Martyrs, Militants, Monetizers, and Madmen (w/ Crackpot History)

Crackpot History podcast. This is actually Crackpot Histories, if I guess I can call him that first interview that he has done since starting his podcast earlier on in twenty twenty five. We cover a lot of ground. We cover some potentially controversial ground where we talk about his critiques of Darryl Cooper's first series for the Martyr Made podcast,

Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem. We also discuss his current project working on a critique of Scott Horton's book Provoked, in which Horton tries to make the case that NATO expansion and just generally speaking, Western influence is what caused or provoked the Russi Ukrainian War. So we

cover a lot of ground in this. We also talk about the deeper issues at play involving being a history content creator, or really any kind of content creator that purports to be giving accurate information, and how important it is to do that, make it accurate, make it transparent,

and all that good stuff. Quick note, we actually recorded this conversation back in January of twenty twenty six, so any references to world events at that point that might seem a little dated or feel a little jarring, that explains it. So that's what you have in store for

you today. I want to thank everybody for listening and for supporting the show, like my very kind and generous supporters of History Impossible at the executive producer level, John Andre Sather and Mike Mayleban, who have been with me four years now, and I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate them. And I encourage all of you, who you know have a couple bucks to throw my

way every month, to please do so. If you feel so inclined, If you like what I'm doing and you want to support it, head over to Patreon dot com, slash History Impossible or just History impossible dot com and become a paid subscriber today. I hope you enjoy this conversation that I had with Crackpot History as much as I enjoyed having it with him, So please sit back and relax and let's get into some impossible history.

reasons why people might do that. Right. One could be maybe you have a bias or an animus toward a particular subject. Right. One could be maybe you want to win hearts and minds for causes that you believe in. Another could be maybe there are state based geopolitical bad actors that are supporting you and want you to push

your particular narrative. And so think I think that there's all of these different elements to this, And when you throw in the virality of social media of the internet, you know, those beliefs and that pop history can spread very quickly and influence the real world and influence geopolitical

hotspots and influence policy. And so I think, more than anything else, the reason why I chose to name crackpot History is because there's a lot of crackpots out there, and there's a lot of people that kind of need to be fact checked, and so the podcast is all about really looking at their claims, not making it but personal attacks or mud slinging or anything like that, but looking at their claims and going claim by claim and saying, you know, is this true, what is the evidence for this?

You know, what are the sources say, what do they say about it? Going into their footnotes and really trying to dive deep into the claims and invalidate them or not.

provide their list of sources in their notes. I actually, will, you know, be the first admit I don't put my sources in my episode notes, and maybe I should, but I do try to post a blog posts, you know, periodically saying here's the list of sources I use for

this particular episode. I haven't done that in a bit so, and I just released the big episode of the Muslim Nazis about the handshar, so I probably should put together a nice comprehensive list of the sources I used, of course, But point being is that that's really hard to do when those are not provided. So I think that that's like in I would imagine, and maybe you can correct me on this, that's the hardest part of what you've been doing is trying to figure out what sources are being used.

History of the Russo Ukrainian War. So I've only done two series in the middle of my second But yeah, in some cases, the sources in you know, in Horton's case, I'm using the ebook and there are sources in the footnotes, but a lot of those are websites, and some of those links are dead because they're from old sources. Right in Cooper's case, there really aren't sources in some cases, and then you have to go kind of on this scavenger hunt looking for them and trying to figure out, well,

where did he pull this quote from? And in some cases I've been successful and been able to find sources that he doesn't name. I also, by the way, I'm guilty of this. I don't actually list the sources that I refer to in my episodes, but when I'm quoting from them, I do say who is I'm quoting from, and typically what the title of the work is?

he's always been really good at that. But I think Carlin has kind of turned into more of a historiographical storyteller, if that makes sense, where he's very dedicated to the to the sourcing, and he very rarely makes any assertion of his own at least I mean, he'll say if it's his opinion, and I think that's a really good model to follow. But yeah, so I think the scavenger hunt of sources, on the one hand, is actually kind

of fun. I think if you're a certain level of autistic, like I think I am, and I don't want to speak for you, but it maybe you are.

I'd be remiss not to mention or to repeat the fact that your very first subject was, you know, of Daryl Cooper, somebody who I have collaborated with and spoken

highly of and increasingly more critically of. And you know, honestly, I don't think the critiques are going to stop anytime soon at this point, for various reasons, especially given the waters he's decided to wade into when it comes to World War II history, which, funny enough, I don't think is really much we can say about that, at least right now, because, like you said, your focus was on Fear and Loathing in The New Jerusalem, his first series, which,

as I'll just say that, I after listening to your series on that, I can see a lot of issues with what he did with that series. Now, I still think it's a very good series as far as storytelling goes. I mean, I think that you yourself have said, whatever one thinks of him, his politics or his you know, his quality of his analysis, he's a very good storyteller. He's good at what he does, and I think that

that's always something we need to acknowledge. But he plays a little fast and loose, and you made that very clear with this first series of yours, which, if I remember right, you called Manufactured Martyr. I believe is what you titled that series. Yeah, it's a good title, and I think it's fair to say it's probably his most

well known series. You know, I will say that I was one of those people for a while, and I you know that I that really loved that series, and I did defer to his judgment with that series a fair bit longer than I think I should have. I think he did play fast and loose in a lot of in a lot of cases. And my only sense is that as I did my own parallel research as part of my own series on the Muslim Nazis that

touched on the same subject. My criticism of him, and we talked about this before we're recording, was really how he treated the character of the Mufti of hajaminaw Husseini, which I thought was, like i'll characterize it now as far to kid gloves, I guess maybe hands off i'd

be a better word to. And there's probably various reasons for that, but I always felt that he was a little too credulous with that character, and I think that that might have been, like, you know that that was a good instinct for me to follow, because if I think I had followed it further, I probably would have found a lot of what you found in this. So I guess like it always bothered me how he didn't really give the Mufty his due, and like I.

paraphrasing here, basically what he said. And when you hear that, as a member of the audience, you're basically kind of priming yourself and saying, Okay, this is going to be a telling of the history. There's no bias, there's no animis. He's just going to ping pong back and forth between what was going on with the Jews, what was going on with the Arabs, the Palestinians, and we're going we're

going to get a forth right telling. And I think that as you go through the series, there are these moments, these kind of inflection points where you say, well, that sounds like there's some animis there, right, And then there are things that are just flat out a historical incorrect Pinprick remarks that he makes really just punching down on the Jews in Israel as it relates to this conflict. Things that go far beyond the scope I think of, you know, this is just the history of the Israeli

