Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. We are on vacation, but that doesn't mean we don't have a great show for you. Today. Journalist Ejeene Carroll stops by to talk about her new book Not My Type. But first we have New York Magazine's Bridget read on her new book, Little Boss Is Everywhere How the pyramid scheme shaped America.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Bridget.
Thanks so much for having me explain to us what you write on and where you got to.
With this book and how you got here.
I am a features writer at New York Magazine right now. I primarily write about housing for Curbs, which is part of New York mag I started this book when I was a writer at The Cut, which is New York magas women's vertical. That's how I sort of was introduced to this concept of multile marketing, which is very similar,
if not the same, as the pyramid scheme. And I wrote a really short article in twenty twenty one about MLMs and just kind of being obsessed from there, and that's where this book was born.
MLMs, I feel like they're tied to both women's entrepreneurship in a strange and destructive way and also to maga politics.
Yes.
Yeah, so they're really interesting because they are the sleazy foundation to many of the things we're looking at right now and right here. So i'd love you to talk first because you come from the cut about the women's ish world of MLOUS, and then I'm going to get you into maga worlds. But I could see how there's a sort of natural progression here, so talk us through it.
Yeah. So MLM was invented by men in the post war era scammy salesman who decided that they were going to create this basically what functions as a Ponzi scheme, but within the sort of shell of door to door selling, which is like, you know, an age old American pastime.
Give us an example of a company that does that.
Oh sure, so the oldest one is Amway. The guys that invented MLM did it with a company and a vitamin company called Neutralite. Richard DeVos and Jamian andl who founded Amway. They started as Neutralite salesmen and then they did what always happens in MLM, which is they picked up all their distributors and started their own company, which is Amway. In the late fifties. Amway is the biggest and most influential MLM in the world. There's also herbal Life,
There's Mary Kay, There's Shackley Tupperware. I could go on and on. There are hundreds thousands of MLMs now in the US alone. So even though it was invented by men very quickly five sixties, women who went to work in droves during World War Two, and then even though those levels fell back down after the war, steadily during the fifties and sixties, more women started going to work,
and of course that rose from there. But what happened was women statistically went predominantly to industries where the work wasn't great right, work was insecure. They were secretaries, they were doing retails, the service sector where you're not big benefits, you're not doing typical wage work, and you are also in many respects still doing your childcare. So this need for flexible work and women being the primary recipient of a pitch for flexible work, which is what a huge
part of MLM is. It's the idea that you're an independent contractor, so already by the sixties, women became predominantly the people who work in multiple marketing, and of course the industry all then began touting itself as like an opportunity for women, but always the conservative The industry is really conservative politically and in terms of its gender ideology.
So from the get go, MLM is a type of flexible work where women can walk a line right where they're contributing to the household, but not in a way that threatens their roles as wives and mothers. Mary Kay is the most notable founder of an MLM, and she was a huge part in kind of selling that story, and there are many copies of it since, and we could trace a line all the way to current MLMs
where women are girl bosses. They're wearing the oversized blazer and doing the TikTok videos, but they're also you know, it's all about, Oh, I retired my husband who's a Christian firefighter, and I serve him still.
So you can do both.
It's really a way to like sublimate women's ambition, sublimate their economic fears, but do it in a way that does it threaten the overall you know, nuclear family structure.
Yes, So now get us talking about how these multi level marketing schemes have popped up in MAGA world.
The roots of MLM in the Republican Party are beyond deep. Even before Rich DeVos and Javannandel. Rich Davas of course, being Betsy Davas's father in law, the founders of multi level marketing were connected to the Republican Party in California. They supported Nixon.
A lot of Republican money comes from multi level marketing.
Yes, That's really what I tried to emphasize in this book is the MLM money should be as scrutinized as the empires of the Kochs the Mercers. Right, the money that's actually been taken from these participants has powered the Republican Party for decades. I mean, Devas and Van Andel are the single biggest Republican donors. When Ronald Reagan is running for president, Ronald Reagan makes Devas a member of his kitchen cabinet. Javan Andl is the head of the
Chamber of Commerce. They both give heavily to Heritage, And now right now the chairman of the board at Heritage is Barb Van Andl. Gabby javan Andl's daughter I mean, it goes on and on. They give heavily to the Council for National Policy Focus on the Family. So these
are some dark money Christian groups. Betsy Debas, you know, very notably resigned in the wake of January sixth and made a big deal about it, but they continue to give to all the packs and organizations that helped re elect Trump, including the very scary Sheriff Fellowship, which is you know, at Claremont Institute, group that wants to essentially radicalize share its to use them to carry out Trump's deportation dreams, but also just like to stop enforcing law
and order where Trump doesn't lot it to be enforced. They're huge on school vouchers. So there are major engines of both the economic forces of mega but also those culture war goals. They've been shaping it long before we even knew sort of Betsy Devas as a figure. You know, it's bigger than that. There are other figures in this industry that have been part of our political world, but the Amway founders are certainly the most influential.
