In the culture wars, there are no winners, just podcasters. Only a few are willing to risk their lives in the face of some of the dumbest ideas to have ever captured human civilization. Every week, we, Megan Daum and Sarah Hader, humbly accept this mission to bring you conversations that are equal parts stunning, brave, and accomplished. Mission accomplished. Our work is done here. I think, Sarah, I mean, the world hates women. The cruelty is the point. And it's the apocalypse. So.
What have we been working toward all this time? Making America great. Yeah. For podcasters. For podcasters. Which is definitely going to be now. My God. You thought this was the golden age of podcasters. We are entering the platinum age of podcasting. Yeah. Bronze age of, I don't know, bronze age. I was saying that I should start a new... newsletter iron age prude what do you think instead of bronze age pervert yeah yeah um iron age right
or just scold what's the opposite of a pervert a prude um just i think a prude okay and then scold is good too scold yeah that's what i what i am yeah yeah like i'm not a shrinking violet like i'm no it's active around yes yes yeah um all right well we got a lot to discuss today But I don't want to beat around the bush. We have some news and we'll talk about it for a minute and then we'll move on and we'll talk about it some more. But do you want to lay it on them?
So a couple of months ago, this was not recent. No. We had a conversation. Megan and I had a conversation. You called me. Yes. Yeah. I called Megan and I was like, you know what? I'm done. And I was like, shut up, please.
Yeah, I think you didn't believe me. And then you did. And we had plans to like end the podcast. OK, wait, hold on. Why were you done? Why were you? What did you say exactly? Yeah, well, I. I remember thinking, even if we have huge... success like even if we have which we were on the brink of i mean i mean right so right there so much well look okay here's the thing i've always believed in our podcast more so than you i think i've always believed in our potential
And I think if we just like put our whole asses into it instead of like. Like literally, if we put our whole asses into the thumbnail. Yes. Yes. And said, own the libs ass.
we would have succeeded hugely by now. Of course. And we can still do that, you know, if we wanted, just to give them one last gift before we leave. But I always thought we could do it, but I was just... I reached a point where I thought even if we have this like enormous success and this is our job, this is our full time, you know, real jobs like.
i actually wouldn't want that like i don't think i would i think that would kind of ruin it actually if i successful yeah well if i had to like gaze at the abyss for money like now i need to like Yes, the abyss would own you. Right. What brought me here was like, OK, well, I'm looking at it anyway and it sucks. And so now I have someone to talk about that.
talk about that. That's great. But then if we have success and it's like, well, this is my, now I have to, now I can't look away even if I want to look away. And I actually think I do want to look away. So that was the other thing. Yeah. So this was a couple of months ago and we haven't been open about it.
No, we were closeted. We had a lot of shame around it. No, the reason, okay, well, I mean, we can get into the weeds in a little bit. But yeah, so I mean, this was several months ago. And just for a variety of reasons, we realized we couldn't stop yet. Yeah. But we are, we're going to, you guys. This is the last episode. Yeah. And it just happens to coincide with the day after the election. So here we are. I know.
Bang. Yeah. So how are you feeling this morning? Calm. Yeah. Okay. I'm okay. How are you? I'm okay. I'm surprisingly okay. Actually, I'm not surprised. Um, you know, I'm actually, I thought I was going to be just meh. Like I kind of was like, I don't care. I mean, I expected this outcome. I didn't expect this degree of outcome. I thought we would be counting votes. I thought it would be really close.
And that Trump would win in the end, but I thought it would be close. I'm kind of kind of curious to see what happens. I'm just kind of interested. Yeah. Yeah. I'm feeling strangely. optimistic too and calm though you know not not ecstatic, not like there's, it's interesting how I feel. Some of it has to do with the ayahuasca retreat that I did actually go to and we never discussed because we never met.
to talk about it in the meantime. And it was, yeah, in, in completely insane. Sorry, we're not going to be able to talk about it. Well, wait, wait, you can't just bring that up. But like, did you, did you foresee this in the, in the, in your journey? Yeah. Let me just say this. I don't want to encourage anyone to do ayahuasca. I just want to make that very clear. I think it is. It was always clear to me that it was a really it was it was a dangerous drug, but.
how dangerous I didn't know until I experienced it and felt, you know, for a moment there like, oh, I'm definitely giving myself brain damage. I'm definitely going to lose my mind if I stick around.
A lot of people don't know the details of how it works. But if you're in a retreat, you go for several days. Ayahuasca is so much more potent than LSD, mushrooms, all that. So much more potent. And it lasts for way longer. So you have like... six hours of like the most intense hallucinations you've ever experienced and you feel very differently afterwards uh and then you do it again
And then you do it again. And maybe you do it for 10 days. You know, like it depends on the length of your retreat. The whole while you're like staying up most of the night because you're tripping balls and recovering and you're not eating very much. Because you throw up so much with ayahuasca that it's not good to like stuff your face. So you're kind of weakened, you know, and.
Every night you become so much more sensitized to the drug and its effects and they hit you harder and harder and harder. I actually didn't complete my retreat. I left before the last day because I, you know, I thought. I won't come back. Like, if I go one more night, I'm not going to come back to my family. And I don't want to do that. I want to live and be there with them. So...
I did leave a little bit earlier and it has left me with the sense of like, you know, I don't give a shit. I don't like, I don't. I also called you after that. And I said, look, we got to end it actually sooner than. Yeah. So I don't think I can do it. OK, because you see that this is also trivial and pointless and that there's a bigger universe out there or like multiple planes of existence. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so. well i fully depersonalized after my last night which is why i left
Which is to say I didn't have a self anymore. It was really crazy. And this was after like some pretty incredible and intense hallucinations, possibly brain damage. I don't know. You know, and or both. Why not both? And I do feel like, you know, just all the shit we talk about, not only does it not matter, it just doesn't interest me at all. Like, and I was losing interest for a while. I've been losing interest.
But at this point, you know, I can't, when I go on Twitter, I'm not outraged. I'm just not outraged. I don't know what to do. All right. This is a hard sell for ayahuasca. this everyone's gonna go running for this seriously okay but wait you said i should do but here's the but this is this is my favorite part of this because you said you you explained to me i think in actually very very um
very persuasively and poignantly that you did it the first two nights and then you realized you were afraid you were going to lose yourself. You had responsibilities as a mother, responsibilities to your family, and you just couldn't afford to take the risk of... not being yourself anymore of losing your mind. But then you said, you know, but Megan, you should totally do it. You should do it because you don't have anything. You're perfect. But that's, um,
It's really the benefit of the lifestyle that you have. That's the one big benefit is that you really are free to take the kind of risks that the rest of us. To cease to exist. Well, yeah. It's not ceased to exist as you right now. You know, you will still exist, but you'll be a different person. And maybe you'll go in, you'll be selling, you know, like you'll be braiding people's hair in Peru.
Whatever. Or maybe you'll decide to found a company and you'll become a Silicon Valley bro. I could see you. Oh, okay. I'm doing it. I think you would look really good in a turtleneck. You could pull it off and that might be you, right? And so you can afford to do that. That's the benefit of having, you know, this kind of freedom. Yes. As Penelope Trunk says, nothing. I know. OK, that's true. No, no. I thought I think it's OK. I mean, I'm I'm I am curious to do it, but I'm also.
uh i'm scared i mean i'm definitely scared yeah you would benefit because it would also be like so a lot of people they experience this whole therapeutic thing right like and i think all that it is is that it changes your brain chemistry for a short period of time So that, you know, your ego is diminished considerably. So things that you might have cognitive dissonance about because you don't like the way they make you think about yourself.
that is eased or eliminated and so you can reach that conclusion you can face the thing you were afraid to face and you're not afraid to face you know you're just like not fearful you just walk into it and see it for what it is um i think that's why people have these like great like whoa i came back and it was like all my traumas are gone you know i didn't have that for two weeks i've noticed yeah the traumas are gone
Depends on how I think how intense it is. There are some people who like they have they go on one ayahuasca retreat and then they're forever changed. You know, they quit their companies. you know, leave their husband or wife or whatever. And what's the joke that they become a traveling, you know, circus stripper. But didn't you say there were a few people there who had done it like hundreds of times?