Palestinian conflict. You know, there's this one. There's this one comment that he makes that he stands out and I go comment by comment, you know, point by point, where he says something to the effect of it was, it was a wonder that Jews were allowed to live and persist in Europe at all, given that they, you know, had fought against the Christians in Spain, given that they had been responsible for all of these crimes, historical crimes decide I believe he refers to in terms of, you know,

the killing of Jesus. Just all of these pieces that are very ahistorical or kind of leaning on clear animates when it comes to the Jews specifically, and go, I go point by point and kind of correct the record as to why those things aren't the case. Right there are there are many, many, many historians that study these things and publish on them. And so that's just you know,

one example. But another one that I think is even that really stands out and really grinded my gears at the time, and I mentioned this to you previously, was that there are just things that are factually wrong, regardless of whether you have a favorite or pick a side in the sports game, as people kind of think of this conflict these days as things that are just wrong. You know. He says that the Hashermites liberated Jerusalem in nineteen seventeen. No, that was the British and Allen be

actually right. And so there are just things that are really basic that when I'm going through my episodes and I'm fact checking and I'm making sure that I'm holding myself accountable. If you're going to position yourself as a historian, which I believe he now does. You know, there's always there was this whole debate as to you know, does he consider himself a historian? Do these guys doing pop

history label themselves as a historian. If you're going to embrace that label, then you really need to get it right. And I think that there's just a tremendous amount of and animus in this series. And then when you combine that with his current tweets on the subject on the conflict,

I think you bring those two pieces together. I think it's very clear where he stands and whether he was being truthful in the introduction of his series as to whether he was going to be giving us a forthright, unbiased telling of the history.

I mean, there was one time I told him my method of not tweeting from the hips, so to speak for me at the time, it was more Facebook posting.

you talk to him in person. And I would also agree with that, but I think what you kind of showed with your show, especially I think in light of how he's been increasingly more defensive after his blow up and fame from his Tucker Carlson appearance in late twenty twenty four, I think you're kind of showing that there's

less daylight between the Twitter persona and the podcast. And that was I think what was so striking to me as somebody who vaguely knows Daryl and has known him for a while and has supported his work and in a weird way still kind of do because I we can get We'll circle back to that if you want about the about why I think it's fine to have people like that saying what they're saying on the internet.

much more recently than I did. But we talked about this a little bit before recording, Like I was saying that he kind of just ends the story of Hajajamin al Husseini in the Israeli Palestinian conflict at around the Arab revolt. He doesn't really even touch on the McDonald white paper Shenanigans. He doesn't talk about the far Hood at all in Iraq. He doesn't really even talk about

Haja Mean in like teaming up with the Access. He gives it like one throwaway mention if memory serves, and he basically dismisses the Mufty as having just gone insane instead of looking at him more seriously like he has been throughout the previous part of the series and a

lot of other figures. Because that's the thing is that omission is what I thought was so weird, is because if you're going to tell the story of this conflict, you have to give agency to people like hajaminaw who's saying that they don't just go insane and stop mattering.

competing national movements that were urging in the Mandate of

Palestine in at the time. And I think that that is just simply incorrect and ahistorical when you actually dive into things, and specifically, I think one of the most egregious moments in Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem is surrounding the as you know, the Pogrim of nineteen twenty nine, which was in Hebron and is labeled Hebron Pogrim, but also was in other areas of the Mandate, and Husseini and his acolytes were the ones that kind of

fanned the flames of this transpiring. So they handed out materials that were said things to the effect of, you know, the Jews are coming to seize Alaxa, right and things along those lines, which are just completely incorrect, and just that wasn't part of the plan. And so there's this kind of deferral of agency where oh he was there, he was trying to make sure that a lid was kept on on the tempers and the potential for chaos, while he was actually behind the scenes wanting to instigate

the violence. And that piece just isn't portrayed at all. The other piece that I think is really missing is the Husseinis, the more extremist elements of Palestinian Arab society

in the Mandate at the time. They weren't just operating unopposed, right, there was a counterbalancing force in the form of the Nashashibies and the Nashashibi family, who were much more moderate, who wanted to work with the British, who wanted to find a diplomatic solution with the Zionists, with the Jews in the Mandate at the time, and I personally believe that if they were given enough support this conflict, the one hundred plus years of it could have gone in

a very different way, but they were attacked and killed by Husseini and his acolytes and lost their prestigion influence because of it. Cooper doesn't really that at all. So the mini Palestinian Civil War that happened, and the fact that these people were killed and butchered in the sake of for the sake of a maximalist outcome that Hussein he wanted.

all Semis that kind of thing. But uh, yeah, I bristle at his inability to recognize that haja means motivation was what it was, like you said, he really did portray him as a moderating force, and I am somewhat guilt of following in his footsteps earlier on in my own Muscle Nazi series when talking about that, I saw his motivation less innocently, but I did try to I did try to present him as somebody who didn't want violence to get out of control because he was trying

to maintain power. I didn't have all the sources available to me at the time. I didn't even know about the pamphlets that you were talking about just then, So there is some correction needed there on my part, for sure. But with that said, I still think that he was much more interested in growing and maintaining his influence and power.

That was one motivating plank for Haja mean that I don't really get the sense Daryl appreciated or noted, and his Jew hatred was more framed, if it was framed at all, And maybe you can correct me on this, because again your memory is fresher on this than mine.

He more saw it as a reaction, and that does seem to be kind of Daryl's view on anti Semitism, is that it's always a reaction to something that Jews do or that like particularly annoying or quote unquote bad Jews do, and I think that's also kind of how he sees how racism operates. But the difference between I'll just say that maybe that's true sometimes. But the thing about anti Semitism Jew hatred is that it's a conspiracy theory before it's a bigotry. So there's always something preemptive

about it. And I think that when you don't appreciate that, and you're going to underrate it as a motivator. And as we talked about before recording, there is very good, circumstantial evidence that Hajamin al Husseini was very aware and very familiar with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by at least nineteen twenty, if not before. He was multilingual, so he could have read other editions of it even

before that the point. And also he was you know, he supposedly had it memorized later in life, so clearly he was familiar with it. And you also spoke about this with me a little bit before we were recording, about the sort of historical confluence of factors there. Maybe you can and highlight that a little bit for listeners, but I guess what that's what I'm saying is that I feel like underrating these internal motivations in favor of

these grand historical forces. What that ultimately does is takes responsibility and agency away from Haja mean, especially for events like the nineteen twenty nine riots. But you could even go back and say the Nabi Musa riots perhaps as well. Though the sense I got is that that was a little more I think that that was definitely a situation where things got a little out of control. They weren't necessarily meant to be that crazy. But maybe maybe I'm wrong on that too, Maybe I need to update my

understanding of all those events too. But anyway, I wanted to let you respond to the idea of these confounding motivations that Daryl just left out, or at least seem to leave out.

precipitated the violence and what brought about those organizations. Right, So you mentioned Nebi Musa in nineteen twenty, the Jaffa riots in nineteen twenty one, you know, the battle at Tel High around the same period, and then obviously culminating

in nineteen twenty nine. There's this decade that the Anglo American Committee of Inquiry actually refers to where the Jews kind of sat on their hands and really didn't do much until the thirties and things started really kind of coming around and they said, well, you know, we want to find some kind of a diplomatic resolution here. But it doesn't really seem like we have another side of the aisle that's kind of willing to meet us halfway.