Right, let's talk for a minute about what we have in the MAGA multi level marketing. What are they quote unquote selling like Mary Kay is makeup, Amway is agriculture.
Amway is everything. In Amway, you're encouraged to replace your entire household products with Amway products. So they sell toothpaste, they sell an energy drink, Cold Access, they have their own makeup brand called Artistry, And like, the reason you've never heard of it is because MLMs are overwhelmingly closed systems where the participants are buying up this stuff, because that's how you really make the most money is just by buying and buying and getting people under you to
be buying. And there are lots of people in my book who talk about how they're encouraged by this stuff. You're going to sell it. You have to like use, you know, use the products that you want to sell. They're encouraged to sign up for subscriptions, whether they're spending like four hundred dollars a month on an automated Amway purchase.
The intersection of MAGA, especially the MAHA part of MAGA, the wellness part and MLM is really strong because many many of the products it's totally nonsensical MLM it makes sense, like why would you go buy a toothpaste from Amway? When you can go get it at Dwayne Reid for you know, half the price. It never has made any sense even when it was invented, So they really rely on a pitch that taps into your fears, It taps into your worries about your health, and it taps into these.
MAHA makes a lot of sense for that, Yeah, exactly, like.
You're you're sick in ways you don't even know, and here's the way we can fix your gut biome or all these you know, like pseudo science, untested science. MLM is a perfect vessel for that because it relies on this like over the top pitch that we're going to change your life, which the supplement industry also does, and so you know, the kind of Joe Rogan style supplement world also has a lot of overlap with MLMs, So they're the men's version as well, where men are you know,
getting in into that. And then the crypto side of MAGA, so Trump's cryptoquin World, Liberty Financial, some of the guys involved in running that have dipped their toe in the world, but also just Trump in general, I mean, and Trump of himself of course, has been the face of two MLMs, one called Ideal Health and then ACN, which was the lawsuit against Trump that was dropped.
Wait what ideal Health.
In the early two thousands or mid two thousands, actually, Trump was tapped to be the face of an MLM called Ideal Health, and they sold supplements and they called it the Trump Network. It was literally described as like an emergency way that for people who were suffering in the financial crisis and the Great Recession to like become millionaires. He reaped a lot of benefit from it, and of course it collapsed and lots of people said they lost money.
But Trump in general, the way he built his career is very MLM esque in that MLM relies on promotion. It's all about promoting the lifestyle that you have and making it sound like that's as if you're it's because Amway or whatever MLM you're doing is such a like incredibly special secret recipe for success. It can't be beat. It's almost you know, as it's a it's a revolutionary invention.
But what you're really doing is just all you're making all your money from people other people buying in which, of course is what Trump has done his whole career. Right, He's never really been a successful businessman. He's a you know, a litany of real estate failures. He's propped up by his father, who himself is propped up by tax evasion. But he sells this idea that he's an incredible businessman.
And so millions of Americans for decades have bought into the Trump thing, whether it's you know, buying his his success systems or going to his failed university. They are failing and they are losing their investments. But Trump is winning, and that's that's really the multiple marketing meachanism at its core. So it's incredibly trumpy. MLM is Trumpian, and Trump is very MLMI.
With the MAHA stuff.
Does RFK Junior benefit from my multi level marketing besides just being someone who is involved in it.
RFK Junior, as far as ener, doesn't benefit directly from an MLM, but many of his prominence followers, especially online and especially these women who are in the anti vax world, also dabble in multi level marketing. They sell these products that claim to you know, these are these are people who got online during the pandemic and just like Trump, you know, said you can take these supplements, you can do these you know, additives to your water and they
will keep you from getting sick. So so there are definitely promoters within MLM who are big RFK supporters.
And you know, yeah, who are those people.
They're not public figures, they're not people in that U no, no, no, no, okay. But I would say the number one MLM promoter within MAHA is doctor Oz. Doctor Oz has shilled for several m lms. He appears as as a speaker. You know, kaid probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that over the years, and doctor Oz has has certainly went his name to many MLMs in the past.
