here one on one, two on
two on the ground. So I think that's good stuff.
Speaker 6: Sam.
Speaker 2: I got to move on, my friend. But it's nice
to talk to a fellow Oklahoma. And you'd be safe
over there. Okay, yeah, you too. All right, We'll see
you later. Take care. Thank you, by the way for
the super chats paid superchat donations on the YouTube stream.
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description box two one zero. I don't see a name
given high. What is your name?
Speaker 9: It's Clay Clays.
Speaker 2: What's going on, Clay?
Speaker 9: I just want to say that, you know, I think
a fatal flaw we may is we talked to all
these people who they're not Trumpers. They just think everything sucks,
you know, so we talk to them like they're stupid.
But what we need to do is we need to
talk to them like we're stupid, because they're like, hey,
the price of eggs is super high, and you know,
these people are born on the show, so it's their fault.
And what do we do We counter it with what, Well,
here's a fifteen hundred word essay on why eggs cost
so much, and let's go into the supply chain and
the monopolies and all this. Instead, what we need to
say is, you know, we're going after Walmart because they're
fucking us over. You know, that's the message itsels, But
on a more cathartic note, I just want to say
that yesterday. My daughter is fourteen years old, and she
kind of snapped at me and my wife a couple
of times yesterday, which she's fourteen. They do that, but
it was in a way that was kind of unusual.
And then I went into a room and I was like, hey,
you know what, you can't talk to us like that.
What's going on? And she's like, yeah, whatever, you know,
it's super passive aggressive, and she's like, Okay, it doesn't
fucking matter. Okay, I'm a girl, this is Texas. I'm
absolutely screwed. I have no future and just the whole
world is going to fall apart, and you know what,
in that moment, I'm like, my my fort and all
her girlfriends are just as freaked out, and I can't
believe we're living in America and this is happening, and
I'm I'm not gonna lie. I cried with her too,
not hard, but I definitely cried, and I just, you know,
told her like it's going to be okay. I don't
know that I believe that, but I also told her
I was scared, and because I am scared, and I
think she's old enough to deserve to know that but
at the same time, know that she's fourteen. There's literally
nothing she can do about it. But four years from
now she can vote. I do think there'll be elections
four years from now. I think it's our last chance
to really win. But on a positive note, not positive,
not even hopeful, just not doomor I believe what Trump
is ushering in is the fourth right. But because of
these already been in power once, we're not Germany nineteen
thirty three. We are Germany nineteen thirty eight, and we're
closing in on the expected lifespan of a fashion government.
So when shit really goes to shit, like it's going to,
I think my next Christmas, there's only going to be
one side to blame, and there are good people who
really just care that eggs were expensive.
Speaker 3: I think that's all I got.
Speaker 2: Well, you said a lot of relevant stuff, and I
think a lot of people feel what you're feeling. Go
hug your baby girl and tell her that we got
her back out there. Okay, thank you sir.
Speaker 9: All Right, I definitely do that, and everybody, I just
hope we get through it.
Speaker 2: All right, We'll keep on keeping on. Thanks for calling.
Appreciate it. You see that Lincoln Project commercial like you
know what I think. I played it on the show
If You earlier this year where the cop pulls over
the father and the daughter. The daughter had gotten pregnant
or something, and so they were driving across state line
so that she could have the pregnancy terminated and it
was like four weeks or whatever. And because it was
this sort of post Trump era where the Project twenty
twenty five stuff is kicked in and the Puritans have
taken over and the evangelicals are running wild, there is
a database and so the cop is able to say, hey,
I see that you are this far along in your pregnancy,
and that your home is here, and that you're driving
across state lines and that you have been, you know,
messaging about this and about that. And at first I thought, well,
it's it feels like hyperbole, and then I thought, nope, no,
it feels like if you had told me what was
going to happen in twenty sixteen, between twenty sixteen and
twenty twenty, I wouldn't have believed you monumentally naive. I mean,
I was thought, now, it's crazy, it's crazy. And I've
gotten to the point now where I will probably believe
almost any horrible scenario that you tell me about. I mean, like,
anything's possible, Anything's possible. And then let's say that Donald Trump,
who is in what is he seventy eight guys, eats
fast food at every meal, He's one of the most
unhealthy people. Let's say he grabs his heart and keels
over in the next sixteen months. Then we got Dvance,
who is much smoother, much sliquor, who has been primed
by the heritage folks, primed for gilliad, primed for the
institution of essentially a male dominated former democracy. And then
I think, well, no, actually, that my fears and that
Lincoln Project commercial, they're not fans, maybe they could actually happen.