And that whole story isn't really portrayed, right, Like Cooper might touch on elements of the Nebu Musa riots and the jaff riots and all that stuff, but the fifty thousand foot narrative isn't really given. And I think that's important because these organizations, the Huguanah that you're gun the lay He. You know, if you want to talk with their actions, we can talk with their actions, certainly, but

what brought them into existence? Right would they have existed if there wasn't this decade of the of the nineteen twenties that really kind of shifted Jewish thinking and brought about the radicals, as some people would call them today,

like the Jabbatinskis of the world, et cetera. With his Iron Wall essay saying, we want to make peace with the Arabs, but in the short term, we need this iron wall of force to get us to a point where a compromise can be reached, which is how he concludes his essay, which most people don't actually speak to.

But that whole story isn't really being told there, and so you know, you have to question at some point when you're diving into the negative aspects of one side of the conflict but not really giving the same amount of detail or omitting some of the agency and the animus on the other side, it kind of makes you question, what is the motivating force behind that decision?

what you meant, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, Yeah, we'll get back to that in a little bit, uh, because I have some questions about that too, But I do have a more meta question, I guess, like, how credible do you find Darryl's claims of having read hundreds of books at over a thousand academic papers and the subject of Israel Palestine. I mean I was always skeptical, Like

I think I told you earlier. I think that led to him being a little miffed at me, which you know, in which case I think has ultimately led to me getting blocked by him.

a very basic claim. That's a part of the story as to how the British controlled the area, you know, how we got to the Balfour Declaration, how the conflict really started, right, that is a These are very basic fundamental facts, if.

Neither were Hashemite forces fighting. I believe he also says that they that they fought in the Sinai and there might have been, you know, some troops, that it might have crossed the Jordan, but there wasn't a collective effort. There's nothing that really substantively documents that or as evidence to that fact that there was a concerted Hashemite effort in conjunction with Allen b and the British to liberate

the entirety of Palestine and Jerusalem. Of course. I mean, look, you want to make an argument about them securing the flanks with Akaba and moving up north into trans Jordan, you can have that claim, but that's not what is said in the podcast in his series.

context missing? And I just I think that there's just a lot of smoke there, which is why I made the decision to start with this series, because as I started listening to it, I started pointing out and recognizing there were a lot of things that needed some additional context in color.

military of ji Islam at the time. And at the end of the conversation, the way that it's framed by Cooper is that Usishkin basically threatened Ronald Stores by saying, and I believe this was in correct me if I'm mistaken, I believe this was in the context of the aftermath of the nineteen twenty nine program, where they were basically Usishkin was saying, this is a program. You know, the British bear responsibility for this. I know what a program

looks like. I've experienced or seen them myself, or you know, read enough material on them. Given what happened in Tsarist Russia? This was a program. And then at the end of the conversation, Cooper basically says that Usishkin threatened stores by saying something of the effect of you saw what happened to the Tsar, you know, watch your back, basically something to that effect. And so there was a whole there was a hole back and forth. But you know, is

that what happened in the quote or was that? Is that an accurate quote? Is that an you're telling of the story, and when you dive into the sources that refer to it, that part of the quote isn't mentioned. And then somebody actually on X and I was going to do this myself, somebody actually dove into the archives in Israel and posted a telling in the archives that are the basis for this conversation being referred to in

various historical works, and that isn't there. And so that was kind of the end of the back and forth when I highlighted that, and some some very well read follower on X pulled that up and that was that was basically the end of.

man of the Mandate. And so when you go in there, Segev doesn't refer to that ending part of the conversation, right, And that's what I highlight in my critique of Cooper here. And then again, you know, the Twitter follower kind of beat me to it and pulled up the archive in Israel that refers to the conversation that I believe Segev refers to. And it also isn't there. And so that was the basis of the of the back and forth and what ultimately I think got me blocked by Cooper as well.

is essentially a peer review. And the thing about peer review and critique is that the peer review and the critique can be critiqued and reviewed and then you review the review with I mean, it's like it's and that I think a lot of people don't understand the value of that, because like the value of being wrong, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

and that is an error. That's you know, it's even a major error, especially for you know, someone to make who is trying to be authoritative on a particular subject, as you know, I am trying to do, at least to a certain degree, as Darrel's trying to do, as as you're trying to do. And I think that that's a valuable impulse, is to correct yourself. And I will be fair to Daryl, especially after his initial defensive thread about making Churchill the villain of World War Two. He

did correct himself a couple times. Credit where it to do. But I think that self correction is a very vital skill, and blocking is the opposite of self correction. It's a way of saying I have nothing to correct.

And I replied to Dave and I basically said, you know, you're clearly not familiar with this study of history, because if you were, peer review is an intrinsic part of this, right, and it's not something that people shirk from or are scared of. You know, you need to be open to critique, you know. And I think they would probably say, oh, this isn't this isn't peer review, this is really bad faith, right, because you're disagreeing with the narrative that they believe in.

From a geopolitical standpoint. That furthers there. I think some would say political objectives, which is as I said earlier. You know, I think a lot of this is if you can influence the past and impact the past and change people's beliefs and win hearts and minds, and you can impact the press and in the future, and I think that there might be a little bit of that at play here as well, when it comes to the

telling of the history here. But all that is to say, peer review is intrinsically a part of the study of history, and so if you're going to accept the label of historian, you're going to allow people to refer to you to that. Just because you're not writing an academic paper doesn't mean you should or want to escape critique.

falling for somebody daring to question you? Because that seems the latter seems to be really what the issue is, because there's nothing wrong with being critiqued.

In his case, and anyway, I didn't want to make this too much about internet drama, but it's kind of unavoidable because a lot of this kind of stuff happens in social media, and as much as I don't like to admit it, I think that we need to do away with the idea that social media is not real life when it comes to things like politics, history and so forth.

or Scott Horton versus a Dave Smith. Yes, absolutely. I mean if you accept the label of historian, if you're going to publish works with sources and footnotes, and you're going to position yourself in that way, then you need to be open and receptive to the fact that people

are going to critique your work. I think that part of this issue is that we're in this and I speak to this in the very in the first episode of Crack About Histor, which is actually episode zero, where I talk about the justification for the show, where you know, I think that a lot of these people are kind of living in these bubbles where they're surrounded by people that think like them, because this is the popular thing right now. Right, you have revisionists, contrarian history. You spoke

to this yourself before. You know Churchill, it was the chief villain of World War two, you know, as an example, right, Hodjaminal Husseini was a moderating influence things like this, and that's kind of the popular shiny thing right now. And so I think that a lot of these people that are kind of telling these historical narratives maybe surround themselves with people that think similarly, right, and maybe they don't

encounter pushback. You know. My whole thing, and I speak to this again in episode zero, is that it needs to be long form. The pushback needs to be substantive, because what you see on x or Twitter, whatever you want to call it, is a lot of people kind of reacting to the claim saying, oh, they're ridiculous. And it's a bit of a handwave right when you say, oh, of Churchill was a villain of World War two. Okay, this guy's clearly off his rocker. But where's the follow up? Right,

where is the substance? Because his followers, you know, Horton, the Coopers of the World, et cetera, their followers always say, stop attacking him, address the claims, and so that's kind of underpinning the entirety of Cracklawn history. Okay, we're not attacking him, we're only addressing the claims. Yeah, and I was gonna say the other I wonder if he's a listener.