Yeah, there was one guy who had done it like 60 times. How is that possible? Like in a lifetime? I do not know. It's also very expensive. Like it is not cheap to do it, especially in the environment, like kind of luxury kind of space that, you know, I did it in. It was cost me a lot, you know.
It's food out of my children's mouths went into. Yeah. And vomiting out of your mouth. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So the people do do it. I think that what's happening with some people is that they are getting. that they're more interested in that experience of insight than they are in actually bettering their lives, you know, because you do feel profoundly, you feel the sense of insight.
Maybe it's real. Maybe it's not real. I think it's a little bit of both. Like, I think it's both that you feel like, whoa, I finally understood. this amazing secret like you one you feel that way two you actually have been thinking differently for a little while so sometimes that's enough to like knock you out of you know some state that wasn't healthy or you know very creative
but I just don't think it's, I just don't think most people should do it. I came out of it telling most of my family and friends don't do it with the exception of a few people, including you. I think you would benefit. You would love it. I think you would be, you would be, you would know what your next book is going to be. Oh, God. All right. But to be very clear, we are not stopping the podcast because of this. This was already in the work. You know this is going to end up being the headline.
So, no, it was already in the works, but we like the. I think we were going to end at what, like end of the year or like after? Yeah, well, initially we were going to end it like in the summer, in the late summer. But then we realized that we couldn't. Yeah, we couldn't. And then. Now we're doing it. We're doing it now because we can. And also, I cannot perform. I'm sorry, guys. I can't get mad. It's not where my brain is going. Naturally, my interests are flowing in a different direction.
um and i can't pull it back i've tried i've been i've been trying and it's not working so um yeah i mean there is uh I agree. I mean, I think you felt more strongly about this than I did, but it's true. This stuff gets old pretty fast and we've been doing it for a while and we've been doing it pretty intensely. And I think we, you know, talk about these things in pretty decent depth. And yeah, it's hard to just get exercised about it after a certain point. Yeah. I mean, I think it.
It was a little bit of an expressive exercise for me. And I don't find pure expression all that satisfying. I find, like, I want to do something. Like, now I want to change. Like, we've talked about it. Like, here's a problem. Now I want to fix it. You know, or I want to figure out a solution, like think about the problem in such a way that I can also have a solution. That takes a different kind of focus effort. We can't do that when we have this like schedule of.
of outrage yeah yeah five articles okay and then and then maybe there's an interesting question that pops up i mean i remember when we were talking about the therapy stuff like and i was like fuck therapy people were super mad and then some people were not mad and then some people asked me a lot of questions good questions but i did not have the time to answer them like i did not have the time to sit down and think it through and
And revisit the literature that had led me to the place that I was at and give them a proper answer and have that conversation. Because for the podcast, with the schedule of the podcast, we'd already moved on to the next cycle. And so it felt as if... Yes, I can have like a deep conversation, but not as deep as I would like to go or would be beneficial if you're going to find a solution. You have to go even deeper. You know what I mean? Yeah. You have to really explore.
the recesses of something and we just weren't able to we're just not able to do that with this kind of form yeah no I mean it's hard to have a take all the time is a tyrannical way to live and I've done it for most of my career and You know, it's not it's nice to not have to write it. It's nice to be able to have a long conversation rather than trying to write like a 800 word column. That's horrible. But even so, you just end up.
Kind of, I don't want to say, I certainly, I can't say I have ever said stuff I don't mean. But I think sometimes stuff gets emphasized. One might have the impression that we care much more about something than we really do because we spent an hour discussing it. Yeah. I mean, I don't care that much about.
I haven't for the year, even, I would say that, you know, I could go on forever about like the internal monologue. That is actually very interesting to me. And like people's like internal, like. like how they perceive the universe is very interesting to me. And even before the ayahuasca, it's actually part of the reason I was attracted to it. I could go on about that, but that's actually like, here's an episode that doesn't do really well.
like that oh really didn't do i think you could do a whole podcast about the internal monologue that sounds like a whole separate thing niche down yeah well right um Were too general, maybe. I don't know. All I know is that I felt as if I was done and I could not do it anymore. And I think I just called you and was like, I'm done. Look, I'm done. I know, but it's funny because the day before that, we were like, OK, we're going to.
do live events and we're going to do all this stuff. But yeah, like, I honestly think that if I put my whole ass into it and you put your whole ass into it, or even half your ass, really, frankly, Megan. Are you saying that my ass is twice as big or something? I think you're putting a quarter ass. It's really a thigh. You're giving me a little bit of a... I just like to hover on the edge of the seat.
I think we were to put a little bit more into it. There is an audience and there is a place for this. And there is even success. It was just that once I fully... I reconciled with the fact that I didn't want success, period. Like, even if I had it, I wouldn't want it. Because women don't want success? Because I don't want this, you know? Like, I just don't want, I don't want to do this. This is, it's expression.
And I want to do work. I want to build something. Yeah, no, I hear you. I hear you. But I mean, I have to say I have I have learned so much from doing this. I mean, I have learned a tremendous amount from you. And I mean, it's funny because I don't really think when we started the generational divide was part of the concept. It was we just wanted to do it together. And I hadn't even like thought it through that much. And then that sort of emerged as.
you know, a feature. Yes. Yeah. And I really like learned so much and I have like re I have re-framed a lot of my thinking because of what you brought into this and just the... the world of people that you're in. And I know I have forced you to read a lot of New York Magazine articles by Brooklyn moms who hate their lives, and I know you're better for it.
I can see that in you. When I first experienced it, I was feeling a lot of negative emotions. But I think seeing something true is always beneficial. And it has helped me understand.
the current moment you know um in in a way that i could not i just couldn't have accessed without you like without you like pointing in the direction of those specific articles or takes or thoughts um so that's yeah i think there's gonna be a lot that i'm gonna be taking with me on the podcast that was part of the frustration too which was that we would have a really interesting conversation and then i'd be like okay i'd like to just obsess about these topics for the next month
But we can't because we got to move on to another. Yeah. Well, we could have totally restructured the show. So but that would have required like a producer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, also, just in terms of metabolizing this election result.
I wonder how I how differently I would be thinking of it if not for having done this podcast, because I mean, something like abortion, for instance. I mean, I know you and I were talking privately about this a couple of times in the last few weeks. I think this would be. there would be some value in talking about that here. I mean, you know, I'm of a generation where abortion is like a central, central issue. Like that is.
the emblem of all of women's rights really like it is a it is a salient issue and i think that people my age and older sort of didn't realize the way that that has shifted and don't realize the degree to which girls get on hormonal birth control when they're teenagers. There's not as many accidental pregnancies. It's not seen as... like a matter of life and death in the same way and i mean there's stuff that's that's good and bad right and i think also like younger people don't understand
that, you know, these rights didn't always exist. And and I think it's, you know, I think that there's there's just like a lot to unpack there. Like you had said that you don't really know anybody who's ever had an abortion or very few. And I would say. At least half of the women I know have had abortions. That's crazy to me. That blows my mind. I just can't even put myself in that. But that's a world that I don't know, that I didn't experience.