Alex making a web call, Alex, are you there? Can
you hear me?
Speaker 10: Hello? Let me know if you can hear me.
Speaker 2: I can. Indeed, Alex, Let's talk what's on your mind?
Speaker 10: So I think I kind of just wanted to give
some people a little bit of hope, I guess, or
at least like motivate them. So I think the most
common sentiment I'm hearing and I felt the same way
is like when Kamala and all these people kind of
went out and they had very good intentions, their heart
was in the right place, and they genuinely thought that
she was going to win. And there was a lot
of people such as like Alan Lickman, who were suggesting
that his like thirteen keys thing was going to predict
that she was going to win. So, like, there was
a lot of people that So people were very shocked
when she didn't win. And I immediately started seeing people
that were just saying, like, I give up, I'm done,
I'm never voting again, things like that, Like it's very
very very common that I'm seeing and that is just
not the right way to go about it, because I understand,
like I felt the same way, But we have to
stand up and fight against it, because like, these are
people's rights that are being taken away. And you think
about it, it's like when people say things like I
don't care anymore, you do care, because the reason that
you're so upset, the reason that you're so sad and
you're having this such an emotional reaction, is because of care.
So I think that a lot of people need to
understand that take a break if you need to. I
know everybody's sick of hearing this guy. And I was
listening to you know, Tim Walls, and at the end
of his campaigns he kept saying like, isn't it going
to be nice? And we never have to see this
guy ever again on TV, and like, so, yeah, people
are tired of of seeing this guy and we don't
want to go to four years of him again. But
I think that the difference between the right is that
when they lose again, they did this insurrection thing, and
obviously that's a ridiculously terrible thing, but they didn't just say, oh,
let's just give up, let's give up, I'm going to
end my life, I'm moving out of the country and
all this. These people they banded together, they formed a
bunch of organizations, they funded into a bunch of things,
and they went out and they tried to change things,
even if they were changing things in the wrong direction, obviously,
but that's what they did. So we need to do
something somewhere. We can't just give up. And it makes
me really scared to see that all these really good people,
these people who do care about facts and not living
in an ultimate reality. They have such good intentions. They
care about democracy, they care about women's rights, they care
about human rights, they care about like Ukraine, and they're
just saying, oh, I'm just going to give up. I'm
going to leave the country. And you have to understand,
first of all, every other country has their own problems. Okay,
I'm from Canada. We have somebody named Pierre Polyeff. He
has similar policies to Trump. He's coming up, He's almost
guaranteed to win. France is going in a similar direction,
Germany's going in a similar direction. And also now that
Trump has won, it's like basically people have understood that
they can win with this whole denying reality and just
attacking migrants and attacking minorities and whatever. It's not going
to go away. You can't just move to another country
and just like bar your head. So you have to
have hope and you have to keep fighting. And so
I just want people to know that because everybody is
just saying, oh, I just give up. I'm never voting again.
I don't know, what do you think about all that?
Speaker 2: I think you are the best medicine I have heard.
I woke up this morning feelings. Did I admit it
as much in the monologue? Maybe I did? I feel
that way. I almost feel resigned. Resigned is the word like,
how much more can we do? How much more can
we fight? How many more days can I wake up
and see this motherfucker on the front page of every website.
I'm so tired of hearing his name. And you are
a wonderful reminder that if we give up, people get
hurt even worse, and they need us now more than ever.
I mean, I'd rather go down fighting than fold my
arms and stop off and say as screw it, that's wisdom,
that's really good. Thank you for that.