The only person I've seen, really like high profile person I've seen really try to do that so far as Coleman Hughes with his what was it seventeen hour conversation with Dave Smith, whatever it was, it was very good and he was very they were respectful to each other.

And I haven't even finished listening to it, honestly, but just listening to the first hour of it, it's like, yeah, it got tedious, Like I heard a lot of people critique it, but that's the point, Like you have to be tedious, especially with people who are going to be, you know, making claims like that. Yeah, Oh, I wanted to ask before I forget you said that Daryl has no longer at least stopped people from referring to him as a historian, or is he started calling himself a historian.

I have not seen him do that, but I also haven't really been looking into him and his statements for a while. So, first of all, very much big fan of Coleman, Hugh. I thought the conversation with Dave Smith was phenomenal. I watched the whole thing, and I thought it was just a Coleman did in that episode what I think I'm trying to do via podcast and Crackpot History Live, and probably much more eloquently and more skillfully than I could do in the same setting.

no pushback there. So my take on that is the label has now been accepted, and the amount of pushback that is commensurate with accept that label by way of you now labeling yourself or accepting others labeling you as a historian, should be commensurate, right that should it should There should be an appropriate level of pushback to accepting that label and then making making claims that I think are deserving of that pushback.

of I'm kind of just focused on that. Will I will I go back to Cooper I think at some point, certainly, But I think there's a lot of claims being made by a lot of influencers, a lot of pop historians that are deserving of attention. So there's just to say there's not a lack of content that deserves coverage.

and all that. But generally what I already knew and what I've come to know about the People's Temple and the radical meltdowns of the seventies that aligns with most of what he said and reported in that series. So I can, I mean, just based on my memory and just based on you know, what I know, I can speak to the quality of that series for the most part. And I would actually say the same goes for his one offs, like that one he did called The Anti Humans,

which I still think is a very powerful episode. Though that did have a couple of moments that made arch and eyebrow, particularly when he started referencing things about Yugoslavia, which has kind of been my wheelhouse as well for a while. And I'll just mention on one in that episode, I don't know if you've listened to it.

and maybe I still do. I don't really have any reason to see otherwise, but at the time I was kind of like, I don't think you know much about the Ustasia if you're talking about them as innocent victims regardless.

I guess yeah, I'll broaden my question a little bit here, because after seeing all these problems with his Fear and Loathing series that you highlighted, and not to mention his extremely reckless and low quality errors with his current World War II series, which I'm sure you've been following that a fair bit too, at least online, I guess what I'm wondering is, how are we supposed to trust anything that he says, even though I do think that his

God's Socialist series stacks up. I'm now much more skeptical because of what you highlighted in fear and loathing, And I guess, putting aside the motive for now, even if it's all accidental, let's just say that demonstrates at best in competence, right. I mean, I guess the broad question is for me here where do we.

and it was the experts versus the influencers. And that's my language, I'm kind of paraphrasing, but that's kind of the gist of it, right, And I think that I think that we live in this period where to a degree, there's a large segment of people that look at the experts on a variety of different subjects that typically revolves

around politics, or history or generally the humanities. Right, these these softer, less quantitative subjects compared to you know, civil engineering or being a pilot or something like that, where you either land the plane or you don't, and the bridge either stands or the bridge collapses. But these softer subjects that are more narrative driven or open to interpretation, where people have a lack of trust for what, you know, the quote unquote experts. And I think that that's for

a variety of different reasons. You know, some of them political, some of them social, some of them given recent events, and that results in a large segment of people looking at the experts and saying, I don't trust the experts. You know, I don't trust the typical historical narrative. I trust that guy because you know, he's telling me that the esoteric undercover history that nobody's really told me before

because it's been censored from me. And I'm actually now a part of this special little in group audience, and I actually feel very important because I'm a part of this, and now it's on me to share this esoteric knowledge with other people so that I can feel special disseminating it.

It's this, it's this whole psychological I think flywheel of audiences and influencers, and this isn't really just about about uh Cooper here, right, This is about more people that do this, and I think there's a there's a there's a motivating force behind it that's really kind of insular, and it's all about them saying, you know, if you come to me, I will tell you the truth. I will distill this hidden knowledge for you. I will make you feel special. I will tell you what's been hidden

from you for decades. If you just listen to me. And I think that there's something psychologically triggering there for a lot of people.

in some cases out there that that interests you. And people say, well, you know, I just don't trust the experts, or it's been it's been hidden from me, it's been censored, and they come up with a way to kind of

justify listening to these alternative versions of history. And it starts, maybe a little bit innocently, and then you end it, well Churchill, you ended a place where you say, well Churchill was the chief villain of World War two, and that has alongside, yeah, all that stuff, but on the wrong side, deconstructing the foundation midst of the modern West, right, and that has the potential to have real impact in the present day.

So the point being is, I guess what I'm saying is there's only two episodes of this series you're working on. But what are your takeaways from that project so far. Let's pivot towards Horton a little bit here, because you've mentioned him a couple of times.

the collapse of the Soviet Union. And you know, I in his defense, there might be a very valid reason for doing that, Right, you can only fill so many pages of a book you have to publish at some point, and maybe you know, he wanted to focus on the

role of US foreign policy. But when you actually dive into the history of the region, right, hundreds of years of trying to quash Ukrainian nationalism and it just popping back up, you're missing a lot of that, right, And there's this moment in the book and I speak to this where Horton actually does this deep dive. He really focuses on the Yugoslav Wars because that's used as basically a poster child to basically point, in his opinion to

the malpractice of the West in provoking Russia. So a lot, there's a big deep dive on Serbia and the Yugoslav Wars, and he does this whole oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Bostian Serbs only happened because of NATO bombing. And the more you look into that, they it's obviously not true, first of all, but second of all, their logic is, well, they only started killing them after the bombing happened and

forced them closer into closer proximity with the Muslims. And if all it takes is a cursory look at some of the shit that Melosovich and his underlings were saying about the Bossian Muslims, to say nothing of the regional tensions that had existed at that point for going on fifty years, you know, well more than that really, just since the formation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Like those ethnic tensions, they weren't ancient. That's another canard from that era,

from the nineties. They weren't ancient hatreds, but they were old, they were multi generational, and there was a lot of unfinished business that it started in the nineteen twenties. So I'm assuming that's like that was like the sort of trajectory he was taking was like, oh, well, none of that stuff matters. It was only because America involved itself or NATO involved itself. Am I remembering that correctly?

relates to Srebenitza. There's uh, there's.