So explain to us sort of what when you're looking at these mL they.
Just the goal is just to keep going. What's the goal? Yes, just to keep going and to stay out of jail.
Yeah, that hasn't been that hard for them because really enforcement of any kind of I mean, they exist in a very deeply unregulated space. Mway essentially bought its political cover in the late seventies and those rules that have never really been tested are what allow companies to keep the business model. So as long as they sort of purport to be using these rules in place that keep
them from being a pyramid scheme. There's virtually no enforcement of this that unless the FTC what they're doing is really really scammy. And the apt SEE has gone after certainly less than one hundred posibly even less than fifty MLMs since the seventies in terms of actually suing them and shutting them down. Yeah, I mean not one pyramid scheme. Multiple marketing company was shut down during Reagan and butsch one during Bush two they started up a little bit,
and then in the Clinton administration. But even during the herbal Life lawsuit when the FTC suit urbal Life, and that was that whole Bill Ackman saga where Bill Ackman came out and wanted to short urban life. This is in twenty eleven, twenty twelve. When the FTC finally sued Herbalife in twenty sixteen, they immediately crafted a settlement with
the company Erbalife had hired the Desta Group. This is a bipartisan situation where people you know, on both sides of the political spectrum have involved themselves with MLM Rbalife also or am why I believe us boys Schiller at one point. So you know, these are big corporate companies. Melan Albright was a spokesperson for Erbal Life for many years.
Yeah, yes, that's so bad, bad and a good example of you can be on the wrong side of history and it doesn't matter what party you're in. Right, there's no world in which any of this is opay.
And MLMs get by because they're incredibly complicated in terms of the way they figured out how to talk with the business model. Like the way I explained the business model to you is not how they explain it, right. They make it sound the lot like it's door to door selling, which to a lot of people is very like old timey and American, and so you're like, how
could there be anything wrong with this? And because they are old, they're from the early fifties, we are sort of trapped in the legal precedent that was set during the fifties and sixties and seventies, And so there's a lot keeping MLMs from being understood in the way that I think they should be understood, Like I think the Amway family should be treated like the Sacklers in terms of the harm that they've done on the world. Because the majority of MLM participants are worldwide. Most most MLM
participants are not in the US anymore. So there's millions of people here, but there's many more millions around the world. And you can imagine how much if you're in a country with way, way less of GDP than the United States, the idea that you can buy in for a small amount of money and become a millionaire is is going to like sweep you up in India or in China
or wherever you are. So yeah, I mean that there's a lot there's a lot of history that I tried to pull apart in my book to make people understand, like, yes, the Betsy Devas, we can critique a lot of her views right now, but nobody really talks about like where does her money come from? Betsy Devas's brother is Eric Prince. So these two kind of Michigan dynasties that are hugely influential in our modern far right party.
And profoundly sketchy.
Yeah, and both really like what MLM does is it's an engine of propaganda that I really find, ultimately at the end of the day, anti democratic. It's all about enrolling people in an exploitative and harmful system and using basically cult tactics to keep their noses to the grindstone, keep telling them it's going to get better. Keep going, keep going. You know you're doing it. You want to do it by yourself. You can do it as an individual.
You don't need government benefits. The government makes you a slave. And that capitalism works best with no regulation and no rules like that's what MLM you propagates on the on a grassroots level. And truly the aim of how MLM has operated in tandem with ideology is to get to a place where there really is no one keeping capital, the forces of capital corporations accountable, that they can truly
do whatever they want. That is what MLM would love, because of course there's a lot of evidence that MLM's fraud and so they don't want the FTC, they don't want consumer protection, they don't want state ags to be empowered. You know, they would love to simply operate in a wild West, which, of course is like you can see it in Doge right now, right, you know, which of course is getting so much of it's blueprint from Heritage. Heritage,
which is very much a project of multiple marketing. So not to sound like I have a tinfoil hat on, but it feels like a conspiracy, because it really is. If you look at the evidence.
You don't sound tinfoil Hattie at all. Thank you, bridget Read, Thank you so much.
E Gene Carrol is a journalist and the author of the new book Not My Type. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Eagan Carroll, Molly my Darling, Hellottle friend. So let us talk about this book. I have it right here, Not My Type. It was a total secret, this book. No one knew about it. You kept it secret secret. Talk to us about how this happened and where you wrote this book.
Also, I love Donald Trump's blurb.
Yeah, we got Donald Trump to blurb the book.
I don't know who she is. So let's talk about this book.