Speaker 10: Could I say one more thing? Please do the other
thing that we need to realize? Yeah, And I mean
the reason I'm like this is because I'm I've been
kind of like a political entire life. Like I mean,
I always care with certain things, but I've kind of
like had the face that, Okay, well, there's these two
candidates that are running. But I know that they're going
to uphold human rights and I know that they're going
to like not throw us under the bust, and they're
not gonna end democracy. Like maybe their policies aren't the best,
but I have trust that if either one wins, it's
gonna be fairly okay, Like think of like Mt. Romney
and stuff, like I mean Romney versus Obama, Like Mitt
Romney is not going to end the entire democracy, give
it over to Russia and like end all human rights.
But I think that now I'm just really motivating to
figure out why this happened. And if you look at
the I've kind of wondered for a long time, like
why these people are like this and why they believe
like why they just believe Trump no matter what he says,
and like they live in this alternate reality. It's really
it's a hard thing to try to figure out. But
I think that, like I'm trying to figure out myself,
But I think that it's a different upbringing. I think
people on your channel and things like that, we have
the understanding that we want evidence for something, right, like
if if you're gonna make a claim, we don't want
to just believe your claim just because you repeat it
without evidence. But these people are clearly different. They are
fact resistant, they don't care about facts, and it's like
we have to figure out why that is. Like I
was listening to Alan Lickman the other day, who's like
a professor illness, and he talked about the way that
Trump does it is he and Also, Mark Cuban said
this Trump basically operates out of fear. He knows he's
a businessman. He's a brilliant salesman, so he can figure out,
what are you scared of? And how do I meet
you even more scared of that? And she knows how
to deliver that message. And then I don't feel like
the Democrats are doing that as well. And even though
Trump is lying and people are debunking him and things
like that, it's like people are looking that up. There's
a thing on Reddit I just saw where they I
think they pulled the much of people who voted for him,
and they showed that inflation for example. They have this
feeling that the inflation is like super super super high,
but it's actually like very low, like over the last
year it's gone lower because it's like Biden and stuff.
But they're not living in that reality, and so they
have this perceptions Like why do they have that perception?
I think it's because Trump what he does, if he
like watch him, he just repeats things over and over
and over and over and over, and it's like I
think that if he repeats something over and over and
over and over, and it's what people fear and it's
what people want. They're just gonna believe it because it's
like he just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating it,
and people won't have the energy or the time to
go and like research and oh is this true. Let's
look into the economy and let's look into this and
how does this work? And is the vaccines actually, let's
look into how virality works. Like people aren't gonna do that.
So I think that's part of the reason. And we
can't just give up. And we need to look into
why do people believe this stuff? And I think we
need to like use it against them. I think we
just need to like figure out, Okay, this is a
psychology of why these people are doing this. Let's just
use it against them and to get our message of house,
you know, like he's the same strategy, but for the truth.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, there's a lot of psychology about repetition and
how the repetition of ideas, whatever they are true or false,
actually embed in people's brains and then somehow what is
false becomes true. It is nuanced, it's complicated. Now you
got me wondering if I should go ahead and release
my speech in a couple of weeks about why facts
don't change minds. I'll pray and fast on it and
seek the Lord and decide shortly. Alex, you speak wisdom
today and I had someone in the chat say that
you have a very calming voice. So you're a calming, centering,
zen like presence on the live stream today. So thanks
for your contribution.
Speaker 7: Hi, thanks healing, See you later.
Speaker 2: I had somebody I saw a meme earlier and it
said something like, don't forget to register today for your
emotional support Canadian. I thought that was awesome. Do you
need an emotional support Canadian? I was like, hell, yeah,
I want that. I would like an emotional support Canadian.
Would you be if you're in Canada? Would you be?
My more calls, more conversation, more venting, more idiocracy after this,
Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to support
me and this podcast, if you want to donate towards
the production library that we were talking about earlier to
help me cover that contract that links in the description box,
or you can just become a patron Patreon dot com
slash Sith Andrews with my thanks, I've got wow. Indulge
me as I see a call from my hometown. It's
Mark at nine to one age Mark, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm stuck in northwest Arkansas for the last six years,
but I can't wait to get back to my pigeons.
We kind of ran in the same circles you were
my KSOJ DJ growing up in No Way, I was
in a band until you call that. Do you remember
Admiral playing the band.