a lot of denialism has related to this stuff. There's the claim that that the US support for the for the Bosnians or or he makes his sorry, he makes his claim basically saying that the actions of the US in Yugoslavia and then in Czechshniya uh and attacks against Saddam were basically the basis of bin Laden's grievances against the United States, and that the United States in a way then provoked nine to eleven, as opposed to it

just being a flagrant act of unprovoked terrorism. And I go in part in a part two of Fields of Gold, Fields of Red, I dive into what bin Laden actually said, and his claim was that you know US forces in Iraq, he puts it, you know the land of the of

the two Holy Mosques. He basically saw them as crusaders, right, and for that reason uses that as justification to leap frog to jihad, to leap frog to nine to eleven, when in reality, the Saudis invited the US there, right, I mean right, like the US army was there at the invitation of King Fod and Saddam actually briefly in January of ninety one, beginning of end of January, beginning of February invaded Saudi Arabia for a hot second. He actually took They took the city of Kafji, occupied it

and then were pushed out by coalition forces. And so all of this context, similar to you know, my critique of Cooper, there's a lot of context there behind these stories that's missing. And again you have to ask the question why.

to exist anymore because they're broken links or whatever. So I guess, yeah, That's what I'm wondering is, how would you characterize the overuse of sources or citations in contrast to the misuser outright neglective sources and citations in works like this?

them are are fine. Right. There's there's references to you know NSA archive documents, you know, unclassified documentation, academic papers, or you know, thought pieces from historians or regional experts. There's there's a lot in there that is perfectly fine. There's also some stuff in there, like esoteric blogs from people that are kind of engaging in you know, apology of Melosovich and stuff like that. Websites that haven't been updated since the nineties. Those are few and far between,

but they're in there. And then, as I said, you know, there are there are some articles that are just deadlinks that you can't really fact check because the source doesn't exist and you can't really see it on wayback Machine or Internet arts or anything like that. So, you know, I don't really take issue as much with his sourcing, although as again, as I said, some of them are a little bit out there. But I do think that the way that he interprets those sources is what's really an issue.

generally speaking, they don't really go overboard with footnotes. With a large number of footnotes and sources, I mean, each chapter usually has anywhere from of like a you know, like an academic history book, each chapter has anywhere from around seventy to two hundred and fifty.

chapter with an open mind as to the sourcing. But there was one instance that actually Horton Horton tweeted at me or quote tweeted me again we have some kind of interaction on on X with this. It was it was very funny because there's a reference at the beginning of the book to I think he's talking about something

in relation to the Middle East. He within the first five seconds of the book, he talks he talks a little bit about US foreign policy in the Middle East in likud or something which is clearly relevant to you know, the history of the Russo Ukrainian War. And the footnote for the claim is he wrote a book on the Middle East. I think it's called Enough already, and he refers to it in the footnote, and then there's an there's a link in the footnote to Amazon for the book,

which I thought was incredible. And I actually called this out in the episode and on Twitter, and Horton clapped back and said, it's not there, and he took a picture of a hard copy of the book where the link isn't there. I'm using a digital version which does have it. And I posted a screenshot of it which which does have it. And I didn't get a response, but I found that to be definitely a highlight.

an opinion piece. You know, when you put hyperlinks in an opinion piece, that that always happens, you know, it just it does have kind of like a weird vibe to it.

saying this, that's my terrible Tucker Carlson impression. But it's like, I'm not saying this, but these people seem to think this, and it's like, yeah, well you are saying it though, because you're not pushing back, you're getting them to say something.

the report. It's nearly seven hundred and fifty pages. And in the context of that report, Horton mentions it briefly and he says, the OSSE report said that there wasn't

a finding of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. And so I went into the report and you know, command after control, a f depending on you have my macro windows, whatever ethnic cleansing, and lo and behold, it's certainly in the report, in the section on sexual violence, ethnic cleansing did occur, right, And so I say that in the episode, I say, you know, did Horton read this report?

referring to. And that goes for any of these people, you know, Horton or otherwise that are referencing or over referencing as you would put it, or just using academic sources that are clearly fine, but maybe their reading of it is a little bit slanted because maybe they haven't really given it the time of day that they actually need to to really inform the points or the arguments that they're making in their work or their output.

and I do. I cut stuff out sometimes, but I have to be very careful that what I'm cutting out is not cutting out crucial context, because sometimes somebody is talking about something very specific, or they make a very specific reference, but what they're talking about is very broad, if that makes sense, And I think if you're trying to get to the gist of what the subject is saying, you don't want to cut out the specific example that they might give if that example is really what they're

talking about. But you know, making that judgment is is very hard, is what I'm trying to say.

Cooper refers to this Nazi racial scientist. He doesn't say where the quote's from or who it is, and it's it's Hans Gunther, who is as basically this Nazi genesis that you may be familiar with, and he's he basically refers to him. He and you know, Cooper does this throughout the series where he basically he always refers to Zionism adjacent to other, as he puts it, other radical ideologies like Bolshevism and Nazism to basically infer or imply

guilt by association. He does this repeatedly throughout the series. But he basically says, well, you know, even Nazi racial scientists, and again I'm paraphrasing here, we're fond of or thought thought that Zionism had some kind of legitimacy because it basically separated the Jews from from Europe, from the from the Reich. And he refers to a quote from Hans Gunther where if you actually read the full quote, it's

clear that Gunther isn't endorsing Zionism. If anything, it's very clear that the Nazis saw the ones that commented on this saw Zionism as a means to an end of step one, get the Jews out of Europe. Step two, have them congregate in a single place, and then step three when we get there, which we will after we defeat the British in North Africa, kill them once they're congregated, and it makes our job much easier in the end.

And there's a lot of evidence for that, right. There was the formation of the Early Stages einzot Scrup in Egypt that was going to basically go into the Middle East to kill all the Jews in Palestine in the Mandate if they made it.

you because it's six hours and eighteen minutes long. But I found some very compelling, circumstantial evidence that Haja Means ambitions for the Hanshar division was to get them to go to Palestine, to the Mandate after they were done in Bosnia, because there was a memo that gutt Lauburger submitted that or I think was submitted to Guttlaberger, the second in command of the SS of Offen SS, in which what Haja Mean was proposing was reported on, and

what he was proposing was pacifying the Bossian region and then afterward other actions. What the hell else could he possibly have had in mind? Is how I put it in my episode for the Handshar a waffen SS division, very well trained, very well equipped at that point, early on twenty three thousand strong.

what was happening in Europe obviously. And I mean again, you know, the formation of this as you put it, this very early stages Einzat's commando group for Egypt, which obviously never really came to be in full in full bore because they didn't take over Palestine or Egypt for that matter, is I think indicative of what what the plans were.

and it's a complete context as well. And and yeah, I think what you brought up to with Daryl citation of this guy, I'm sorry if I derailed you there. I just but you know, this is my wheelhouse when it comes to Haja means, so I tend to just like jump in whenever there's a reason to bring him up. But yeah, like it rings also of how people love to bring up the Havita agreement to describe how, oh, well, the Nazis were actually Zionists. Well, they, as you said,

it's a means to an end. And on top of that, if you look at anything said by people I think up to Adolf Hitler himself, maybe you can correct me on that they saw Zionism as an existential threat to be dealt with because a Jewish state was the last thing that they wanted. They just didn't want Jews in their country. Sure, but they didn't want Jews to have

a country at all. They just didn't want them to be So, yeah, if you had anything else to say on that subject, on Daryl citation of that eugenicist and add to what I just said there, please do.