So, yeah, I think that that issue is very interesting in the way that that issue was interacting with the with the election. I found to be very interesting, especially because it seems as if in the states where there was like. you know, referendum or whatever, you know, some kind of legislation around abortion. It seems as if most of the states liberalized. Yes. Yeah. And so this is what we knew would happen with Dobbs, right? Yeah.
Right. And that paired with Kamala's loss is interesting. You know, it's like, okay, despite the fact that everybody wanted... more liberal laws around abortion, or many people did anyway, you still saw this kind of epic loss. I mean, it was just... We're going to be talking about it for a long time. We is in the discourse, you know, like just because it was it's huge. Like you want every you want every battleground state. Despite endorsements from Queen Latifah.
And Beyonce. I can't believe. And, yeah, Cardi B. I mean, who would not want Cardi B on their team? I mean, where with Lizzo in all this? That's what I want to know. Wow, that's interesting. She got the black woman vote, didn't she? Kamala? I mean, like the rich celebrity black woman vote. Okay, so the white woman vote. Those women are white. okay okay um yeah yeah and i mean you know people sort of trivialize the way that gender the idea that gender may have eclipsed
abortion, for instance, in the pantheon of women's concerns. But I think that that is true. I mean, you and I were talking about this earlier. I still have a hard time getting my mind around. The idea that gender, that, you know, trans issues, et cetera, bathroom issues, whatever, all this stuff would be.
a more frequent occurrence in people's day-to-day lives than something like reproductive rights. Like as a Gen Xer, I'm still like, whoa, that can't be true. And we know that I obsess about these things and I do think gender is a huge issue, but I still. I'm like, this is not niche. It's really not niche. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, again, with the abortion thing, I don't know anybody or I think I might know somebody, one person that had an abortion.
that's a maybe not confirmed um i don't know many people who had an abortion but i know a lot of people a lot of people who are they them so you know a lot of people with young like zoomer types who have lots of they-them's floating around. Okay, but they-them's that are medicalizing. Some are medicalized, yeah. I mean, directly because of my public... You know, like because of the way that I talk and the things that I say. No surprise, there's not a lot of trans people in my life at the moment.
There are a few. That's about to change now that we're stopping this. Like, you know, high IQ AGPs who are floating around my circle still, and they're tolerant of me. So that's interesting. Right. Not the... trans masculine people not not them so much um but what i hear from my younger family members and their social circles they all know somebody who's medicalized right and and and it's a problem like and it's a they think it's a health crisis they don't know they don't know what to make of it
Right. They don't know what's happening, but they know how they're being influenced and they know how they're being pressured to feel. Right. So when I think of, you know, what about my my I'm voting for my daughter. It's like if I had a 16 year old daughter. I know that I would be more worried about the way that the trans phenomena is going to be affecting her, her sense of self. And I hope like to God, like I, that I.
infected her with the right means so that she does not fall prey to it. But if she did, you know, if she was near it, I would be much more worried about that than about the prospect of an accidental pregnancy, which... in my mind, looms as a very remote prospect in the first place. And then in the second place, if it were to happen, she gets a pregnancy.
she has to give birth at 16 or 17, whatever. And it's a terrible thing while it ruins short amount, like it ruins her twenties, you know, ruins some part of her life. but maybe brings joy in other ways with the trans stuff what she gets medicalized that whole thing goes through she chops off her breasts and you know and injects a bunch of hormones. The worst case scenario happens there. That's a, that's truly like nightmare inducing. Okay. I can, I can, yeah, I can hear our audience.
screaming at the, at their phones right now. I mean, yes. Well, first of all, Okay. Okay. First of all, I want to just back up a few minutes here and say that you probably do know people who've gotten abortions, but you just don't know it. Yeah. I mean, you probably a lot. The thing is that there is not a taboo about it. So it's not as if they're hiding.
Because they're so afraid of what people would say. Nobody's really afraid of it. It's not really a controversial issue. Everybody's on birth control. That's all. Like everybody's on birth control. And it's not, you know, it's just. Right. But we also talk about how hormonal birth control is being used in ways it wasn't designed to. And we've had lots of.
discussions about the knock-on effect so if we're going to say maybe we need to like ease up on the hormonal birth control then we also have to say there it's even more important that abortion rights would be in place because if you don't i mean the reason that
there were so many women having abortions in my generation is because you didn't really go on the pill unless you were, I mean, for the most part, you didn't go on unless you were in a serious relationship and it was considered a serious medical decision. And in the meantime, you had. sex and condoms broke and you got pregnant and you had to deal with it. And that, that happened a lot. Um, it never happened to me. I agree with you, but I'm just saying that worst case scenario, like.
You have a child that has an unintended pregnancy. You have to carry it to term. It brings with it a whole host of medical difficulties that she has to live with forever. There are lots of negatives. That's a horror story. I see that. You know, it's visible to me. I think the other scenario is more horrifying, more visible, more possible, more likely. Like when I think about my 16 year old, you know, my future 16 year old daughter.
I know what I'm more worried about. And I actually don't have kids that are that old. Bridget. Phetasy talked about this a little bit and I agree with her sentiment that they're yeah I'm worried about abortion but there are 20 other things I'm worried about and a lot of them are more immediate and they're happening in like kindergarten you know what I like there's there are things that are far more
to me that are affecting how I feel. And I think that, you know, there's an older generation of like, it's interesting to me because I know a lot of like... menopausal women who are like very like they're very intense about yeah because they're exactly a bad generation where i mean that was the issue right and some of that yeah some of that is like blindness like
On the one hand, I get that younger women are ignorant of the rights that they have now and live with. And they take advantage of that were won by other women. And I'm very like I'm trying to. I know that I keep that in my mind, especially because I come from a culture where, you know, none of those exist. So I see that it's always there in the back of my mind. Having said that, there's also.
I also feel a sense of, well, you're not paying attention to what's happening right now. You also need to pay attention to what's happening today and the demons that they're facing today.
that same kind of cohort of women are still talking about how younger young women are disadvantaged and you know young men are oppressors and it's like well that's right stop talking no we're done with that yeah young men are actually disadvantaged in a thousand different ways and we need to pay attention to that so there's all i also feel a sense of
You need to stop fighting your own ghosts. And if you care so much about young women, you need to be fighting the fights that they are fighting. Look through the world through their eyes and listen and pay attention.
So that's sort of how I feel about it. But I agree with you that it's a fascinating topic. I'm happy that states are choosing to liberalize on the issue of abortion. Ever since becoming a mom, I feel... like radicalize in both directions which is that i want abortion i feel like the row line was a little too late i think the line should be closer to where it is in most european countries but at the same time i think early abortion access should be like
like that anywhere everywhere yeah like like fully covered and taken care of yeah time because no one should have to go through this if they're not ready to go yeah and and also do whatever's necessary to keep these legislators from writing, you know, willfully or not very lazy and vague wording in their laws that result in physicians not knowing what to do. And you get these.
I don't know if they're I guess they're outlier cases, but we certainly hear about them a lot. You've got, you know, miscarriages that result in sepsis because there's the baby's not, you know. fully deceased yet and hospitals are covering their asses and, you know, we get this, you know, I don't, that, that is happening.
Yeah, but that's a communication issue. You know what I mean? And that's a training issue. And it's a solvable issue. Like we can do something about this. But it has resulted from this, though. That's the point. But it's not the intended result. No, no. But we talk about downstream.