Speaker 2: Admiral Twin Yeah, yeah, I used to play them on
the Gospel According to Music Part two. I think overnight
or something. We played them I think after hours, because
weren't you heavier edgier band, right, We were more an.
Speaker 3: Indie kind of like the seventy seven's in the choir
undercover of Savers. The stuff you played after midnight?
Speaker 2: Wow? Wow, wow man, you and I have our paths
crossed after thirty years. That's why. Oh, I'm sorry, I'll
shut up. Go ahead. I was just having a moment.
Go ahead, what's on your mind?
Speaker 3: It helped you kind of gave me permission, you know.
When I saw you as like, oh, no, him too,
and I was like, wait a minute. But I've been
on my de conversion journey since I was probably eleven
years old. I just didn't realize it. But I just
I'm curious. My question. I guess feel free to rain
the end because I'm very autistic ADHD and OCD, so
I can be all over the map and I've been
on the phone for an taking notes. So here's my question.
I'm curious as some people just are intellectually unable to
access ration and reason because I was an eleven year
old kid. I remember, you know, I remember in Sammi school,
I just gave my life to the Lord for the
three hundredth time. I'm eleven years old, and they're saying
you got to get sanctified next and filled with the
Holy Ghost. And I was like, okay, well what's sanctified?
And no one could tell me what it was. And
that was like those things started adding up. You know,
nothing made sense to me. So I was kind of
a questioning kid from the beginning. I remember going to
Cornerstone and watching like Josh mc dowd actually given reasons
for medical necessity abortions and rape and incests, and the
Cornerstone Festival tenths, you know, a band played there like
three years and Cornerstone was an environment where you were
able to question. It was a bunch of hippies and
punk rock kids that were raised and evangelical churches that
probably were restless like me and just realized they needed more.
But I don't know. I mean so I feel like
I was kind of born and raised to be a
questioning kid. Maybe that's part of my eighty h D part.
I just need to know stuff, and you know how
shit works to function, and I know that for thirty years.
I probably was thirty years old before I even looked
at a candidate on the ballot that wasn't rid. It
was so easy. My pastor would say, hey, we all
need to vote for so and so, and I'd be like, oh,
thank god, I don't have to look at all that
political crap. I did get stuck in the dittohead thing
in the nineties for like ten minutes, but I realized
I can't even look at myself then and go. I
was shutting off part of my brain. I was letting
that ego part of my brain run crazy. And I
think I'm in there right now, so pull me in.
What do you think people just.
Speaker 2: Well, I think let me come past. I mean, your
deconstruction stories is always interesting, But are there some people
who simply aren't cognitively able to bust out? There are
certainly cases of people who simply don't have the tool set,
but I think those people are largely a very small minority.
What I don't want to be guilty of is the
bigotry of lowered expectations. Some people need religion, or some
people simply aren't going to be smart enough or intelligent
enough to be able to bust out. I honestly think
the vast, fast, fast majority the people can be rescued
from bad ideas even if they are cognitively limited in
some way.
Speaker 3: So as we lose community, and that's the saying, they
still have community, and I think that's what keeps them
all just like glued together. They have community, they have
a leader, and they don't have to use their brains.
Thank god, I can use it for other things.
Speaker 2: No way I thought I should post my speech on
identity beliefs, I should go ahead and probably post it
in a few weeks. So yeah, No, I think we
get into the number of reasons why people hold onto
an identity, and whether that's your Christian, evangelical, conservative, capitalist, Republican, whatever.
There are a lot of reasons that aren't data related,
that are community and identity related, which is why when
you and I go in and say this is a
problem and here, here, here, and here, and they just
shut down, get mad or walk out, there are reasons
for that. So now you raise a really good point.
When the speech goes out later this month, we can
have a further discussion about it in the online community.
I think Mark, you'd be safe. Thanks for calling. We'll
see you later. Okay, see you later. I do like
the idea, and I think news stations should have a
side screen at all times, and they should have a
team of let's call it twenty five real time fact checkers.
So whenever you know, somebody is interviewing Mike Johnson, Speaker
of the House or whoever, and they're just spilling out
the bullshit, it's just rolling. The forked tongue is in
full swing, and as they speak, it's like, this is incorrect.