I mean, like, if if all it was about was getting rid of them and giving them a home, then I would suspect they'd let them have some money.

Hodgepodge boycott that really didn't have a huge impact. I mean this, Remember, this is an industrializing Germany, building the Autobahn, ramping up wartime production, and and you know, eventually suffering economically for it, because there really wasn't any foundation upon which for them to be to be doing this. But you know, as if, as if some Jews in Brooklyn not purchasing you know, German strudel is going to have

a serious impact on on Hitler's Third Reich rearming and reindustrializing. Right, It's just there's just so many holes in the story, and it just it really is just Swiss cheese at the end of the day.

But I would be remiss if I didn't do my best to give your critics and and the ardent defenders of people like Darryl and Hort and just that generally speaking, I guess we can call him the paleoconservative or visionist camp that they inhabit they're due, so just to put words in their mouths. Is it not possible that you are simply giving their arguments, like Darryl's, Horton's, et cetera, the least charitable read And if not, why not?

tribunals were wrong and all of that stuff. And you can say, well, you know, I think he's a little bit off of his rocker here, but it's kind of a claim in isolation. But when you look at these series in the case of Cooper or books in the case of Horton, and you see these claims that are just again frankly, just revisionist, contrarian claims that really fly in the face of the well established evidentiary record all

of the serious historians agree on. Again, you have to ask the question, why is this a trend, Where is this coming from? What is the motivation? Is it really that they believe that the evidence points in the contrary or in a contrary direction, or is the starting is the starting place for the Hortons and the Coopers of the world. The West is actually the bad guy, you know, imperialism, Western imperialism is the original sin, and it's from there

that the narrative is then told. Right, And I think that there's a case to be made if you actually really pay attention to these series or these books, and you read them, and you look at the sources, and you do the research like you and I do, I think that there's a case to be made that that might be the starting point here, and then the rest is just a logical conclusion that naturally follows.

are we talking about here? Like, to what extent do you think that these projects are informed by sincere ideological priors or do you think it's calculated and part of a far greater far right agit prop activist kind of project, or do you think it's just conspiracy theory, brain mental illness. I mean, I guess those are all possibilities in a lot of cases. But I guess really what those questions are leading to is a bigger question of what, like, ultimately,

what end does this all serve? What does this unofficial crew of people hope to eventually achieve with all this, Because I don't think it's money, at least not in the case of Tucker Carlson. You know, air to the Swanson fortune and multimillionaire many times over from his independent work and work with Fox. I mean, so I don't

think it's money. So I guess what I'm hoping for with all the possibility throughout there is could you maybe give a Steelman perspective on their efforts and then contrast that with maybe the least charitable interpretation, and then sort of way which one you see as the most likely.

And I think that the motivations vary. Frankly, I think that, as you said, some people are probably motivated by clicks and eyeballs and ears and making a name for themselves because at the end of the day, you know, to keep the dopamine hit going, you need to keep ratching up the craziness and the claims, and that typically means, in the context of our conversation, more a historicity, more outlandish claims to really keep that audience flywheel going. So

one could certainly be financial, absolutely. I think another could be that maybe people, as I said, want to shift and win hearts and minds, and obviously there's a financial overlap to that if you're able to build and retain

an audience. But I think that if you're really looking at the present day and you're looking at these geopolitical flash points, the Ukrainees, the Israels, the Taiwan's of the world, I guess as of today Venezuela as well, we're recording this on January third, So I think that I think that if you can shift people's opinions on the past and you know, in the case of Ukraine, portray Russia as aggrieved in the case of you know, Israel Palestine, make that conflict seem very one sided in terms of

who the aggrieved party is. In the case of Taiwan, you know, talk about one China, one China policy, et cetera. Right, you can basically justify actions that are taken in the present or in the future as it relates to those flash points, and then you can impact policy by convincing people to vote for individuals who believe the same things that you do as it relates to foreign policy or geopolitical flashpoints, if you can kind of shift and move the needle on what the history is. And so I

think that's part of it too. And the third part that I speak to is there is absolutely a bad actor part to this, right, There are bad actors in the world today, nation states or organizations that are adjacent to nation states, that have financial resources to support influencers or historians. And you know, I don't point fingers at who this is or who might be doing that, because I certainly I don't have any evidence to say that

that's happening. But I mean last or not last year. Now, in twenty twenty four, there was that whole issue with Tenant media where the Russians were kind of caught, you know,

funneling to this influencer network. And so that was one instance in which that was caught, right, But think about all the instances in which you know that hasn't been caught, right, and it certainly is happening elsewhere, and you know, these nation state actors or adjacent actors certainly have the means to influence thought on a variety of these subjects because it's in their geopolitical interest to do so. And I

think that's certainly a part of it. And there's kind of an overlap here between the pop historian influencer worlds and those those state actors as well.

aspect to a cognitive bias aspect. I mean, I this doesn't explain the motive, but I've been using this diagnosis to describe people like, you know, like those in this

Neol Buchanan, I Tucker Carlson Orbit for a while. And this thing I've been calling a masochistic chauvinism, where at least in this case, an American can feel and develop a deep, meaningful sense of moral pride about themselves and you know, our place in the world by centering the United States the same way a typical chauvinus does, but by framing us as the worst in the world rather

than the best. And that recognition basically implies a high minded, self critical honesty and sophistication, and therefore heightened ability to recognize evil compared to those who look abroad for such forces, you know, those those neo cons they might say, they are wont to say these days. So yeah, I think that there is like it's fulfilling a need. I think at a certain level too, that's like the most sincere part.

the Israelis are the Charlie Kirk got shot. You know, the Israelis are behind it, right, like Israel's basically you know, you you wake up with a hangover, it's it's Israel's fault, right Like, that's kind of like a So I think it's I think that that's kind of taken to a

certain extent, that's just totally insane. But I but I also think that they're you know, and again I'm not saying this is Candice, but I certainly think there are some people that are probably working with other folks who have a geopolitical incentive to trash talk the Israelis at every given turn, right. And you know, again, I don't

know who those people are. You don't know who those people are, but I think just given what we saw with the Tenet media issue, there's there's probably there's probably

more of that happening. And you know, you have certain individuals who, you know, you like Tucker as an example, who say, you know, I don't want to talk about Israel on my podcast, and then every episode it's it's basically an Israel episode, right, And so I think it's just it's just there's that, there's that there's that critique of Israel that is perfectly legitimate, as one would do of any nation state if you disagree with policy, or

disagree with conduct in war, whatever. But then you have like this obsessive level aspect to it that some of these influencers or podcasters or whatever engage in. And it's it's just every single day, day in, day out, and you have to ask yourself, you know, like where is that coming from?