I love talking about the book. Molly. I'm eighty one and I'm been a magazine writer for the last fifty years. I was put into the middle of a highly comic situation, surrounded with characters that not even Molly John Fast could create, each one more surreal and more hilarious and more frightening and more stupendous than the last. And as an old time journalist, I could not help myself. I had to get it down now. It was saint Martin's who decided
we will keep the book secret. And Molly, when you and I know that when we have a secret, we become very powerful. So we kept every sentenced secret. And I just I had that golden nugget inside of me, that secrecy. I knew stuff that he didn't know. I was going to explode what really went on behind the scenes and this, you know, the high comedy. He has never been treated this way, and we kept it under wraps. And that's what we did. And Molly, we pulled it off. I mean we pulled it off.
I know because I was there on Morning Joe the day you revealed that you had done it.
Did you anchor again? Today?
I did the view today, I'm doing Morning Joe tomorrow.
How was the view good?
Those ladies are really cool?
Now? How did I know you did TV today? Because you have on full makeup, full makeup. The lips give you away. I should have guessed the view, should have guessed the view. That's perfect for you. Well, the morning I did Morning Joe and you were the anchor, that was the morning you hit the best seller list. Yes, so I didn't even want to talk about my book. I was more excited that your book hit the best
seller list. Yes, poor Molly, you look like you'd been hit by an arrow because your whole interview went south because I opened it by saying, you know, let's not talk about this my life. Congratulations for the best seller. So that's not my type. Just hit the best seller list, I know, number two. This is what happens when you keep something secret.
That's right.
It was during the trial that you decided you were going to write this down, right, Well, Molly.
I was writing down the whole time. When I returned my hotel room during this day, I would open up, I'd take my phone and I'd open it and I'm just talking to it, every single detail. Everything we were eating, what Joe Takapina was, where hall Aleena Hobbs hair was that day? Was it long? Was it short? Was she wearing the huge diamond ring? Come on this detail? I could get down. And then I had the court transcripts.
And if you talk about high comedy, I wish you could read the court transcripts from the two trump time. John Gresham could not have written drama that was like what was going on in this corp. So I had all the truth. Nothing could have stopped me nothing. You could have come to my house with all your children. You could have dragged your mother out of a nice place for shoes, put her in the car, and all of you could have come and yelled at me, and I would have written this book. I had to get
it out. People have to know that he is just an old man in saffron colored makeup with his hair done up like Barbara Stanwy in Ballfire. That's who he is. That's it. And page after page and how he reacted and what he did in court and what he didn't do. It was. I was fascinated by it. I couldn't stop writing. Oh I was writing easy for you or hard?
I find writing to be pretty hard.
But when you write a piece, I can tell when you hit your stride. Tell me if I'm wrong. When you have that section about your Malijong fast and that you have been the receptacle of Erica Jong stories, that whoever meets you has an Erica Jong story. Do you remember that section? You hit your stride with that section?
Oh, thank you?
I mean you know that book was a lot of rewriting, was it, Yeah, A lot of rewriting and a lot of like paring it down and trying to figure out what went where I have organizational problems. But wait, I want you to explain to us sort of what it's like to have this book in the world, the trial, and also just like you've survived a very scary trial, you are now in the world. Just talk to us about sort of where you are right now writing it.
Because I've never been to a therap just in my life, I'm fine. You know, my whole life has to spread sweetness in life, and I don't think about bad things that went on to me. That was terrible because you know, two official psychiatris hired, one by Trump, one by Robbery to plumb my depths and find out what really happened. Trump's psychiatrist was to prove that I was a gold bigger wire. Our psychiatrist was just to find out if
what I think happened actually happened. And it turns out I did so as much as I was hiding that for myself. I suffered.
And everything I've read that you've written has shown that you really did suffer, that it really changed the trajectory of your life that attack.
I've never had a romance since nineteen ninety six. No romance, but I didn't organize my life around I went to work the next day. It was not the organizing principle, and I hid it from myself and writing about it, Mali brought it back in black and white in a way that helped me. It just made I ended up very happy. It was like I was on very high peak and I could see it all. And I think you probably feel the same when you finish the book about your mother. You could see it with new eyes
because you actually right got it down on paper. It was a relief and I was happy afterwards. And the amazing to me because I would never, ever, never, and I don't think you would never in my life dream that anything I could write would ever get near a bestseller list ever in my life. And then when that happened, Well, how did you feel about it when you hit the best seller list?
I was shocked, exactly, just shocked, shopped.