We talk about unintended consequences all the time and we take them very seriously. So I think it would be intellectually dishonest to discount them in this case. Yeah, I don't think they should be discounted. And I think it should be.
Like, I think if I was a Republican lawmaker, I would take it very seriously and I would do my best to talk to tackle this, because what it will do, like if I care so much about abortion being illegal, well, this is going to turn people away from it for good reason. Okay, so wait, what else? Okay, anything else with the election? I mean, yeah, the election joy vibes. What I...
I'm dreading now is having to deal with everybody in, you know, in the yoga class and on the street saying that the world hates women and that I know I'm not going to go. I mean, I haven't even gone outside yet today. I think I think I I'm a little naive as to what's going to it's what it's going to be like. I mean, is everyone going to be crying on the street like where you live? Yes. Yeah. Yes, of course. Except for, you know.
except for the blue-collar workers who were scampering, silently serving that class. They're happy. They voted for Trump. Yeah. And I think more more people more voted for Trump than we know. I mean, that's the difference is we are not seeing. Yeah. Yeah. He won big. He didn't want he didn't win just just by hair. Like this was a victory, capital V victory, which makes me happy, frankly, because I thought that if it was just like by a hair, then you would have the other side screaming about how.
election interference blah blah blah blah he's not really president americans don't actually you know what i mean like i i actually think it's better that we have a bigger victory versus like a smaller margin um but it goes to show how incredibly wrong the democratic party is on just about everything like they picked a losing side of so many cultural issues and they feel they are incapable of shaking it off
Yeah, they have, you know, and I was discussing this with my husband. So it's like difficult in my household because he's very much still on. like the the the blue team you know and i left the blue team spiritually some time ago you know and so it was for me it was like even if i vote for them it won't be with my heart
I don't, you know, I don't really believe anymore. He's not the same way. And so he's like very depressed and sad. And I, I feel like so much compassion for him and I just want to make him. feel better and I want him to like see what I see you know because I see I see a silver lining it's not even a silver lining I actually see The possibility of something really interesting. It's going to be messy. It's going to be horrific for a while. With unintended horrific consequences, probably. But.
The bird's eye view, you know, alien's eye view that I have, I think that it could lead to something better. I don't see a way out of, you know, the kinds of things that we've been discussing on this show for so long. The institutional capture, the inability of them to take criticism and really react to it. They don't.
I feel like I've been talking about the same things for the past 12 years and it's just gotten worse. Like my, my talking about it didn't help. It didn't change anything. 2016, the loss of 2016 didn't help. It didn't change anything. It just. We just kept marching on until we had this DEI candidate. Kamala was a DEI candidate. She didn't deserve to be there. Nobody wanted her to be there. She got in because...
The Democrats and the left have adopted this really bizarre epistemology. Like they have this, they have a faith and it's. not the faith that most of the american people share yeah it is how they make decisions it is how they think right they choose right from wrong and i don't believe in it i don't agree with it i won't uh
I won't help them win. I knew that. I knew that going in like I knew that last year I was like, OK, I'm never voting for a Democrat ever again. Like any Democrat, no matter what. It's the kids being mutilated thing, honestly. If it wasn't for that, then maybe I would. But that's kind of my hard line, you know? That's just...
It's something that is so horrific. It's so hard for me to even think about. Maybe it's just an emotional reaction, but I have an intense one to it. It's so intense that it makes me think, I will not help you forward this agenda, even if you, the person, is fine. You know, you the person is great, but you are going to assist a bunch of people who are going to lead to more children being mutilated. And you really think that...
Kamala Harris would have gone along with that line because I don't think she would have gone along with I don't think she she was not like a race drifter. I think she was going to rise above the race thing. Obama wasn't either. But the Obama administration.
You know, they forwarded that agenda, that progressive agenda. He didn't, I mean, he can't micromanage everything. He couldn't, you know, he could sort of set the tone and most of them kind of sort of listened, but there was so much, you know.
progressive insanity hiding underneath and it was able to come forward just just because he's in power and he's not really looking their way and he's not uh he's not able to pay attention to every detail of what's happening and maybe he agrees even a little bit but he just doesn't want to
Well, he hasn't thought about it that hard. Yeah. Well, OK, but so I would imagine that your husband thinks that like the equal and opposite thing is going to happen on the right. Like, OK, even if Trump doesn't want the 2025 project. he's going to have people in there who do yeah yeah he's sort of it's it's that but he it's mostly that he just thinks
Trump himself is very deranged and that he doesn't believe in the Constitution and that kind of thing. Do you think, do you disagree with that? I... think that his fears are real, but overblown. Like, I think it is true that Trump the person is, you know, unhinged and... I think of him like a drunk driver. It's like I'm getting into a car with a drunk driver. But that's terrible. That's terrible. That's where we are. Look, here's the thing. That's where we are. We have to choose between two.
And I think that what's different this time around is that there's an infrastructure around Trump that's different. There's a movement around Trump that is separate from him and different. And I like that.
there's something i'm seeing there behind trump you know what i mean i agree i agree and i want that to be true but i'm afraid that the second he gets wind that that movement is more exciting to people than he is he's just gonna disappear it he he i think he can't because i think it's it's what got him to where he is you know he understands the source of his power which is that there are some really important. There are some vital issues that the American people care about.
There are concerns that are not being addressed. There are doors that have been shut and they need them to be open and they want someone to do it. And he was like, look, I'll do it. But is that what his base? But that's not his base. MAGA Base is not the J.D. Vance crew. You're excited about the J.D. Vance movement.
with the MAGA bases. What do you mean by that? I think that it's just a cult. I think it's a cult. That's who he wants to appease. It's a cult of personality around him. I think there's a QAnon kind of group, like extremists, kind of crazy people that they exist.
For sure. I don't think that that is the movement. And I think that that is. It's not the movement, but it's who he cares about. It doesn't. I don't know if that I don't know if that's true. I think he just sees them as being he will go for the people. Who can give him power? Now he has it. I think he's going to play golf and Mar-a-Lago a lot. And he's going to have people say...
We love you. You're amazing. And kisses ass all the time. And that's what he wants because he's a narcissist. I hope he's a fascist. I don't think he is a dictator. And I think that if he was, he would be behaving very differently. It's really like rankles. Like it just gets at me. And I talked to with Ayan a little bit about this.
um i think privately i think we actually know okay wait explain back back up when were you talking to ion you need to explain to the people i was at uh hereticon which is like kind of a private invite only yeah rub it in for cool people who yeah you know like thought it's a thought criminal uh gala i was not invited but yeah yes um uh so
I did something with her, and I also did something with her for Substack. So we've been having a few conversations. Okay. So what we were talking about, myself and I, were just how ludicrous the conversation about fascism is. Coming from people who have literally never studied fascism, they don't know anything about it, you know, and we were talking about it in the context of Erdogan. That was part of the talk that the conversation that we had at Herata Khan.
And she and I, you know, we were just discussing. Do people know when they use the word fascist, when they use the word dictator, does it mean anything? Like, is it just everyone I disagree with is a Hitler? Like, words have to mean things. Just because I think he's not a fascist doesn't mean I don't think he's a bad guy.
Like, it doesn't mean I don't think he's a narcissist. I just don't think he's a fascist. I think that word means something. And that's not what he wants. Like, he wants something. It's just not that. You know, he wants his ass kissed. He is a narcissist. He is. a bully um i would never want to work directly for him i wish everybody who's doing that you know best of luck um but yeah if this is fascism it's it's pretty intersectional
It's just, it's just fascism. He's behaving like a populist. He's not behaving like a fascist. That's different. That's, you know, I don't want to have this argument with people because it's. It's just nonsense to me. And it's coming from a place of their ignorance. And I can't tolerate it. It makes me want to vomit. So it was nice to talk to Arianne about it. It was nice to talk to somebody who also knew what she was talking about on that realm specifically.