just listed of the masochistic chauvinism. I I'm deriving that from a Swedish sociologist named Orin Adamson who talked about something about six or seven years ago that he called masochistic nationalism, where he was talking about it from the European perspective in the context of the migrant crisis, where I think like the thing that probably set him off was when I somebody in the Swedish government said something

I think it was almost verbatim. It was to the effect of there's no such thing as Swedish culture, as if that was a point of pride, and and so he like really you know, went off on that saying like there's this psychological need being met by people who say such absurd things. But his point, and he cited or well or Well describe this notion and this phenomenon

that we're talking about. Back during the lead up and into the Second World War, when he talked about negative and transferred nationalism, he was very keenly aware of how there were people who got excited when Germany, you know, like struck against Britain's allies because they.

right instead of we could do no wrong. And I think that that motivates a lot of people because it lets them feel good about themselves and allows them to make a name for themselves, because it makes them stand out and be interesting and unique in comparison to the typical you know, nationalists and chauvinists in the in the crowd, you know what I mean.

kind of orbiting around this stuff. This you know, anti anti Western historical revisionism, where the US and the West more generally with the capital W is is again the original sin for all of these geopolitical flash points, and it's just well, it's just it's just so it's so boring, now, right, you have this, you have this, It's it's day and day out, like I said, from Tucker, from Candace, from Dave Smith, from Horton, from Cooper, it's just from Meerscheimer

from Sachs, right like, it's it's just yeah, pinschafter pin schafter punch, and you know, Goebbels always said if you're Peter Lie, often enough people start to believe it. And and there's there's probably now aspect of that to this, but it's not even this unique angle anymore. It's just this, it's just basically this often repeated trope at this point

that everybody's jumped on the bandwagon for. And again, I think that there's a lot of people that have a vested interest in that being the telling of the history.

for decades at this point. I mean, we brought Chomsky earlier, he's kind of him and Howard Zinn and all these types that were popular in the seventies making a name for themselves then by basically saying West bad like yes, that's where all this stuff comes from. It's it's tiresome.

But I do like to point out though, and I and I know you saw because we were talking about this at one point, I have been very taken with this seemingly what I'm the green Brown alliance that seems to be forming, however unofficially, because it really matches the sort of tenor and in a way motivation of how the Nazis, especially the more esoteric minded ones like Heinrich Himler,

were so taken with Muslims and with Islam. They were orientalists in that regard, and it seems to be this kind of thing that comes up with much more radical reactionaries. They are searching for something they have nothing left to grab onto in their own culture, so they reach abroad and look for things that they really find fascinating and compelling that also might share their values because they can't

find any support at home. At least for something so regressive as say theocracy, or cutting off people's hands or you know, veiling women and keeping them at home, things like that.

falling in love with what you see there. And I think that's I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that's a very big part of it.

part of the problem stems from the medium. Right, So when somebody publishes a paper, as an example, right, it's published in a journal and then peers take a look at it, and there are rebuttals or fact checks or corrections, And I think that what you see now is I mean the average person doesn't read a historical journal, right, But when you see how this information is disseminated through podcasting apps or through the internet or from whatever, a lot of people tune in and listen to that stuff.

And there isn't a There isn't an academic corollary basically to the fact check in these different mediums, right, Horton, You could say it's a little bit different because he writes a book, but you know, in the case of Cooper is an example via podcast, there just isn't anything analogous to that. It just doesn't exist, right, And yeah, I think can't.

what they say, and make up your own mind. I'm just giving you information that I think is missing and context that should be there that isn't to better inform you to make up a decision on how you should feel about a conflict. And I think that's what it really comes down to. It's just giving people additional context and information that should be presented that unfortunately oftentimes isn't.

things like free speech. I mean, I give Murray the benefit of being British, so he doesn't appreciate free speech in the same way I think as Ey as I do as a rock ribbed American.

Again that's my political bias, but I think what that means for me and for people who feel the same way as I do, is that we can't just rest on our laurels when someone makes a claim that we know, or at the very least believe to be untrue. Like this kind of gets us into something that I thought

was really interesting. Another sort of challenge that I never really considered was what you're doing with your work seems to be refuting something that I always really loved that Christopher Hitchins said, where he said that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, and that's always a this is such a witty bond maw, which is like what he's known for even to this day. But I also am starting to think that that's very

rooted in dated twentieth century thinking. And granted he was also talking about religion something very specific, but he made it sound general.

have to. We kind of talked about this a little bit before with we reference Coleman Hughes's conversation with Dave Smith, And obviously we're talking about what you've been doing for a while now, which I think is what you're doing, is you're challenging what has happened, and what's happened, in my opinion, is that we are seeing the creation of parallel worlds of reality, maybe not even parallel, just multiple worlds of reality. The multiverse theory, I guess, but apply

to information. And I think when we start to speak to these contrary viewpoints on the contrarian's terms, that's the only thing we can do to bring these two realities or these multiple realities back together into one. It's incumbent upon the people who are the quote unquote defenders of the establishment, or just people who don't agree with the anti establishment narratives in particular that are coming out. So I guess I'm wondering what you think of that as like a sort of methodology for.

to create. And I think when it comes to established historical narratives based and evidence as you said, anybody can flippantly say anything, right, Churchill was the chief villain of World War Two as an example, Right, And then it's it's then incumbent on the fact checker to say, well, actually you're wrong, and here's all the reasons why, here's

the sources, here's the evidence that takes. That's a much more extensive exercise than just tweeting out Churchill was the chief villain of World War Two or saying it or you know whatever. And so I think that it's inherently the fact checkers or the peer reviewers are always going to be behind the eight ball because they are reactive to the comments that are being made that are a

revisionist in nature. So I think that's that's an important thing to understand that you're operating from from behind the eight ball. Basically from the get go. My objective and again this is just me. This is my personal take on what I think I'm doing and how I'm approaching it.

I'm trying to give people ammunition. Right. The best, the happiest that I am is when I'm you know, doing my thing and during the day I see somebody on X that's kind of getting into a back and forth with somebody about one of the subjects that I've already covered, and they'll say, well, actually, that claim isn't correct. You know, you should check out this episode of Crackpot History because

he actually kind of deconstructs that claim. And so my fundamentally, it's it's all about giving people the ammunition both to better understand the context that I said, as I said before, is missing from a lot of the claims that are made in the content that I cover, but also being able to kind of use that as as something that they can spread themselves as a sword and a shield when it comes to confronting these claims directly.

religious family. But the point being is that what you're doing when you're doing when you when you're debunking this stuff is giving ammunition to those who are interacting with someone in that audience or just putting it out there so it's available as a counter narrative for someone to pick up and use later. It's it's just about like it's about not letting something go unchallenged. And then I hear people say, well, there's not there's more people in

the believing camp than the non believing camp. Well yeah, but that that's always been the case. Like it doesn't it doesn't matter, Like having the stuff there is what matters in and of itself. And again it lives up to you know, like what I was saying before about the spirit of free expression. I I do think that there's something to be said for debating Holocaust deniers if you have the ability to do so, if you know enough.