Here's the date of this, this is what actually happened,
Here's what Trump said. I just think there should be
a and we get to the point where we are
conditioned as a culture to expect it. You will see
the actual interview or the report or the claim and
over here it's just real time fact checking. And then
there would be a way to source it, because without
sources we're doing is sort of taking somebody else's word
for it. So we'd need some vetting. We'd need to
know that the fact checkers were qualified to do so,
and there would need to be sources for those fact checks,
and then they would be there. How would we do that?
It would have to be a more interactive form of television,
wouldn't it. I'm just saying, Doug, Doug, thanks for calling.
Are you there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me your game?
Speaker 6: I can?
Speaker 2: What's on your mind?
Speaker 8: I just wanted to say thank you for everything you do.
I'm from tell Us. Also. Oh yeah, you and I
and my oldest daughter had dinner on time. You helped
us with to write a paper for our larrance. I
don't if you remember that or not.
Speaker 2: Hang on your second hold on, Doug. Let's see, I
think I do. Your daughter was working on a school
project and you ask if I could provide input, and
I think we met at a sushi restaurant. Am I
remembering that?
Speaker 4: Ryan?
Speaker 8: That's exactly it? Yeah, I can't believe you remember.
Speaker 2: No, No, that's amazing. No, it was on ar go ahead, dog,
go ahead.
Speaker 8: No, that's I just mostly I will keep it the
longest one to say thanks.
Speaker 11: And real quick.
Speaker 8: Has the topic of abortion come up much so far
today on the show. I didn't know if it had
or not. My youngest daughter is twenty two now, and
she sent me a meme of a or a video
of TikTok of a fourteen fifteen year old girl that
walks into I don't know if it's the DHS for
what to try to like put in paperwork to adopt
a child, and of course the person behind the characters,
well you can't adopt. Your too young to adopt. She's like,
but I can get pregnant and have a baby. Yeah,
you can do that, because you can't adopt a child.
And I just it was one of another amazing thing
that my daughters have bought fourth to me to show
me that like I can't. We just there's so much iron,
you know, I just can't believe it. And it's just
another example and I wanted to show it out it
really quick too. But that's about it. I just I'm
just like everyone else is called in. I just believe.
Of course you and I both know how to just
live in northeast Oklahoma, and I don't know. I don't
know where we go from here. I'm a retired federal
employee myself, and everybody's worried and it's not going to
go well, I don't think. But like your wanting to said,
we just got to keep plugging along. We keep trying.
Speaker 3: We can't give up.
Speaker 2: I got a storm shelter. Maybe we'll just put some
like really tiny furniture down there, and you know, it'll
be a freidy hole for the next forty eight months.
We'll see what happens. But hug your family for me.
Say hi to your baby girl, and I hope she
did well on her school project. Thanks for calling, Doug.
Speaker 8: She did, Thank you, Seth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see you. I've got Tyler at six three six.
Are you there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Seth, thanks for taking the call.
Speaker 2: You bet what's up?
Speaker 4: So, first of all, I wanted to say that I
agreed with what Alex was saying completely as far as like,
we can't just resign and I give up.
Speaker 7: As soon as the sixth.
Speaker 4: I joined a bunch of groups around here. I'm in Missouri,
so I'm in a deep red state and there's.
Speaker 11: A lot going on.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: I think you were saying about fact checking and stuff.
The problem is with factchecking they think the fact checks
are liberal biased and that sort of thing. I had
a whole thing typed out here. But I kind of
lost money in train and stuff.
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's all right. Well, what's on your what's
the main gist? What's on your mind?
Speaker 11: Well, I don't know how we get out of this
media environment is my main problem. It's it seems, as
other people have pointed out there, other people are in
just their completely different reality when it comes to facts
and fact based knowledge and things like that. What I
can't tell you is I think it is very important
right now to go out, talk to your neighbors, talk
to people around you.
Speaker 8: Make sure you build a.
Speaker 4: Community around you, because if stuff does go bad, you
need to, you know, make sure the people around you
are there to protect you. That's the biggest thing. When
when authoritary is you know, start shipping people off, it's
a little harder to do when those people are organized.