Yes, I think Trump is a bad guy. No, I don't love him as a person. That's not what intrigues me. about that movement. And I don't think that the people who voted for Trump ever voted for the worst version of him. I don't think that that's what they're voting for. There's just...
There's a lot of things we're all waiting for. It's only two choices. There are a lot of other things also going on. They're focused on those other things. And I think, you know, I feel bad for my Democratic friends and family members who... cannot see this new, possibly exciting force. Yeah. And I think that the key now is to like, how do you, how do you make that accessible to them?
How do you and I think that's probably what you're going to start working on. Like, like, let's take this away from rhetoric. Like, this is not just rhetoric. Like, what is this? How does this work in action? And and actually, you know, and also somebody like J.D. Vance. I mean, I'm sure people if you're just tuning in.
and you heard me say that I don't mind JD Vance, you might be losing your mind. But I mean, aside from his... you know excuse making for trump which i guess is like the script he was handed when he took on this job um yeah yeah i had to do that i mean it's yeah there's no way around it right you can't say oh well you should call out your boss like well then he's gonna get fired so that's
I just I just hope that he yeah, I do. I think that he he represents just a way of thinking about things that we haven't seen for a long time. Like he's actually looking at a big picture and talking honestly about. what's happening in the world and what's happening with human beings. Did you watch his Joe Rogan appearance? I saw little snippets of it. I mean, I can't sit there for three hours. I think you'd like it. He could be a guest on our show.
Like, I know I look, I, I, uh, we used to have the same agent and, uh, I reviewed, I reviewed Hillbillyology when it, when it came out. and uh i know i feel like no i'm one degree of separation from him not even i that's what i think not even like you think we could still get him wait now we're gonna stop the show i think you would feel
as if you actually feel, like, that is kind of, I felt represented by Jaden Vance. And Jaden Vance is the first time I felt represented. And more than that, it's the first time I felt as if... Here's a person who's saying they want to be my leader, and I actually admire them on some level. Since Obama. Obama was the first time I felt that, where I was like, oh, wow, he's smarter than me. He's interesting. He's thoughtful.
and he's saying he wants to be my leader well like i i look you you sound like you could do the job you know like there's something about you that's different and i might not agree with everything you do But I think you're not going to make a total like.
Like, you're not going to make a stupid mistake. You might make him. Well, he represents you. You feel you see yourself in him and vice versa. Like he represents. I mean, Obama, that was the thing. I mean, well, the elite loved Obama because he was like a Volvo driver who also had.
to be black. I mean, he hadn't had it all. Smooth talking. He was intellectual. What's amazing to me is that those same people are not looking at J.D. Vance that way. I think they're not even listening. No, they can't. No, they can't. They can't listen. They would see. They would hear what I hear. They would hear an intellectual.
Well, right. But the problem is the memes and the soundbites and the clips and the noise. And it's a trap that you're falling into if you can only pay attention to it's like, you know. seeing the forest for the trees kind of thing. But it's not even, they're not even focused on the trees. They're focused on like a tiny bush that is really insignificant, that doesn't matter for most people when they're making their votes. So it's...
Kind of I mean, the Latino vote, the fact that there's been such a huge shift. I mean, I feel like just a few days ago, people were saying, oh, well, this is some comedian made a joke about Puerto Ricans, you know, for Trump. And that's going to that's going to tank them.
That's going to tank him. And I was like, you don't know any Latinos. Well, I know. Puerto Ricans will love that joke. It's just not going to do what you think it's going to do, which means you don't know what you're talking about. And if you think of yourself as such a good, nice white lib, like you have to actually know the people you're claiming to defend. You know, you have to know what they're thinking. You have to know how they feel about issues. You can't get offended on their behalf.
For something they are not going to get offended by, you know, that I think it's there's something there. There's there's like a it's like. It feels as if the circuit is connected to the wrong. I don't even know. Yeah, the wires are crossed. In a very deep and disturbing way. And I don't know, maybe this is an opportunity for...
Democrats have recognized that. Like, I would love a Democratic Party that functions. I think it has been functioning really badly for a very long time and maybe just a catastrophic. So has the Republican Party. by the way. So let's be clear. I think the Republican Party already died. I think it died in Bush's era.
I think the Tea Party was the new Republican Party. It already died then. The old elite died then. They lost power then. And Trump was the wrecking ball that just demolished what was left of the former GOP establishment. But something new is forming. That's what I see on the right, something new forming. What I see on the left is a decayed old party that has not yet died. Do you think that wokeism is the democratic analog to the Tea Party?
And will it be rendered as irrelevant in time? I don't know. Do you think the Tea Party has been rendered irrelevant? We never think about it anymore. But I think they became a part of the DNA. I mean, I think wokeism, I mean, the real analogy with wokeism is like the purity politics, like the moral majority of the 80s. I mean, during the Reagan era, you had...
Pat Buchanan and you had Jerry Falwell. And that was like, that is a mimetic inversion of what we see now with wokeism. And that went away. People got tired of it. It just, it died out. People were not receptive to it. And I think that's. I hope that's what's going to happen with the woke stuff. And that's why there was, there's a piece of me who, which, who thought, okay, well, if Kamala Harris, if she can shake these fringe people off, she can be a normie.
I mean, that was my teeny, teeny, tiny, tiny grasping at straws hope. I see where you're coming from. But I think that in the way the former like. The GOP establishment stuck around. They maintained power for a very long time. There was even this populist groundswell on the right. It wasn't enough until a wrecking ball came in.
destroyed everything you know made of mess of it um i think you kind of need that on the on the left you don't need a a nice poised person you need kind of a crazy person who's going to insert some chaos into a party that pretends like they doesn't have any chaos. Like they have like chaos behind the scenes, but they will not, it's, it's not outward chaos.
kind of managed. So would that be like a super woke person? Like, who would it be? What are you imagining? I think it would be something just different, something we can't imagine. Could you have imagined Trump? I couldn't have. he's just beyond my like the way that it happened was not at that point in 2016
It was not something that I could have conceived of until it was in front of me. And then I didn't deny it. I thought he had a chance at winning always, you know, and I wasn't surprised by his win in the way that all my fellow libs were. But I find. J.D. Vance interesting. I find the new right interesting. I find like their kind of artistic temperament a little interesting. I find that... Yeah, say more about that. I think people are going to find that surprising.
Yeah, well, that was part of like what I was able to see it. at hereticon and i it's weird because i don't think i'm allowed to talk too much about it like it's the part of the rules you're not allowed to say what you saw but there were after parties and things like that and i was invited to some of them and i'm not you know there was like different crews there they were there was like
a more right-leaning and on type group crew and then there were the techies and then there were writers that were heterodoxy so there was like several different kind of cohorts of people that were kind of having their own politics um but It was interesting to me to explore some of the, even the more right-wing, explicitly right-wing sections of it.
I did not feel like I was one of them. I have to say, like, it's a feeling, right? It's a vibe. I was like, okay, that's not, these are not my people. The techies are my people. But what was interesting about them is that they were, they gave off this scent. like this Hunter S. Thompson kind of artistic, I don't give a fuck. Just gonzo, gonzo art. Gonzo, yeah. Like not...