it out there is the end and of itself. It's not about convincing already convinced followers, or disabusing people, or most condescendingly, deprogramming them.

between fact and fiction no longer exists. I think when you take that at face value, you can then see that there might be a little higher stakes involved in making sure that there is these punctures in the in widespread contrarian information that might not hold up to scrutiny, because if people don't know what's true, they're just going

to give up. That's the argument, at least that a rent would make and And on the one hand, I think that there's I've read enough of funny enough of Czechoslovak history, especially during the rule of the Communists after the prog Spring, that the idea that they didn't know what was true in false is not true. There is actually a lot of descent inside there. Not just from you know, Charter seventy seven and all those people, but but just people were regular people, were fully aware that

they're being lied to a lot of the time. So I think that we shouldn't overrate the individual's capacity to smell out bullshit. But at the same time, giving them tools to help them smell out that bullshit is a net positive for everybody, and it minimizes the amount of work they have to do that they might not otherwise do.

all that stuff. You really summarized it and kind of condensed it and made it more digestible for me, and I really appreciated it. And so that's kind of what the what the end objective for me is if I can take something that is rough around the edges, smooth it out, provide additional commentary, historical context and input, and provide more color so that the fuller picture is told.

You know, I'm putting it out into the universe. How people use it or react to that or even believe it, you know, that's kind of that's kind of up to them.

really matter. The point is is, you know, I've gotten a lot of feedback from that and from all of that, and I do think that that can be very affirming and enlightening a lot of ways too, because it can let you believe, let you realize, like like what your impact actually is going to be, at least on a small scale. And that small scale is usually enough, whether it's positive or negative, to make you either keep doing what you're doing or maybe change what you're doing a little bit.

creators out there that don't even have that right. They don't have a thousand followers. They don't have, you know, as many listens as I have on my podcast apps, and everything is contextual. And you know, as I said on Twitter when I thanked everybody for the thousand subs, I said, brick by brick, And that's really how I approach this.

And I'm not saying anything about anyone in particular, no one that we've been talking about for a fair bit of this episode. But I'm just saying that that kind of thing can warp what you're doing, I guess, is what I'm saying.

I thought of. But I was like, there needs to be a lot more scaffolding before I ask him this. Where do we go from here when it comes to making the information space better? And I mean this in a more logistical sense because I like what we're saying. We're saying a lot of good stuff about the principle of peer review of fact checking. I would add that even though this is one weakness that actually I mentioned my partner Molly, who I've actually had on my show

multiple times. We do a sub series of my show about weird little stories in history. But she and I were talking about this and I was saying, well, I would love it if crackpod History took my show on, you know, looked at what I'm doing, even though he and I align on a lot of stuff, and you know, you know, I think he's doing good work. You know, real peer review is on people you like as well

as you don't like. But then she made a really good point, and this is to me a fair point, and this might speak to the problem with the medium. As you were saying before, that's not content.

So how do we get over or let me first ask do you agree with that way of looking at things or disagree with it?

larger the potential impact. Right. And there is and you said this yourself, there is a drama aspect to this, right, People like people like drama. And the reality is that, you know, if you're fact checking somebody, even if it's a little bit more academic, which I think I would consider some of my stuff to be, the reality is that you're confronting them and that gets people going. Right.

They kind of like it. They like the history, but they also like the fact that you're confronting somebody that they take issue with because of the historical claims that they're making. And I think that those two pieces when combined, not making it, you know, podcast brow slop level content, really making it about the history and doing the history and doing the legwork to tell good history, combining that

with the drama aspect. I think that that is a powerful combination, frankly, and I think it's a bit it's it's you know, maybe I'm giving away too much of the secret sauce here, but I think that's part of the reason that. You know, when I speak to people and they say, hey, I really like the show, that's that's part of the reason that I hear. And then the broader question that you highlight is to you know,

where we go from here. Again, you know, maybe this would be to my own disadvantage, but I think that I've seen a little bit more of my type of content, not the same, not identical, different format, different substantively in

terms of how it's presented. But I've seen a little bit more of it since I've spoken to some of the noteworthier folks that have reached out to me, and they've kind of taken a slightly different approach to their model, but also adopted it into some of their content or some of the shows that they've launched or recently announced. And so I think that that's great, right, Like I'm

not I'm not doing this for ego. Right, So the more the more that I see these claims being confronted or addressed or you know, as as I like to say, as I said before, more context being provided where it's needed. I think that's a net positive thing, right. I think that people want to hear good history, and when they there's there's a segment of people, as you as you said earlier, that hear this stuff and believe it and love it, and there's a segment of people that hear

this stuff and think this is ridiculous. I wish somebody would confront this. And so I think it's a volume game because as I said before, this is the new thing. There's so many people doing this anti West, anti US, you know, Western imperialism is the original sin. Volume is a quality in and of itself. And I'm one person, I'm one show. I have a certain threshold in terms of capacity, so you know, I welcome other people doing the same thing in their own way.

that you're helping pioneer, that's good enough for me. I mean I've always thought like, okay, well there's there could always be like something that people submit their own like creators submit their own work to not before they release it. They can release it, but then they essentially say, hey, I'm also making this podcast episode I'm doing eligible for review on the just call it the Crackpot History review Board.

I don't know, but something along those lines where people can like basically show that they are willing to have their work checked and that and of itself could be a way to, you know, at least foster some sense of credibility. Now, that could also become very easily corrupted, like anything does, especially when it involves self policing. But I just I feel like things like that are are just possible, like little things that can be done to

help with the credibility. Because that was ultimately what prompted me at least to put out a very lengthy critique of Dare Girl's initial appearance on Tucker and his follow up responses for Mary and West. And it was a long essay. I wrote it in the span of about

forty eight hours. I wrote it very quickly, but it was long and very detailed, and it's probably what I'm most proud of that I've ever written, because it was going through the receipts, so to speak, and it allowed me to, in my mind, maintain my own credibility to say, hey, I do recommend this guy. I do like this guy, but I think he is flagrantly wrong on this particular issue. And I've intensified that criticism a fair bit over the

last year or so. But I really do think that maintaining credibility is something that I think is very important for individual creators because of the splash damage other creators can create.

it was before we go. I want to give some shout outs to the people who have been supporting History Impossible at the Comrades and Friends level or above on Patreon, as well as the higher levels of support over on History Impossible dot Com where they are subscribers. These people include Bob Downing, Sam Graham, Greg Hunter, Brian Joy, So, Skip, Achaco, Molly Pan, John Pisano, Ana R PJ. Raider, Matthew m Rice, Philip Rice, Emily Schmidt, Pierre Vopuni, and as always Fu So.

Thank you again everybody for supporting History Impossible or just for listening. Honestly, if you don't have it in your budget to support the show right now, just spreading the word about the show is enough to help. But if you do have the money, you want to throw my way show some love. That way help me deal with the ever increasing student debt on accumulating becoming a quote

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