Speaker 7: So I would say, save money.
Speaker 4: If you smoke, quit smoking, If you drink, quit drinking,
Save every bit of money you can and hope for
the best organized don't give up.
Speaker 2: Thanks Tyler, thanks for calling. We'll caed you later. Make sense,
But if someone gives you a free gummy, then apparently
that would be a good way to cope, which takes
me full circle back to the beginning. I've got a
call from Denmark. I don't see a name. Can you
tell me who this is?
Speaker 12: Well, my name is Coughing.
Speaker 2: Thank you for calling. What's on your mind?
Speaker 12: I'm just you know, and shock of what happened in
the United States. I think we all off in some way.
I would say that you have Trump and we have
some people like him in Denmark too, and.
Speaker 6: It's just like a disease that is spreading.
Speaker 12: So I don't know what this is going off, like
going down the grain.
Speaker 2: Now, Well, I was going to ask you for asylum,
and you're telling me that you have a politician or
a few politicians that are Trumpian in You're part of
the world.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, it's completely the same bullshit. They say the
same bullshit as Trump, and they spread safe news. They
you know, the media is not trustworthy. The institutions is
full of.
Speaker 12: Communists, and you know they're not many, but they have
a loud voice, and that's the problem.
Speaker 6: I think they have a loud voice.
Speaker 12: But you also like spin here and then like it's
been like homosexuality trends people, even what's been shown on
children's TV. You know, you have these idiots demonstrating and
unfunded claims that if you are trans, you a pedophile
and all that kind of bullshit. It's so tiresome, and
I do so sorry for you.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that, and just know that many of
us are as alarmed and grieved and worried and scared
and pissed off is you are, and a lot of
a lot of our allies around the world are so
I feel you, and I appreciate this call across from
across the ocean. Be safe over there. Okay, Yes, thank
you you too.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: He brings up a really good point. The American media
has failed us because the outrageous stuff that has been
said and done, the second by second cognitive decline that
we have been witnessing. The non answer is the word salad.
The bizarre behavior. This should have been on the front
page of every newspaper. It should have been on every
news side, It should have been at the front of
every broadcast news outlet, we are in danger. We are
seeing someone who is losing their fucking mind, the rise
of fascism, et cetera. This the language should be. You
should have said, well, maybe you did see some of
the massaging of language that the New York Times and
other outlets have been using to talk about Donald Trump.
In a way, it was a de facto legitimization of
illegitimate behavior, of terrifying behavior, of alarming behavior. Instead of
waving red flags, it was more like, well Trump did this,
and this and this today in a legitimate sounding headline,
when it should have been something more accurate. Donald Trump
spins into nonsensical word salad in front of the United Nations.
I think the media totally failed us. Our media is
a broken thing. And I don't mean just Fox News,
and we know Fox News has fucked up. Hell. I
wrote a whole book called Confessions of a Former Fox
News Christian, which dismantles that whole network talks about right
wing radio leading to Fox News. Beginning in the nineties,
we talked about Reagan and the fairness doctrine being knocked
down and all these other precursors, and then the propaganda
mill owned by Rupert Murdoch, etc. Etc. I'm not just
talking about Fox News, though, I'm talking about across the board,
whether it was this agand over here, whether it super
left wing or everything in the middle. If you look
at how the media has been reporting, their language has
been de facto legitimization of an illegitimate guy, a guy
who has no business being anywhere near the halls of power.
And those should have been the headlines. They should have
been banging that drum so loud that you couldn't hear
anything else, and they should have been doing it twenty
four to seven on the order of years. And it's
that they talked about Donald Trump like he was just
another politician. Our media failed us. They just failed us.
I hope the conversation today has been cathartic for you.
At least you know others are feeling what you are feeling.
And if you're not feeling outraged, there's something wrong there.
And outrage can be a good motivator. Anger, justifiable anger
can be a good motivator. Let's try to emulate the
good and the just that we want to see in
the world. After we navigate the vat here Let's not
give up. Let's do what we do for all the
right reasons. Big hug from me and my family to
you and yours. I'll see you next time.
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