Drugs. A lot of drugs. They were not. There were drugs. There were a lot of drugs. Those guys. Yep. Right. Surprising. Very Hunter S. Thompson-esque. Yes. Drugs. And they were calling, you know, again, I can't talk. much about this in detail because i don't want to get in trouble i really want to go again if they have another one so i don't want to get uninvited but it was just um there were not prudes around sex in the same way they had a different conversation than i think
The mainstream would have, but they were not prudes. It was just, it felt to me as if there was a kind of messy artistic flavor. You know, in that way of like... chaos art you know like yeah gonzo art like kind of scary kind of freaky like but but art you know but creative not right necessarily like not correct always but taking risks Are you talking about like visual art or music or everything? And I think that they're they're trying to bring in like fostering a new movement. And I.
I was just so surprised by their approach. And I was surprised that if you looked at the more left-leaning people there, they behaved, acted, spoke. far more like buttoned up you know yeah they're the squares well the people on the left are the squares no that's what's happening now what was the sort of flavor around sex because you've got like you know, people who are worried that nobody's having sex, but you've also got people who are worried about, you know, queer.
contagion, overreach, BS, like how do they feel about sort of sexual experimentation and sexual and gender identity? Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of those are a lot of questions. And I think there were a lot of sessions. I did not go to even most of them. There were like a billion sessions. So I don't know what the overall vibe was.
I know there was like a trad-cath kind of contingent, only there it's not what I remember as the old rite. It was just so bizarre to me to be there and to feel as if the ground had shifted beneath my feet. And all these signifiers of what used to be like radical, like, you know, guns blazing, like artistic, like fuck all, you know, like no boundaries, you know, that kind of.
courageous approach to culture was just not coming from the more left-leaning people. It was coming from the more right-leaning people. Right. Did it feel hedonistic?
not hedonistic um but i think it's it's just so easy to be the people who say oh yeah fuck oh yeah when democrats are just so authoritarian you know like anyone who's not doing that anyone who says you know retard is like whoa whoa like you're you're kind you're a radical for saying that they made it easy you don't actually have to stand for much to be a radical
Right. Well, the bar is quite low when they behave that way. Right. It's interesting, though, that it's not happening on the left at all. It's happening on the right. And I just it's not that I have a lot of hope for it necessarily. I hope that I do hope they do well. I don't see myself as part of them necessarily. But I find it interesting. Like I find it interesting in a way that I have not found left wing.
art or thought interesting in a long time. Yeah, no, I know. I just don't find it interesting. Well, because they won. Whoever wins, whoever wins the establishment, they end up, you lose your creativity. I mean, it's just sort of an... kind of selling out, right? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I mean, what about the gender thing? Because a lot of these tech guys are into...
you know, transhumanism and they're very gender fluid and they don't really, they have a kind of autistic sensibility around this. Like did that, did you see signs of that? A lot of different groups. If this was a really big conference, I thought it was going to be small. It was actually huge. And again, I don't want to get kicked out. So I don't want to give too many details. I don't want Mike to be mad at me. And so I'm going to leave it vague.
There were many different groups. I don't think they agreed on everything. And I think that there was like a contingent that did not agree with that kind of trad calf. approach. They were just tolerating each other in an interesting way. They were sort of coexisting. Yeah, no, I think they do. I think that's the thing is like everybody does.
kind of find a common ground and enjoy the fact that they're not on the same page. That was the Democrats, the party of the people where, OK, we just have to coexist because we're just fighting this big thing. You know, we just have to come together so we can fight this. like enormous, powerful complex, that also has switched around. Like they're doing it because they have to. They have to stick together. There's so few of them.
They got to put, you know, I just feel like there's so many interesting inversions happening. It's not a full and it's not a full like they've just swapped bodies. It's not like that. There are new elements that we did not see before their new demographic group.
that did not exist before, that exist now, and they're doing something, you know. What do you mean? Like, what kind of demographic group? Well, I mean, on the one hand, the U.S. is actually just more multicultural as a society. That has happened. Yes. There's also the fact that the single childless women exist as a demographic in a way that they didn't before. And they're having an effect on the election.
I mean, it's been building, right? It's been it's been building since. But they're voting for the Democrats. Right. The single child. Yeah. And they're having it like they're having an effect because they're pushing people out because they're squares. Right. Yeah. And the other thing, too, is like several people have said to me, well, how can J.D. Vance says these terrible things about childless cat ladies?
And that's going to turn off the Childless Cat Ladies. And it's like, yeah, you're going to turn off some of them. But a lot of them don't want to be Childless Cat Ladies. They hate it. They hate that they have cats and no children. And what J.D. Vance says is going to resonate with them. So this is a huge piece people fail to grasp. I don't know. I mean, I do think that they are like messaging wise, they're screwing up with women and they should not do that.
I don't think you can build communities without women. You need women. And it is this whole like the genders becoming like the Democrats becoming the party of women, the Republicans becoming the party of men. upsets me i do not think it is a good thing at all i do not think it is uh hopefully it is it won't hold for too long because we recognize that it can't hold um
But I don't like seeing that rhetoric at all. I hear what you're saying, that it might not even be a big deal in the end. I just think it does reflect this kind of, well, fuck you. You know, I mean, well, I mean, the left created this. I mean, I've been saying this forever. It's like, OK, dumb digital feminists, you made your bed. We knew exactly what was going to happen. You created these these.
you know, misogynists on, on Twitter and obsessing about the long house and obsessing about body counts and being run through and all of that. And I don't know what you expected. But hopefully they'll cancel each other out. It had to happen. It just did happen because you had a group of people that now have power, didn't have power before. And they went too far with it.
You know what I mean? It's just that we are still and I wrote a piece like a year ago about the scholarships issue for young men. I just had like, you know, I just had a question in my mind. Like, OK, we were talking about on this podcast, we were talking about how. men are not going to university, they're not getting degrees, like they're basically underrepresented. And there's kind of a unspoken affirmative action happening on behalf of men at universities to just keep the ratio.
somewhat yeah you know it can't ever be equal but it anymore but to try and they can't they can't turn into girls women's colleges yeah they have to do like affirmative action for men frankly and um so i was looking into this and i was thinking well if there's affirmative action for men
that's happening quietly behind the scenes, are they giving them scholarships? Because that's what usually happens. When you want to see a marginalized group, an underrepresented group, you help them. You help them up. But scholarships are interesting. The affirmative action that's happening behind the scenes, we're not talking about it. No one says anything.
But the scholarships are an explicit like signal, you know, and by the people who are creating them, it's like, hey, this I care about this issue. I think it would be so great to hear these men saying, oh, I think I might get a scholarship. That would just be. Well, Richard Reeves is working on this. Yeah. I mean, when I searched, I found that despite the marginalization of men in the K through 12 system, despite the fact that they're failing and they're not making it up there.
There are very few scholarship opportunities available to young men and young white men in particular. If you have like a racial demographic, okay, maybe you'll be all right. If you can say you're a black man, maybe. You can get into that category if you're a young white man.
Like, no way. There's nothing available to you. And there's so many opportunities available to women. So many. Like the inverse of it is crazy. Yeah, no, I know. Again, this is one of these things that the older generations who are never going. to grasp this. We just have to wait for them to age out because I mean, I can imagine seeing, you know, friends my age or a little bit older trying to explain that white men need help.
Well, it would just be like they would just look at me like I'm a Martian. I mean, there would be they literally physically cannot get their brain cells around that. Yeah. And I both understand that because it's hard to see. new things. As you get older, you just see the same pattern over and over again. Maybe they should do ayahuasca and that'll help. But also...