One hundred thousand books are published every year, and here, Malija, you know it's not it wasn't surprising to me where you hit it. I mean I couldn't even eat.
I eat a lot of ice cream.
And that cake that you, oh, I love the cake that you order.
It's a very scary time in American life, and Trump is pretty scary and he is really mad at you. So how do you not be scared? Because there are billionaires who are terrified of him.
I don't give two shits. Do not give two shits. If somebody shoots me, it's fine with me. I don't want to feel anything. And shoot me in the arm or the leg. I do not care. I am not afraid. You cannot enter this world and be frightened about some stupid Trump or doing whatever. No, shoot me. Fine, I've done I've lived eighty one, my li, I've had a fabulous life. I mean, I have friends like you. How could I be happier? Fine? I can't live in fear?
Do you live in fair? Are your mouth off every fucking day?
No? But what do you think about?
Like? They are all these very very rich men who are terrified of saying anything negative about Trump.
You're talking about CBS, ab Hal, all those.
I'm talking about corporations and people and Bill but even I actually think the most subversive are the billionaires because these are people who have unlimited funds. Right, they need security. It's surrounding error and those guys are terrified as Trump. So I mean, what do you have to say to people like Jeff Bezos, like Elon Musk, like you know, I mean, Elon happens to be much his own thing. But to those men who live in who are cowering in front of Donald Trump.
Well, because Bezos has got you know, Lauren Sanchez boobs to protect him. He's not good because you know, those those boobs are gott to protect him and all their fucking wedding guests, so we don't have to worry about him. We don't have to worry about him. I think one of the reasons they're riches because they're well, you know, they're all in a you know, they're in a band. They all want to live forever. You know, they all they get the shots of the baby juice and all that.
It's just a different tribe, Malie. We can't make them brave your podcast every single day, you are running your mouth, every single of it.
I think it's hard because I think bravery is contagious, and I think that powerness is also contagious. And here we have, you know, a president who has said he will seekret retribution on his political enemies. I wonder if you could talk about like writing this book where you scared at all?
Or now, Melie, I use humor, comedy, a laugh. If we can laugh, that is a great weapon, because when we laugh, we can rise above whatever the dark situation is that our brains are free for that minute. You use a lot, I use it. No, we've got to laugh at this darkness. It is a comical, horrible track situation. If we see the humor in it, we can move on. All The thing is we have to do, as you know, is get off our lazy asses and stop sitting in our houses and then go outside and start to organize.
And we could also get together and control the economy if we wanted. We all women particularly had more money than you know, anybody. We could start pulling strings. But we just sit in our houses. I don't know what we're doing in there.
There was a sort of reckoning about men and sexual violence. There was a moment of me too, and then we saw a lot of cycling about. You know, what was progress, what was push back? What was progress? What was push back? Have you felt that in the way people respond to you.
No, I live in a huddle up in the country. I don't really I'm not really around people.
Do you think now that Cuomo has lost that there's a bit of like, maybe it actually matters, Maybe victims stories matter.
Women in New York they didn't forget, you know, unlike the Republicans who actually have never heard, you know, Molly, the NY people in the South have never heard that Donald Trump was held liable because there's a Berlin wall. I don't think they're listening to fast politics. Frankly, right, I know the poor souls. I mean they're deprived. They are deprived, but they don't know it. But in New York,
everybody knew about Blomo. Every woman knew about Glomo, and she took that into the voting booth and she considered it.
Right. Yeah, I think that's a real thing. So what are you going to do next? Are you writing? What is your next move?
Oh? Well, I got a big plan. I'm coming to your house and we're going to eat cake and we're going to discuss how unusual it is to hit the best seller list, both of us who would never dream of ever achieving this. And we're gonna have cake, and we're gonna have milk, and we're gonna have ice cream and We're just gonna appreciate what we've done, and I'll appreciate you and you'll appreciate me. Or just well, just
eat cake. We'll have crumbs everywhere, and we'll wear that, you know, you make up that you're wearing right now, and the lipstick. You know, we'll do that. I think that's a good plan. I think that's the plan. On we just enjoy ourselves. We kind of stop being so tragic and depressed, and we got to stand up, go outside, start to understand if we get together, that we can control the situation. We are his boss, not the other way around. And then we'll do this. You're Alder, I'm
Alway's house for pay that, you know what? What else?
Eg? And Carol? Will you please come back?
Wait? I have to go now where do we come back? What the hell are you talking about? Okay, I'll come back.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
All right, I'll see you soon, Mali.
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