As a young woman, it angered me because it makes me think that you're not paying attention to. I mean, they have daughters. It's like they have daughters. So who can't. Yes. And well, the ones who have sons, I think, understand it a little bit more.
And the ones who have daughters who are having trouble finding a partner. Yeah, exactly. The daughters are alone. Like they don't have, they won't have somebody to help support them when they're mothers. But I think, yeah, but I think sometimes the daughters, what the mothers. are that the daughters are angry about how they can't get a boyfriend or how the men treat them on apps. And they are still hearing about toxic masculinity. They are getting these sort of after effects.
without, you know, the daughter's not going to say, oh my gosh, the dating apps have led me to think about the root causes of the masculinity crisis and therefore we must give scholarships. Like it doesn't, the thinking does not go down that far. It's just incredible of how much the structure, the current infrastructure that is set up to assist all these, you know, quote unquote, you know, marginalized people really just reinforces power.
Those who already have power and is giving more to them and there's no desire to change things up, you know, and that's partially why I'm excited for something new, you know, and that that sort of colors my thinking. And, you know, I was. I've been feeling emotionally different about it for a couple of weeks, even months. And in my everyday life, I see my toddler playing with his Legos and he has this like...
He's obsessed with Starship, Flight 5. I don't know if you know about it. Is this a toy? No, SpaceX. Oh, the actual. Yeah. OK. They had a successful land. Oh, yeah, of course. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. It's incredible. Right. It's this incredible thing. He's been extremely obsessed with the videos of this. Well, you know, both the launch launch. He's been obsessed with it for a long time, all kinds of launches. But specifically now there's the grab booster landing.
It's just my days are filled with this little like baby and this little duck voice, you know, going on about, you know, booster coming in hot for booster catch. You know, it's like it's. I'm happy that he has this bigger world to look forward to, you know, and that is this background message that I've been getting.
more from the right and not at all from the left and if anything the message i'm getting from the left and deep growth oh yeah no we're all doomed let's get smaller yeah doomed nobody have babies everything is ruined the economy is ruined no one you know like I just want my porn and my whatever. It's just so, it's so bizarre. They're messaging the world that they see in the future. They want to build feels just, it feels as if it's, I don't know, like.
Lacking in anything brilliant, anything. Well, right. It doesn't have it's it's it's fear. Well, it's fear based and it's reactive. It's not productive. Let's have less. And be happy with what we have, which is less. And I... You know, I just, it's a background feeling. Again, it's not, this is not concrete. This is just like, here are all the memes that I've been absorbing slowly. This is the messaging over the years that I've been, you know, in my head, I think of Greta Thunberg.
I think of the environmental activists throwing shit on art, you know, and I'm disgusted by them. And I think of that message and I hate it. I reject it. And I don't want that for my children. And I think about. kind of this broader message that I'm starting to see develop, it might not come through. You know, it might just fall flat. It could actually. It might be a blip. It could be like the Weimar Republic. Everyone will look back.
nostalgically and obsessively about this time. That's not a fantastic captain of that ship. It's actually a really bad captain, and it's a very risky endeavor. But it is at least something. There's a possibility there.
um that i just i haven't seen in leftist messaging i want to see it maybe now something do you see that they'll definitely get the message this time this time they're gonna get it no no right like that's that's what's it's sad but i'm done grieving you know like yeah i'm done grieving i wish they could do something i feel so i feel bad for all these people that are catastrophizing right now I'm sad for them. I'm too.
What are you, what would you say to them? Like what? I mean, I've been saying it. I mean, I also just, I mean, on a very like banal level, it's like, okay, you know what? This is a Republic. You live in your state, live in your state, live in your city, live. your neighborhood. Think about that. I mean, look at the down ballot races. It probably worked out for you. You know, nobody's complaining about their local elections as far as I can see.
um i mean maybe they'll start to but certainly not around here um and uh it's like this is you know, federalism exists for a reason. I know we've got a bad rap because everybody thinks they're, you know, far right Brad Kavanaugh types, but that's why we have it. I mean, we cannot ascribe all this power. to the president who the who the president is really does not need to affect your daily life you know it's this internal locus of control thing it's just so important like do not these things
You're letting somebody, like an abstract figure, absolutely control your mind and your life. It's unnecessary. And don't tell me I'm privileged. And that's the only reason I'm saying that. Enough of it. Enough of it. Enough. Or they'll tell you you're deranged. Like, that's what I find difficult about the conversation about Trump. I try to avoid it. I try to talk about everything but Trump.
You know, I'll try to talk about like the broader right, the broader left, not Trump the person, because I think it's like it's just like looking into the sun. Like it just doesn't it's not good. Don't do it. look around it the conversation will only head south like in my own personal conversations it only just Yeah, no, I'm just going to try to not, I mean, honestly, I'm just going to actually, I think that the most sort of pro-social thing to do is talk about other things.
Talk about local elections. What can you do locally? Actually, there's a lot you can do locally. If you have opinions... You want to see a certain vision of the world. You can actually carry it out. I mean, yeah. And it's look, I mean, in California, they they passed Prop 36, which, you know, had to do with. you know, penalties for theft and petty crime. I mean, all these quality of life issues got rid of the attorney general. They got rid of Gascon. I mean, it's all going in this direction.
That's so interesting. California is interesting. That was an interesting thing to happen there. Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised at all. If you're not appalled by what's going on, you're honestly not paying attention. Sorry to borrow that.
turn of phrase from the from the libs but yeah if you're not outraged you're not paying attention no i mean you cannot live like this it's inhumane These people on the street, how is this humane to let people live on the street in filth and squalor and illness? And it's terrible for like the most poor income classes. That's the thing. It's like, don't tell me that I can only say this because I'm a privileged white lady. And what about poor women in Alabama?
women in Alabama are not crying today is my guess. They are not. And, and don't tell me it's because they're too stupid and they're too low information. then you know what response on sub stack on this post by i think it was monica harris right um oh from fair yeah from fair right like and she's should be said she's a black woman I think, right? Yes, she is. Yeah, I just saw her the other night. Last time I checked, she was black. She had this really interesting post about the drift.
you know the the black and brown drift um towards trump the huge like shifts like it should be alarming um and i think the only people he gained with was with whites right like it was that still is that is that true white women or white everybody period like i don't know if she broke it she i don't know if in her post she broke it down um but again it was it was this should do something to the narrative
You know, there is a narrative and someone should should reevaluate that based on how people are voting and on recognizing that people know that what's in their own best interest and it's not for like some white lady. in us in suburbia to decide not that there's anything wrong with white ladies i'm i'm in favor of white ladies actually thank you i appreciate that um yeah yeah
Wow. Okay. Well, so what do we need to tell the folks? I mean, first of all, thank you, everybody, for coming on this journey with us. Yeah. And we really did have great listeners. Very high quality. Great community. We have a great community. I hope they continue on without us. Life will go on. I hope they remarry. Yeah.
They can find us in other places. Yeah. That's the thing is they, yeah, they need to. Okay. So we're going to put in the show notes exactly what they need to do. And we will, we will inform people what they need to do, but it would be great if they supported our individual. sub stacks right yeah i mean i don't have like anything i'm not gonna i don't think i'm gonna give anybody a discount or anything sorry but um well okay
Well, look, if you want to, you can do it. You can pay. You don't have to pay. I'll make a lot of myself free. I intend on writing a lot more. Than I have been in lengthier. That's what I say. And then I never do. Yeah, I know. Now you have time. Think of all the free time we're going to have. It's like I get it out of my system by talking to you about it. Yeah. Like I have a titch and I scratch it by talking to you. Yeah. And then I lose the impetus to.
Exactly. Yeah. And look, I will say that, as you know, you have a standing invitation to come on my podcast anytime and you can get anything off your chest. I'm not paying you. wait, you're, you think you're, you're now you're, I have to call your, your people. Yeah. You can come on. We can talk about whatever is on your mind and people can get a little taste. So that's always, that's always an option. But yeah, people, okay, what I will do, actually, I will offer a discount.
for a period of time for anybody from this podcast who wants to become a paying subscriber to the unspeakable. And I'm also going to tell you right now that I did a little experiment at the beginning of the fall, which is that I unpaywalled. the unspeakable because it's on YouTube now. And I thought, well, you can't really have paywalled episodes on YouTube. So I added, this is what I thought we were going to stop by the way. So I've added two entire bonus episodes every month.
And then unpaywalled the rest of them. And I lost so much money. I lost so many paying subscribers. Thousands of dollars. The loss of this podcast. Yeah, we didn't. I know. Yeah, this is this is going to be a blow since we were really raking it in. But so anyway, guys, I am I'm going to have to paywall up the podcast again. For the most part, I will. do some episodes for free, but I cannot.
make a go of it otherwise. So please be, this is the time to become a paying subscriber. You'll get a discount and just get in there so you can hear the episodes. And the unspeakeasy, which you'll be doing and they can keep touch. Yeah. If you're a woman, you can join. Yeah. So everything is on my sub. It's very sex segregated. Well, the podcast is not. We talked about how we need to do things for men. We did talk about it.
I know. A man's retreat. Well, that's what you're going to run. You should do a man's retreat. So there'd be like drum circles and like screaming, shouting, wailing into the forest. Yeah. beating up on things. Well, we are going to do a co-ed retreat and possibly, definitely one, possibly two next year. So yeah.
But anyway, yeah, women, it's a great time to join the unspeakeasy, because if you are if your friends are losing their mind about Trump, you are going to want to be with us. We actually had a hangout. You know, we have a. zoom room that is open all the time in the unspeakeasy online community. So you can go in there whenever you want the, the unspeakeasy lounge, but we had, um,
people in there watching the election last night. There were women who were in there for like eight or nine hours straight just talking to each other. Were you there? Were you up? I popped in at the end. I was there for a couple hours at the end. And you know what? It was... so great because there were women who had voted for Harris, women who voted for Trump, women who voted for nobody. And they were all just like, yeah, our friends are losing their minds. And a lot of them said, you know what?
Like eight years ago, I was losing my mind. Like I couldn't believe it. I was crying the whole thing. And now partly because of this group. And because I see like there's a lot of ways to think about things and it's not the cruelty is not the point at all. I feel fine. Like I feel fine and I can go out and talk to people in a rational way about this. And it was like amazing. It's empowering, right? Like to be able to sometimes like, I mean.
That's kind of not to bring it around back to this, but like that's kind of what I was seeking with my whole ayahuasca thing. Like I just felt like I had thought myself into a rut. You know what I mean? And it wasn't it wasn't an accident. I was pursuing it. I was pursuing. a kind of understanding, you know, like I want to figure out what's wrong with our culture. I want to, you know, diagnose the problems. And I think I actually got somewhere and I recognize something. And those things were.
It made me feel as if I didn't have any agency because it was something I couldn't do anything about. And so what I was thinking is that I would go into this, I would get some brain damage and that brain damage would help me see things in a different way as, you know, lobotomies do. So maybe this would, maybe it would do that. And allow me to cope. And in fact, give me agency back. And I wish that for my husband, you know, for my friends and family who were upset.
and really carrying a weight i feel like a little bit lighter actually and i think they feel heavier and i know i take that weight off and i want to invite them in you know yeah because one thing that the right really lacks is capital like uh Social, like social skills. I mean, I mean, like people like talent, you know what I mean? Like that's still existing in the old structure.
And they're kind of stuck there. And I think they need an invitation. I know. Can you imagine if Harrison Ford was just like came over? He's like, OK, guys, this is now I'm going to tell you the truth.
Mark Ruffalo, please. You need the high IQ people shifting over if... the right really wants to be able to accomplish some things they need to be able to do that they need to be messaging to those people i think they have a very snobby attitude about it like they just they're just like oh we'll just it's not a counter lead. It's newly, we're just going to replace them. And it's like, no, you're going to have, you need apostates actually. Like you need people.
I thought they loved apostates. I thought they loved nothing more. I don't know, man. I mean, I don't know about I don't know how they feel. Maybe just apostates from Islam. They like it. But I don't. But they love it. They love the I left the left people. I think, but they fully want you to commit to a new vision that it might be too much to. Oh, they want you to. I don't know how excited they are about bringing in new people. Actually, I just don't know if they're fully thinking about.
How... deep the benches as far as the left is concerned, despite everything, you know, despite the structure of it becoming like calcifying and being an inhospitable place for intelligence and intelligent people, it is still... Nevertheless, it is still their home. And they need to be moved over if you want to be able to run things well.
Is it because they're wounded or they're just so angry or they still want to own the libs? They're kind of like, fuck you. You've been looking down on us. Right. You know, stupid baby attitude. Get over it. You know, like I hate it. I just stop it. Stop it. You need you need them. Forgive them. Give them positions of power. You know, come on in. We will give you.
freedom and esteem and like the ability to look into things that you were you know forbidden from looking into before and yeah take the high road take the high road that's what they they are on too many of back in the day now she's well i was for that but then she changed her mind take the then she should take the i really look i take the high road to nowhere that's been my motto throughout my life so i'm gonna stay on that the high road so yeah there's more room for me
on the low road yeah exactly you want to have as little traffic as possible so because you're with a drunk driver because you were being you got into the car with the drunk driving trump it's it's a dangerous thing um what are we gonna do I think we'll be fine. You know what? I think we'll be fine. We'll make it. You'll make it anyway. I'm in the car. You're not in the car. No, but I'm...
I don't know what I'm in. I'm watching. I'm watching the car on my little app. You're the person who gets like on the sidewalk who gets hit. Yeah, exactly. And then I'm, yeah. OK, let's work on that metaphor. All right. Well, please. OK, everyone. I don't know what to say. I know you're crying. You thought you were upset about the election, but now you can be upset about this. Yeah.
Well, we've left some plenty to be mad about and like no way to really get it to us. Right. I mean, I guess we're going to leave the comments open. We can leave the comments open fully open this time and let them all let them all. No, no. Fuck that. No, they're going to hate.
Look, I mean, they can. OK, the paying subscribers can leave comments. Everybody else, they can they can tweet at us or leave YouTube comments or whatever. In other ways. That's fine. Yeah. But, you know, continue. Continue to support us, please. and um comment yeah share like yeah and um anyway well see you yeah and i'll see i'll be seeing you we'll be chatting no of course okay all right everyone bye
See you. Bye-bye. Thank you. The Unspeakable, the one I do without Sarah, is now available on video as well as audio and has its own YouTube channel, The Unspeakable with Megan Daum. There you'll find not only an extensive back catalog of audio interviews I've done with guests like Sam Harris, John McWhorter, Jonathan Haidt. Nadine Strawson, Maria Bamford, and many, many, many others, but all of the weekly episodes on video going forward.
And if you're a paying Substack subscriber, because I know you don't have enough Substacks to subscribe to, you get two bonus episodes every month just for you. So if you like this channel, I'd love it if you went over and liked and subscribed to The Unspeakable. It's just like A Special Place in Hell, except without Sarah. How could you pass that up? Hope to see you there. you